"What makes you think I need an escort to Ainswind?" I snapped, doing my best to keep my voice deep. I still couldn"t reveal my gender. Even if these were Lagonians, we weren"t far enough from Relhok for me to announce that I was female.
They doubtless knew of the decree. By their own admission, they"d just journeyed from Relhok City. My head would fetch a nice price for them no matter their country of origin.
"Oh, you don"t want to go to Ainswind, then. The nearest bit of civilization . . . safety . . . is there. Why wouldn"t you want that? People are dying, truly dying, to get in its walls." He paused, and tense silence stretched between all of us. After a few moments, his smooth voice continued, "I"m only suggesting a trade. Our escort for a bit of that delicious hare. It"s just the two of you, yes? And your friend looks in bad shape. We can help you. My name is Breslen. What"s yours?"
It was tempting to believe Breslen. Fowler needed care, and I might not have it in me to give it to him. I might not be enough.
"We"re stronger in numbers," he coaxed, his easy tone suggesting I already knew that. It was reasonable. Logical. Weeks ago I would have agreed with that logic even though Fowler had never believed that. He thought the bigger the number, the greater the target you were.
Only what choice did I have? There were three of them, a nearly dead Fowler, and only one of me.
I lowered my knife, deciding that aggression would get me nowhere. I would have to figure my way through this. I motioned to the ground like it was some fine table before us. "Have a seat. There"s not much, but I"ll share it."
"Good lad." The three soldiers sat near my fire and fell upon the hare. I waited, not demanding anything for myself. I doubted I could eat anyway. My stomach was suddenly tied up in knots. I was too tense, essentially alone and defenseless in the company of three strange men.
I fixed a neutral expression on my face. So much to hide, so much to guard against. Keeping all my secrets was exhausting. I was a female. Blind. The one true heir to the Relhok throne. And now I had Fowler"s secrets to keep, too. My temples pounded.
"Relax, boy. Here. Take this." At Breslen"s offer, I held out my hand, smelling the bit of steaming meat being stretched out to me. Even though I wasn"t in the mood for food, I accepted it and forced myself to chew, clinging to my armor under the crawl of their gazes.
Never far from my memory was the last strange man we met. He tried to kill me for my head. These men could try to do that to me. Or worse. There were other things to fear.
I picked at the greasy meat, forcing down another bite. My lack of appet.i.te didn"t escape their notice. "Eat. We"re not so inconsiderate that we would eat all your food," Breslen encouraged. "Go on, boy."
With a tentative nod, I forced another bite down my throat.
"Take some more."
Grudgingly, I accepted, almost wishing the soldier wasn"t so generous. The meat was hot enough to singe my fingers, but I didn"t drop it. I brought the roasted hare to my teeth and nibbled, my stomach still too knotted to consume much more than that.
"What"s wrong with your friend there?" one of the deeper-voiced men asked. Kurk, I thought. He was bigger, too, constantly shifting his large girth in the small s.p.a.ce, brushing against the rock wall. "Don"t tell me it"s your cooking?" He guffawed at his own joke.
"No," I said softly, still holding my voice at a deep pitch.
"Dweller get him?" Breslen asked. For one so young, he was perceptive. I"d already gathered he was the leader of the three. Not the brawn, but the brains.
I nodded.
"Shame," Kurk said around a mouthful of food. "Nothing to do for it. Great deal of suffering ahead for him. Kindest thing to do would be to stick a knife between his ribs and put him out of his misery. I"d be willing to oblige you if you haven"t the stomach for it."
I sucked in a sharp breath, understanding what he was saying, but no less horrified. Even if he was right, if it was the merciful thing to do, I couldn"t do it. I could never do that. And right then I knew. No matter who he was or what he had done, I still deeply cared about Fowler. I still wanted him. Even if his father was evil and responsible for everything bad in my life. Even if I had no room in my existence for such tender feelings because I had a tyrant to kill and my country to save. It was weakness in me, to be certain, and I would not let it get the best of me. I would crush it beneath the pulse of obligation buzzing through me.
"Don"t touch him," I growled.
"It"s what I"d want," Jabon chimed in. "Sure it"s not what he wants?"
"Fowler"s a fighter," I insisted, lowering my hands that held the stringy meat, debating picking my knife back up. Would I need to defend Fowler?
"Fight don"t matter." Kurk snorted, his big body sc.r.a.ping over the ground again as he shifted.
"Fowler?" At the soft query, a ripple of unease traveled down my spine. It wasn"t such an uncommon name, but I regretted having said it aloud. It had just slipped out, but how could I know that it would strike a chord with this soldier . . . emissary. Whatever he was. Breslen was no friend to me. I supposed I should have known that the less said the better. "Is that his name, then?"
I fixed my expression into something that hopefully didn"t reveal panic. He couldn"t know Fowler. The names of kings and princes were notoriously popular.
