Dedication
To my family
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Maps
Veran
Tamsin
Lark
Veran
Tamsin
Veran
Lark
Tamsin
Lark
Veran
Tamsin
Lark
Veran
Tamsin
Lark
Veran
Tamsin
Lark
Tamsin
Veran
Lark
Tamsin
Veran
Tamsin
Lark
Veran
Tamsin
Veran
Lark
Veran
Tamsin
Lark
Veran
Tamsin
Lark
Tamsin
Veran
Tamsin
Lark
Tamsin
Lark
Veran
Lark
Tamsin
Veran
Tamsin
Veran
Lark
Tamsin
Veran
Lark
Veran
Lark
Veran
Tamsin
Lark
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise for Sunshield
Also by Emily B. Martin
Copyright
About the Publisher
Maps
Veran
I’m being followed.
I noticed them a few hours ago, as the sun rose across the rugged Ferinno Desert, turning the distant wash of the South Burr to eye-searing gold. To give my watering eyes a break, I had twisted in my saddle to look back into the lingering purple dawn, and that’s when I saw them—the helms and tack of soldiers, glinting in the dust, following my line across the sagebrush flats.
I chew my lip and scan the ground again. Thanks to the still-damp soil from last night’s hellacious thunderstorm, my horse Kuree is leaving deep hoofprints as clearly as if I was stamping a trail for the Moquoian soldiers to follow. I’m well off Lark’s course, so I’ve yet to see any prints left from her horse, or an errant paw mark from a loping coydog, but maybe that’s just part of her power—leaving no mark on the landscape.
I try to shake that notion. Lark’s not a magical desert sun goddess. And she’s not a bandit, either.
She’s a princess.
Drowning my anxiety at the pursuing soldiers is a now-familiar wave of . . . of, Light, I don’t even know what this emotion is. Shame? Regret? Astonishment at my own stupidity? I traveled with Lark for six days across the desert, saw her eyes from inches away as she hauled me down a ridge, saw the freckles mixed in with the dirt and the eyeblack on her cheeks, and not once did I make any connection to her twin sister, Eloise.
She was wearing a bandanna, I insisted to Rou just hours ago as we both stood aghast in the rain. The eyeblack, the dreadlocks, the hat, the be-damned sun always blazing behind her . . .
But no. In the long, lonely ride through the night, I’ve finally realized what I wasn’t seeing. Lark’s difference from Eloise goes further than hairstyle and sunburn. Eloise is like her father, Rou—amiable, generous, easy, with a quick smile and a ready laugh.
Lark—Moira—Moira Alastaire, she isn’t like Rou.
Lark is like her mother.
The way she stands with her shoulders thrown back, the way she uses silence to intimidate and establish power, the way she turns a rock or a bucket or her horse’s saddle into a throne, the judicious way she hands out approval.
The way she uses all that hardness as a front for how much she actually cares about the people around her.
Eloise is like Ambassador Rou.
Lark is like Queen Mona.
I twist in the saddle again. The dust cloud seems closer, or maybe the growing light is just making it more obvious against the long shadows thrown by the dusky sage. I’m leading them right to her, right to the hidden camp in Three Lines Canyon. But I don’t dare veer off to try to lose them in a creek or rocky rise—once Lark reaches her canyon, she’s not going to stick around. And I can’t risk losing her trail.
If I don’t find her in Three Lines, if she disappears into the Ferinno, there’s no way I’ll see her again unless she wants me to.
Which, given current circumstances, is beyond impossible.
I shake myself, slapping my cheeks. I’ve pushed Kuree through the night, only stopping to rest once the Owl star rose, and then for less than an hour. I didn’t sleep. I paced back and forth under the wheeling star as it eased above the horizon.
The Owl star. I grimace. I am such a faker, pretending to be one of Mama’s scouts, pretending I’ve sat through the night watches in the canopy platforms, sharing the culture of the Wood Guard around the campfires. Bat star, Wolf star, Owl star, Whippoorwill star. I know all the good-natured grumbles about each one, all the jibes and jokes about who takes which watch, how the Wolf star is the worst, because no matter how you slice it you never get a decent sleep, how the Owl star is the loneliest, how the Whippoorwill star will make you crazy with the predawn birdsong.
