“He fears the challenge!” shouted one of the Darzai.
“He would let her bleed for him,” snarled another.
Robert’s gaze met Aurelia’s.
I am fine, she wanted to tell him.
But of course he already knew. He knew what she looked like when she was not fine.
He turned and walked away.
Outrage filled the air. “Ze-tir!” men cried.
She recognized the desert word for “coward.” Anger swelled within her. What right did they have to malign Robert? He had done more to protect her than any of them would ever know. She inhaled her fury to keep from firing it at the throng.
“Do not defend him, Aurelia Lauzon.” The Oracle emerged from the men and stepped to her side. “You will only make his path more difficult.” He shifted his focus to the owner of the fallen sword and spoke, not in the quiet voice that she had grown to identify with the spiritual leader, but with a power that traveled over the entire crowd, first in the language of the desert and then in Tyralian. “A fool,” he said, “extends a challenge without knowing the worth of his opponent.”
• • •
“Robert!” Aurelia paused in her search, her pulse racing. She had found him, or rather she had found his horse, at the height of the riverbank. Horizon was bridled, saddled, and already bearing a load. Though no rider. A steep, ten-foot slope dropped below her, large rocks jutting down to rushing water.
She eased down the rocks, her fingers clutching for handholds, her weight hugging the riverbank. Small stones tumbled beneath her boots. Then she slid at last down the surface of a curved boulder.
The young man she was seeking stood in its shadow, his gaze on the towering obsidian cliff across the Fallchutes.
He did not look at her.
“Robert, those men had no right—”
“Don’t.” He cut her off. “Don’t defend me.”
She had not defended him; the knowledge burned in her gut. She visualized the crowd shouting at him less than a quarter of an hour earlier. She had done this. Had turned him into a target. The Oracle’s statement had made that much clear. She spoke: “They do not know you.”
Robert whirled on her. “I don’t know myself!”
Then he flinched. She had forgotten, in her rush to find him, about the cut on her chin and the dried blood still on her face.
“I know you,” Aurelia said. She reached for his hand. If he had agreed to fight—if he had accepted that sword and won—the bond that had begun to form between her and the men would have shattered.
His gaze lifted as a dark eagle sailed out from the cliff, its sharp eyes no doubt scanning the rocks below. Black wings pumped once, then tilted. And the bird curved west.
“I’m leaving,” Robert said.
The words sliced her chest. “No.” She had tried patience. Had tried to allow him the time to sort through his emotions and the issues of their earlier quarrel, but he had come to the wrong conclusion. “You cannot believe I would be safer without you. Look in your heart and tell me you honestly think you could have convinced me not to return to Tyralt.”
He crouched down, removed a handkerchief from his pocket, and plunged the cloth into the water. “I could have tried.”
She would not let him leave her over this same argument. They’d already had this fight. And she had won. “Is that a good enough reason to blame yourself?” she argued now. “If you need someone to blame, blame Melony.”
He gave a weak smile, then yanked forth the handkerchief and twisted it. “You can be so self-centered, Aurelia. What makes you think this decision is about you?”
Because ever since the early attempts on her life, Robert’s arguments were always about her. Her safety.
“I’m riding for my family’s homestead,” he clarified.
Her breath stalled. Of course he needed to see his home. She understood that need better than anyone. But there was no reason for him to ride ahead on his own. “Then I’ll come with you.”
“You’re the leader, Aurelia. You can’t leave your forces.” He held the cloth to her chin. Cold. Like ice.
The chill spread through her. She knew he was speaking the truth. The bond that had formed this morning was only the beginning. And when those forces reached the frontier, there would be no time for a detour to the Vantauge homestead.
“You’ll be safe,” he said, lowering the cloth. “There isn’t a man here who wouldn’t defend you.”
How dare he use this morning to convince himself she did not need him!
“I trust the Oracle,” he continued.
Her tone turned bitter. “Because he can read the future?”
“Not the future …” Robert paused. “I don’t believe he reads the future. I think he reads people.”
What flaw had the Oracle seen in her, then, that had led to his initial refusal to follow her?
Robert continued, “I can’t keep hiding behind your strength, Aurelia. Your mission.”
“Our mission,” she said.
He turned again toward the cliff. “I know you need to lead these men, that you’re making the only choice you can; but I don’t know”—his voice shook—“where I fit.”
At my side. “You belong with this force as much as anyone.” She had seen the anguish in his eyes every time they turned west. “The frontier is your home.”
“And I can’t even decide whether to fight for it!” His words crashed off obsidian.
You’ll fight, she wanted to say. You’ll defend Tyralt with as much loyalty and strength as you have defended me.
But she knew he had to make that choice for himself.
His eyes were shut now, his jaw hardening. He had closed himself off from her. Then his gaze turned again west.
And she understood that she had lost.
This was not the same fight. He was not leaving because of her.
