Kelsea was still crawling forward, Pen and Venner on either side, when the fire went out, robbing them of light.
“The archers took at least four,” Mace whispered behind her. “I don’t know if they got Dwyne though; be on your guard.”
“How are those cages fastened? Could anyone see?”
“No,” replied Pen, “but they’re definitely not steel. I think they’re just plain old wood.”
Kelsea was suddenly furious at the unknown builder of the cages. Thorne was no carpenter, but someone had built cages for him, all the same.
“Hooves,” Venner whispered. “To the west.”
The four went silent, and after a moment Kelsea, too, could hear multiple horsemen, coming down into the valley from the western opening of the pass.
“Three or four,” Mace whispered. “If they’re more Caden, we’re in trouble.”
“Should we move, sir?” asked Pen.
Kelsea looked around. In the dim starlight, she could see the outline of a few chunks of stone ahead of them and a large boulder to her left, but nothing else. There was nowhere to go except back up on the hillside.
“No,” Mace replied. “Let’s move behind that boulder and they should pass right by us. If not, there aren’t many of them. We’ll be able to cover the Queen’s retreat.”
The hooves were growing louder. Following Mace’s lead, Kelsea crawled along on her belly toward the boulder. The ground was covered with tiny, sharp rocks that bit into her palms, making her hiss. She told herself not to be such a pansy and cursed inside, using Elston’s word.
Mace led their crawling train behind the boulder and they leaned back against it, facing the campsite. Kelsea could dimly glimpse the barred silhouette of one of the cages against the deep blue-black sky, nothing else, but she could hear plenty. The sound of steel on steel resonated everywhere, and the night was alive with the groans of the wounded. She remembered her earlier paranoia and felt a flush of hot shame creep across her face. The sapphire, as though sensing her misery, pulsed in response. The hoofbeats drew nearer.
“Where—”
“Quiet.” Mace’s voice brooked no argument.
Several riders came past the boulder, their silhouettes barely visible against the grey backdrop of the ravine. They halted perhaps twenty feet from Kelsea’s hiding place and the air was filled with the sound of overtaxed horses, their breaths whickering in the night.
“What now?” a man asked in a low voice.
“It’s a mess,” replied another. “We need light.”
“We should wait for the fighting to die down a bit.”
“No. We’ll find Alain first,” a new voice commanded, and Kelsea jerked to attention. She scrambled to her feet and moved forward before Mace could stop her. Four black silhouettes turned, drawing swords as she approached, but Kelsea only smiled. Certainty was upon her, a certainty that had nothing to do with the man’s voice and everything to do with the sudden bloom of warmth in her chest.
“Well met, Father of Thieves.”
“Holy hell.” One of the horsemen rode toward her and drew rein some five feet away. Although Kelsea could see nothing but a black shadow against the sky, she could have sworn that he was looking down and seeing her.
Mace reached her then, grabbing her around the waist. “Behind me, Lady.”
“No, Lazarus,” Kelsea replied, her eyes on the tall shadow in front of her. “Keep your attention elsewhere.”
“What?”
“Tear Queen,” the Fetch remarked quietly. “It seems I did underestimate you, after all.”
Kelsea heard Pen and Venner coming up behind her, and she held up a hand. “Both of you, stand down.”
The Fetch regarded her in silence. Although Kelsea could see nothing of his face, she sensed that she really had surprised him, maybe for the first time. It comforted her, made her feel less of a child to his adult, and she straightened up, staring back at him defiantly. He dismounted and approached, and Kelsea felt Mace edge up on his toes beside her. She placed a restraining hand on his chest.
“Sir?” Pen asked, his voice high and anxious, younger than Kelsea had ever heard it.
“Christ. Stand down, Pen.”
The Fetch reached out with one hand, and Kelsea instinctively drew back. But he only touched the very edges of her hair, cropped close around her head, and spoke softly. “Look what you’ve done to yourself.”
Kelsea wondered how he could see her short hair when she could barely see anything at all. As his words sank in, however, she flushed and snapped, “Why are you here?”
“We’ve come after Thorne’s little tea party. Alain is here somewhere; he’s been spying out the lay of the land for weeks.”
Alain, the blond man who was so quick with cards. Kelsea hadn’t seen him anywhere around the campfire.
“The better question is: why are you here, Tear Queen?”
Good question. Even Mace, for all of his grumbling, hadn’t asked Kelsea why. She thought for a moment, trying to come up with an honest answer, for she sensed the Fetch would know if she lied. The jewel continued to throb between her breasts, driving her to action, but she willed it to be still. “I’m here to keep my word. I promised this would never happen again.”