I know it all, but it’s not mine. Not truly. I’m no Woodwalker. I’m no scout. My chances at entering the Wood Guard were foiled long ago, when it became clear my childhood seizures weren’t just freak occurrences. At ten years old, when my friends were all being fitted for their trainee uniforms, I was being tailed by a physician, ready with ointment and nausea pills and clean clothes for when I puked or pissed myself as my body relaxed after seizing. They moved me from Vynce’s room back into the old nursery, so my physician could sleep in the adjoining nurse’s room. They made me sit instead of stand, walk instead of run, take long rests after dancing. They made me stay at my father’s side in the council room, instead of hurrying along with my mother as she ran ridges and checked caches and trained scouts in the language of the Silverwood.
Thinking of Mama and Papa does nothing to ease my anxiety. They would die if they knew where I was and what I was doing. Not the racing after a notorious outlaw—they’ve both done worse—but rushing into the merciless desert, alone, after a string of near-sleepless nights, without enough supplies, and after I’ve already had two seizures within a week of each other. That’s the shortest lapse between episodes I’ve had since I was fifteen.
What choice do I have, though? I twitch my head, trying to banish the cobwebby exhaustion fuzzing the edges of my brain.
Three Lines. Have to get to Three Lines.
I look over my shoulder again at the pursuing Moquoians. I’ve spent so much energy worrying about Lark and Rou and Eloise and myself that I’ve spared almost no thought for Tamsin and Iano. Tamsin is, after all, the reason I first rode out into the desert to find Lark. Despite being weak and starved, she made it through the ride from her prison cell over the past two days, but the chance I thought she’d have to recuperate in Pasul was whisked away by the soldiers combing the town for her and the Moquoian prince. Instead of resting, she and Iano had to bolt into the mountains, angling for a hamlet in the giant redwood forests of the western coast.
By the Light, I hope she’s all right. I suppose I should be glad the soldiers are following me and not her. If she and Iano can stay hidden long enough to find out who kidnapped her and blackmailed Iano, then something might be salvaged of this smoking wreck. But if they’re caught before they can pinpoint who their enemy is . . . my mind wheels. It could mean a coup in Moquoia.
And as the Eastern ambassadors—me, Rou, Eloise—are purporte
dly involved, it could mean full-out war.
I almost laugh, giddy with lack of sleep and gripping anxiety. I set out on this journey to Moquoia two months ago with dreams of political victories to call my own, and instead I may have started international war.
Kuree noses toward some tough grasses, and I squeeze her flanks with my knees.
“Come on,” I murmur. The South Burr is nearer—soon I’ll ford the water, and then it’s just a matter of finding that grassy trace leading up into the caprocks. Hopefully I’ll find the little track left by the comings and goings of Lark’s camp. If I’m lucky, I may even spot her making for the mouth of the canyon.
And if I’m really, really lucky, she might decide not to kill me on sight.
Tamsin
I open sticky eyes to a yellow morning. Impulsively I shift to look for the light from the tiny window in my cell wall, only to realize the light is everywhere. Morning is everywhere, not trapped beyond dingy adobe walls but rising, nudging, laying wet over the cloak wrapped around my shoulders. I shiver and then regret it—the movement replaces the hazy sleep with a spiky headache.
“Tamsin?”
I roll over, clumsily, because half my body doesn’t feel like it belongs to me and the other half feels full of rocks. A face swims just a few inches from mine, golden-pale against the loose fall of black hair.
“Ia’o,” I say, and wince.
“Tamsin,” he says again, and I wonder if this is just what life is now, repeating each other’s names in lieu of conversation. He shifts upright a little more, and I realize the warmth along my back wasn’t from the cloak, but from him pressed up against me.
“How are you? Did you sleep? Don’t . . . you don’t have to try to speak.” A hopeless kind of look crosses his face, as if he can’t come up with a suitable alternative. “Just . . . do you want to sit up?”
