As we begin to make our way down, grass hugs the winding line of the road, and trees are speckled along the hills, spread out enough to breathe. To our right, far enough that I can’t quite hear the rushing water, are waterfalls that pour from the side of the mountaintop at least a hundred feet up. Water pitches down in a plunge of white froth, creating fractured rainbows within the clinging gray mist.
I can’t see the bottom of the falls since it’s blocked with trees, but the water carries itself to me, the river stretching out to greet the road. Just a stone’s throw away, it winds alongside the path before splitting itself in several different directions. At the base of the hill, I can see where it branches off throughout the city, feeding all of the massive waterways cut into the land.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much green or so much water in my life.” I turn around to look at Digby over my shoulder. “Are you looking, Dig?”
“I’m looking, my lady.”
Beaming, I turn to Slade, finding that he’s already watching me. “Such a pretty view.”
“I’m glad you like it,” he says.
Being out here is sublime, with the sun on my scalp and the fresh air in my lungs.
When we make it to the bottom of the slope where the land levels out, the road and the river both swerve toward the largest lake. “It’s called Compass Lake,” Slade tells me. “See how it’s circular save for that point there?”
My eyes track the line from the lake that seems to stretch out like a prong, pointing back toward the castle.
“Compass always points us the way home,” Lu calls back.
I glance at Slade curiously. “Is it home to you? Brackhill?”
His face grows contemplative for a moment. “I don’t think anywhere in Orea will ever truly feel like home.”
I nod in complete understanding, because I’ve always felt the same. But this place, I think it could feel likealmosthome. I think it could feel like enough.
Though nothing will ever really compare to Annwyn. I may have been taken away as a child, I may have forgotten most everything about it, but I still remember thefeelof it. But maybe that’s just what home is. A feeling.
The closer we get to the river, the more people we see. At first, there are just a few carts and horses that pass us by, but soon, we’re right in the hub of activity, where the city is bustling.
Fishermen pull in their nets from stretched out piers. Shop buildings are lined up one after another along the street, their backs facing the lake, and their fronts made of smoothed stone the color of dolloped cream, with roofs pitching back straight to the water. Almost all of them have their doors flung wide open, probably to feed the fresh breeze in. Without the soft wind drifting off from the water, the humid, warm air would feel much more stifling. As it is now, there’s a perfect balance of warm and cool.
The moment people realize that their king is in their midst, there’s a concentric effect that surrounds the city. Like a ripple, people start to call out or bow or cheer or line up. It’s not just King Ravinger they call for either. Both Judd and Lu are apparently well known too, because the people seem to respect and recognize them just as much.
But I see it. The moment their excitement at seeing the army captains and their king shifts to something else. The moment when they spot me. There’s a definitive stiffening that treads over the crowd, a rigidness to their stares and tight mouths moving, and I hear snatches of those tense words the further we go down the city’s road.
That’s her—the golden saddle.
She killed King Midas.
She stole his magic.
What if she steals our king’s magic too?
I jolt on my horse so hard that I pull against Honey’s reins too tightly, making her jerk to a stop. Two of the guards instantly come up on either side of Slade and me, as if to form a barrier between us and the crowd as their proclamations continue to be voiced. I loosen the reins, and Slade comes closer, while I yank up the hood of my cloak.
“What do they mean?” I ask, eyes spinning all around me. Even with Judd and Lu in front and the guards at our sides and back, I still feel exposed to this shock of impliable judgment. “Why are they saying I stole magic?”
I can see Slade’s hold tighten on the reins, see his hesitation in the tic of his jaw muscle. “That’s the story that’s spread from Fifth Kingdom,” he admits. “The story that Queen Kaila has helped spread.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?” I practically hiss between my teeth.
“I didn’t think this rumor was so widely accepted.”
I look around at the leery faces as they strain to see me as our horses pass. “I’d say it’s pretty damn accepted, Slade.”
He can’t argue otherwise.
“Do you want to go back?” he asks.
