And then Finnikin realized with horror what the boy was saying.
"Kill me," Evanjalin said beside him. "That's what he's asking you to do." Kill me. Kill me.
Finnikin found himself reaching for the dagger in the scabbard on his back. He dared not look at Evanjalin. "We didn't take this route because it was a pleasant walk, did we?" he said angrily.
"I thought you loved the river," she said.
"You meant for this to happen. You knew he was here, and you want to save him."
"Don't be ridiculous, Finnikin," she snapped. "Why would I want to save a worthless thief who tried to rape me while I slept?"
When Finnikin didn't respond, she shrugged. "But then I thought of your pledge. The one from the rock in Sorel where you said you'd search the land for the orphans of Lumatere and bring them back, and I believe you'll want to save him. If you get the boy now, you won't have to come back for him when you're nice and settled with some lord's sweet, fragile daughter."
"You are evil," he seethed.
"Oh, the way that word is thrown around!" she said. "Everything is evil that humans can't control or conquer."
"What do you expect me to do?" he argued. "Fight the traders for the thief? You're the one who sold him."
"Because I needed a horse for your escape," she replied calmly.
"Which I would not have needed if you hadn't betrayed me. Then you go and sell the horse for the ring. So now we have no horse," he continued, "and a ruby ring that I'm presuming you're going to trade for a useless thief."
"What a ridiculous suggestion," she said. "He stole the ring in the first place!"
Finnikin held the dagger tightly, a splinter from the wooden handle digging into his palm. He looked up at the thief and saw bleak relief pass over the boy's face.
"I will do the right thing and put him out of his misery." He wondered when the horror of the day would end.
"And if you miss?"
"I never miss." There was no boasting in his tone, just sadness. Finnikin turned the dagger and held the blade between his thumb and finger. He stared at his target, bile rising in his throat. But before he could take aim, Evanjalin placed a hand on his arm and took the dagger from him.
"We are not going to buy the thief, Evanjalin," he said wearily.
"Of course not," she said, leaning to whisper in his ear. "We'll just steal him."
"And what are we supposed to do? Storm the barge? I don't have my father's sword, and I can't see myself succeeding against ten traders and these feral buyers whose type I recognize from the mines. Remember the mines where you put me? For which I will never forgive you."
"And I will never forgive you for the whore!" There was anger in her eyes. "We wait until someone buys the thief and then we ambush the buyer. Which means, Sir No Sword and Three Knives, our chances of success are high, because I'm presuming there will only be one buyer to fight."
"And what makes you think I carry three knives?"
She clutched his forearm where the smallest knife was hidden, then placed her arms around him and embraced him, patting his back to feel the second scabbard of the dagger she held in her hand.
"And the third?" he asked.
There was another flash of anger in her eyes. "Do you expect me to get on my knees before you? Like your whore? The third is at your ankle."
Fury rose inside him. "I curse the day I climbed that rock in Sendecane," he spat.
She looked at him sadly. "That's where we differ, Finnikin. For I believe that was when it all began."
They watched in silence as the traders unlocked the boy's shackles and bound his hands. Finnikin suspected that the buyer would take the thief along the river and wait for morning to travel down the waterway to the mines.
"If we do this..." he said, turning to Evanjalin.
But she was gone. He pushed through the crowd, searching, calling her name. He leaped onto the back of a man close by to get a clear view of the area and was thrown aside. There were grunts of hostility and elbows thrust into his face as he pushed his way to the river's edge, where the barges floated. Evanjalin had taken to wearing his brown woolen trousers and blue cap, but the colors were too dull to stand out in the waning light. He hoped she had enough sense to find her way back to the tavern. The thought of her being lost to them as he had once wished suddenly sent a shiver through him.