I wrap my grimy hand around his and let him help me struggle upright. I hang my head for a moment, waiting for the throbbing in my temples and tongue to lessen. It doesn’t. Iano rubs my back.
Memories of the last twenty-four hours are coming back to me—the flight from Pasul into the hills with nothing more than a half-lame horse and the clothes on our backs, hours of silent travel uphill, probably a few more hours where I fell asleep on the horse’s back, and then the short foray off the trail to find a decent place to lie on the ground and continue sleeping. I lift my head. The place we chose is little more than a marginally flat place on the upper slopes of the Moquovik Mountains, populated by talus, wind-bent juniper, and a dastardly breeze. The horse stands a few paces away, cropping the pitiful strands of grass clinging to the rocks. I realize that we aren’t quite as unequipped as I thought—leaning against the horse’s tack on the ground is Iano’s bone-white longbow and quiver of blue-fletched arrows.
“I think we’re getting close to the rainshadow,” Iano says. “We got higher than I thought we would last night. Tonight’s camping . . . may be harder.”
I’ll say it will be. The eastern slopes of the Moquoviks are cold and sparse but dry, at least. If we cross the rainshadow today, though, chances are high we’ll be soaking wet as well as cold, and we have only Iano’s traveling cloak to share between us. Realizing said cloak is wrapped only around my shoulders, and not his, I start to slip it off, but he puts his hand on mine to stop me.
“Keep it on a little longer, Tamsin. You look . . . you just keep it.”
I look atrocious, most likely, spider pale and sheep shorn, cheeks swollen with the unhealed wounds in my mouth. As if following my thoughts, his gaze drifts down to my lips.
“Would you let me see again?” he asks quietly. “In the daylight. I didn’t get a good look yesterday.”
Gingerly I part my lips. He places his thumb gently on my chin and tilts my face toward his. I’m facing into the morning sky, so it must be no trouble to see the swollen split in my tongue. His chest rises with a short breath, and he draws me against him.
“I’m sorry.” His voice is anguished against the murdered fuzz of my hair. “Tamsin, I—I’m sorry. I never thought . . .” His grip tightens. “I’m going to find them. They’ll pay for what they’ve done, I swear it. And then I’m going to marry you and crown you queen of this country.”
Now that’s an amusing image—me floating silently around Tolukum court in Queen Isme’s scarlet silks, with her twin jeweled combs perched on my shaved head. I shake my head against his chest and lean back, in part because hearing him talk this way turns my stomach, and because his shirt button is pressing into my lip and it all hurts too much.
I swipe a patch of dirt beside us and scratch a few letters with a twig.
HIRES, I write.
He frowns at my word. “The Hires?”
I nod.
“What about them?”
I circle my hand, wanting him to think about the group of fanatics who planned the attack on my coach. One of my captors, Poia, was a Hire—a group with the firm political belief in the hierarchy that places slaves and bond laborers at the very bottom of society, while wage earners like herself occupy a higher rung.
When Iano doesn’t comment, I write in the dirt again.
STILL OUT THERE.
“Well, of course they’re still out there,” he says. “I didn’t know they might be involved until last night.”
Surely he must realize that we can’t accomplish anything until we can pinpoint who in our court is affiliated with the Hires. It’s not a desirable or admirable label to be branded with, despite the fact that some of them have literally branded themselves with tattoos stating exactly that. Those can be kept hidden, though, and whoever the traitor is has clearly kept their association a secret to avoid losing allies. But those extremist views must have colored all of their politics, and that, ultimately, is what makes them dangerous—a vocal supporter could be pinpointed and their influence diluted.
A quiet one, a secret one, who can influence without being exposed . . . that’s the real threat.
I try to put some of this into words, scratching them carefully in the dirt, but there are too many, and the soil is too pebbly. Iano puzzles at my work, and my frustration spikes at the piling up of words I can’t speak. My head still aches, my body buzzes with fatigue, and my stomach rumbles, ravenous again after breaking my hunger strike. But before I can muster the energy to clear the ground for writing again, we both freeze.
