Exile

by Anne Osterlund

  Robert watched Aurelia. He should have urged her to wait and gather herself before—

  But then a hand reached for his reins, and he had no time to think as his horse launched onto hind legs. Robert looped the leather around his palm and curled against the stallion’s neck.

  Every weapon in the circle now twisted his way.

  “Barak ze Geordian!” Aurelia’s voice ripped through the air.

  Thrice the Jaheem escort had used those words as their party crossed the paths of other tribesmen. And each time, the words had caused the same reaction. As they did now amid the Darzai. The weapons tilted downward, diffusing the tension, and the circle backed away.

  Though it did not open.

  Horizon put forth one last display of powerful kicking, then dropped his forelegs to the ground. But the man in front did not lower his hand. Dark eyes met Robert’s and held there for a prolonged minute, then the guard spoke again, this time in Tyralian. “There are those who seek the stallion with the heart of the desert.”

  I’ll not go through this again, Robert thought as his grip tightened.

  The man continued, “And the mare of the bronze sun.”

  Why would the tribes of the Geordian hold an interest in Falcon? Unless...

  “Who?” Robert asked, though he had received no permission to speak. “Who seeks us?”

  “Those from the capital,” the man replied.

  Palace guards. Robert felt the old shot of failure fire through him. He had brought her to Darzai to take her home, to give her one last moment with her father. Instead her father was dead. And the assassins were here.

  “Let us bring the horses into the city for you,” said the man. “You may retrieve them at the wharf. At the Inn of the Rising Shadow.”

  The speaker shot a quick glance toward Aurelia. “We make this offer to protect Her Royal Highness, Aurelia Lauzon ...”

  Why? Robert’s grip lost its hold on the stallion’s reins.

  “Whom the queen has charged with treason.”

  Treason! The word snagged on the crags of Aurelia’s mind. Did treason mean defiance? Or murder? Or the threat to her sister’s claim to the throne? The thought scalded her interior as she dismounted before the city guards. She didn’t know whether to trust them. They were not friends or neighbors or tribe members with whom she had shared a life-threatening experience.

  But these robed figures had recognized the name of the Oracle. And they had the power and strength of numbers. If these men had wished to kill or arrest her, they could have done so right there. Immediately.

  She had been betrayed more than once by those she knew.

  But during this journey, she had also been saved as many times by those she did not.

  Aurelia handed over the reins, then waited as Robert worked his own way to the same unavoidable choice and gave up his horse’s reins as well.

  On foot, she and he crossed beneath the thickly guarded barrier.

  And entered Darzai.

  The brilliance of their new surroundings clashed against Aurelia’s inner turmoil. For this place was no struggling outpost, as she had imagined. But a city. Red-stoned streets wound in every direction. Buildings, all composed of the same sandstone, curled their way in long connected strips, arching over roads and canals with no thought of separation. And walkways spread out in wide-open paths abloom with life. Island lilies and speckled tigereyes clustered about rows of Minthonian lemon trees and tropical mandarins. Geordian women hawked jewelry beneath rainbow-colored canvases, and men taller than Drew balanced paint jars along scaffolding, while clusters of children ran below, their heads blond, brown, black, red—some even covered in the inked scarves of the Distant Isles.

  She tried to inhale the beauty, but darkness warded her inner gates. Had her expedition held any worth? Or had it only given Melony more power—the chance to plot in safety against their father and now to wait out the mourning period, without challenge, under Elise’s temporary rule?

  Aurelia knew hate was wrong—that it could suck all the beauty from her heart—but as she and Robert traveled down the city’s natural slope, the streets themselves began to fall victim to the shadows. Here the walls were stripped of canvas, and the stone was pitted with old scars. The archways, cracked and unpainted, grew lower and closer together, forming a tunnel that conspired with the saltwater breeze to bombard her with the scent of home.