Farther down the bank, he caught sight of the thief being dragged away. Had the owner clothed the boy, Finnikin might have left things as they were. But in the fever camp, he had stumbled over the naked body of a boy the same age as the thief. In Lumatere, boys that age had been robust and full of mischief, teasing the girls they had grown up with, not knowing whether they wanted to follow their fathers or cling to their mothers. There was something unnatural about a boy of fourteen lying dead, and Finnikin had seen it too often. Enough, he thought. Enough.
Finnikin followed the thief and his owner down a trail deep into the woods. He knew if he did not succeed in setting the thief free that night, he would at least put him out of his misery. It would be simple, he told himself. He would race farther ahead and cut them off, taking the slave owner by surprise. But then he lost sight of them through the thick foliage and decided to scale the pine tree closest to him. When he reached a height that gave him a better view of his surroundings, his heart sank. From where he was balanced, he could see the thief and his owner walking toward a clearing. And in the clearing was another man setting up camp. Evanjalin had been wrong. The buyer was not alone.
He knew he had to move quickly. But just as he was about to climb down, he saw her. She leaped out of the trees at the edge of the trail and threw herself on the back of the thief's owner with Finnikin's dagger in her hand.
Finnikin hit the ground running. Between the trees he could see she had the advantage, slicing the man across the chest, her arm around his neck, her legs wrapped around his waist. But it was too late. The buyer's companion had reached them. He pulled Evanjalin by the jerkin and threw her face forward against a tree, twisting her arm to make her let go of the dagger.
Finnikin ran harder. Don't let him find out she's a girl. Please, don't let him find out she's a girl.
But the man's hands prodded and poked, crawling up her torso.
"Evanjalin!"
One dagger caught the first man in the back, and the second knife landed an inch above Evanjalin's fingers on the tree. In a split second she had yanked it out and thrust it backward, catching her attacker unaware. When the man stumbled away, she plunged the knife twice more into his thigh, crippling him for a moment.
"Run!" Finnikin yelled as he tossed his cloak to the boy. He fought off the second man as Evanjalin grabbed the thief and they bolted into the woods. With a punch that left the man reeling, Finnikin raced after them.
"Keep running," he yelled. Ahead he could see the thief, whose leaps and lunges warned him of the unevenness of the ground. And then he was beside Evanjalin, realizing, as the blood pumped into his heart and the pulse at his neck threatened to burst, that his need to distance himself from their pursuers was less important than his need to take the lead from her.
They reached the end of the trail and burst into the open valley, where the sun was just beginning to disappear. As he inched closer, he could tell by her sideways glance and the glint in her eye that she was not going to let him pass. But she was tiring, and when she pointed up ahead to the road that led to Speranza, she held her hand in front of him, barring him, keeping him back. He shoved her hand aside, pushing her in the process, and when she stumbled, he took the lead, following the thief as he leaped over the timber fence that boarded a meadow. By then there were no sounds of heavy feet behind them, just his breathing and Evanjalin's.
When the thief stopped and fell to his knees to catch his breath, Finnikin collapsed onto the grass and Evanjalin fell down beside him. He rolled onto his back, holding his side in an attempt to reduce the pain, and when he looked across at her, he thought he caught a glimpse of
a smile on her face.
The thief stared at them. There was no humility or gratitude in his expression. And little else either.
"I own you," Evanjalin said bluntly as she sat up. "Never forget that, boy."
Trevanion and Sir Topher were waiting for them outside the tavern. Sir Topher's eyes widened with disbelief when he recognized the thief, but before he could say a word, Evanjalin rushed up to him.
"Sir Topher," she said breathlessly, "I got it back!" She clutched the ruby ring in her hand. Finnikin watched Sir Topher look down at her with tender affection before reaching over and folding the ring into her palm.
"It's best you keep it hidden, Evanjalin."
"We need to move. Quickly," Finnikin said.
"The horse?" Sir Topher asked.
"No horse."
"Who—"
"Later," Finnikin stressed, pushing them toward the tavern entrance.
Trevanion was staring at the thief, who looked like he was about to spit at him.
"You won't survive the consequences," Finnikin warned.
"His name is Froi," Evanjalin said. The thief grunted.