Her own heart ached at the thought of his parents in danger: Mary, who had been more caring than any woman Aurelia had ever known, and Mr. Vantauge, who had treated Aurelia as an individual. And as someone with a lot to learn. The urgency she felt—the need to ride as fast and as hard as she could—that need must be a thousand times greater for Robert. How could he be expected to find his place within this mission when his parents’ survival was in question?
He could not, she realized.
Aurelia turned and grappled her way up the rocks. Sharp edges bit into her palms, the pain almost a solace. Her skirt caught in a crevice. She reached down, wrenched loose the material, then propelled herself to the top of the bank.
His footsteps followed.
She forced herself to face the gray haze of the western sky. His family was in that haze.
“Tell them,” Aurelia whispered. “Tell your family for me that we will do all we can.”
His fingers brushed hers.
She gripped back, clinging with ferocity.
Then his free hand came around her head and pulled her to him. His mouth dropped, strong on hers. Intense. Belying his confusion, the distance of the past months, and the idea that either of them could win. She returned the kiss with her own desperation, trying to tell him in touch all the words she could not retrieve, had never been able to retrieve, and might never be able to voice.
He severed the kiss. “I’ll return,” he choked. Then pulled back, swung onto Horizon. And rode away.
As if her grip had been nothing.
As if he had not torn and taken part of her soul.
As if he could ride alone into a region assailed by war and promise.
To survive.
Chapter Five
VILLAINESS—SCENE I
The Palace, Tyralt City
Death, in Melony’s view, would have been preferable to formal correspondence. She plucked a green quill pen from her jade vase and twirled the quill’s richly dyed plume, then seated herself at her state desk. Its surface had been repainted an emerald shade, but the mahogany stain her father had preferred continued to bleed th
rough—a reminder of what she’d had to endure in order to obtain his official chamber.
And what she still had to endure. No matter how wide she left the door open or how much gardenia-scented perfume had been wafted within the repainted space, the former odor—a musty smell she associated with ancient books—refused to disappear. Like certain members of her father’s council.
She glared at the message on her desk, twelve lines of subversive script from the Head General of her military. A letter in which he had the gall to suggest an alternate course of action. And which ended with the line: I assure Your Majesty the capital is already quite safe.
Melony dipped the quill, addressed a fresh sheet of parchment, and then allowed the ink to fall in a perfect blot over the general’s title. When she had ordered the Tyralian military to the capital, she had meant the entire military. Not all but those strategically placed elsewhere. And when she demanded her forces within the month, she did not mean half of those forces within a month and a half.
Must she write this response at all? It would be so much more fun to replace her ancient Head General. Though the man had been promoted due to active service, during her grandfather’s era. And her father, regrettably, had failed to encourage military action of any kind. Which meant, even more regrettably, that her mother was correct and there was no one else with the experience to take the general’s place.
The plume drifted over the half-blank parchment. For years Melony had played the role of the perfect princess, attempting to fulfill her mother’s desires and believing such an achievement was possible.
But Melony was tired of condescension. Tired of criticism. Tired of hearing no. She wanted to hear yes.
Yes, Your Majesty, all of your forces are now in place to defend Tyralt City.
Yes, my darling daughter, of course you may remove any general you wish.
Yes, Your Majesty, it is an honor to share a border with your kingdom, and I will await your permission to cross it.
She smashed the quill into the blotter.
An unsteady knock came from the open doorway where a young guardsman hovered, his dark head down, his gaze rooted on his boots. She recognized his narrow shoulders, thin frame, and ill-fitting uniform.
Any interruption at this juncture was better than formal correspondence. “You may enter, Corporal.”
He came forward, haltingly. “Y-Your Majesty,” he stuttered. “I think I have access to … a source of information.”
He thought? She had not gathered that impression. If she had, she never would have encouraged him to become an informant. She tapped her pen against the edge of the desk. Waiting.
“This source claims that y-your sister …”
The spine of the quill snapped.
“Has returned to Tyralt.”
Melony glared at the bent plume. Her response was sharp. “If you came here for no better reason than to relay the same tired rumor that I have heard every week since my coronation, then you should go.”
His head lifted. “B-But, Your Majesty—”
“Because”—she raised the slender knife that served as her letter opener—“when I have an informant who fails to know the difference between news and rumor, I tend to find him more suited to the forward ranks of the regular army.”
His face turned a splotchy red. “I promise this is not rumor.”
She waited again. Not because she believed him, but because she rather enjoyed watching her sister’s former admirers come to grips with the fact that this was now Melony’s kingdom. Hers. No matter what the Head General or her mother might believe. Without Melony’s approval, neither of them had the power to squash an ant.
Even this one.
The lump in the guard’s throat bobbed. “My source claims your sister has disembarked at Darzai.”
Well, that was a new twist. It was so much more dramatic to have the former crown princess knocking on the very gates of the palace. “How kind of her to choose that location,” Melony replied, sarcasm rich in her voice. After all, Edward of Anthone still owes me her assassination. Perhaps he could borrow a few moments from stealing the northern half of Tyralt in order to fulfill that bargain.
