Leaning as close to him as she could, she cupped a hand around her mouth and confessed in a low voice, “I hate journeying by ship. I prefer to look at the sea with both feet firmly planted on land.”
“You’re not the only one,” he grumbled, his stomach heaving at the thought of the gut-churning pitch and roll of the ship.
“I got seasick at least three times.”
He couldn’t help it, he laughed. To his relief, she didn’t look offended. Instead, her eyes danced. “You bested me by one.”
“If you tell anyone, I’ll deny it and brand you a liar.” When she smiled at him like that, he didn’t mind the threat at all.
“And here I was, intending to commission a ballad about the great Princess Jessmyn’s weak stomach. You don’t think it would do much to enhance your reputation as a warrior?” he teased.
She looked surprised. “Do I have a reputation as a warrior?”
“You do indeed.” He nodded respectfully at her. “I have heard many tales about how you brought the forest phantasms to justice.” He didn’t bother keeping the admiration from his tone. If she thought him a fawning simpleton, so be it. Her putting an end to the reign of terror caused by the so-called phantasms was worthy of admiration.
Her face hardened. “I couldn’t stand by and allow them to continue to slaughter innocent citizens.”
“You did both your Realm and mine a great favor.”
For months, a band of outlaws had terrorized traders and travelers along the roads that passed through the Carpesian Forest, which formed a natural border between their two Realms. Farah had led her own patrols through the forest, trying to roust the bandits to no avail. The men and women had holed up so invisibly they were impossible to find. They emerged from the trees, descending upon those who traveled the roads, and no one ever saw them coming. When their assault ended they would melt back into the forest, leaving destruction in their wake but no trace of their whereabouts. Terrorized travelers had taken to referring to the bandits as phantasms, since they appeared and disappeared as if they were ghosts.
“It was risky, posing as a traveler like that,” he said.
She shrugged. “I spent months poring over reports of the assaults and interviewing the lucky few who escaped with their lives. I feared traveling with a large retinue or riding in an ostentatious carriage would tip the bandits off.”
“Still, taking just three guards with you? You had no way of knowing how many bandits would beset you.”
“No, I didn’t,” she admitted. “But it was time for bold action. With every attack the bandits were increasing their stranglehold on the forest roads, and the villagers were beginning to lose faith.”
He nodded, agreeing with her. Whispers traveled through both Realms about the ineffectiveness of the monarchs. No matter how many times Dev, Tanvir, and their parents rode on patrol, and no matter how often Farah led raids, their actions weren’t enough to stop the bandits and assure travelers’ safety.
“We managed to capture several of the bandits, and it wasn’t long before they spilled all their secrets,” Jess concluded.
Dev would never forget the sight of the vast system of caves the bandits had used. Once they knew where to look, the Realms of Lyrane and Estoria had formed an alliance, their troops setting off in force to put an end to the bandits once and for all. Without Jess’s daring, they would never have known where to find the bandits.
“You saved countless lives,” he said.
“I did my duty,” she replied, brushing off the praise.
As he studied her profile, he suddenly felt as if he knew exactly what sort of woman she was. The determined little girl he’d once known had turned into a force to be reckoned with, a woman who would act, who would lead by example, and it stirred something within him.
Chapter 12
After several restless nights spent at the manors of various lords and ladies, Jess reluctantly agreed to give up the search. She could no longer fool herself into believing Dev was still in Lyrane, no matter how much it tore at her heart to think of him slipping through her fingers. They set off for Rillas, riding hard, a new sense of urgency driving them. Lost in her worries, Jess didn’t see that her advance guard had ridden back until one of them spoke to her.
“Your Highness, someone approaches.” Squinting, Jess could just make out a minuscule rider speeding toward them. Tanvir’s hand went to his sword, as did the hands of their guards, who moved their horses into a protective circle around Jess and Tanvir. Everyone was tense as they waited, and Jess felt a surge of relief mixed with apprehension as she recognized the rider as one of Medhan’s messengers.
