The moment I stop to catch my breath, reality comes crashing in, and with it, an unbridled terror that twists my stomach and steals my breath. I grip my chest and sag against the dirty tavern wall. I did something back there, something I shouldn’t have been able to do, something nobody should be able to do. It doesn’t make sense. I’ve never shown any sort of magical ability and this, this is beyond any magic I’ve ever heard of.
And I did it without a sythra gem.
That poor guard. I throw a hand over my mouth to stifle the sob trying to escape. I killed him. He was a person with friends and a family, and I took his life. The scariest part is, I did it without a moment’s hesitation. Then I spit the evidence in Fredrick’s face. Gods, I don’t even know who I am anymore. Now, I’m a murderer and a fugitive. They might have let me go before, but now… I’m as good as dead.
What do I do? They’re going to chase me down and bring me back and stick me in that chair and pull my teeth out like that poor, crazy prisoner and—Mama’s voice plays in my mind.Calm yourself, Katya. You cannot think when you’re frantic.
I need to get to Mama. She’ll know what to do. Which means I’m going to need a horse and food—I look down at the apron covering my blood-soaked scrap of a dress—and warm clothes. There have got to be wash lines hanging around here somewhere. I turn down a narrow alleyway. It smells like garbage and urine, probably not the best sign, but I hurry on anyway. The clotheslines crossing the road are too high to reach, so I head toward the back of the buildings, hoping to find something there. I’m about to turn down a back alley when the sensation of heat wafting out of an open doorway stops me in my tracks. Peeking through the door, I realize it’s just a smithy, and I’m about to walk past when my eye lands on a waterskin lying beside the anvil.
I glance up and down the alleyway—there isn't a soul anywhere—and creep inside. It's like walking into an oven. Good Mother, how can somebody spend their whole day working in here? I grab the waterskin, do a quick scan of the room to see if there’s anything else I can use and rush out of the forge into the blessedly cool air. The sweat already beading on my skin turns icy cold. I’m probably going to regret it in a few minutes when my body heat goes back down, but right now, it feels amazing.
It doesn’t take me long to find clothes and food. The fact that everyone in the city is up at the gates makes it easy to weave in and out of the buildings undetected.
A horse is a different story altogether. I guess merchants and inns know better than to leave their mountsunprotected, so after passing three stables, I decide I’ll try to coerce the stable hand like I did the others. I’m feeling pretty guilty at the prospect, though. I don’t want anyone to get whipped on my account.
When I step into the next stable, I feel a bit better. Not only is the stable hand asleep, but the louse left a bay mare saddled up in the center aisle with its bridle tied to a beam, so it has almost no room to move. If he’s going to sleep on the job and mistreat the horses, that’s his fault.
At least that’s what I tell myself. Still, I tiptoe my way into the stable, cringing when my foot crunches a fallen leaf. The stable hand shifts in his chair and rubs his bulbous nose, then goes back to sleep.
I breathe a sigh of relief, and this time, watching the ground, not the horse, I creep across the stable. She’s a beauty—silky soft brown coat and black mane. I don’t know enough about horses to tell if she’s a good one just by looking at her, but right now, I’d take a donkey if it got me out of here more quickly. I untie the bridle and start for the half-opened barn door. The dirt floor was quiet enough under my feet, but it crunches under hers, and with every step, I’m gritting my teeth, praying the stable hand doesn’t wake up. I send up a prayer to Kai that the mare will fit through the door without me having to open it any farther, and thankfully, she manages to squeeze through. Outside, I throw the bridle over her head and slip my foot into the stirrup.
A shout rises from the stable. Time’s up. I sweep up onto the horse, and we’re off.
The stable hand runs into the street. “Get back here. Thief. Thief,” he shouts at my back, but the streets are bare—thank the gods—and nobody comes to his aid.
18
“Idon’t fucking believe it,” Troi shouts, his face growing increasingly red by the second. “How could that tiny woman overpower three grown men, and then she—what—just walked out of the palace?”
I have to hold back my groan. I’ve been here for twenty minutes already, dealing with his fucking temper, when I should be getting my ass back out to look for Katya. Gods only know how much time I wasted scouring the streets before I ran into the stable hand whining about a female stealing his horse. Between that and Troi’s little temper tantrum, she’s already got a massive head start on me. “Fredrick said she messed with his head.” I wiggle a finger at my temple. “Made him strap himself into his own chair.”
“Fredrick’s an idiot,” he replies. He’s pacing back and forth like a caged animal.
“Fredrick should have never been allowed near her,” is what I want to say, but I need to stay on his good side if I want to convincehim to let me go after Katya. I get it. A little girl taking a bite out of a guard and killing him isn’t really a good look for the crown, but he’s wasting my time. “It doesn’t matter how it happened. But the longer I stand here not searching for her, the farther away she gets.”
“And she killed one of my guards,” he tacks on, ignoring my comment completely. Troi couldn’t give a flying fart about that guard. I doubt he even took the time to learn his name. What he’s really pissed about is that somebody got one over on him. Troi is the sort of ruler that doesn’t actually care if his people live or die, only if they live or die in opposition to what he wishes. “You go out there and get that bitch, and I’ll interrogate her myself.”
“No,” I say, way more forcefully than I intended.
Troi draws back, his eyes wide with shock. “Excuse me?”
Time to backtrack. “I’m sorry, your highness. I didn’t mean to offend. I just…” What do I say?Please don’t hurt her because I like her?He’d laugh in my face. I clear my throat, racking my brain for something to say. “We don’t know much about this power she has.”
His eyes narrow. “And?”
“What if what Fredrick said was true? If she has some sort of mental powers, she could be an invaluable tool. Think what we could do with someone who can get inside a spy’s head and root out the truth?” Gods, I hope I’m not overselling this.
Troi purses his lips and averts his gaze—that’s his thinking face. I’ve almost got him. “She’s a little girl, scared and alone,” I continue. I’m really pouring it on thick now. “We offer her a pardon—get her working for us. She’ll be safe and cared for and so grateful to usfor sparing her life and giving her a home, she’ll do whatever we ask of her.”
He crosses his arms. “We won’t be able to control her.”
“There are other ways to control someone than through force.”
“Such as.”
“I was just—” I pause and take a breath. This isn’t going to work if I lose my temper. “I will take personal responsibility for the girl.”
The corner of his mouth quirks, like he’s trying to hold back laughter. I swear, the male is as mercurial as they come. He steps down the dais stairs and stops in front of me, eyes searching my face. “This isn’t about her powers at all, is it?”