"Is he from Relhok City, by chance?" He lifted up from where he sat, sliding his slight frame closer to where Fowler shivered through his fever.
"No," I said. "We"ve never even been there."
"Interesting. Your accent says otherwise."
Of course I would sound like I was from there. I was raised and surrounded by two people who were born and bred there.
He did not respond to my lie, but I felt his stare.
"You lie," he finally p.r.o.nounced, that gentle voice flaying me like the cruelest whip.
I flinched.
"He"s been to Relhok City before." He spoke quickly, clearly thrilled by his discovery. "In fact, that"s where he is from."
The other two soldiers adjusted their weight, clothes rustling as they leaned forward as though they required a look at Fowler, too.
I tried for an air of bewilderment, shaking my head. Truthfully, bewilderment wasn"t far off. How could he know Fowler? "What do you mean?" Even if he"d ever glimpsed Fowler from afar, it had been years. In the time since, Fowler had been living a hard life on the Outside. He couldn"t resemble the well-fed, undoubtedly pampered aristocrat from years ago. No, this hard-edged Fowler couldn"t look the same at all.
"I know him. This is the prince of Relhok, the king of Relhok"s son and only heir."
Jabon to my left made a whistling sound with his teeth while Kurk demanded, "What? I thought he was away on some diplomatic trip to Cydon."
I absorbed that. Obviously this was the story Cullan had spread to explain his son"s absence. Never mind how unlikely it was that Cullan would permit his one son to go anywhere outside the safety of Relhok City"s walls. Whatever story Cullan put forth was taken as truth. No one opposed the b.a.s.t.a.r.d.
"Lies, apparently," Breslen answered smoothly. "King Cullan wants no one to know that his one heir is missing. Interesting. What is he doing so far from home?"
I moistened my lips, my heart thumping so hard I was certain every single one of them heard it. Breslen leaned forward over Fowler. I held my breath, listening, braced and ready to spring should he touch Fowler.
"What are you doing here with him?" Kurk directed the question to me, and his tone was decidedly less friendly than earlier. Suspicion hugged every word.
I shook my head. "I don"t know anything about him being . . . royalty. You must be mistaken. He"s just someone I met out here . . ." I waved a hand, gesturing to the world that I couldn"t see but felt like a throbbing heartbeat in my chest.
That"s what I thought about Fowler in the beginning, at least. He was just someone exceptionally good with a bow. Someone who knew how to survive in darkness . . . as though this world belonged to him and he to it. That"s what I had thought. That"s what I wished were true now more than ever.
A slight rustling of fabric alerted me to the fact that Breslen was now touching Fowler. I jerked forward, the tiny hairs on my arms p.r.i.c.kling. "Don"t touch him!"
"Easy, boy. Just checking his injuries. a.s.suming you want us to save him."
I froze. "Save him? You can do that?"
"It"s not impossible."
The tension ebbed from my shoulders. I hadn"t realized how close I had come to giving up, on ceasing to think Fowler had any hope, until I heard the desperation in my voice.
"It"s possible. If he is King Cullan"s son, I am certain King Tebald would go to great lengths to see that he lived. If . . ."
He let the word hang there, a clear bribe for the truth. I felt their stares then, fixed on me, waiting for an answer-waiting for me to confirm that he was in fact Cullan"s son. I swallowed against the thick lump in my throat. It was tempting. And yet I knew Fowler would have me deny it. Even if it meant his death. He wanted no connection with his father. He"d forged his way, risking death every day without claiming Cullan as his father. It had wrecked him to admit the truth to me. I couldn"t admit it to them.
In the stretch of silence, as though sensing my indecision, Breslen volunteered in his encouraging voice, "Perhaps you did not know the true ident.i.ty of our companion. But you do now. Your friend here is the prince of Relhok."
I blew out a breath, clinging to denial by a thread. "This is madness-"
"Indeed. It is most unusual to find a prince stuck in a cave, dying. Most unexpected." He chuckled lightly. "I"ve been to Relhok City two other times as King Tebald"s emissary. I"ve seen your companion there before. Of course, he was dressed far more grandly at the time. And I seem to recall there were many rumors surrounding him."
"Rumors?" I murmured because I couldn"t help myself. I knew so little about him, especially the Fowler who had lived in Relhok City-in my place, living the life that should have been mine.
"Yes; he was in love with a girl that his father didn"t approve of. Peasant girl. It was quite the castle gossip. His father was very displeased with him."
Fowler was in love with another girl? What was the name he"d called for in his sleep? Bethan? Again, another layer revealed proving how much of a stranger he really was to me.
"Don"t worry," Breslen continued. "Relhok and Lagonia are allies."
One of the other soldiers snorted and muttered, "Today, anyway."
