Renegade Queen : A Court Intrigue Fantasy (The Forbidden Queen Series Book 3)

by R. J. Vickers

  Then, at last, I bobbed to the surface. I coughed and gasped and spat out water, dizzy and weak. I must have been caught in an eddy that finally spat me out.

  This time I managed to stay on the surface. The banks on either side moved swiftly, and I was still near the middle of the river. Looking back, I could see two dark heads of hair rising from the surface. Where was Quendon?

  Torchlight flickered above the riverbank—the horsemen were pursuing us. But they were falling behind. They must have lost track of us.

  I started stroking toward the eastern bank, hoping desperately that I would not collide with a rock or tangle myself in the branches of a submerged tree. The memory of saving Jisho when he slipped off a rock into the stream in Ambervale came vividly to mind, except that had been a swollen brook, not a vast river.

  Twisting my head to see behind me once again, I spotted Quendon’s shock of white hair floating just above the current. Thank the cloudy gods.

  Something struck my foot, and I drew my knees quickly up to my chest, boots still tugging me down. My arms were growing numb from the glacial water, my movements clumsy. I needed to make it to the bank soon. Whether or not our enemies found us, staying in the river meant death.

  Lethargically I stroked toward the bank, my boots dragging me back with every movement. I was making progress, but the current continued to sweep me swiftly downstream—we could end up leagues south of the road. I hoped my friends were safe, but I could no longer spare the energy to search for them. Waves lapped at my chin, the current tugging my arms as I swam.

  Eventually the current slowed. The river widened, spilling up the gentle slope on either side. Now I could swim without fighting the eddies, but the bank was so far away. Maybe I could just lie on my back and see if the river carried me in the right direction…

  No. I could not give up now.

  Breathing shallowly, I forced my arms to continue dragging me forward, my legs to keep kicking even as my boots slipped and threatened to fall off.

  When I kicked something solid, I reached down tentatively with my foot and found solid ground. The bank was thick with mud, rocks buried amidst it ready to trip me, and I wobbled when I clambered to my feet. I waded up the bank, slipping and stumbling, shivering as soon as the cool night air grazed my skin. Once I stood on firm grass once more, I turned to search for my friends.

  Quendon and Mellicante had reached the calm section of the river, and both swam steadily toward shore.

  Where was Baridya?

  I scanned the water frantically. Had she drowned while we weren’t paying attention?

  A stick cracked along the riverbank, and I jumped, whirling to see where the sound had come from.

  Baridya was stumbling along beside the river, hair bedraggled, clothes sodden. She must have managed to swim to shore before the river widened.

  “Y-y-you made it,” she said. “I w-w-wasn’t sure.”

  I staggered toward Baridya and enfolded her in an embrace, trying to share body warmth. My hands collided with something on her back—remarkably, she had not lost her pack.

  Mellicante and Quendon found their footing and stood, gripping each other’s arms for balance. They splashed up the muddy bank to dry land, shivering violently.

  “W-we’re alive. We’re all alive,” Baridya said, embracing Mellicante and Quendon. “I c-can’t believe it.”

  “That won’t do us much good if we freeze to death,” Mellicante mumbled.

  “What now?” Quendon asked me.

  “We need to get away from the river,” I said thickly. “The horsemen were following us for a while. We can’t let them find us.”

  “And we have to keep walking until we either warm up or find somewhere safe to light a fire,” Mellicante said. “We’ll die of cold if we stop now.”

  Baridya gave an emphatic shiver.

  “Oh, and we need to resupply somewhere,” Mellicante said. “Unless…”

  Baridya turned to show her pack. “That’ll be enough f-for a few days.”

  “Enough to make it to Borderville?” Mellicante asked.

  “I d-d-don’t know where that is.”

  “It’s a few leagues south of the main road, right on the border of the Wandering Woods. I doubt those men will think to look for us there.”

  “H-how far is it from there?”

  “Maybe twenty-five leagues. It could take us five days to walk that distance cross-country. More if we get lost.”

