“I’m nearly through waiting, Merit.”
“You will not have to wait much longer,” she whispered, taking his hands away from her body and kissing the tips of his fingers. His soldiers were not far and she did not want to be seen standing so close to the king, so she took a step back. “But I cannot be yours. Not until after your wedding night, not until I see the bloody sheets.”
31
The carriage followed a road that led slowly up into the mountains outside Rifka, the air cooler, wetter, the land greener. Kepi held the shutter open. Refusing to speak to her captors or to Seth, she focused on the workers streaming toward the High City: slaves in rags, burly woodworkers with their tools on their backs, tired-looking boys half-asleep on their feet. The Feren soldiers forced the workers away from the road to let the caravan pass, holding them away at sword point. If this were Harkana, Kepi would have said something to them about their roughness with the workers, that there was no reason to terrify them on her account. But this was not Harkana, and Kepi was not yet their queen. At the moment she was no better off than the workers shivering under the glare of the soldiers—none of them were masters of their fate.
When she and Seth were captured in the Cragwood, the Feren soldiers had pinned Seth to the standing stones at sword point and searched him. Seth had seemed to think the soldiers would thank him—he kept talking to the one in charge, a broad-shouldered man with a gray beard, as if they knew each other—but they tied him with ropes and kept warning him to stop talking. When he refused, they knocked him on the head, and he fell to the ground like a bag of old linens. Like a fool, Kepi thought sadly. Don’t hurt him. He’s just a boy.
The soldiers had not tied Kepi, though they had kept her closely and respectfully guarded as they led her to the Rift valley, where a vast contingent of Feren soldiers held the border. Dagrun was not present at the camp, though she knew his men sent a messenger to the king who was attending the Cutting Day ceremony with her sister. The felling of the blackthorn honored the new queen, but it was Merit who would enjoy the pageantry. Kepi was not bothered—in some ways she guessed this marriage was more Merit’s than her own. Leaving Kepi to brood over her second wedding, the soldiers gently led her back into the carriage, locking it once more from the outside. Seth had come and knocked on her door once, but she hadn’t the heart to answer. “Talk to me, Kepi,” he begged. “I promised you we’d be together. I saved you, Kepi. That was all I did.” Eventually he went away.
The caravan continued over the high mountain pass, drawing ever closer to the High City, the horses climbing slowly into a green meadow with rocky, crumbling sides, the roads growing more and more crowded with workers, with traders and soldiers traveling to Rifka. Once, she thought she saw the great gray bird, the kite, but she could not be certain. She saw its shadow among the crowds, but the narrow carriage window prevented her from seeing the sky. Afterward, the caravan descended into the cover of trees, passing into shadow, the roads thick with carts and wagons, the world closing in around her small carriage. She lost track of the sky and the kite as the forest’s cool air wrapped her skin like an unwelcome hand. She longed for the open desert plains of Harkana, for the dust of the Hornring, even for the amber house in Blackrock where she and Seth had met in secret.
No, not Blackrock, she thought with a pang, and not with Seth. She should have ended it a long time ago. He was soft, unprepared for the harshness that was her life. She would try to help him as best she could. Perhaps he could find meaningful work for himself in Feren.
A shout rang out as a soldier announced their arrival in Rifka. The carriage stopped and the door opened in front of the gatehouse of the caer, a round fortress surrounded by a high stone wall made of the same granite as the Cragwood, the solitary fortress into which the people would scurry in times of war. Soldiers approached. The men led her out of the carriage and across the blackthorn bridge. Above, logs hung from chains—the Chime Gate, they said, named for the forest chimes the hanging logs resembled.
When she passed beneath that gate, so like the mouth of a hoary beast swallowing her alive, Kepi knew she would not be able to leave, not this time. This was not Roghan Frith’s shabby village in the woods. There would be no locks in her chamber, but she was a prisoner just the same; the men who stood at her door would not allow her to pass, and everywhere guards would be told not to trust the Harkan woman, the woman who would be their queen.
“There is news from Desouk,” said the tall Feren who walked at her side.
Kepi was uncertain of how to react, news from Desouk meant news from her mother, Sarra Amunet.
“This morning we received a missive from the Mother. She wrote to inform the faithful that she survived the riots on the last day of the year.”
“Riots?” Kepi asked as they left the bridge behind. She had heard whispers about unrest in the capital, but she hadn’t stopped to consider what that might mean for the Mother Priestess. “What happened?”
“After the sun failed to dim, there was chaos on the wall and in the Waset, burning and rioting, but the Mother was ferried safely through the crowds by her followers. She is out of harm’s way, in Desouk, where she will remain. I thought you might want to hear the news.”
“Thank you. That was kind of you,” Kepi said. The soldier must have known that Sarra was her mother. She supposed everyone knew. He was trying to be kind, to bring good news to the girl who would soon be his queen, but his message had the opposite effect. It reminded her that her father was gone, and she had not seen her mother in ten years.