Irena makes a sound like a cheep, wavering in the clutch of Lark’s arm.
There’s a silence while we all trade tired glances, our faces ragged in the lamplight.
We did it, I finally say.
Iano nods. “I admit, I doubted whether coming back to the palace was a good idea. But you figured it out just in time. If you’d told me yesterday, I wouldn’t have believed you.”
“I can’t believe it was Fala,” Veran says quietly.
“I can,” Lark says with a grimace. “She is like so many others—thinking people being treated equal is an attack on them.”
“I have a question,” Irena whispers from behind Lark. “It’s just . . . it was no secret what your message was as ashoki, Lady Tamsin. But—how did Fala know she could use you to blackmail the prince? This is the first I’ve heard of you being in love. How did she know?”
I think she told us just now, by accident, I say. Poetry in love letters. I look at Iano. We may have been discreet in public, but we exchanged plenty of letters that would have made things obvious. Mine were hidden in one of my jewelry boxes. Where were yours?
“On top of my wardrobe,” he admits.
Both places easily found by someone cleaning. I shrug resignedly. A mistake.
“One of many.” Iano rubs his eyes. “It’s going to be a nightmare to sort out. We’ll have to be sure she has no more allies in the palace. Someone new will have to be appointed head of staff. And then we’re going to have to figure out how to dissolve the labor bonds and get people either employed or back to where they want to go.”
It would be best, I say, to pass something quickly. Something decisive. Something that dissolves the bond system immediately.
“It’s going to be difficult to get past the ministers,” he says wearily. “I guarantee you the first thing they’ll pounce on is where the money will come from.”
“The Ferinno Road,” Veran says. He stares around at us as we all look at him. “Well—that’s where the money was slated to come from before. We had it all laid out. If Fala hadn’t disrupted everything, we’d probably be heading home with an official agreement in place. Though . . .” His eyes widen. “If Fala hadn’t disrupted everything . . .”
We wouldn’t have Lark, I finish with a smile.
Lark snorts. “Lucky for all of you.”
“Blazes,” Veran says shakily. He turns to her, obviously rattled. “By the Light . . .”
“Cut it out,” she says, her palms pressing her sides.
“I’m serious. Lark—if it weren’t for Fala, I never would have had to come find you.”
“Tamsin also would not have gotten hurt,” she says sharply. “Or Soe. Or any of us. Do not make Fala into an accidental hero. Things happened the way they did, and we can’t change them. So what happens now?”
“You are welcome to stay as guests, of course,” Iano says. “Once we all recover a bit, we could make good progress on the road.”
“I don’t have the authority to make decisions for the East—not on my own,” Veran says. “But more important, it’s September. Dequasi. The reason this was our end date was to beat the autumn floods that wash out the trails in the Ferinno. That means if Lark and I don’t leave for Callais soon, we could be stuck here until the spring.”
“Of course,” Iano says. “It’s just—the road, the funding . . . even after I’m crowned, we can’t make decisions without the collaboration of the East . . .”
“You could come with us,” Veran suggests. “Come to Alcoro. All the right people will be in Callais. From there, we can go forward with everything we planned before.”
I rap the pedestal for their attention. I think going to Alcoro is a good idea. But not yet. Like you, if we travel now, we will be stuck there for the winter, and Moquoia needs to regain its balance after the last few months. What if we plan to meet in Callais once the desert is passable again in the spring? That way you can go home to your families, and we can steady things here. Iano can be crowned. Then we can meet again—and start over.
There’s something like a collective sigh of relief.
“Uah,” Iano agrees.
Veran nods. “That’s a good idea.”
Lark has a pained look on her face—I’m not sure if it’s from her ribs or the thought of what awaits on the far side of the Ferinno.
Are you okay? I ask.
“Uah, yeah, um—the talk of leaving just reminded me.” She rubs the back of her neck. “Someone . . . should maybe go up to Minister Kobok’s rooms and see if he is okay.”
“Why wouldn’t he be okay?” Veran asks.