  “Maybe we can hunt along the way,” I said.

  “With what?” Mellicante arched her eyebrows at me. “Did you stow a sling or a bow in that nonexistent pack of yours?”

  I scowled at her. My thoughts were working too slowly to come up with a clever response.

  “If you don’t mind, Your Majesty, I have a suggestion,” Quendon said. “I propose we walk east until we find somewhere suitable to spend the night, and make our decision once we have a chance to warm up and rest. Lady Baridya, may I carry your pack?”

  “N-n-no, it’s k-keeping my back warm,” she said, tugging at the straps.

  “How do we know which way is east?” I asked. “You had the compass in your pack, didn’t you, Mellicante?”

  She swore.

  “I c-c-can navigate using the stars. As long as we d-don’t get a cloudy night, we should at least f-f-find the edge of the woods. No p-promises about Borderville.”

  Mellicante gave her another hug, rubbing her arms to warm them, and Baridya’s whole body trembled with the cold.

  “Let’s start walking,” I said. “Stay well away from me. I don’t want anyone collapsing.”

  Baridya looked up at the sky, where the crescent-shaped moon only slightly dimmed the stars. I looked up as well, curious, but could read nothing in the stars except vast emptiness. I recognized the diamond-shaped constellation known as the Nine, for the nine Whitish gods of light, and the hazy brilliance of the Great Arch, but everything else was simply pinpricks of light surrounded by darkness.

  Baridya chose a route and started picking her way forward, Mellicante beside her—she looked ready to catch Baridya if she fell. Quendon studied me for a moment before following. Once they had drawn far enough ahead, I started after them, my legs wooden from exhaustion and numbing cold. At least it wasn’t winter. Of course, if we had fallen into the river in winter, we wouldn’t have had to deal with so much snowmelt swelling the river. We might have been able to drag ourselves out of the current just paces from the bridge.

  Then again, the horsemen would have captured us the moment we stepped onto dry land if we hadn’t been swept so quickly downstream. I supposed I could put up with a bit of miserable, aching cold if it meant we kept our freedom and our lives.

  At the thought, shivers wracked me. I wasn’t sure I would ever feel warm again.

  As I forced one numb leg in front of the other, my mind churned through every fear and regret and worry that still gnawed at me.

  We had no idea what we would find in Larkhaven—if we even made it there in the first place. If the governor was alive, he might not welcome us. And before we got anywhere close to Larkhaven, we somehow had to get through the Wandering Woods without the horsemen catching us.

  Truthbringers were taking over Baylore even now, as we limped our way toward a sliver of hope. I was abandoning my people to suffer at their hands. The magic races would face persecution and worse before I had a chance to save them. Had I made the wrong decision in leaving? Should I have kept the throne and barricaded the palace, holding power for as long as I could withstand the masses?

  I had killed a man and left his body to rot beneath the palace. I did not deserve to rule. But who else would hold Itrea together in my stead?

  Hours passed, time blurring together until our frozen march seemed to last an eternity. Quendon glanced back frequently to make sure I had not fallen behind; the first few times I nodded in acknowledgement, but as the night wore on, I managed only a blank stare. Several times our path took us over farm walls; when I c
limbed, the shift in my clothing disturbed the pockets of warmth that had gathered, leaving me colder than ever.

  Surely the exertion of our walk should have warmed us by now. Instead, my legs grew stiffer and less functional by the minute. The night was getting colder, the air biting at my cheeks. I had tied my hair up, but it continued to drip down my back, the icy tendrils freezing my neck.

  At long last, Mellicante called back softly, “Look at that!”

  I blinked up at a solid apparition before us, silhouetted in the light of the sinking moon.

  As we trudged closer, I recognized it as a barn, with boards rotting away from the roof.

  “It looks like it’s been abandoned,” Baridya whispered. She was no longer shivering, but she still hugged her arms to her chest. “Do you think it’s safe?”

