Ihsan proudly points out the armory and the royal gallery, featuring the work of Namaag’s most renowned carvers, and he regales the awestruck group with the history of the royal palace and family. At last, we enter a spacious banquet hall with lengthy tables made of split tree trunks, with toadstool cushions for sitting. I sink into the squishy comfort and sigh much louder than I mean to. Thankfully, everyone else is sighing too. And the sighs grow even louder when the food arrives: roasted chestnuts and acorns, spicy blackened alligator and a wide variety of tree fowl and fish I’ve never tasted before. I eat and eat and eat, wiping my mouth on my sleeve and sloshing sap wine down my front. For weeks I’ve been telling myself that sacrificing my rations doesn’t affect me, but that was a glaring lie.
I glance down the packed table and grin when I spot Serik. He’s elbow deep in grease and crumbs, shoveling spoonful after spoonful of huckleberry pudding into his mouth.
Ziva and Yatindra join us halfway through the feast, along with her dour-faced husband, Murtaugh. They look on with horror as we chomp and slurp like animals. “Are you going to devour the table as well?” Yatindra asks.
“Happily if it tastes this fine!” Bultum calls.
Everyone laughs and Ihsan smiles proudly. “Our delicious cuisine is just one of Namaag’s many strengths.”
A middle-aged woman with flour-dusted cheeks beams as she bustles around replacing the empty platters.
“So, where exactly are you from?” Yatindra asks no one in particular before daintily sipping a spoonful of soup.
“Everywhere and nowhere,” Iree says. “We’re herders, so we wander the tundra, chasing the best grazing lands and weather.”
“Fascinating,” Yatindra says, but her pinched lips say otherwise.
“Sounds burdensome to me,” Murtaugh adds through a mouthful of stew.
“Where’s your sense of adventure?” King Ihsan booms. “Imagine all the places you’d see. All the people you’d meet. The excitement of never knowing where you’re going to lay your head next.”
Yatindra dabs her lips with a napkin. “So then where will you go when you leave us?”
Serik and I exchange a glance across the table. The timing feels wrong, asking them to join our cause immediately, when they’ve already taken us in and provided this feast. Plus, we don’t exactly look like desirable allies at the moment. I also don’t want to get into the specifics with the entire caravan present. There are too many loud voices and strident opinions.
“We’re not entirely sure,” I start. “It depends on several variables—”
“What do you mean you’re not sure?” Ziva interjects, her spoon clattering to the table. “As soon as Papa’s well, we’re returning to Verdenet to depose the imperial governor and retake the country. That’s been the plan all along.”
Yatindra chokes on her soup and gawps down at her niece. “You intend to confront the imperial governor withthesepeople?”
“Why would you confront the empire at all? They’re our allies.” Murtaugh glares across the table at us, his tree-bark face suddenly crinkled with twice as many lines.
Serik gives a little cough. “There have been some complicated developments recently….”
But Ziva jumps to her feet, slashing her butter knife like a saber. “The empire is not our ally. Allies don’t attempt to murder your king and seize your capital.”
“What are you talking about?” King Ihsan’s cheery expression flattens.
The tangle of side conversations ceases, and every eye in the banquet hall darts between the Namagaan king and the Verdenese princess.
I want to bang my head against the table—afterwringing Ziva’s neck. I try to shoot her a threatening glare, but of course she won’t look at me. Yatindra’s eyes, however, flay me open like the fish now languishing on my plate. “You intend to drag my brother and niece back to Lutaar City after they barely escaped with their lives? You’re not even soldiers!”
“We’re notdraggingthem anywhere,” I explain, but King Ihsan shouts over me.
“Who has been assassinated, and why is this the first I’ve heard of it?”
“You haven’t heard anything because the double-crossing empire doesn’t want you to know,” Ziva cries, as if rousing troops to battle. “Then they can come for you next.”
King Ihsan stands, suddenly looking a head taller and far fiercer than he did just minutes before. The entire room goes still, save for old Azamat, who continues gnawing on a pigeon bone. “These are bold accusations,” the king mutters.
“Forgive us, Your Majesty.” I march down the table, grab a fistful of Ziva’s fresh Namagaan tunic—how nice, she got to change while the rest of us remain filthy—and tug her out of her chair.
“What are you doing?” She claws at my arm.
I drag her toward the door. “Our travels have been long and difficult,” I plead with King Ihsan. “We’re clearly exhausted and raving. Perhaps we can retire and discuss these matters after we’ve rested?”
He stares at us for a good ten seconds without blinking. Finally he nods and tersely rings a bell. Less than a minute later Ruya arrives with her battalion of grim-faced soldiers.