“I—tied him up.”
“You what?” Iano barks.
“And I punched him in the face,” she says.
I break out into a peal of laughter. Iano claps both his hands to his face in agony.
“What am I going to do with you all?” he groans.
But Veran’s lost the last of his restraint. After a heartbeat of just goggling, he takes two steps toward Lark, clasps her face, and crushes his lips against hers.
Veran
The world shifts underneath me, rollicking like a boat on choppy seas. But there’s too much jostling and clattering to be on a boat. I slit open my eyes and find a sky of canvas stretched over arching timbers, the sunlight piercing through the weave. The air has a dry, sandy taste to it.
“Hey.”
I tilt my head on my stiff neck—not far, because my head is in someone’s lap. They’re silhouetted against the bright canvas.
“Lark?” I croak.
“You’re okay. You seized about an hour ago while we were stopped to water the animals.”
“Did I fall?”
“No. You were sitting. Rat warned us.” She reaches behind me to scratch Rat’s back. He’s sprawled out leisurely among tethered crates. “He got agitated again, started circling and whining around us. We figured out what he was doing and you were able to sit just before it happened.”
I lick my dry lips. “Your dog is magic.”
“He can sense something we can’t,” she says. “It makes me wonder if there are other dogs who can do the same thing. Even a dog who could keep you propped on your side, and bark for help, could make a big difference. Maybe we can look into it, after we’re back.”
I rub my face. “Which is . . . when?”
“We crossed Teso’s Ford this morning. Do you remember that?”
I strain my groggy mind—it’s like trying to see through shifting sand. “Um . . .”
“I’ll start earlier. We caught Fala at Tolukum Palace. Do you remember that?”
“Fala, yeah. I remember that.” I blink a few times, trying to put all the pieces in the right places. Something important happened after that . . .
“Do you remember . . . what came next?”
It was something really important, something bigger and better than anything that’s ever happened to me . . .
Lark leans down and presses her lips to mine, and the memory comes flooding back, as real and thrilling as the moment it first happened. My fingers jump to her neck and thread under her ponytail. Her hair is soft, but the rest of her is not—not her skin, or her lips, or her kiss. She’s solid and purposeful. Her hand moves not to trail absently, but to tilt my cheek for something deeper, her callused palm pressing into my skin. And when that’s achieved, she slides her hand down, her fingers curling around the base of my neck, and her thumb resting lightly over the apple of my throat. I shiver at the feel of her open lips and resting palm, because I know what those hands can do, and instead they’re lying warm and enticing on my skin.
The wagon hits a rut, and we jounce, our foreheads knocking. She grimaces and leans back, combing her fingers over my brow and into my hair. My hand slips from her neck and comes to rest at her belt—I can feel the stiff bandages around her ribs through her shirt.
“That didn’t happen last time,” she says, adjusting her knees under me. “Want some water? Rinse out some of the sand?”
/>
“You don’t taste like sand—not like that first time in the stage.”
“No, but you do. And anyway, I had my bandanna over my mouth then—and it wasn’t a kiss. Here.” She gives me her arm and helps me sit up, guiding me back against the crate she’s leaning on. I take the canteen gratefully and sip. Our shoulders press comfortably against each other.
I lower the canteen. “How are your ribs?”
“Nearly mended. Haven’t been able to ride for too long each day, but in another few days they should be fine.”
I crane my head to look out the back of the barrel-top wagon we’re riding in. The peaks of two more wagons sway behind us, with a few horses and riders in between. We’re in a caravan.
My gaze focuses on one of the riderless horses tethered to another. “That’s Jema!”
“Yeah. She was in the Tolukum stables.” A smile flickers on her lips as she follows my gaze. “I asked about her the morning after we sent Fala to prison. It was partially to escape that audience with the queen Iano was threatening, but it happened anyway. Do you remember that?”
“Bits and pieces.”
“Kobok was arrested.”
I brighten. “That’s right! And he had that gorgeous black eye. He didn’t go quietly, either.”