"It's boy," Finnikin argued. "It's just that his lip is split and it sounded like Froi."
"Everyone has a name, Finnikin. You can't just be called boy. His name is Froi." The thief from Sarnak opened his mouth to speak, but Evanjalin raised a finger to silence him. "I can sell you as easily as I bought you," she said icily.
"You didn't buy him. You stole him," Finnikin pointed out.
"I've worked out his bond rules," she said to Sir Topher, ignoring the others. "Like you said once. A new set of them."
Whatever Sir Topher had suggested, Finnikin could tell he was already regretting it.
"There's something else," Finnikin said, looking at Trevanion, who had not said a word.
"Of course there is," Sir Topher muttered. "Can we take another surprise?"
"I think you can take this one. Evanjalin has found the priest-king."
Chapter 10
As they entered the exile camp the following day, Sir Topher was speechless. But it was the look on his father's face that stayed in Finnikin's mind for days to come. He knew Trevanion had never seen a camp before, had never imagined the way their people lived these past years, so nothing could prepare him for such desolation. His father understood punishment, imprisonment, and retribution. But this? What crime against the gods had these people committed to condemn them to this life?
"It is worse farther on," Finnikin warned. The cramped conditions, pools of mud, and stinking puddles made movement through the camp slow. Yet unlike the previous day, there was a slight buzz around them as whispers began to fill the air. And then Finnikin saw it for the first time in the eyes of the man closest to them: a glimmer of hope.
"It's Trevanion of the River," he heard a woman say. "And the king's First Man."
As they went deeper into the camp, more and more exiles emerged from their makeshift homes. By the time they reached the divide between the tent city and the fever camp, they were squeezing their way through crowds of people, children watching hopefully from the shoulders of their fathers, the hunger in their eyes haunting.
A man, his hair white and his eyes the color of milk and sky, pushed his way to the front, searching Sir Topher's face for recognition.
"Kristopher of the Flatlands?"
Sir Topher's body shook as he embraced his kinsman. It now seemed as if every man, woman, and child had left their shelter to jostle around them.
"This is Micah, a farmer from the village of Sennington," Sir Topher said.
Finnikin looked at his father. Sennington was Lady Beatriss's village.
"Who is in charge here?" Trevanion said.
"We have no one in charge," the old man replied.
"Then appoint someone and bring them to us."
In the stretch of land between the tent city and the fever camp was the priest-king's shanty. As they approached, a woman clutching her child came from the direction of the fever camp and pushed the boy into Evanjalin's arms. Finnikin pulled Evanjalin toward him and away from the woman, who looked riddled with fever.
"There's nothing you can do," he said firmly.
Evanjalin shook free of him. "It's against the rules of humanity to believe there is nothing we can do, Finnikin," she said, walking away with the mother and child.
Inside the priest-king's tent, Finnikin watched as Trevanion and Sir Topher solemnly bent and kissed the holy man's hand, an action that seemed to embarrass him. The old farmer from the Flatlands entered hesitantly with two men and a woman, their eyes moving between the priest-king and Finnikin's party.
"You need to separate these people from the fever camp," Trevanion told them firmly, "and I do not mean a tiny strip of earth in between. You take the healthy away from here. Now."
"Take them where?" the woman asked. "There are too many of us, and each time we have attempted to move, we have been threatened with swords. At least in this corner of hell they do not bother us."
"To cross the land, we need the protection of the King's Guard," the older man said boldly.
"Can you provide that?" the youngest asked.
Finnikin looked at his father. He had not spoken of his men, but Finnikin knew that finding them was never far from Trevanion's mind.
Trevanion shook his head. "Not for the moment. But you leave all the same. You keep to the river along the Charyn and then the Osterian border until you reach Belegonia. There, we will call on the patronage of Lord August of the Flatlands."
"We can't—"
"There is no hope for you here!" Trevanion said. "You travel to Belegonia and you will be provided for. That is my pledge."