“You could’ve kept your word from the Keep, you know. You have an entire army at your disposal these days.”
Kelsea flinched at the sarcasm in his voice, but drew herself up to her full height. “A long time ago, before ascending the throne, the king pledged himself to die for his kingdom, if necessary. It was the only way the system worked.”
“You’re ready to die here?”
“I’ve been ready to die for this land since the day we met, Father of Thieves.”
The Fetch’s head tilted to the left. When he spoke, his voice was softer than Kelsea had ever heard it. “I’ve waited a long time for you, Tear Queen. Longer than you can imagine.”
Kelsea blushed and looked away, not understanding what he meant, only knowing that it wasn’t what she wanted him to mean.
“Hold out your hand.”
She obeyed and felt him place something cold in her palm. Exploring it with her fingers, she realized it was a necklace, a necklace with a cold pendant that had already begun warming against her skin.
“Whatever comes of this, Tear Queen, you’ve earned that back.”
To Kelsea’s left, much closer than the rest of the battle, came the dull, wet slap of a sword hitting flesh, and a man screamed, his voice high and terrified in the dark. Kelsea backed behind Mace, who raised his sword.
“I owe you the Queen’s life, rascal,” Mace hissed. “I won’t hinder you, so long as you pose no threat to her. But clear away now, before you bring them all down on us.”
“Agreed,” the Fetch replied. “We go.” He swung back up on his horse, becoming once more a dark silhouette against the sky. “Luck to you, Tear Queen. May we meet again when this business is done.”
Still blushing, Kelsea found the clasp of the second necklace, reached up, and hooked it around her neck. Her heart seemed to jog inside her chest, creating heat that spread throughout her veins. She heard a crackling sound like static electricity, looked down, and found that the second sapphire was glowing like a tiny sun, emitting small flares of light. She tucked the pendant inside her uniform and heard an audible click, like a key turning in a lock. Her sight skewed crazily; she blinked and saw a different world, black buildings against a white skyline, but when she blinked again, it was gone.
The Fetch and his companions turned and rode farther into the Pass, causing renewed warning cries and several shrieks of terror from the direction of the campfire. Meanwhile, Kelsea and her three guards crept back behind the other side of the boulder, away from the fighting, and sat down, staring outward toward the mouth of the pass.
“Sir?” Pen asked.
“Later, Pen.”
Kelsea expected Mace to begin a lecture of some kind, about running away, about the Fetch, about recklessness in general. But he didn’t. She could see the gleam of his drawn sword, and another shine of metal that she assumed was his mace. But the gleam was blue, not moonlight. Kelsea looked down and realized that her two jewels were now glowing so brightly that she could see both of them through the fabric of her uniform. She clasped them in her right hand, trying to block the light. Whatever had begun in her chest was steadily progressing now; her heart was hammering away much too fast, and her veins felt as though they’d been pumped full of fire. She was waiting for something terrible to happen, something she couldn’t see.
Of course, she realized suddenly. I only kept the second necklace in my pocket before. I never put it on.
She closed her eyes and there it was again: a skyline, full of tall buildings, dozens of them, even taller than the Keep. Madness seemed to be there, beckoning, a city of madness that existed only in her head. More screaming came from the center of the battle, bringing Kelsea back to herself. She opened her eyes to merciful darkness, saw Pen peering around the edge of the boulder.
“They’ve lit the fire again.”
“Fools,” Mace muttered. “Wellmer will pick them off easily.”
Kelsea peeked around Pen. Light glowed against the sky several hundred feet away, right in the center of the campsite. Her jewel was trying to drive her forward, somehow, but she had promised Mace and she willed it to be silent. The screaming from the center of the pass continued, and Kelsea’s pulse ratcheted higher, recognizing that this was the terrible thing, the thing she’d been waiting for. She suddenly pinpointed the source of her anxiety. “That’s a woman’s voice.”
Pen moved a few more feet out from the boulder, and even in the dim glow of the distant fire, Kelsea saw his face turn white. “Christ.”
“What is it?”
“Women.” His voice sounded as though it came through water. “They’ve lit a cage of women.”
Before she had time to think, Kelsea was running.
“Lady! Damn it!” Mace’s shouts seemed very far away. Women’s screams echoed off the walls of the pass, seeming to fill the night from horizon to horizon. The two sapphires bounced free of her uniform, ablaze now, and Kelsea found that she could see everything, each boulder and blade of grass limned in blue. She’d never been much of a runner, but the jewels were giving her strength and she ran fast, faster than she ever had in her life, sprinting toward the brightening bloom of the fire.