Ash from the nearby Burn drifts like lazy snowflakes, turning the sky smoky and dim; the air tastes scorched and blistered. The only grass is brown, flattened, beaten to dust beneath the feet of so many.
Is this the real Avinea? Not the moon or the stars or the promise of a prince, but pain and blood and human chattel? The Avinea that King Perrote always warned us about, a burning kingdom, ravaged by sin?
Twisting, I sidestep spilled blood and swallow back exhausted tears. This is not what Thaelan promised me all those months ago. Where’s the Avinea he imagined?
Where’s the Avinea he died for?
The sun fades fast as Loomis steers us to a corral full of withered, miserable beasts. A young man straightens as we approach, swiping a cigarette out of his mouth and crushing it beneath his boot with a look of guilt that dissolves into relief when he sees Bryn.
“Your majesty,” he says, dipping into an abbreviated bow before he pulls two horses forward, attention shifting to Loomis. “Took long enough, didn’t you? Gods and sinners, the offers I’ve gotten since you left. They buy skin by the inch out here.” A hand absently touches his chest, where Perrote’s loyalty spell sits above his heart. “I was tempted to sell.”
“You should be so tempted to keep your mouth shut.” Loomis thrusts me at the boy. “Did you make the purchase?”
The boy flashes a bundled package before tucking it back in his jacket, wrapping the slack of my tether around his fist.
Loomis helps Bryn onto a horse, far gentler than the boy who drags me to his. As we settle in the saddles, Kellig arrives, lazy and unhurried, hands in his pocket. Two men flank him, built like giants, with arms bared to demonstrate the poison written across their skin. They fall back as Kellig hooks his elbows over the corral fence. He catches my eye and winks.
The night’s not over yet.
We ride out of the settlement and into a smoky field. I cling to the horse, trying to watch the landscape rolling past. There’s no bog on the other side of the valley we ride out of, no river leading to a hidden stairwell. Instead, the ground opens and we chase the sun’s descent, the mountains to our left. They couldn’t have brought horses through the river below the dungeon, and I realize with a jolt:
There’s more than one way out of Brindaigel.
We don’t slow until we reach a forest of silver birch and dense evergreens. With a grunt, Loomis dismounts and pulls his mask off, revealing a face damp with sweat and stamped with the harsh lines of the mask’s leather padding. He wipes the sweat against his shoulder. “We’ll do it here,” he says.
Bryn twists in the saddle, surveying the forest. “Why are we stopping?”
Loomis rummages through the saddlebag. I catch a glimpse of a flintlock inside and my stomach drops. During the war, King Perrote imported pistols from the Northern Continents to sell to Corthen and his men—brand-new technology to combat Merlock’s magic. They’re rare now, since loyalty spells limit their necessity, but their purpose is the same.
To guarantee victory.
Sweat breaks out across my back. The last time I saw a councilman with a flintlock, it was to shoot a girl who tried to escape Brindaigel by climbing over the mountains. Even in the middle of the gathering crowd who stood to watch, the reverberation of that shot had echoed through my bones like a drum.
“I apologize, your majesty,” Loomis says, exchanging glances with the boy at my back as he withdraws a length of rope. “It’s only a momentary detour. King’s orders.”
Bryn watches him, bemused. The boy dismounts before pulling me down, taking the rope from Loomis and pushing me into the fringe of trees.
“Be careful,” says Bryn. “That one bites.”
“And what about you, milady?” he asks playfully, a contradiction to the rough way he shoves me to my knees in a cradle of roots. “Do you bite too?”
“Impertinent young man,” she says, but it’s an absent response, her attention drawn elsewhere. I follow her gaze, to the shadows thickening between the trees. Is there something out there?
The boy grins, humming beneath his breath as he lashes me to the tree. “Do you even remember me?” he asks. “We danced once at the palace.”
Bryn regains her composure as she dismounts, shaking out her traveling cloak before twisting her hair over one shoulder. “Did we?”
“She has danced with many men,” Loomis says darkly.
“Ah, but this was special,” says the boy.
“I’m sure it was magic,” Bryn says drily.
Loomis scowls and holds out a hand. Grinning, the boy retrieves the bundled package from his pocket. I strain for a glimpse as it’s unwrapped, only to go numb when I recognize the glass and metal flashing in the fading light.
A needle. Another syringe.
God Above.
“What is this?” Bryn asks, plucking the syringe from its wrappings.
“A simple precaution,” Loomis says, carefully taking it back before passing it to the boy. “You were spared the effects of the Burn because of your royal blood. But your captor . . .”
All three look at me and I stare back. “You’re going to poison me?”
“Avinea is a wasteland,” Loomis says. “His majesty keeps his people safe, no matter the cost. A demonstration of that mercy will alleviate the kingdom’s fears and prove that the princess was spared by the gods’ blessing—”
“Perrote is a liar!”
Bryn slaps me across the face. “That is treason.”
I swallow hard, cheek stinging, staring across the trees. She’s on my side, I tell myself, but do I really know that? Bryn plays us all so easily, I can’t be certain which one of us is the enemy.
Maybe we all are.
Backing up, Bryn holds her hand out. “I want to do it,” she says.
Loomis balks. “Your majesty, that would hardly be appropriate.”
“I know how to use a needle,” Bryn says. “My betrothed taught me, among other things.”
“Also not appropriate,” Loomis says.
“I do not regret my choice,” Bryn says tightly, “nor do I suspect you regret yours. Joyena certainly stands closer to the crown than I ever could.”
Loomis looks away, jaw clenched.
The boy’s eyebrows arch with interest at Loomis’s sudden discomfort, no doubt savoring the story left unsaid to be taken home and embellished in the tavern. But then his attention returns to Bryn and he offers her a lazy grin, rolling the syringe between his fingers. “I’ll let you have it if you can remember my name.”
Bryn’s expression softens, turns beguiling. She approaches the boy, flattening the collar of his tunic, straightening the shoulder of his jacket. He shifts his weight, wetting his lips in anticipation.