  “I can’t see any other sign of civilization nearby,” Mellicante said. “If it’s empty, I’m sure it’s fine.”

  We crept nearer, until we could peer past the broken door into the barn. Starlight shone through a hole in the roof, and the ground was still strewn with hay, some of it sour and rotten-smelling.

  Mellicante pushed open the door, which creaked loudly on rusty hinges. We filed in after her and waded through hay until we reached the rear of the barn, where the roof still sheltered a mountain of undamaged, sweet-smelling hay.

  “Do you have a light in there?” Quendon asked Baridya, gesturing at her pack. “I can start a fire with those scraps, but I’d feel better if I had some light to see by. I don’t want to burn this whole place down by accident.”

  I hadn’t even noticed the stack of scrap wood in one corner.

  “Oh!” Baridya said. She dropped her pack and dug in it until she found a Weaver’s lamp, this one nothing more than a crystal bound in a wire cage and attached to a small metal disc to hold it upright. Twisting the crystal on its disc, she lit it. After hours of darkness, the small circle of light thrown by the crystal seemed as bright as the sun.

  Quendon cleared a space on the ground—the floor of the barn was dirt, beneath the scattered hay—and started a small fire. We huddled around the warmth, hands stretched toward the flames, not speaking. I was half tempted to roll around in the embers; that seemed the only way I could possibly shake the chill that had lodged itself in my bones.

  Eventually Baridya’s eyes began drooping, and she leaned her head on Mellicante’s shoulder.

  “Let’s get some rest,” Mellicante said. “Sunrise probably isn’t far away. We can dig ourselves a nest in the hay and huddle together for warmth.” She helped Baridya to her feet and started shifting piles of hay from the mountain. “You too, Kalleah and Quendon.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “Remember?”

  “Damn. Sorry, I guess you’ll have to freeze.”

  Quendon gave me an apologetic look as he rose to join my friends. They burrowed into the hay until only their faces were showing, while I remained by the fire, letting the warmth slowly work its way through my frozen joints. Eventually I lay down on the dirt beside the fire, a clump of hay for a pillow, and fell asleep.

  * * *

  In the morning, I woke to a shaft of sunlight streaming through the hole in the barn roof. Quendon was already up, stacking scrap wood into a pile and binding it with rope he must have found in the barn, while Mellicante and Baridya were still asleep in the pile of hay, Baridya’s face nestled against Mellicante’s neck. The fire had burned itself out to ash, but I was warm at last.

  And hungry.

  When Baridya and Mellicante woke eventually, we rummaged in Baridya’s pack and found a few strips of soggy jerky and hard cheese. The oats and millet she had packed were sodden and likely inedible, and in any case, we no longer had a pot to cook them in.

  “I feel so drained,” Baridya said as we chewed at our meager rations. “That cold took everything out of me.”

  “Not to mention marching through half the night,” Mellicante said.

  “I’m sure I didn’t help either,” I said wryly.

  “Perhaps. Either way, I’m not looking forward to another day of walking.”

  Neither was I.

  “What should we do now?” Mellicante asked. “Do we find the road so we can follow it, or try to cut through farmland straight to Borderville?”

  “I think we should stay off the road,” I said. “If men are patrolling between here and the woods, they’re sure to find us eventually.”

  “What about food?” Baridya asked.

  “Maybe we’ll find a farmhouse along the way that will sell us rations,” Mellicante said. “I think Kalleah’s right. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  For three long, punishing days, we continued to trudge our way through the farmland of Baylore Valley. Where once I had been glad to escape the city, now I could think about nothing but my hunger.

  On the fourth day, we stumbled across what looked like a noble’s country estate. Mellicante guessed we were close to Valleywall, a wealthy town with its share of retired nobility from Baylore. The estate was empty save for a pair of servants tasked with upkeep; they allowed us to sleep in the stables for a night and sold us enough food to last until Larkhaven. Better still, they drew a rough map showing a set of farm roads and trails that would lead us directly to Borderville.