Breslen continued as though he hadn"t spoken. "They would welcome Prince Fowler with open arms and take care of him . . . cure him, even."
My head lifted higher, hope thrumming inside my blood. I gulped a breath and fought to control my racing heart. This could happen. I could get Fowler the help he needed, and once he was in good hands and on the mend, I could continue on my way.
I could still finish this. I had to. An aching heart did not matter. The creeping fear that threatened to consume me around these men didn"t matter either. I had to resist that and fight it as I did everything else. I couldn"t let it conquer me.
"They would treat him?" I pressed.
"Indeed; the king"s own physician would see to his wounds."
"But he"s been poisoned. It"s not too late? The toxin has-"
"If we get him to Ainswind quickly enough, he can be treated."
I lifted my chin, letting this sink in, letting hope fuel me and turn me in a new direction. "Very well. Then let"s get moving."
SIX.
Fowler
MY WORLD SWAYED and pitched. I felt like I was still on the boat in the lake outside of Ortley with black waters rolling under me. Even though something gnawed at the back of my mind, telling me that wasn"t quite right, it was the only thing I could cling to.
I wanted to be in that boat, headed to sh.o.r.e, out of immediate danger and returning to Luna. We"d take our kelp and go.
Gripping what I told myself was the side of the boat, I thought of Luna. I thought of the Isle of Allu, a place where dwellers didn"t exist, where she didn"t have to pretend to be a boy; where I didn"t have to be so relentless, where I could be something other than this version of myself.
For a while there, with Luna, I believed I could have that, a sanctuary amid this world. She convinced me of that-not with her words but in her unflagging optimism that life could be something more than pain and blood and a straight line to inevitable death.
A nervous energy buzzed through me. Something wasn"t right. I frowned and angled my head, listening to the wind over water.
"Fowler?"
I cracked open my eyes and looked in the direction of the voice. It was familiar and not. A little like Luna"s voice but different, as though she were speaking to me through a layer of cloth.
Everything was darkness, but that wasn"t different from any other day. I lifted my hand and dragged it down my face, trying to wipe away the clinging fog, as though that motion would be enough to make everything clear.
"His eyes are open," a voice said. This one was not familiar. It was deeper, and rough as sharp pebbles against my skin.
"Give him some water. See if he"ll take any."
I blinked and realized they were talking about me.
Suddenly a flask was at my mouth. Water splashed my lips and I drank greedily. In that moment all I cared about was the water, wet relief sliding down my throat.
"Not too much. You"ll be sick."
The flask vanished and I mumbled a protest, groping for it but seizing only air. The motion sent hot agony sizzling through my arm, a reminder of just how bad things really were. I might not be dead, but the toxin pumping through me would eventually finish me off. But while I was still alive I could protect Luna. With my dying breath, I could try. I couldn"t shut that impulse in me down. It was even more than impulse. I owed her a debt. For my father"s transgressions, for everything he stole from her. I owed her more than I could ever give back. Inhaling, I fought to swallow down the mind-numbing pain and focus on Luna, and making certain she was all right.
I blinked some more and peered into the darkness, searching for her, waiting for my vision to acclimate to the thick, vapory gloom.
There were shapes moving around me. All atop horses. The faint sucking sound of hooves on soggy ground confirmed this. I was atop a horse, my body rolling with its movements, and a thick wall at my back.
I struggled to sit straight, fighting down a wave of nausea and pushing away from the wall with a surge of determination. That"s when the wall came alive behind me. A hand clamped down on my shoulder. I jerked, realizing it was a man. A very big man.
I flung the hand off me and tried to twist around, ready to attack my captor. The colossal hand on my shoulder squeezed tighter, showing me just how impossible that feat was. I shrank under the pressure, as weak as a broken bird.
"Fowler, don"t fight. They"re helping us." Again I thought the voice belonged to Luna, but it was different. I opened my mouth to speak, but a croak escaped. My mouth was as dry as a barren creek. I worked my throat, attempting to swallow as my gaze sharpened, identifying the gray outline of a figure etched against the darker night. A face stared at me, dark eyes glimmering like coal. Luna.
She sat atop a mount, but she wasn"t alone. A man sat behind her, no bigger than she was. She blocked most of him from view, but I marked his eyes peering over her shoulder at me. They were impossible to ignore.
My thoughts churned like tufts of feathers floating through air, looking for a place to land. The savage urge to reach her seized me, but I held back, remembering I couldn"t even help myself, much less her.
I sat rigidly, not relaxing against the giant behind me.
The horse plodded along under us, and I felt the strain of his muscles in every rolling stride. Our combined weight had to be a burden. We would have to stop soon to rest the horses or they would collapse. This thought gave me hope. Perhaps then Luna and I could get away. Or Luna at least.
"Fowler, these men are taking us to help."