He extended his hand toward the falcon. She uncurled her talon and dropped a soft roll of what felt like cloth. Furrowing his brow, he unraveled it, and found a messy scribble of smeared, faded ink. Or was it ink at all? It was too dark to make out the words with moonlight alone, so he rushed inside his temporary bedroom and brought the cloth beside a lantern perched on the bedside table.
His heart leaped into his throat as he read the words. He read it over again. Again. Dread filled his stomach.
Danger at Ridine.
Teryn isn’t Teryn.
Trust no one.
What did it mean? It was signed by Cora, but why had she written this message in whatever messy substance marred the cloth? And was the cloth itself…a piece of clothing? It reminded him too much of the blood-splattered scrap Berol had brought him.
None of it made sense. None of it explained anything that was happening. He’d received no other warning. No rushed messages that told of issues at Ridine. His recent letters from Mareleau had contained her usual musings, nothing more.
Larylis bristled with tension. He couldn’t wait a week. Couldn’t bear to dine and dance when something strange was happening. When his wife could be in danger.
He strode through the room and began to dress in his riding attire. His hands trembled as he laced up his pants, donned his gloves, threw on his coat.
Royal procedure could go to the seven devils. He didn’t care if he offended nobles or enraged his guards. He didn’t care if leaving now shaved only a few meager days off his travels. If he couldn’t act on his instincts, then he was a puppet, not a king.
With hasty steps, he left his room and rapped his knuckles on the next door over. After a few long stretches of silence, a tired face answered the door. But it was the face he trusted most when it came to those who served him—Lord Hardingham. Aside from having been his father’s most loyal councilman, he’d always treated Larylis with respect, bastard or no. He’d been at Centerpointe Rock. He’d seen the same terrors Larylis had. Though Hardingham had mourned Arlous’ death, he’d stated his support of Larylis’ impossible decision, even when the other councilmen continued to question their new king in whispers behind his back.
Only Hardingham would follow Larylis’ next demand without question.
“Keep this quiet,” Larylis said. “Gather a small selection of guards and meet me in the stables. We make haste for Ridine at once.”
Hardingham’s only reply was a widening of his eyes, followed by a nod.
Soon Larylis and a modest retinue took off under the blanket of night. His heart raced with fear, the excitement of his rebellion, and a pinch of shame. He knew he could be overreacting. He could be compromising everything.
But with every inch of distance he closed between himself and Ridine, he felt lighter. Freer. He let his thoughts go, lulled by the beat of horse hooves and Berol’s wings flapping high overhead.
50
Night had fallen and still Cora and her unwanted companions continued to walk. Her legs ached with fatigue, her neck stiff from trying so hard not to jostle her collar. She’d lost all sense of time, but surely they’d been walking for at least half a day now. Under normal circumstances, a lengthy walk was no problem. She’d traveled on foot plenty during her time stalking Morkai’s hunters with Valorre. But this was different. This was walking without rest. Without food. Without any sense of how near or far they were in relation to their destination.
At least the dying landscape of the Blight made for very few obstacles to navigate, but that was of little comfort with the exhaustion that tugged at her bones. She wasn’t certain how much time had passed since she’d left Ridine, but she knew she’d been awake for far too long. Thankfully, Etrix had offered her a skin of water—which had been the sweetest, most refreshing water she’d ever tasted—but she wasn’t sure how much longer she could go on that alone.
“Can we rest?” she ground out for what felt like the hundredth time.
“No,” Fanon said from up ahead. Not once had he fallen back from his position several yards in front of her.
“Then can I ride? If I can just get on Valorre’s back, we can travel much faster.” She kept her tone pleading and pathetic to hide the truth; if she mounted Valorre, she could outpace all of them and give her and the unicorn a chance to escape through the Veil on their own. If there was a way through, that is.
Fanon glowered over his shoulder. It carried the depth of his ire even with the nighttime shadows muting her vision. “I think not, human.”
“I have a name,” she said. “It’sCora,nothuman.”
Fanon had nothing to say to that and simply increased his pace.
“You must forgive Fanon,” Etrix said. Both he and Garot strolled at her side. As annoyed as she was with her captors, having the two close by was some comfort. The Blight was an eerie place. Too vast. Too empty. Too quiet. She constantly expected some faerytale creature to leap from the shadows with pointed fangs and threaten to claw out her eyes. Or perhaps a return of that enormous dragon. Now and then she was certain she could hear its screech in the distance, and she hadn’t forgotten what Etrix had said about the dragons chasing unicorns. Thankfully, she’d seen no such creature. In fact, she hadn’t seen a single soul aside from her companions since they’d passed the group of Faeryn.
Etrix spoke again. “Acting as Steward of El’Ara is a great burden to bear.”
The way Etrix had saidstewardmade her think the title was one of respect, and far higher in rank than a castle steward like Master Arther. She frowned at Fanon’s back.Heheld a position of power?
“He’s no Morkara.” A note of sorrow crept into his voice. “We haven’t had a true Morkara in a very long time.”
The unknown word piqued her curiosity, and she debated asking what it meant. Themorportion meant magic, of course, but what aboutkara? It sounded too much likeMorkaiorMorkaiusto ignore. While she’d kept quiet during most of their walk, focusing only on thoughts of getting home, it occurred to her that her companions might hold vital information about her enemy. Morkai had claimed to be an Elvyn prince, after all. Still, she didn’t dare bring him up directly. For all she knew, these three could be the lost prince’s most fervent supporters. But she could mine them for knowledge just the same.
