Ash reached up, fingering his hair, as if he’d forgotten what color it was.
“Too bad the weather’s not colder,” Lila said. “Once it’s light out, it would be best if you kept your hood up.”
As the day came on, the landscape around them began to emerge, the colors muted and grayed. The autumn mist clung low to the ground, filled the ditches on either side of the road, and shifted and swam as the horses moved through it. Now and then the dense forest was punctured by a clearing along the road, centered on a farmhouse and other buildings. The shapes of people drifted through the yards like ghosts. Farmers rose early.
Tamron Forest crowded close to the road, as if anxious to reclaim it, and Lila found herself startling at every sound. The roots of great trees broke through at the berm, and the canopy often met overhead, shutting out the frail light. Any assassin hidden along the road would be but an arm’s length away. Lila imagined a rush from the undergrowth, sinewy hands reaching up to drag Ash from his horse and slam him to the cold earth, a circle of pale faces within dark cowls.
Once, they heard hooves behind them on the packed surface, horses coming fast. They shoved off through the small growth that fringed the road and hid behind the massive trunk of a moss-covered oak. A dozen black-clad men on dun-colored horses thundered past, ringmail glittering. Among them, Destin Karn, the only one unarmored, eyes fixed forward, slitted against the wind and dust.
“The King of Arden’s Guard,” Ash murmured when they had gone. “They’re in a hurry, aren’t they?”
Bones, Lila thought. Destin Karn, of everyone, might expect me to take this road. I told him I was going to, after all. Is he hunting me after I ditched him on Bridge Street? Or is he hunting Ash? Does he suspect that I helped him escape?
Maybe he’s just hurrying home to report the bad news.
Now they proceeded more cautiously than before, aware that the soldiers they’d seen might double back when the trail grew cold. When they began to see traffic upon the road, Lila led the way back into the woods, penetrating several hundred yards before she chose a camping place, a defensible spot with a low hill at their backs. They built no fire; it wasn’t worth the risk. They left their horses saddled, fed them, and tethered them to a long lead to allow them to browse. Then they threw their blanket rolls on the ground in a grove of trees.
They sat up for a bit, eating cheese and bread, passing one of the wineskins back and forth until it was empty. Lila ached all over, courtesy of the rough and tumble in Stokes and from riding horseback cross-country for the first time that season. Ash sat with his back against the trunk of a tree, one knee bent, the other leg straight. He said little, though she noticed he was favoring his arm.
By the time they’d finished the wine, Lila could scarcely keep her eyes open.
“I’ll take first watch,” Ash offered.
Lila shook her head. “I’ll be fine,” she mumbled, her lips oddly numb. “You’ve got to be exhausted from loss of blood and having the flash sucked out of you and all. Let me just get up and walk around a bit. That’ll wake me up.”
“Hey,” Ash said, putting a hand on her arm. “Go to sleep. You don’t have to be the hero every single time.”
“All right.” Lila yawned. “But wake me up at midday and I’ll take over.” She slid into her bedroll and was immediately asleep.
When Lila awoke, shivering, the sun was low on the horizon, the light nearly gone. It took her two tries to sit up, and then her head spun so that she had to brace herself with her hands. She was stiff and sore from lying too long on the ground, half-covered in leaves, and her mouth tasted like the floor of an unmucked stall.
“Ash?” She looked around the clearing, and the motion nearly put her flat on her back again. “Ash!” she said, a little louder. Brady stood a short distance away, looking at her, ears pricked forward, still chewing. The other horse was gone. A scrap of chamois was pinned to a nearby stump with Lila’s own knife. It bore a single word. Sorry.
That’s when she knew. “Bones,” she muttered. “You two-faced, conniving, sneaky bastard.”
Lila rose shakily to her feet. The empty wineskin lay nearby. She kicked it, and it went sailing into the brush.
Really, Hanson? Did you think I’d fall for the turtled wine trick? I guess so. I am too stupid to live.
He’d probably left as soon as she had fallen asleep, took a chance by traveling in daylight. Nobody would expect to find him riding back toward Oden’s Ford. He could be halfway to Freetown by now. Or on his way to the dungeon in Ardenscourt. Or dead at the hands of the bloodsucking priests.
That was the thing. Lila had secrets, but Ash had proven that he had secrets of his own. Now there was no telling where the princeling was headed or what he really intended to do.
12
IN THE KING’S GARDEN