“They’re dead,” she says, “and we need to reach Nevik before nightfall. Don’t linger.” Peeling the bag from around her shoulder, she thrusts it at me to carry.
I make no move to take it, staring at the water lapping the edges of the riverbank. “You murdered that man,” I say.
“You would have done the same.”
“No. I would never—”
“You would never what?” she asks. “You would never make a difficult choice at a pivotal moment? If he stood between you and your sister, what would you do?” Straightening, she wipes her mouth and arches an eyebrow. “Oh, I remember. You would turn around and run. Like a coward. Like your mother.” Snorting, she says, “If you’re not willing to kill for what you want, you don’t want it nearly enough. Now get up.”
We keep to the shore as far as we can, a princess and her trailing shadow. Rocks block the entrance to the cavern as high as my head, damming the river, creating a pool of water that spreads across the marble floor on the other side. If this was early spring, the snowmelt would make the crevice impassable. But after a dry summer, there’s room to spare, footholds to find, space to wiggle through.
After we wade through the water to reach it.
Bones roll beneath my feet, pulling at my skirt, scraping against my legs. Hair ghosts against my skin, and things bob on the surface, hitting the rocks ahead of us with soft clicks and dull echoes. I keep my eyes ahead, the bag clutched to my chest like a talisman before I reach the first rock and pull myself out of the water. Bryn stays a step ahead of me, ducking through the crevice and into the dawn, indifferent to the line she crosses.
Yet I hesitate on the edge of the light, shivering not just from cold but from fear. Here in the shadows, I’m safe, albeit a prisoner of Brindaigel. A step beyond and I’m a traitor, finally in Avinea.
Bryn notices and stops, eyebrow arched. Her skirt clings to her legs, and even bedraggled, she’s beautiful. A girl named for a kingdom and born for a crown, determined to inherit both, no matter the cost. “What did you want?” she asks, glancing around her. “Magic?” Snorting, she says, “It’s the same water, the same sand, the same mountains, the same sky.”
But hope had burnished the idea of Avinea into something more, something better. Years of daydreams and wanting had dulled logic beneath an unattainable fantasy and now, disappointment creeps in.
Even I feel exactly the same: Still trapped.
The cavern opens into a steep valley of arching rocks and jagged walls that hide most of the brightening sky. The water sparkles, a deep jewel blue at the center, dulling to wintery gray where it turns shallow and laps against the black sandy banks. Bryn leads an unescorted promenade along the shoals, her cloak trailing behind her. She walks as if it’s an empty ballroom floor: chin up, back straight. All she needs is a handful of tretkas to toss to the white-crested birds roosting in the cliffs who cluck in disapproval at our arrival.
An hour passes, then a second. I struggle to keep pace as I absorb Bryn’s blisters and cramping muscles on top of my own. Yet she has no patience for me and I refuse to beg her favor. If she doesn’t stop, I won’t, either.
Finally, the cliffs that frame the river begin to fragment as the landscape opens. Forgoing the thinning, brackish water, we pull ourselves onto a narrow shelf of granite that cuts through a boggy tributary. A thick, sulfurous odor burns my eyes and makes my head throb, and a ribbon of gold flickers to the east, belching up plumes of acrid smoke that turn the sky gray.
The Burn.
Fear shivers through me, despite its distance. A lifetime of warnings race through my head and I stare, both transfixed and repulsed by the way it shimmers and moves.
Something else is moving, closer to us. People.
I watch, incredulous, as figures drift through the mud, bending over shallow pools of water as they dig. They’re bundled in rags and carrying wide baskets strapped to their backs, communicating less with words and more with barks and hisses as they brandish what they find. Clothing. A fistful of matted hair the color of honey. An arm trailing ribbons of sinew. Like the pawnbrokers on the roofs of the Brim, trash becomes their newfound treasure and they hoard it all. Small, bony children guard several carts, warding off packs of mangy dogs with sticks. Yet other than the mud on their clothes and the strange way they speak, they look normal, not at all twisted or destroyed by the Burn that edges the horizon.
Avinea has survived.
A woman slogs toward us, pressing her weight into the edge of the rocky outcropping we stand upon. “Pretty,” she coos, gesturing us closer. “Here, pretty, pretty, pretty.” Dark veins map her face, full of dead magic and thickened blood.
The plague.
I recoil into Bryn, heart slamming in my chest. Is it airborne? Will it spread through the water, through mud? Am I already infected? The phantom itch of an invisible disease crawls over me and I press the sleeve of my coat to my mouth, terrified.
“Pretty,” the woman whispers, stretching for my foot.
“Two lost souls strayed from the herd,” a voice says as I sidestep the woman’s reach. I spin to see a man flashing a smile, emerging behind a pile of rocks. He’s older, with a face full of blisters and scabs that ooze poisoned blood. Mud cakes his boots, up to his knees, and he wears layers of clothes, everything ill-fitting. Like the woman, he carries a woven basket on his back. A pale arm dangles over the edge, the skin loose and bloated, falling off the bone.
“Where did you come from?” The man’s eyes are greedy when he looks at Bryn.
“Mine,” the woman whispers below us. “Mine, Fanagin, mine-mine-mine. I saw them first.”
“Shut up,” the man, Fanagin, says, kicking a rock at her. She flinches, ducking her head out of view.
“Mine,” she repeats, more sullen than before.
“Yours if you can catch them,” Fanagin says.
“Run,” I say.
Bryn doesn’t even argue. We follow the outcropping as far as it stretches, toward dry land in the distance. But Fanagin’s interest has sparked the interest of others and they begin to circle, drawing closer, and I begin to slow, fighting through Bryn’s exhaustion as well as my own.
My foot catches in a divot and I trip off the rock, landing knees and elbows deep in the mud below. Bryn throws a look back but continues moving, her red hair flying behind her. Two boys with flaking skin chase after her as I crawl forward, regaining my feet.
But the seventh heir of Brindaigel is not used to running the streets of the Brim or scaling rooftops to see the stars; she’s already winded, and I struggle to catch my breath, lungs burning with the labored effort. Fanagin drops into the mud beside me and my fear of the plague outweighs my aim. I swing my fist wild, missing him by inches.
Stumbling back, I ball the sleeves of my coat over my hands and flip the collar up against my throat. Meager protection, but better than nothing.