She shifts uncomfortably. “No. But—he went all the same.”
More things are falling into place now—how Lark had described the way Kobok had been using the Port Iskon name to mask the number and origin of Alcoran slaves, how he’d started using it fifteen years ago to cover up the abduction of the Lumeni princess, how much he howled when he was being led away under the queen’s stoic gaze. And then . . .
“You were officially pardoned, weren’t you?” I say.
“You were, too, and—the ambassador and the princess.” She adjusts her hat anxiously. She’s still wearing the patch leather hat I bought her, though the brim is sliced in two places from the blade of her sword. “We were all pardoned.”
I look down at my fingers, where my seal ring sits again. “And outfitted with a guard escort and brought to Pasul, and then hooked on to the caravan of freed workers traveling back across the Ferinno,” I say. “It’s all back now. There was that lion scare a few nights ago, and that wild thunderstorm, and before that . . . Three Lines.”
We had stopped, like all caravans must, at the South Burr just below the trace to Three Lines. Unlike the last time we were there, the Burr was running low and clear, with barely more than a chuckle in its rapids. Fording would have involved little more than getting our knees wet. But we didn’t cross. There wasn’t time. The caravan driver was wary of that stretch of road, knowing its reputation for being thick with bandits. We didn’t tell him the outlaw he was most afraid of was traveling in his caravan. Lark had stood at the bank, looking up the slope to the golden mesa, silent. When the driver said it was time to move on, she turned without a word and headed back to Jema.
Now her fingers fidget absently in her lap. Before I can second-guess myself, I reach out and take them in mine.
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to go back in and say good-bye.”
She curls her hand around mine. “I said my good-byes already. And . . . it’s just a patch of desert.”
“It was more than that,” I say. “It was your home.”
“It was a crappy home,” she says, looking away. I go silent. I want to tell her that it’s okay—that she doesn’t have to tough things out anymore, not for me or anyone else. But even in my head that sounds silly and patronizing, so I just link my fingers closer through hers. I brush my thumb incrementally across the back of her hand.
She sighs.
“It worked though,” she says. “For a while.”
We sway with the movement of the wagon. I sip from the canteen.
“Are you nervous?” I ask. “About getting to Callais. Seeing Rou and Eloise.”
“Obviously,” she says. “I think I’m . . . more nervous about meeting the queen, though.”
“Alcoro doesn’t have a queen,” I say.
“The queen, you absolute knucklehead, the . . . my mother.”
“Oh!”
She snorts, and I flush. She reaches with her free hand and wraps her fingers in my hair, tugging gently. I grin apologetically, and my gaze strays to her lips, which are curved upward in a half smile. She doesn’t lean closer, though. She lets go of my hair and settles back against the crates with a sigh.
“You probably don’t have to worry about that right away,” I say, flattening my bangs. “Depending on how long it took Rou and Eloise to cross the Ferinno, I don’t think Queen Mona could get to Callais any sooner than we will. And anyway—she never travels to Alcoro. She’s famous for it. Even though we’re allies and her brother Colm lives there, she’s never set foot there. Ma says it’s a burned bridge, all left over from the War of the Prism twenty years ago. My guess is she would travel up through Cyprien and wait for you near the border.”
Lark gives an anxious hum in the back of her throat. “I don’t like the idea of more waiting. I can’t stand the waiting.” She sighs again and unconsciously adjusts the hat on her head. “But I guess it will give me time to see how my campmates are getting on. Sedge and Lila both have probably been mourning Rose hard. I hate that I left them with all the little ones.”
“I’m sure they know you did everything you could.”
She puffs out a breath and looks sideways at me. “What about you? Are you nervous?”
“I’m scared stiff about Eloise,” I admit with a familiar lurch. “I sort of forgot in Moquoia how bad off she was when she left. Crossing the Ferinno while fighting rainshed fever, and with Rou gone to pieces like he was . . . I just hope they made it okay.”
