He snorted and spat. “I had taken you for a sensible woman. A rare thing to find, I can tell you that. But I presume you lost your head when the music started, as most women do.” He grumbled to himself. “By Cheshu, dancing with the king’s collier.”
Still, Maia did not regret it. Could not regret it, even if he were right about the nature of Collier’s attentions. The panic she had felt began to subside as the stars twinkled into view in the dark sky above them. In truth, she wished she could have stayed back at the inn, enjoying the cheese and broth. She would have danced all night had she been allowed. All of the years she had practiced and learned the steps were not wasted. She would remember this night, this taste of a life that had been taken from her.
Take the north road.
The whisper in her mind startled her. A sliver of silver moon emerged from the tips of the pine trees at the edge of the town. As she stared at it, her heart burned with emotion from the dance at the inn. She wanted to see Collier again, but that would be foolish. Suddenly, a throb of warning touched her mind and the kystrel started to burn. She stopped walking and clutched her chest, feeling the heat emanating from the amulet.
“What is it?” the kishion asked, noticing her hesitation immediately.
She stared at him, not sure what to say.
“Lady Maia?” Jon Tayt asked with concern.
She grimaced, feeling again the pulse of warmth and warning in her heart. “We must take the north road,” she announced.
Jon Tayt stared at her in stupefaction.
“That puts us on the path to the king’s army,” the kishion said.
“I know,” she said, shaking her head. “I . . . I cannot explain it. I feel that we need to go that way. Urgently.”
Jon Tayt scratched his neck and winced. “That does not sound right, my lady.”
“I know it does not. It goes against common sense. We were walking and I—” She sighed. “The north road.”
Jon Tayt looked at the kishion and then back at her. “It is the last place they would look or suspect we would go.”
The kishion frowned. “You have not directed us like this since the Leerings. It is the Medium?”
Maia nodded.
Jon Tayt threw up his hands. “It goes against all wisdom and common sense. Why not? What do you say, Argus?”
The boarhound barked once.
Maia knelt in front of him and stroked his fur.
“We will be surrounded by the king’s army in moments,” Jon Tayt said. “I want to state that now in case you decide after we are captured that it was a bad idea.”
She straightened and looked him in the eye. “Trusting these feelings, as rarely as they come, has kept us alive so far. I do not know what lies ahead. But I trust it.”
They had not traveled far down the north road before they were surrounded by riders.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Treason
The sunlight came slanting through the windows of the chancellor’s tower and glimmered off the polished aurichalcum of the tome on Maia’s lap. She loved tomes—loved the meticulous engravings so gently and delicately inscribed. Not only was a tome a thing of polished beauty, but it revealed the beauty of the writer’s mind. Each tome was filled with the wisdom of the ages, scrawled by hand and etched into the metal pages to be preserved for centuries. You could learn about a man from his thoughts, from what he found important. Some learners chose to fill their tomes with extensive translations of one man’s thoughts . . . an Aldermaston’s, perhaps, or one of the founders of the Dochte Mandar. The tome in her hand was a mixture of both, for Chancellor Walraven always strived to stretch the boundaries of what he knew.
She looked up from the sheaf of aurichalcum, pressing her warm hand against its cool metal. She was sick with worry, her insides clenching and twisting with the dread of anticipated news. Her entire future hinged on the outcome of the trial, as did that of her father’s kingdom.
To help ease the agonizing wait, she had sought refuge in the chancellor’s tower and tried to calm her nerves by reading his tranquil words.
The chancellor had explained the situation to her in great detail before leaving for Muirwood Abbey. When Maia had learned he was bound for that abbey, she had begged him to bring word to her mother. Though he was, as always, sympathetic to her cause, he had refused, as he could not accommodate her without compromising his relationship with her father. It had been obvious from his distraught and haggard visage that the immensity of the problem weighed on him like stones. She had asked him in a whisper to explain the situation fully, to trust her to be discreet and never betray him.