He and Sir Topher stepped outside with the four exiles, and Finnikin found himself alone with the priest-king.
"Do not underestimate the girl," the priest-king said quietly.
Finnikin gave a humorless laugh. "I am with the king's First Man, the captain of the King's Guard, and the priest-king of Lumatere. The most powerful men in our kingdom, apart from the king himself. All brought together by her. At what point have I led you to believe that I have underestimated her?"
"You contemplate a different path from hers," the priest-king pointed out.
"And you?" Finnikin asked.
"That is not important."
"You are the priest-king," Finnikin said. "Chosen to guide."
"You have expectations of me?" the holy man said bitterly. "When I gave a blessing to that impostor as he walked through our gates, knowing that his hands were soaked with the blood of our beloveds? Do you know where I was when they burned the five Forest Dwellers at the stake? Safe in the Valley of Tranquillity, knowing that I could have given them protection in my home. I had the power of sanction, but I was ruled by my fear."
"Lord August said you had a death wish and it was for this reason that you travel from fever camp to fever camp," Finnikin said. "But the goddess has cursed you, blessed Barakah, and refuses to allow you to die."
"So the answer to your earlier question is that I take these people north to Lumatere," the priest-king responded. "With the girl. While you go west, to Belegonia. In search of a second homeland. Or has your course altered, Finnikin?"
Finnikin did not respond.
"What is it you fear?" the priest-king asked.
"What makes you think I fear anything?"
The old man sighed. "When I was a young man, I was chosen to be the spiritual advisor of our kingdom. They do not choose you to be Barakah, Finnikin, just because you can sing the Song of Lumatere at the right pitch."
"Then you have the power to sense things? Is it Balthazar?" Finnikin asked.
"I do not know, but whoever I sense is powerful. 'Dark will lead the light, and our resurdus will rise.' Are they not the words of the prophecy?"
"Most would call it a curse, blessed Barakah."
"Most would not have deciphered the words," the priest-king replied.
Finnikin's
breath caught in his throat. "Do you know the rest?" he asked.
" 'And he will hold two hands of the one he pledged to save.'"
" 'And then the gate will fall, but his pain shall never cease,'" Finnikin continued.
" 'His seed will issue kings, but he will never reign,'" they ended together.
After a moment the priest-king smiled. "It has taken me ten years to translate it. Please do not tell me it took you less."
Finnikin smiled ruefully. "I spent my fifteenth year in the palace library of Osteria," he confessed. "Not much else to do but listen to excruciating lectures from our ambassador and train with the Osterian Guard." He felt a strange mixture of emotions under the priest-king's gaze.
"What is it you fear, Finnikin?" the holy man repeated.
"I was the childhood companion of Prince Balthazar," he found himself saying. "And many times he said to me, 'Finnikin, when I am king, you'll be captain of my Guard. Just as your father is captain of my father's Guard. But then some days we will swap so you can be king and I can be Captain Trevanion.'"
"Child's talk."
Finnikin shook his head. "Each time Balthazar spoke those words, a fire would burn inside of me. I wanted to be king, and I began to envy Balthazar for it."
"Then your desires were small, Finnikin."
Finnikin made a sound of disbelief.
"When I was eight years old," the priest-king confessed, "I wanted to be a god." The holy man looked around the ragged tent. "Perhaps this is my punishment, but between you and me, I do not believe that the desires of young boys cause catastrophic events. The actions of humans do."
But Finnikin knew there was more. Her blood will be shed for you to be king.
"Take Evanjalin north to our king, Finnikin," the priest-king said. "But know that if we follow her, we take a path to salvation paved with blood."
"There is nothing for us north," Trevanion said firmly from the entrance. He was standing alongside Sir Topher. "Isn't that right, Finnikin?"
Finnikin could not reply. He could feel his father's fierce stare, but his eyes were on Sir Topher. His mentor had been respectfully distant since Trevanion's return, but Finnikin needed his guidance now.
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