  They spit her out onto a wharf teeming with soldiers. Not a dozen men, or fifty, but an entire company of Tyralian military crawling over the docks. And only then did she truly comprehend that the hunt had changed. Not her main adversary. Her sister remained the ultimate danger. But there would be no more secret assassins. No more covert palace guards.

  Her sister was the law.

  Robert grabbed Aurelia’s wrist, pulling her back into the tunnel and up against the concave wall, then clasped her palm in what she knew was meant to be a gesture of comfort. “Wait here, I’ll locate the inn and then find us passage ... somewhere.”

  Us.

  Guilt crashed over her as he slipped away into danger. She should never have let him travel back with her this far. For the past month, she had known she must tell him good-bye. Under her father’s rule, Robert would have faced prison if he had returned to the palace. And now ... what could she offer him but a spot beside her at her own execution?

  Perhaps, as he said, he would find passage, but passage where? Even if she boarded a ship for escape, what nation would allow her to disembark? Who could afford the ire of the Tyralian government? She edged from the shadows, her eyes immediately picking him out amid the swarm of military uniforms and duckclothed sailors. The departure would be easier if she left now, but she could not do it. She owed him the truth.

  Rough pressure brushed against her. “Ye seen this girl?” The wool gray of a man’s uniform scratched her arm, and a paper was thrust into her hand.

  She looked down.

  At a sketch of her own face.

  The paper tumbled.

  “Hey!” The soldier snatched it back up, then jerked her arm. “I asked ye a question.”

  “I haven’t seen her,” Aurelia replied.

  His fingers dug into her skin. “Ye’ll address me with respect.”

  She had missed the insignia on the upper corner of his jacket. “Yes, Corporal.”

  “And ye’ll look at me!”

  She faced up, desperately hoping he would not see past her desert-burned skin.

  A leer edged across his face. “Reckon I can come up with a proper apology.” His tongue curled toward her throat. Then he turned behind him to a group of other figures in uniform. “Here boys, lookin’ for some flesh to ease your duties?”

  She jammed her boot into his shin and tore free, then ran.

  The shouts rose behind her.

  Dodging a moving wagon, she plunged into the port at full tilt. Three ships—no, four—crowded the docks, their tall masts cluttering the sky, their cargo sprawled across the wharf. She leaped over a rope, sprinted across a ream of fishing nets, and wove in between the crates.

  But footsteps followed her. She must not be caught. If the soldiers found her now, they would see. Or ask questions she would not be able to answer. Vaulting over a chicken crate, she ducked behind a tower of grain sacks and plunged into the refuse from the second vessel.

  Whistles shrilled from behind. Which meant more eyes. Aurelia craned her head toward the streets, but the blur of soldiers loomed in every exit.

  She had to hide. But where? If she stopped in the open, it was only a matter of time.

  And then, up ahead, she saw the sign, over an old cracked doorway. The Inn of the Rising Shadow. Dashing behind a row of barrels, she swerved toward the inn, burst across the remaining space, and tugged on the door.

  It stuck.

  Then she swung inward, yanked it closed behind her, and spun around.

  To see cold stone, shuttered windows, and a tall figure, in long robes, blocking the opposite exit. />
  The figure stepped forward, releasing the daylight from behind him. And revealing the unusual blue and green stripes on his robes and the familiar gleam in his eyes. Drew? “Well, Your Highness,” the mocking tone confirmed, “I see you finally managed to deprive yourself of that hangnail of an escort.”

  How dare he criticize Robert’s loyalty!

  The door opened again, and Robert burst through, slamming it shut. His gaze sought hers, and she knew he must have chased down the disturbance on the wharf.

  “Then again”—Drew grinned—“some things never change.”

  Except that my father is dead, and I have been charged with treason. “Why are you here, Drew?” She banged her hip on a dusty table.