“Stand down. It must be news from Medhan,” Jess said, her heart lurching. Everyone relaxed but the guards remained clustered around the prince and princess.
“Your Highness, I bring news from Lady Medhan,” the messenger gasped, winded. He held a sealed parchment out and Jess snatched it from his fingers. Tanvir stared at it, his face tense.
“You’ve done well. There’s a manor not two leagues from here. Show my royal seal to the lady and she will provide you with food and shelter,” Jess said, handing the messenger some coin and her seal.
“Thank you, Your Highnesses.” The young man bowed his head and rode off.
Jess broke the message’s seal, her hands shaking, while her guards moved a respectful distance away. Her eyes flew over the missive, and what she read made her heart speed up, her breath quickening at the news.
“Medhan has discovered two important pieces of information: a small ship set sail from Mykus two days ago, carrying passengers to Moritan, and she has received word from her spies that there has been an influx of troops to Skyhold over the course of the last several weeks. She would have had the message sooner, had an ill wind not sent the ship carrying it off course.”
Tanvir looked as if he wanted to explode. “Had we known this—”
“I know,” Jess cut in. “But it’s no use worrying about what we might have been able to do. We must focus on our next step.”
“Skyhold is an ancient tower that was once in the hands of the Reykstend family, but those lands were given to the Turvis family when Mallaric the Elder executed Lord Reykstend for treason.”
“But the Turvis family has always been loyal to both Mallarics.”
“It’s not the Turvis family that’s behind this, it’s Ellaria Reykstend. She must have made the Turvises a better offer.”
Gaping, Jess stared up at him. “You think Ellaria is making a play for the throne of Moritan?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then why take Dev? What could he do to help her secure the throne?”
“Perhaps her ambitions extend beyond Moritan.”
Horror coursed through Jess. “You think she means to conquer each of the Five Realms.”
“And she has taken Dev as bait in the hopes that we will come after him. If she can eliminate us—”
“She’ll strike a crippling blow to both Lyrane and Estoria, in one fell swoop.”
He nodded, his mouth hardening into grim lines. “And Deshira and Corland have weakened themselves—and their treasuries—with their constant skirmishing against one another.”
It was difficult to remain where she was. A wild impulse to gallop off and charter the next ship to Moritan consumed her, and she fought against the mania. As if reading her mind, Tanvir put a hand over hers, restraining her.
“This is why Ellaria took Dev,” he said, his voice harsh. “She knew it would be the best way to provoke an emotional reaction from you. She cannot defeat the combined forces of Estoria and Lyrane in a fair battle, so she seeks to destroy us from within. You cannot allow her to succeed.”
His words penetrated the fog of rage and Jess crumpled, forcing him to grab her reins and hold her horse steady.
“Jess, this news pains me as much as it pains you, but we must be rational and we must act deliberately.”
“We must unite the Realms,” Jess said. Her spine
stiffened and her words were filled with ice. “We will have one chance at this, and I want to crush Ellaria. I want to wipe the Reykstends from the Realms, once and for all.”
“As do I. But we would be wise to have Corland and Deshira on our side as well. Even if Lyrane and Estoria stand united, Ellaria could still win, if she can somehow lure Corland and Deshira to her side. It’s imperative we reach Rillas as soon as possible.”
Nothing more needed to be said. Jess took the reins back from Tanvir and spurred her horse into a gallop, Tanvir and the guards pounding up the road behind her.
The rest of the day passed in a blur. Spring’s last glory painted the countryside in brilliant colors, but Jess didn’t see the delicate pink blooms on the trees, the fresh green of the grass, and the vibrant yellows, reds, and purples of spring flowers. Lyrane was renowned for its scenic countryside, something that filled her with pride, but it seemed to Jess that the beauty, the colors of her world, were slowly bleeding away.
That night, long after the others had fallen asleep, Jess huddled next to the fire, arms wrapped around herself to try to keep the shaking at bay. Whenever she was distressed she turned to Dev, and though this sometimes meant she had to resort to the agony of sending messages by bird and waiting for them to be returned, just the thought of his soothing words was enough to ease her tension. Without Dev she found it difficult to deal with her emotions. She had never been good at dealing with them, had always been far more comfortable with action.