“What about your family? Your ma? Are you excited to tell her all that you did? To show that you could do it all along?”
I open my mouth and then go blank, just leaving it hanging open. I hadn’t thought of things like that.
“If you had asked me a few weeks ago,” I say, my brain turning slowly, “I’d have said yes. That if I got through those kinds of scrapes alive, the first thing I’d do is point them out to all the people who didn’t think I could do it. But the thing is . . . even though I survived, I don’t really feel . . . like I succeeded. Does that make any sense?”
“No,” she says.
“Well, just think about when you collapsed in the water scrape.” I shift uncomfortably. “I was a mess. And then bumbling through Tellman’s Ditch, and the Giantess market—I managed to get out of those just by luck, or because you were there. And then forcing you back into being the Sunshield Bandit, botching the attack . . . getting you captured.” I swallow. “It may have all turned out okay, but I can’t feel like it was a success. I can’t feel like the ends justified the means. And I guess . . . I’m nervous for Mama to hear about it all.”
“Veran,” she says. “Listen—you have to stop thinking that success always comes with trumpets and banners. Success is almost always messy. You did botch the attack.” She does that thing again, winding her fingers in my hair. She never pulls hard enough to hurt. I’m starting to like the pressure that comes with it, the connection she’s trying to make between us. “But then you got up and walked to Tolukum, and you . . .”
“. . . Put my foot in it again,” I say, my cheeks heating. “Fala practically had me wriggling on a hook because I was too dense—”
“Hey,” she says, sliding her hand down from my bangs to my mouth, planting her palm over my lips. “Shut up, okay? That hero thing you have . . . it’s lying to you. I’ve seen you do brave, smart, painful things—and it’s always been in the times you weren’t trying to be a hero. You believed in me—you’ve got to believe in yourself, too.”
I go silent, worrying that thought in my mind. It feels dangerous to approach it—after everything that’s happened, I feel even less ready to believe in myself than I did when I was just fantasizing about how things could be.
“We m
ade it through, I guess,” I say finally. “That’s what matters.”
She grunts. “Yeah, great. Now the hard part can begin.”
I laugh and settle against her, our fingers linked as the wagon creaks and sways, rolling onward toward Callais.
Lark
We splinter off from the caravan after crossing the narrows of the massive canyon of Callais. With the handful of Moquoian guards Iano assigned to us, we ride north along the canyon rim, watching the chasm grow wider and deeper. Soon the river at the bottom is lost to mesas and cliffs within the canyon itself, and then we start seeing hobs, the little clay-and-stone neighborhoods tucked into the overhangs. Before long, the city of Callais rises ahead of us.
I’ve never traveled into the city itself—the few times I’ve ventured this far away from Three Lines was to bring Bitty and Arana and the others back to family, and we always said good-bye down at the crossroads. As more buildings sprout up around us, the knot of dread grows in my stomach. It’s not helped by the jingling of the guards trailing us—I’ve never been in a situation where having a guard following me is a good thing, and I can’t get used to the feeling now.
Callais is a city of whitewashed adobe, gold stone, and red tile, and despite the cool of September, the streets and houses radiate sunlight. Sweat trickles down my neck and forearms, leaving grime marks from the long trek out of the desert. To our right, the old royal palace sprawls into the bright blue sky, now home to the Senate in one wing and the university in another. Veran leads the way through the bright streets, heading toward his friends’ house, where he’s hoping we’ll find Eloise, Rou, and my campmates staying with the ex-queen Gemma and my now-uncle Colm. The strangeness and uncertainty of it all is making my hands shake. I don’t know what I’ll do if my campmates aren’t there. I don’t know what Veran will do if Rou and Eloise didn’t make it, either. We sent a letter ahead a few days ago forecasting our arrival, but there’s no way to tell if it’s been delivered, or who’s on the other end to receive it. Unnerved, I focus on guiding Jema to follow Veran’s horse, trying to fight the feeling of being slowly hemmed in by the rising walls.
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