The Forsaken Throne (Kingfountain #6)

We have Staeli’s army surrounded, and yet he refuses to yield. Heralds between camps issue back and forth to press the negotiations. He says he will not surrender without direct orders from Trynne. She is nowhere to be found, of course. The king wishes to prevent needless bloodshed. How weak he is. Brythonica is without protection. I walked the shores of the beach of sea glass just last night. There was no one to stop me.

No guardians save a small group of soldiers whom I easily deceived. I sensed magic coming from the caves along the rocky shore. If I still had the ring of the grove, I could have found out what was hidden there, but now I must wait until the tide goes out to discover Sinia’s secrets. There must be a reason she always strolled that beach. I’m determined to find out why.

Morwenna Argentine





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE


Prey


While Trynne bound up the King of Dahomey’s wrist wound, her father shackled and gagged him. They hoisted up his body and concealed it under a pile of fur blankets at the side of the tent, but before the last blanket settled atop him, the sound of ripping fabric filled the space. Trynne whirled around to find a dagger shearing through the back wall.

Fallon stuck his head through the hole, his eyes bright, his grin cocky and victorious. “I have it,” he said.

She wanted to hug him right then and there. Instead, she gripped her father’s arm and they hurried over to the tear in the tent wall and stepped into the darkness of the night. The soldiers were all gathered around cookfires for heat and their supper, so no one paid the three of them any mind as they tromped through the large camp.

“Where is Quivel?” Trynne asked as they passed through a veil of smoke that stung her eyes. A set of soldiers was roasting a serpent to supplement their meat.

“Over there,” Fallon answered with a gesture. “I knocked him out and took the Tay al-Ard and his kystrel.”



“This way,” Owen said, leading the way through the camp.

“There are over twenty thousand soldiers camped here. It’ll take some time for us to cross the army and reach the woods. Dieyre will send hunters and maybe a kishion after us.”

“We just need to hold them off until daybreak,” Trynne said. “We have a magical device that can take us where we’re going. It just needs some more time to rest before we can use it again.”

“Should we try it now to be sure?” Fallon suggested.

“It wouldn’t hurt to try,” Trynne said.

“Touch my arms, then,” Fallon said. They did as he asked and he invoked the Tay al-Ard.

Nothing happened.

“Where are we going?” Owen asked.

“To the ruins of Muirwood Abbey,” Fallon said. “There’s a portal back to our world there.” He lifted a hand. “Quiet.”

A horn sounded behind them, and an instant hush descended on the camp. The soldiers stopped what they were doing and gazed back into the darkness as if waiting for something.

“That didn’t take long,” Owen muttered. “There’s more to come.”

Three long blasts from the horn followed the first. “Three blasts.

Enemies sighted. The captains will be gathering for orders and they will describe us. The whole camp will be on alert. No one will be able to enter or leave the camp until the truce sound is called.”

“We need to find an abandoned tent,” Trynne suggested.

“No, we won’t have any trouble leaving,” her father said. “Few guard the south of the camp, the area toward the mountains. I know all the patrol patterns and passwords. I established them,” he added, chuckling softly.

The moon was bright overhead as they continued to climb higher into the mountains, the trees growing sparser the higher they went.

Trynne’s legs burned from the climb, but she was determined to keep going. The sound of hounds called in the distance, gaining ground.

They stopped to rest on the mountain trail, taking in huge gulps of air.

“The air . . . is getting thinner,” Fallon said, gasping. He mopped sweat from his brow. “How far behind us do you think they are?”

Owen folded his arms, leaning back against a rock, his breath whistling in his chest. “Closer than I’d like. They’ve been moving quickly now that they’re on our trail.”

Trynne spotted several points of light at the base of the mountain. “They’re carrying lamps or torches,” she said, gesturing to them.

“Best to keep going, then,” Owen said. “The torches will be at the rear, not the front. The dogs don’t need the light to hunt us.”

“That means they’re even closer than they look,” Fallon said.

“We were never going to make it very far,” Owen said with resignation. “Come on.”

They continued up the trail, the night air cold against their necks. Trynne was fatigued by both lack of sleep and the trials of their difficult journey, but she was relieved that her father was with them. Even without his memory, he seemed much the same to her, always plotting ahead, pinpointing enemies’ weaknesses.

Huge broken fragments of rock were jumbled around, making their progress slower and more arduous. As they moved higher into the pass, the smells changed. There was a minty scent to the air, and she noticed some long-leafed plants choking the scrub alongside the mountain trail. She bent and snapped off one of the leaves. It was soft as felt and gave off the pleasant odor.

Suddenly, Trynne sensed a pulse of Fountain magic at work on the trail below them. Owen stiffened at the same time, holding up his hand to halt them.

Lightning exploded from the cloudless sky and struck a tree to their left, turning it into a tower of flames. The noise of the thunder was deafening, and the air sizzled with heat and danger.

“That’s the power of the Dochte Mandar. We need shelter,”

Owen said. The crackling noise of the burning tree filled the quiet that followed the clap of thunder.

“Aspis,” Trynne said, conjuring the word of power to form a shield around her and those near her. There was a risk that it would draw the Dochte Mandar to them, but the danger in not acting was greater. As if they were indeed summoned by her show of power, more bolts of lightning zigzagged across the sky—enough that it was soon as bright as day.

The shield drained Trynne’s store of magic, but she held it up to protect them as they climbed. More stabs of lightning continued to strike all around them, blasting trees and shattering stone, and the thunder ricocheted off the stone of the mountainside, magnifying the noise.

Trynne’s heart was hammering with fear, but she was grateful for her magic. She sensed it was their only protection against the Dochte Mandar.

Suddenly, she felt her shield rip away. Quivel was amongst those chasing them, she sensed, and he had just countermanded her word of power. They were vulnerable to the lightning strikes now.

“We need shelter!” Trynne cried out.

“A cave! Over there!” Fallon shouted over the tumult, pointing.

Off the trail, through the gorse, they saw a place where the stones had fallen and created a small warren. They trampled through the green, hurrying to reach the safety of the cleft of rock.

Fallon reached it first and ducked his head inside. He nodded and then waved them forward as more lightning crackled through the sky. Owen ducked his head and entered the cave. Then Trynne.

Then finally Fallon. His eyes were bright with fear and excitement as he moved deeper into the shallow cave. This time his height was no advantage—he had to duck very low to follow them inside.

Fallon lowered onto his haunches and gazed back out the cave entrance. The landscape was brightened every few moments by fresh displays of celestial power. The rocks thrummed with the pressure from the thunder. Trynne pressed her sweating palms against the stone. The cave was dark, but the sporadic lightning bursts helped them see each other. The air had a tang to it, the smell of dross from a smithy’s forge.

“It won’t take them long to find us now,” Fallon muttered, wiping his hand across his whiskers. “I should have killed Quivel. I was tempted to. He’s desperate to leave and he knows we have the Tay al-Ard. If he doesn’t catch us before dawn, he never will.”

A moment later, complete darkness fell.

“They’re coming,” Owen whispered after the stillness became prolonged.

They all quietly drew their swords in preparation.

The sound of hounds baying started up again, much closer this time.