Tanvir wasn’t immune to the strain either. Jess doubted he was aware of it, but when he thought deeply expressions played across his face, and she could watch him shift from anger to confusion to frustration to desperation. The problem with being Tanvir was that it was necessary to think of and analyze every possible outcome. For Jess, there was only one: she would find Dev.
She was still awake when the sun rose the next morning, and her hands were a blur as she prepared her horse, saddling her, watering her, and feeding her with record speed. The others tried speaking to her but Jess ignored them. Her mind had no room for anything other than getting on the road to Rillas and getting on it immediately. Not bothering to wait until the others were finished breaking their fast, she leapt on her horse and sped off, hearing them cry out at having been left behind. She knew it was rude, but she could control her impatience no longer.
I don’t care about anyone else right now. Dev is the only one who matters.
“Jess! Jess, wait!” Tanvir shouted, galloping up behind her. Biting back a scream of annoyance, Jess stopped her horse, Tanvir coming to a halt beside her.
“Why did you just take off like that?” he demanded. “The guards weren’t ready and it’s not safe for you to ride alone!” His face was flushed with anger.
“I can’t stand still anymore, Tanvir, I can’t. I’ll go mad.”
He grabbed her arm, not exactly roughly but not exactly gently either. “This isn’t just about you.” His eyes blazed, and she sucked in a breath, shocked. Never before had she seen him like this. “Doesn’t it occur to you that there are others who are just as worried, who suffer just as much as you do?”
Yanking her arm from his hand, she thrust her face up to his, feeling her own anger rising. “I don’t care. I don’t care what anyone else thinks or feels. I can’t care. All I can do is try to drown out the screaming in my head, and the only thing that works is to keep moving. If I stop for one second, I feel like I’ll fall into a deep, dark pit and I’ll never be able to climb out.”
“You can’t do this alone.” Tanvir’s voice was fierce, and he didn’t back down an inch. “If you run off, blindly blundering around because you can’t be bothered to try to contain your emotions, Dev might be the one who suffers. And by the gods, if that happens, Jess, I’ll never forgive you.”
The words hit their mark and she recoiled. Tears flooded her eyes, and she wanted to tear her hair out by the handfuls. “Damn you, Tanvir. I can’t live with that and you know it. It’s my fault Dev’s gone.”
“No, it isn’t,” he said in a firm voice. “It’s Ellaria’s fault and hers alone. It’s time for you to accept that you can’t control the forces of the world. Sometimes you’re going to be carried along by the tide.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
To her surprise, he pulled her into his arms, giving her a tight embrace. “It’s okay to be weak sometimes. Even you can’t be strong all the time. You’re your own worst enemy. Let me help you.”
She hugged him back, feeling some of the tension in her neck ease. What he said was true and, yet, she wanted to hang onto her guilt, though she couldn’t say why. “I don’t deserve your help,” she admitted.
“Neither does Dev.”
It amazed her that he could joke at a time like this, but she realized it was his way of coping. By holding onto the pretense that he was the long-suffering brother harassed by an annoying older brother, he could keep his pain at bay. She wasn’t sure it was any more efficient than her own methods but she was hardly in a position to judge.
“I’ll try harder, I promise.”
“I’ll hold you to that promise.” Though his voice was stern, his expression had softened.
Jess did her best to compose herself before the guards caught up with them. Taking a deep, shaky breath, she closed her eyes and pictured Dev. Her heart ached and her throat tightened but she held onto her memories of him, promising herself that they would make more, many more. She had a hard time believing it.
Chapter 13
His cheek was on fire. With a protracted groan, Dev managed to drag his eyes open. He lay sprawled on the floor of the ship, his legs tangled around the table. Trying to lift his head so he could look around the cabin caused a wave of dizziness that nearly knocked him unconscious again, and he allowed his head to fall back down to the floor. Raising a shaking hand to his cheek, he probed it gingerly. A bolt of pain shot through him and he sucked a breath in through his teeth, forcing himself to feel the bone so he could assess the damage. Gasping from a combination of relief and white hot pain, he decided the bone was likely fractured, but the skin over his face was intact and the bone didn’t feel displaced.