  The horseman rubbed his chin, then reached around the back side of the wall as if to retrieve something. “Arrived three weeks ago. Planned to head to Tyralt City, see if I couldn’t persuade His Majesty to put an end to these desert raids, but before I could float a passage, a boatload of soldiers disembarked. Brought their own weapons, a flag of royal mourning, and a warrant for a friend of mine.” He tossed Falcon’s bridle onto the table. “I wasn’t too keen on sailing then. Thought I’d stick around and help out. Heard you’d crossed the Gate. Figured you wouldn’t risk it on the way back. Unfortunately, someone in the capital figured the same thing.”

  “The horses are here?” Robert edged toward Drew.

  “In the stable out back.”

  “You recruited the local guard?” Aurelia asked, incredulous.

  “Darzai is a city unto itself,” Drew replied. “The locals are none too keen on having Tyralian military in their wharf.”

  He was right. Obviously. So why did she still feel angry?

  The conversation stalled as she struggled to grapple with the chaos that was her life.

  Robert finally broke the silence. “You have a plan,” he said to the horseman. It was not a question.

  “There’s a ship in the harbor,” Drew replied. “Claims she’s a trader from the Distant Isles, but fact is she’s a smuggler. Captain’s a friend of mine. He’ll take Your Highness off Tyralian shores.”

  “No,” she replied.

  Drew acted as if she had not spoken. “Hate to say it, Vantauge, but you’d have to leave that stallion of yours behind. There’s no way to get those horses shipboard without attracting every musket in the harbor. You and the lass, though—I can make that happen.”

  You cannot.

  “Where would the ship take us?” Robert asked.

  Nowhere.

  “The Outer Realms.” As soon as Drew said it, the answer was obvious. No one in the Outer Realms would care about the good graces of the Tyralian government. Because legally, there was no relationship between the two countries. Which meant it was the one place she could go. Except she couldn’t.

  She could not abandon her countrymen: the orphans on the frontier, the travelers at the mercy of the Lion, the tribes under attack. And she could not disappoint all the people who had helped her on her journey: the Oracle, the Vantauges, Valerian, the Jaheem. “I have to return to the palace.” Her fingers fumbled for the chain around her neck. “I can fight Melony’s claim to the throne.” Aurelia pulled out the glimmering silver symbol.

  The horseman’s eyes widened at the sight of the key, then closed, and he took a step back, again cutting off the light. “You don’t understand, Your Highness.”

  No, he did not understand. She knew there was an entire company of men out in that harbor, wanting to arrest her. And there would be far more guarding the port at the capital. But she had to return now. Before it was too late.

  “Your sister is already queen,” he said.

  Not plausible.

  “She’s completed the coronation.”

  “She can’t—”

  “She has,” the horseman concluded. “And your stepmother has confirmed her daughter’s right to the throne. They thwarted the period of mourning by claiming your father was poisoned and that justice must be done. The trial has already been held, Aurelia, and you were found guilty.”

  None of this made sense. Not in any world except the tainted, foul corruption that was her sister’s reality. Where falsehoods were murder weapons and avarice was greater than love. Where lives—Aurelia’s own, her father’s, and those of her people—meant nothing!

  All the anger that had been building since the news that her sister had charged her with a crime ripped loose. Aurelia whirled and slammed the shuttered window with her hand. “I can’t—,” she yelled. “I can’t let Melony win!”

  Silence exuded behind her, then the sound of retreating footsteps. And she crumpled against the boards, jabbing them with her knuckles. This was not about Drew, or the ship, or the plan.

  Gently Robert’s hand smoothed over the back of her head. He should understand. He had seen the flames, and the cinders, and heard the screams of the Jaheem. “I can’t flee,” she whispered, easing off the boards. “I can’t betray my people.”

  His hand moved to her face, brushing away tears she had not known were there. “You won’t betray them, Aurelia, as long as you are alive.”

  “I can’t...” She trembled.

  “Melony won’t win.” The blue eyes were sincere. He reached up and tugged back the shutters, forcing her to face the view of the hundreds of soldiers swarming the wharf. “The only way she wins is if you gift her with your death.”

