I offered him a hand. He looked up at me, confused.
“Kante was left at Castle Altaigne. Would you take me for a ride on Niro?”
He glanced toward the distant carriages.
“Just for a little while. We could both stand to clear our heads.”
Quinn studied my face. Then he softened, those full lips curling with mischief. “You’reworriedabout me.”
I rolled my eyes but didn’t deny the accusation. He took my hand at last and let me help him up, swaying slightly as he found his footing. Then we walked to where Niro was tied off, keeping close enough that our arms occasionally brushed.
“Thank you,” he said as he untied the gelding from the shade tree. “For waking me up.”
“Maybe you’re still dreaming.”I winked.
His hands stopped working on the rope. He stared at me like I’d somehow knocked the breath from him.
“If I am,” he finally replied, “it’s already a much better dream than the last. Though, when you appear in my dreams, you usually…”
He caught himself.
“Never mind.”
“I usually what?”My brow raised.
“I’m agentleman, Queen Alana, and it is my duty to shield you from such fantasies. I must protect your innocence.”
He helped me onto the horse, though with only one hand, I did most of the work. My thoughts went to that hand, and how it had risen up my skirts in the garden, as he mounted behind me.“Innocence?”
“You could have me killed, you know,” he whispered in my ear. A subtle kick got Niro going. “For even dreaming.”
I knew he could see my hands from there, so I replied.“Should I have you killed, Quinn?”
“Probably.”
The reply sat like a stone in the pit of my stomach, and then we rode in silence.
I sensed an uneasy feeling coming from Niro that intensified the further we traveled from the procession. I chose to ignore it; my own anxieties were enough. We rounded a formation thatresembled a woman at rest, and the sun shined on the valleys beyond in a way I wished I could have captured. The finest painter couldn’t do it justice.
“It must be strange to see so much of the country after being confined to only a small part of it,” Quinn moved on.
“It’s even stranger to be told I’m partly in charge of it,”I replied.“And it never feels like I get to just sit still and drink it all in. I could have spent months in Pontarena or Sunhill, or even Caermont.”
“One day soon, you’ll be able to take your time.” He said it like he was certain. I actually believed him. “And by then—easy,Niro—you’ll have enough knowledge of the country that you’ll know where you actually want to go.”
I smiled. Ahead of us, rocky formations stuck up from the earth like tousled hair. Niro’s ears pinned back and his head tossed once. That uneasy feeling intensified in my skull, increasingly difficult to disregard.“Where would you be, if you could go anywhere?”
“Ha! I haven’t had much choice in the matter for some time.” He considered it, though, and his hands tightened on the reins before he moved a fraction closer to me. “I’d like to go home. To Navarro. But I’m not exactly miserable. I’d say I’m very happy where I amright now.”
I swallowed.“Nearly dying certainly made you into quite the insatiable—”
My hands stopped at my breast. The wind shifted, carrying something unpleasantly familiar in the air. Niro fought the reins as we rounded the jagged stones, but momentum carried us forward before Quinn could turn him…and that smell became a wall.
Quinn stiffened behind me, his right arm banding across my waist to steer us hard left.
“Don’t look,” he urged sharply, but it was too late. I’d already seen the churned earth, the birds circling…and I couldn’t pry my eyes away from it. Below us, in a natural well between the stones, lay dozens of bodies. They must have been arranged in rows, at first, but later, more recent additions were scattered, as if those tasked with the burial had lost heart.
Every one of them was hollow in the ribs, their limbs no thicker than kindling twigs. There were smaller forms among the rest of them, clothing loose on frames that had long-since consumedthemselves from within.
