Captain Lorenz sighed, straightening in the saddle.
Ventillas said, “Who told you?”
Cas turned his head, glared. “You just did.”
“Cassia.”
“What does it matter, who?” Cas demanded. “I did not want him dead. You swore you would not kill him.”
Ventillas looked away. A good distance separated them from the next line of soldiers. Close enough to hear their laughter. Far enough away not to make out their words. After a long while, his brother said, “I meant it at the time.”
“I’ve been home less than a week,” Cas said, incredulous. “Six days. Does your word last no longer than that anymore?”
“Cassia!” Captain Lorenz snapped. “You will remember who you’re speaking to.”
“I’m not the one in the wrong here, Captain.” Cas’ blood was up, and he didn’t care. Everywhere he went, he saw the dead. He had not wanted to add to their ranks. Not any more than he had already.
“Faro tried to kill my brother,” Ventillas said very quietly. “My only brother, who he knew I loved above all else. And then for three years afterward, he slept under my roof and ate my food and spent my silver.” His knuckles on the reins had whitened. “Yesterday I went to his cell and put a dagger in him.” Turning his head, Ventillas looked Cas in the eye. “And even now, seeing how you look at me, I don’t regret it. I would do it again.”
Cas could not find the words to speak. It turned out he did not have to, because Captain Lorenz leaned around Ventillas to snap, “That’s enough out of you. Get to the back of the train.”
Banished from the front, Cas sped off toward the rear of the train until he heard his name called. Lena beckoned him over; she was in a group of happy, laughing travelers. Cas hesitated, torn between a desire to ride with her and the knowledge that it might be better to go off alone and steep in his own sour company. Better for her at least.
“Cas!” Lena waved again.
He rode up beside her. And he made sure to pin on a pleasant expression, which cracked slightly when Bittor appeared, wedging his horse, a piebald, between theirs.
“That is a nice cloak,” Bittor observed, bringing his horse even closer and peering at Cas’ outer garment, a gray so dark it appeared black. “Trastamarian wool, is it? Good choice. And the stitching is fine. What sort of lining do you have?”
“Black,” Cas said.
“Black what? Silk? Fur?”
“Silk.”
“The queen had it made for him,” Lena added.
“Really? Impressive.” Bittor reached over to touch his sleeve, then drew back at Cas’ expression.
Lena said with a laugh, “Bittor’s family are wool merchants in the north.”
“Then why aren’t you there?” Cas asked before he could help himself. “In the north?”
Bittor shrugged. “Because I am the cuckoo in the nest, or so my mother tells me. I prefer fighting to clothing fairs.” He gave Cas another look over. “Are those trousers padded by any chance?”
Heads swiveled at the question, ladies and men both. Cas felt his face turn hot. “No,” he snapped.
“Really? Impressive.”
Lena’s head was down, but her shoulders were shaking. “I want my horse back,” Cas said, which only made her laugh harder.
As the day wore on, they veered east, leaving Palmerin and the aqueduct behind. They passed craggy mountains and tiny hamlets. Farmhouses appeared after long intervals. Cas had drifted off to one side, lost in his thoughts. Lady Mari. Queen Jehan. Ventillas most of all. At first, he thought the music came from one of the travelers. A piper playing a lament, something sad and mournful. He looked around to see who it was, but no one else appeared to be listening. And then he realized the music drifted not from the train, but from the side of the road, just beyond a giant boulder. Curious, he broke away from the others and went to have a look. The smell served as a warning. He rounded the boulder and stopped. It was not his choice alone. The horse would go no farther.
Unlike Izaro, these bodies were newly dead. A day or two, that was all. The man and woman lay face-up on the grass, clothing and skin torn to shreds, bags and walking sticks strewn about. A boil oozed just above the woman’s collarbone. She had not lived long enough for it to grow larger than a thumbnail.
A spirit sat cross-legged by the bodies. A man not much older than Ventillas. The bones on his face stood out in a way that suggested hunger had once been a close companion. It was too late for Cas to pretend not to see him, and the spirit, lowering his pipe, did not seem to care either way.
Cas asked, “What happened?”
The spirit set his pipe on the grass. “We stopped to rest, my wife and I. We’d been traveling for days. The lynx . . . came from nowhere.”
Cas took in the wounds on the bodies, the shredded skin. “More than one?”
“Three. Their eyes were bloody, and I knew . . .”
Cas waited, but the spirit stopped speaking. Cas scanned the area. Ventillas and his hunting party had found one such lynx, days ago. They had burned it in the fields. “When was this?”
“Two days ago. My wife . . . she did not die right away.” The spirit looked at the boil on his wife’s collarbone. His lips trembled. “You could smell it on them, the pestilence. You could smell the rot.” He focused on Cas for the first time. “They are not far. In the Desfilad.” Bitterness twisted his smile. “I can sense them. Now.”
Dread had overtaken Cas. The train headed toward a cleft in the mountains, one known as the Desfilad. A narrow road wide enough to fit a cart, no more. By his reckoning, the very first of the travelers would reach the entrance to the cleft within the hour.
Cas turned the horse around, only to see Lena and Bittor not twenty paces away, watching him with identical expressions of unease.
Bittor looked at the bodies. He looked at Cas. “Who are you talking to?”
Lena remained silent.
“I was praying.” Cas brought his horse beside them. “There are lynx in the Desfilad. Rabid. We have to warn the others.”
Bittor did not move. “How do you know this?”
Cas was careful not to glance at the spirit, who had taken up his pipe. No one heard the lament but Cas. “I know what a lynx attack looks like, and I know what plague looks like—”
Both flinched at the word plague.
“But why do you think they’re in the Desfilad?” Bittor asked. A reasonable question, considering. One Cas could not answer. “They could be anywhere—”
“Bittor!” Lena said. “You can play grand inquisitor later. You have to warn Lord Ventillas.”
“Do I? Because—”
Cas gave Lena a grateful look. He said to her, “They need to be burned.”
“I’ll see it’s done.” Lena studied the bodies on the ground, her brown eyes filled with pity. “Be careful, Cas.”