Whirling, I start sprinting away, because I need a timberwing. I’ll take Ryatt’s if I have to, his is the second fastest, and if I have to yank the beast from the roost, then I—
A deathly loud call shrieks through the air, and a second later, I hear the landing with the screech of sharp talons against the tiled roof. Argo snaps at the guards, making them jump back, before his iridescent eyes blink at me.
I waste no time. I’m up on his back in a blink, and he’s tearing off into the night sky in the next.
“Wait!” Ryatt’s voice is snagged away by the wind as I hold onto the reins, leaning into the climb.
I don’t fucking care.
I willnotwait.
Because they took her.
But I won’t fucking stand for it. I don’t care how long it takes me to catch up to them. I will ride day and night until I get to Second Kingdom if I have to.
And when I get there, they willallwish they’d never taken her away.
CHAPTER 60
AUREN
I peel my eyes openlike peeling off a layer of skin. My lids snag, not wanting to separate until I rip with a little more force, leaving them stinging.
As soon as I look around, I wish I’d left my eyes closed.
Immediately, I know that I’m not at Brackhill anymore. Not just because of this room that I’m in, either, but because I can feel the difference in the air. Fourth Kingdom is warm and muggy, as if the warmth dances with the moisture of the rivers. Yet the air here lacks any signs of moisture altogether. It feels thinned out. Stretched by an empty, arid heat that would bake any sort of precipitation right out of itself.
I remember snatches of consciousness, of being held against someone as we flew through the air. I remember that foul cloth pressed against my mouth and nose, over and over again, between brief moments where broth and water were poured down my throat.
But now I’m here, finally climbed out of the chasm of unconsciousness, and I know where I am without even looking out the barred window. This room is the color of sand, the texture of the walls swiped with whatever tool the carpenter scraped the plaster on. I sit up from the single-person bed I’m lying on, my slippered feet hitting the rust-colored tile floor.
There’s one small table in the corner of the room, with a strangely shaped waterskin and some food. How long those have been sitting here, I don’t know. But my mouth tastes awful, so I risk taking a drink. I take the first sip tentatively, but when the water doesn’t seem to be laced with anything I can pick up on, I down the whole skin, realizing how parched I am as soon as the drops hit my tongue.
I try to call up some gold, but despite the fact I can see daylight streaming in from the window, my body feels depleted. Like a tree barely able to glug out a single bead of sap. I still feel the aftereffects of the drug coursing through my body, making me feel sick and disconnected.
So even though I’m leery of the food, and my stomach isn’t interested, I force myself to choke down the flatbread and fruit. I’m hoping that something in my stomach will help soak up whatever drug is still in my system. My head aches, my stomach feels like someone reached in and flipped it around, and I’m covered in a layer of grit.
Makes sense, since I was kidnapped and dragged to the desert of Second Kingdom.
My certainty of where I am and what’s happened surrounds me, like a crowd suddenly jamming in at me on all sides. The memories push in, while my fear and fury push back.
Manu and someone from Second Kingdom did this. Had me drugged, kidnapped me and dumped me in this place and—
My hand slaps over my mouth.
Rissa.
“Great Divine...” A dry sob tears out of me like a husk torn from desiccated corn. They killed her. They killed her right in front of me, as if she were nothing but a nuisance, a life not meant to bother with.
My eyes well up, and ithurts. Like the dagger was pierced throughmychest. They could’ve used the same drug to knock her out. Could’ve spared her. Instead, they stabbed her through and left her to crumple to the ground.
Rissa and I have a complicated relationship, stemming from years of resentment. But...I understood her. She used her wits, honed her seductions, learned to get ahead in a world of men, and then she wanted to forge a new path, doing whatever she needed to do to protect herself and get what she wanted.
I respected that. And when it comes to saddles, respect is the last thing society ever gives them.
Saddles fill the wants of men and women, work to satisfy sensual cravings. They perform and please, actualizing desires, earning both a sense of power and their own wealth by doing so.
And what happens? People hate it. They call it a sin, a vice. They beat it down. Claim that saddles are deplorable and dirty, the bottom dregs of society, unimportant and low-ranking. Except, behind closed doors, those very same people expect to have their urges satisfied. Expect to be pleased and pleasured, brought bliss and assuaged of their basest of needs.