Every muscle in his body tensed at the sound of a loud groan coming from the other end of the cabin. Ellaria. He had hoped she was dead but it appeared luck wasn’t in his favor. At the very least, then, he hoped she had broken every bone in her body. Unfortunately for him, this proved not to be the case. He heard a shuffling sound, then Ellaria loomed over him, looking decidedly worse for the wear but disappointingly intact.
“You’re still alive,” she rasped. Her arm hung at a strange angle, and he suspected she had dislocated her shoulder. He hoped it hurt, a lot.
“If only the same weren’t true for you,” he snarled. He calculated the distance between them but, bruised and battered as she was, Ellaria was apparently still in command of her faculties. She stood too far away for him to reach her without taking a couple of strides, and though he no longer felt the effects of the drugs, the combination of his illness and injuries had left him too weak for more than one strike. He was determined to make it count. Carefully, he gathered his strength, running through several possibilities in his head.
“Daryn!” Ellaria called. There was a commotion outside the door and one of Ellaria’s lackeys burst into the cabin, cudgel held aloft.
Letting his breath out in a hiss, Dev allowed his muscles to relax. His opportunity to attack Ellaria was lost, and he tried his best to fight back the frustration that left a bitter taste in his mouth.
“We’ve run aground, Your Greatness,” Daryn said. “But we’re not far from shore. We can take the rowboats but we’ll have to hurry; we won’t escape notice for long. We’ll have the boats ready in ten minutes or so.”
“See to our prisoner. I’m sure he’s anxious for something to soothe his nerves.” Aiming a vicious kick at Dev’s ribs, she strode past him, but he refused to give her the satisfaction of hearing him cry out.
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Daryn called for another man, who came in bearing a cloth and a small vial of liquid. Dev struggled, knowing it was in vain, and it didn’t take the two men long to subdue him and clamp the cloth over his face. Fighting to hold his breath, he had the pleasure of hearing a long, unearthly screech that must have come from Ellaria as someone set her shoulder. Smiling at the sense of vicious satisfaction, he finally obeyed his screaming lungs and took in a breath.
To his surprise, the drug didn’t render him unconscious, nor did it make his limbs useless. It did, however, make him compliant and, though he ordered himself to fight back, he no longer had the will to harry his abductors.
“Up you go then,” Daryn said, hauling the prince off the floor and slinging Dev’s arm over his shoulders. “You’re far more likable when you’re this obedient.”
Dev wanted to spit in his eye, but there was a disconnect between his will and his body, and instead he simply stood there placidly while the other man hauled Dev’s free arm over his shoulders. When his two captors began walking, Dev did as well, his feet seeming to move of their own accord.
They hustled him up a staircase and onto the main deck of the ship. Though the sky was still overcast with the last remnants of the storm, the days Dev had spent squinting in the semi-darkness of the decks below had left him unprepared for light, and it seemed to sear itself straight into his brain. Gasping and clamping his eyes shut, he supposed he ought to be grateful it wasn’t sunny outside.
Like a marionette, Dev’s limbs were forced to obey his puppet masters’ commands, and it wasn’t long before they had him loaded into a rowboat, his two captors coming along for the ride. As they were lowered to the water below, Dev watched the flurry of activity that was taking place on deck, and it dawned on him that not everyone would be getting off the ship. Indeed, by the time Dev and his captors had reached the water, a shout went up from the decks, and the frantic crew began flinging themselves overboard and swimming toward the retreating boats. Dev closed his eyes and turned his head as one of his captors smashed a cudgel into the head of a crew member who’d made the mistake of trying to reach their boat. In his mind’s eye, he kept seeing Jess on the receiving end of the blow.
[Fairytale 02] - Asleep (2013) Page 7