  We made quick time through the final stretch of grassland. We had left Baylore Valley behind, and the lush fields and orchards of the basin were replaced by vast grazing land and uninhabited plains. It looked very much like the grasslands I had passed through on my journey from Ambervale to Baylore, though the mountains had slipped out of sight behind us.

  Before long, we caught sight of the forest border looming before us. The Wandering Woods stretched most of the length of the Itrean continent, from the Icebraid Peaks up in the north all the way south to the region around King’s Port. The trees rose like a dense green wall from the grasses, an uninterrupted line running as far in either direction as I could see. Where the forest around Ambervale had been nothing more than a scattering of scrawny pines and aspens, these woods held a world of their own, a shadowed place with towering walls and verdant roofs.

  Eyes fixed on the approaching wall of trees, I did not notice the town nestled just beside the forest until we were nearly atop it.

  “Do we stop for the night, or avoid the town?” Baridya asked. I followed her longing gaze to an inn with a curl of smoke rising from the chimney.

  “If we stop, we can ask if anyone in town has seen men patrolling the road,” Mellicante said.

  I frowned at the inn. “What if they report us to the horsemen?”

  “They wouldn’t,” Mellicante said. “This place is practically an extension of the Wandering Woods—they wouldn’t tolerate the Truthbringers or their thugs here.”

  I started forward again, glad for the excuse to spend a night in civilization—and to see if we could learn anything about Larkhaven.

  “What do you mean, it’s practically an extension of the Wandering Woods?” Baridya asked. “Do Drifters live here?”

  “Yes, dozens of them. They’ve intermarried with the original town residents, and as far as I know, everyone here can enter the woods safely, protected by a centuries-old alliance.”

  “Maybe we can find someone who will guide us through the woods,” I said. “Then we won’t have to risk the forest road.”

  “If they allowed something like that, we would know. Don’t get your hopes up.”

  As we trudged into town, people emerged from houses to watch us. I wished I could cover my face with a hood, but I had lost my cloak in the river as well. This was starting to look like a very bad idea. Even if they didn’t guess who I was—which they shouldn’t, given everyone believed I was dead—these people might talk. And if word spread, the Truthbringers and their thugs would undoubtedly hear about us.

  By the time we reached the doors to the inn, a crowd had gathered. The innkeeper emerged when we knocked—she was a tall woman with an unusual shape to her face and light bro
wn skin; I guessed she was at least part Drifter.

  “What are travelers doing in these parts?” she asked, one hand on her hip. “It’s been nearly a span since we last had guests.” Her Whitish was flawless, but she spoke with a soft accent.

  “We need to reach Larkhaven,” I said. “We would appreciate a room for the night and any information you can give us.”

  The innkeeper stepped back and held open the door for us. “I will see what I can do.”

  Warmth spilled from inside, engulfing us as we stepped over the threshold. My shoulders sagged as a wave of drowsiness hit me. I felt as though I had never properly warmed up after our swim.

  In an open stone fireplace the height of the innkeeper and the width of the room, a full boar roasted over the fire, turned by two boys in deerskin clothing, one Itrean, the other a Drifter. The men and women seated around the vast table at the center of the dining room looked like a mix of Itreans and Drifters as well; from the collection of bows and spears along one wall, I guessed they were locals who had just returned from a successful hunt.

  All turned to stare at us as we followed the innkeeper to a small table near the fire. Not only were we travelers at a time when all traffic along the road had ceased, but we looked a mess, dusty and bedraggled after days of sleeping rough.

  “How much can you pay?” the innkeeper asked.

  “What would twenty dravs buy us?” I asked. Thankfully Baridya had carried coins in her pack, and Mellicante had not lost the coin pouch at her waist, but we were running low.

  “That would get you four separate rooms, hot baths, and a meal tonight. I might even be able to offer you a bite of this fresh boar, if the hunters are feeling generous.”

  Baridya’s eyes widened.