I tossed the prince’s chain at the nearest man’s feet. It sloshed in the mud, but it’s cut and color was unmistakable.
“Crown’s orders!” My heart was halfway in my throat and the rain was washing away the brown dye with every second I sat there, panting. “Let me pass!”
The soldier looked up at me through sopping bangs, squinting through the rain. He wasn’t supposed to question orders, and that necklace was as familiar as the throne. He couldn’t argue with the stranger in front of him, lest he risk execution.
The man nodded to his comrade, and the two unlocked the bars.
The metal quivered and groaned, and I didn’t bother to wait for them to clear more than a gap.
“Stop her!” Mira screamed at the top of her lungs, but it was too late.
I was just a shadow streaking across the cobblestone streets of Devon.
A shooting star, caught in the rain, cloaked in death and betrayal. Burning everything I touched with my crystalline shards.
I was breaking with every roll of thunder, every streak of lightning across the pitch-black expanse. But I kept on.
I was a traitor to the Crown.
And this time, there was no turning back.
14
The first two nights I didn’t sleep. I rode as long and hard as I dared, taking what little shelter I could find in barns during the worst bits of the storm. It never ceased. The mare was exhausted, but at least she was able to rest during those brief stops.
I couldn’t sleep. With every shift in the straw, every dance of hooves, and every branch that snapped outside in the winds, I was certain the Crown’s Army soldiers were right outside the stable doors.
I survived on what provisions were stuffed into my pack; it was a week’s supply for two. I tried not to remember why that was. If I started to reflect on my last night in the palace, I wouldn’t be able to shut out the emotions that came with it. I couldn’t escape the pain and loss forever, but if I caved to it now, the regiment would find me and then Paige’s sacrifice would be for nothing.
My heart splintered with every mile I rode, but every so often the pain would fade. I still felt every broken rib and physical torment along my limbs, but the grief and regret were becoming a distant ache.
With every hour that passed, there was a scab growing around my heart. A fire was burning out everything and leaving me with a hardened layer of coal.
After everything I had gone through in the last year, I had no more tears left to cry. I was stone, and everything Blayne and the others had done, everything I had done… It was all becoming ash.
War had a price, and this war hadn’t even begun.
Two days of riding and I hadn’t spotted a patrol once. I knew it was only a matter of time. Mira would have men scouring every inch of the land. As soon as Blayne recovered, he would have bounty hunters competing for my head. I didn’t want to know Darren’s role, and I refused to consider it.
There were too many concerns at hand.
I needed to get to Demsh’aa before regiment soldiers reached my parents. I needed to find my brother at the keep and make sure the Crown didn’t take out my betrayal on those I loved. Once my family was safe, somewhere the king and his Black Mage could never find, then I could concentrate on the rest.
On the fourth morning, I had ridden the palfrey to her point of exhaustion. The little rest she received was not enough to make up for the miles and miles we’d covered in a short span of time.
I risked daylight to sneak into an inn’s stable close to the King’s Road. There, I switched out my mount for one of the occupants’ instead. I could now add theft to my growing list of crimes, but I didn’t have a choice. The mare was drawing too many eyes—not many traders had a thoroughbred that could fetch the price of a year’s worth of rations—and I needed an energized mount, ideally a brown, nonsensical steed that wouldn’t draw bandits and regiment mages to my trail.
The sixth day, I got lucky and came across a small hut off the road, with linens hanging out to dry above a bed bursting with root vegetables. I managed to steal two pairs of men’s breeches and a fresh shirt before a tall, broad-shouldered man came to chase me away, hollering at the top of his lungs, but not before I snagged some carrots and parsnips.
Later that afternoon, I found a stream. It was so cold my teeth chattered, but I scrubbed until every last speck of blood was gone. Every part of me stung as I rubbed until I was raw.
Then I burned the old uniform, taking with it every memory of that night.
Like a phoenix born again, a red-haired boy emerged where a girl had once been.
The land had a familiar call the closer I got to home: crickets and the quiet rustling of clove trees alongside icy plain winds. I passed less and less farmland, and the terrain began to slope with more elevation and rocks. I recognized the boulders I used to climb as a child, just a speck in the distance but as familiar as rain.