Ignoring his own exhaustion, James rested his back against a tree and watched the shadows, ears peeled for any sound of Carlo and his soldiers.
Clouds grew in the sky, blocking out the moon and stars, the wind rising.
It whipped through the trees, making them moan and shift, branches scratching against one another. Whether she was too exhausted to notice or too Ithicanian to care about wind, James didn’t know, but Ahnna didn’t stir as the hours passed. James was readyingto wake her to switch shifts on watch duty when he saw flickers of light in the distance.
And heard the bark of a dog.
He gently touched her shoulder. “Ahnna.” She jerked awake and lifted her blade.
“Shhh,” James whispered. “They’re here and they have a dog. We need to hide.”
Ahnna reacted without hesitation. She snatched up the basket of supplies and began hurling the remaining food items toward the river before catching hold of his hand. “Step only on the tree roots so you don’t leave tracks in the dirt. With luck, the dog isn’t well trained and will be lured away by food—otherwise we will have to fight.”
Ahnna led him through the trees, nimbly stepping from twisted root to twisted root, her balance superb. Only her grip on his hand allowed him to do the same.
“Down here,” she whispered, and pulled him through a tangle of bushes into a hollow he’d never have known was there. It was small, which necessitated her sitting on him as she gently rearranged the brush to better hide them. Their proximity was necessitated by the direness of the situation, but it was impossible not to feel the tension between them. Impossible not to notice exactly where her body pressed against his.
Ahnna rubbed her hand into the dirt and smeared it over her face before twisting to do the same to James. “When they get close, squint or shade your eyes,” she murmured. “It’s always the eyes that give people away.”
He’d known the Ithicanians were masters at camouflage, especially when it came to ambush attacks, yet it was another thing seeing it in action.
And not a moment too soon.
Flickering lanterns came closer. Far more than there should have been, given Carlo’s much-reduced force.
James understood why as he caught sight of the weapons they carried. Scythes and sickles and pitchforks, because they weren’t soldiers.
They were civilians.
“Search carefully, my friends!” Carlo’s voice cut through the darkness. “For Harendell’s bastard is not a man to be trifled with. He will cut you down as sure and true as he did your countrymen. For the sake of stealing a boat, he burned an entire village and slaughtered everyone who lived there. He will do the same to you if given the chance. Be wary!”
Ahnna tensed against him, and James felt sickness pooling in his stomach. He’d been certain that Carlo would act with discretion for the sake of his mother’s schemes, but he’d been wrong. Carlo had slaughtered his own people to rally the Amaridian population to join the hunt. James’s hand tightened on his sword but Ahnna’s fingers wrapped around his, silently urging caution.
“He has the Ithicanian princess as his prisoner,” Carlo intoned as though he’d repeated this same refrain countless times already, and James caught sight of him walking with heavy strides through the shadows. He was leading a tall horse, and James silently cursed, because it was either Maven or Dippy. “Ithicana is our ally and Ahnna Kertell our hero for putting an end to the villain Edward’s treachery. At all costs, she must be rescued from Edward’s Cardiffian bastard. We cannot allow him to bring her back to Harendell, for her life will be forfeit.”
Ahnna’s fingers tightened on his, her shock at Carlo’s words as palpable as his own.
“The bastard prince has killed our brothers and sisters in numbers beyond counting in the Lowlands,” Carlo continued. “He is merciless. He is cruel. And the princess of the Tempest Seas is injured and unable to defend herself from him or his foul advances.”
An angry mutter seethed through the line of civilians, several ofthem calling out threats of what they’d do to James if they caught him.
“She fled to Amarid for our aid,” Carlo shouted, drawing closer. “She fled to us because no one knows better than we do the evil of King Edward. She has done Amarid the greatest of services, and we cannot leave her to stand alone. Search, my friends, my comrades! Hunt the bastard down! A thousand golden coins to the man or woman who delivers the princess alive! Two thousand golden coins to the man or woman who delivers James Ashford, so that he can be executed by Her Most Royal Majesty as an enemy of Amarid!”
“Death to the bastard!” the civilians shouted, and Carlo’s smile was illuminated by lantern light.
Yet as he turned his head, that same light did not pierce the shadows of his empty eye socket, the skin around it swollen. James clenched his teeth, knowing that the blow to the Beast’s vanity would only drive the man harder, and fear tightened his chest as Carlo stopped walking.
The two soldiers with Carlo paused next to him as the civilians pressed onward, holding their lanterns up to search the shadows. The dog, a bounding retriever, raced onward and began snuffling near where James and Ahnna had been resting, right next to the hidden boat. James flexed his fingers on his blade as the dog lifted his head, nose moving as he sniffed the air.
With a bark, he raced in the direction of the river, no doubt making swift work of eating the food Ahnna had discarded to lure him off.
Keep going,he willed the dog as the civilians moved downstream, none of them seeing the rowboat hidden with Ahnna’s skilled handiwork.
Yet Carlo remained where he was, idly tracing his empty eye socket with his index finger. “I want him alive,” he said to his men. “If anyone accidentally kills James, I will make them suffer. He’s mine. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir,” one of the soldiers answered. “Each team is repeating the message to the civilians. We have vessels on the water pressing downstream, men changing out horses to get the message westward as swiftly as possible, and bands of civilians hunting the banks and open ground. We’ll get bloodhounds on the trail soon enough.”
Carlo didn’t answer, only turned to stroke the horse’s nose.
