“Do you remember the way to the stables?” Corin asked his brother quietly.
“Sir Corin,” one of the guards behind them called again, trotting down the hall. “Her majesty was firm. You’re wanted…”
“A fuckingmoment,” Corin bellowed back over his shoulder. The guard froze, shoulders stiff.
“Yes, I remember,” Niel responded, his voice a barely-audible breath.
“Then head there. I ordered a carriage. Lady Ayla, give him time to get in unseen, and tell the driver you need to reach the city docks. Get a riverboat to Port Dencai. No matter how it goes here, there will be those who still want his blood.” Angling himself so the guard couldn’t see, Corin unbuckled a leather pouch from his belt and handed it to Ayla. “Money, and two letters to people at Dencai, asking that they aid you. Most merchant ships were requisitioned for the navy. You need the lord’s permission to sail out.”
“Will they let a carriage leave? If they realize he’s gone?” Ayla whispered.
“In a few minutes, I'm going to give them a much bigger problem to worry about,” Corin said. “Niel… know that I’m sorry. That I never meant to side against you. Only against Father.”
He turned and strode back down the hall. Ayla glanced over her shoulder and saw him reach a hand to the blonde healer, who was still collecting her vials off the floor, and pull her back to her feet.
“She wanted directions,” Corin told the guard, his voice moody. “Now, what is so desperately important you could not wait?”
“This way,” Niel whispered, and tugged Ayla away. He drew her towards a wide doorway. She pushed it open, and was careful to hold it open long enough that Niel could pass through unseen. She blinked away the bright light as they stepped outside the palace onto a snow-lined path. She hoped nobody noticed there were two sets of footsteps in the snow.
“What did he mean, about a bigger problem?” Ayla asked, trying not to move her lips too much in case anyone spotted her and thought she was talking to herself.
“I don’t know,” Niel whispered. “But I’d be happy if I never had to think of this place again.”
Without her extra layers, it was bitingly cold outside. Niel guided her down winding dead garden paths and out onto a wide walkway. She was certain they must be lost, until suddenly they’d reached a stable yard, and a carriage was waiting out just as Corin had said it would be. She fumbled through the words to the driver, and paused to kick the snow off her boots so that Niel could slip inside. The door closed, and then they rattled away from the royal palace and into the streets of Liron.
In the dark, a hand she could not see found and squeezed hers tight.
The Konver River
The carriage left them at Three Rivers, a bustling town where two mountain rivers collided and turned into the Konver, a wide and fast-flowing beast that rumbled across Enar to the Merosite sea. Ayla was exhausted, but Niel must have been worse, and in any case he could hardly book passage while invisible.
Two ships were docked at the river’s edge. In the distance she could see another boat coming, towed up-stream by a team of oxen on the far shore. Ayla made her way carefully through the small crowd until she located the harbormaster, a gruff woman with a ledger book.
“Excuse me?” Ayla asked, feeling as though she were barely holding herself together. “I need to get to Dencai as quickly as possible. In a private cabin, if I can.”
The harbormaster looked at her, grunted, and flipped quickly through the book. Ayla bit her lip, running over the story she’dprepared, about an aunt in Dencai who needed looking after. But the woman didn’t ask or seem to care.
“Cabin this afternoon on the Cysa,” the woman said, running her finger along one of the lines in the book, and pointing at a price. “Overnight journey. Meals included. Leaves at the fourth bell.”
She could see that same name painted on the side of the barge nearest them, a long boat with a string of fluttering colored ribbons hanging above the aft.
“Can we—canIboard now?” She kicked herself inwardly for the slip of her tongue, but the woman didn’t so much as blink.
“No. Not for three, four hours yet. Payment’s now to hold the room.”
Ayla counted out the coins and signed her name. As another traveler passed close to her Niel pressed tight to her back, to avoid anybody bumping into an invisible man.
“Is there an inn around here that rents rooms by the hour?” she asked as she buckled her purse shut. “I’d like to rest, and wash, if we can’t get on now anyways.”
The woman pointed her towards one.
They didn’t look at her askance there, either, as she asked for a washbucket, a large meal, and privacy. Three Rivers was used to travelers who came and went at the mercy of the riverboats’ schedules.
She breathed a deep sigh of relief when they were in a bedchamber with the door locked. No matter what Corin’s reassurance, Ayla felt certain someone would know about the carriage, and would come to Three Rivers hunting for Niel. But there was nothing she could do to make the boat come faster.
When he took the cloak off, she had to keep herself from letting emotion show. Niel’s expression was more world-weary than she thought she’d ever seen a man look, and it was brighter in the room than in the dungeon. She could see clearly all thebruises and filth. Even in the privacy of the room, he would barely say a word. When she tried to help him wash with the rag and bucket she’d been provided with, Niel flinched away and shook his head slightly. Trying not to let the hurt show on her face, she let him bathe himself.
A knock on the door announced the arrival of the meal. Niel stepped out of sight. Ayla opened the door only partially, and took the platter with a thank you before closing it quickly.