The corporal was clearly too simple for sarcasm. “She and Robert Vantauge—”
Melony stilled, the blade frozen in her hand. “Don’t use that name in my presence.”
“But, Your Majesty, I didn’t say her—”
“Either of those names.” Her voice bordered on a shout. Robert Vantauge; she could picture him quite clearly. Too clearly. When he had asked her father, in full view of the entire court, for the chance to take her sister on an outing; Melony had almost admired his daring.
After all, his cousin had never asked permission to court Melony.
Don’t think about Chris. But her mind swept back to a set of brown eyes ignoring hers from the opposite end of a banquet table, then flashing up to give her an insubordinate wink. Chris’s taunting grin as he spun each of her lady’s maids around the ballroom floor. The brazen flourish of steel when he caught her watching him at sword practice. His confident stride. His smooth face, lean arms, demanding kiss.
“No, Your Majesty,” said the corporal.
She sliced away the broken plume, leaving the pen a barren skeleton. “And your reasons for believing this is anything more than rumor?”
The corporal shifted his stance. “The source of the information claims he would be pleased to speak with you himself … if you might see your way to …”
“Pay for gossip relating to my treasonous sister?”
“N-No, Your Majesty. That is, yes, but—”
“You may consider yourself dismissed.” She returned the skeleton to its vase.
The guardsman backed away. “Th-this man—my source—he’s a sailor who claims to have rowed both your sister and her companion to the docks of Darzai himself. Not two weeks ago.”
“I see.” Melony’s hand closed on the letter opener, the dull blade pressing against her flesh. “Then you may arrange an audience.”
Still the corporal failed to depart. “If the information proves correct, will it be enough to release my father from prison?”
Of course not. He’s dead.
But Melony preferred to punish the guardsman’s insolence by tending his illusions. “He will be freed,” she said, “only if the news leads to her death.”
Chapter Six
THIS LOSING DAY
Robert rode into smoke. He had known since he had first seen that haze on the horizon that only fire could obscure a frontier sky in this relentless gray. And he had tried to convince himself the source might be natural. Might burn itself out long before either he or Aurelia ever had to face their nightmares. But deep down he’d known the season was too early. An awareness proven now by the hillsides rising on either side of him, hills a rare spring green despite the sharp, choking scent that clung to his clothes and Horizon’s coat.
He had avoided the flames—the thick, gray mass that encircled Crossing Canyon.
“If yer lookin’ to fight, ride into it,” an elderly blacksmith at the trading post by the river had told him. “If yer lookin’ to survive, give her and any settlements a wide berth. And stay off the trails.”
The detour had cost Robert three days. More than he had to spare. Aurelia and her forces might well have negated his lead. They would have passed the same trading post by now. He tried not to think of what her response would be to similar directions. How she would ride straight toward the danger.
He had considered turning back as the blackness had stretched farther and wider, but the smoke had become a part of him. His soul. His mind. He could no longer tell the difference between right and wrong. The turmoil that had pushed him here had become thicker and harder to dispel with every mile he rode.
New questions had heightened his inner conflict. Weren’t the frontiersmen and the desert warriors and Aurelia all waging the wrong battle? His cousin had become a scapegoat; would Anthone prove the same
? The ultimate enemy was no old king who had seen his chance for power and taken it. Robert could not fight the sense that no matter how many deaths were achieved here—no matter how much blood spilled—there would be no redemption unless someone was prepared to lift a blade and run it through the heart of Aurelia’s sister. To murder a seventeen-year-old girl.
Had he lost his mind to imagine such an act? Or to imagine that his inability to face it might be an even greater weakness?
His father would know.
Horizon’s hooves splashed through the creek that crooked toward the Zhensen place. Cold water tugged Robert from his ruminations. He could not see the neighbors’ farm from here, nor his parents’ home. He had ridden low between the hills as long as possible.
But now the only choice was to climb. The stallion picked up the pace, as though recognizing the hillside. Along this hill grew yarrow, white herbs Mrs. Vantauge had collected every year for their healing properties. Except when her husband had gathered the herbs for her. Brian Vantauge had dedicated himself to the fields beyond this slope. Land he and his son had plowed, planted, reaped. The barn where they had threshed the grain. The cabin the family had built with their own hands.
At times Robert had resented the farm. The endless hours trekking through dirt, rocks, weeds. The idea that there was nothing more important than this land. That he should be bound by his father’s dream.
Now he longed for that clarity. He drove his heels into his stallion’s withers, urging more speed. Needing answers.
Horizon crested the ridge, and Robert witnessed …
Nothing.
Except two marked graves in a landscape of black ash.
• • •
Aurelia rode through charred dreams. She and the desert riders reached the first burned-out homestead—a blackened cavity—half a week’s ride from the riverside trading post. Her hands clenched Falcon’s reins, memories of other fires clawing at Aurelia’s interior. Everything within her roiled. She bent over in the saddle and expelled her insides upon the ground.
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