  As he ducked beneath a massive cobweb to enter the small stables an hour later, Robert could not regret the harshness of his words. He had not wanted to frighten Aurelia, or to inflict any more hurt than she had already suffered. She had a right to her anger, but he could not allow her to ignore the truth. And he could not protect her from the pain of saying good-bye.

  Falcon nickered over the warped boards beside the door. Robert ran his hand gently along her bronze snout, then crossed the ill-lit space and entered the final stall.

  Horizon thrust his way forward, trying to break free of the cramped interior, to no avail, as Robert shut the latch.

  Turning, he buried his face in the stallion’s warm coat, trying to imprint the feel in his memory.

  Images flashed in his mind: of a little bay colt, kicking and tossing his heels in the fresh green fields of spring, the blur of those same fields as the stallion took his rider on their first genuine run, and the silhouette of avenging hooves outside a burning tent. “You saved my life,” Robert murmured.

  And Aurelia’s. That mist-filled morning in the palace arena.

  He babbled then. Explaining. Though he knew the stallion would not care about the reason for the departure. The bay would only know his rider was gone and would wait for him to come back. Robert had to struggle not to make promises he had no power to keep. “Remember, you are in charge. If Drew takes one misstep, you break the boards.”

  Horizon snorted, and Robert laughed, then buried a sudden rush of tears in the stallion’s neck. “I’ll miss you,” he murmured. “I’ll miss you.”

  “No, Robert.” Her voice came from behind him.

  He tried to wipe his eyes on the red-brown coat, but his vision remained blurry.

  “I can’t ask you to come with me,” she said. He struggled to comprehend the statement. “I can’t ask you to leave Horizon and your family, and Tyralt—” Her breath caught. “I know you love this country as much as I do. I would never have understood half of what I have seen on this expedition if you had not been the one to show me. And I’m grateful. I’m so ...”

  He turned, this time obliterating the tears from his face without any attempt at disguise. “You don’t need to ask me, Aurelia. I am coming anyway.”

  She was biting her lip and staring at the sandy floor, her fingers threading aimlessly through Falcon’s coat. “Robert, I know you think you love me.”

  He thought?

  “But I ... I can’t ...”

  The dagger shredded his insides like a blackened knife. He had not expected her to profess her love. She had lost her fathe
r and her country all in one day. But—

  “I can’t marry you,” she finished.

  Marry?! He vaulted out of the stall. Who had said anything about marriage?

  “Your parents were right,” she told the stable floor.

  His parents? What had they said to her? When?

  “And Daria—even Daria tried to tell me, but I didn’t listen.”

  Tell her what? These other people had no right to wreak havoc on his life!

  “But I’m not ready, Robert.” Her hand fell from the filly’s neck. “I can’t give it up. It’s not the crown. Or the palace. Or the power—that is, I don’t even have any, but the thought of giving up forever the chance to help, to change things. I don’t know why I can’t be like Daria or your mother or—”

  That was quite enough.

  “Stop.” He crossed the gap and put his hands on her shoulders. This was his fault for not telling her how he felt about her.

  While apparently other people had been telling her nonsense.

  “If I wanted a girl like that,” he said, “I’d have stayed on the frontier and married one.” Then he looked, really looked at her. In her travelstained clothing and her tangled hair. With her natural brown skin burned darker by the desert and her boots worn through. She was so much more than any other girl he had ever met.

  And he had not even known when he returned to the palace—had not fathomed half the emotions that ran beneath her confident exterior. “What I love about you, Aurelia,” he said, very clearly, “is that you aren’t satisfied with life as it is.” He thought about the kuro and the Lion and the desert raids. “I love that you refuse to accept problems just because they exist and that you want to learn more about everything. I love that you don’t have your future all planned out and that you’re messy and contradictory and you feel too much.” He understood that. He had felt too much his entire life. Looking into her dark eyes, he found the person below the surface, the person who was so scared of letting people down that she had even tried to save him from her own heart. “And Aurelia, I would never—I could never fault you for caring too much for your people.”