From the direction of the path comes the unmistakable sound of horses’ hooves on rocky ground. We’re about a bow shot off the track, but there’s little cover between here and there, only a few boulders shielding us from view. All anyone would have to do is . . .
“Hang on, look,” says a muffled voice. “Doesn’t that look like prints? Somebody veered off the path.”
“Probably a shepherd.”
Yes, it is absolutely a shepherd, listen to your idiot friend, please listen. My mind wheels and I lock gazes with Iano. His fingers creep toward his bow and quiver, but hesitantly, as if he’s not sure what he’ll do with them once he gets them in his grip.
“Tending what, rocks? There’s no grazing up here, not even for goats. Come on, let’s just take a look and then we’ll head on down. The captain won’t notice a five-minute delay.”
Hooves crunch on stone; rocks go slithering down the slope. Behind us, our horse lifts his head from the grass.
Iano’s fingers close on his bow, but by now we both know who’s coming around the bend—two soldiers, in the black-and-white livery of Tolukum Palace, with the redwood cone crest on their chests.
They’re in single file, so the first one rounds the nearest boulder and practically falls off his horse in surprise.
“Oh!” he says. His gaze flicks between the two of us. “Oh . . .”
“What?” says his companion, still behind the boulder. “What is it?”
He’s young, and wearing the orange belt of a new recruit; he’s probably never seen a portrait of Iano, let alone been in close enough proximity to see his fa
ce. And neither of us is looking particularly royal at the moment—Iano’s hair is loose and rumpled, with no pin or jewels, and his shirt and trousers, though finely made, are filmed with dirt and mud. I, of course, look worse. Maybe we can pass for innocent travelers.
But the soldier’s gaze doesn’t linger on Iano—it jumps to me.
“Oh!” he says again, and his hands begin to fumble around his saddle.
“Dammit, Olito, what is it?” demands his companion, attempting to edge his horse around the boulder.
“That’s—it’s the accomplice!” Olito says frantically. “It’s . . . look, look—she’s just as the orders said . . .”
Accomplice?
I realize now what he’s fumbling for. A crossbow. He wrenches a quarrel from under his saddle flap and jams it in place, awkwardly winding the crank.
“Let me see, Olito, move your damned horse—”
Iano jumps to his feet and draws his bow. It’s a beautiful movement, graceful and fluid, wonderful for a relaxed afternoon of targets at the royal hunting lodge, but not at all comforting when facing the prospect of two loaded crossbows. All the thrilling appreciation I’ve ever had for his clever handling of his artisanal bow vanishes as I wonder why on earth he didn’t choose a more modern weapon to train with.
Olito draws his crossbow up to sight, but his companion is finally maneuvering his horse around his, making the animal sidestep and bob and Olito’s aim waver.
“Hold your quarrel, Olito, hang on, let’s just make sure—by the colors.” His companion finally gets a clear look at me, twisted halfway in the saddle as his horse negotiates the rocky slope. “You’re right!”
I do the only thing I can think of given the circumstances.
I flee.
I scramble on leaden fingers and toes for the cover of another boulder. I hear the whir of a crank, and a quarrel skips off the rocks where I’d been sitting.
“Hold your quarrel!” Iano roars behind me. “How dare you—by order of the crown, hold your quarrel!”
But several things then happen at once. There’s another wind of a crank, and then a twang of a string as Iano releases, and all those afternoons of targets and darts and fox-in-the-hole funnel right into his arrow as it punctures the young soldier’s throat. Olito slumps in the saddle, his reloaded crossbow clattering to the rocks. The horses spook, their frantic movements dislodging rocks and adding to the disarray. The second soldier panics, first grabbing for his crossbow, and then abandoning it for his saddle horn as his horse bolts instinctively down the mountainside. But the terrain is too loose, and too steep, and the animal makes it only a few strides before it stumbles. The soldier is half-thrown from its back, but he barely makes it to the ground before the horse rolls right over him. There’s a horrible sight of four flailing hooves in the air, of flying rocks, and then the horse disappears over the sharp lip of the mountain, the sound of grinding stone following it down.
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