He squeezes my hand and then lets me go. “I feel the same way, Soli. Exactly the same way. Now, let’s put aside any serious and sad thoughts and enjoy the day. The sun is almost out. We have enough to eat, and we can pretend we’re having an adventure. Let’s think no further than that.”
“Best idea I’ve heard all day.”
“I know this drinking song we could turn into a riding song …”
He makes me laugh.
That I still can, after everything, matters.
The road is empty but for our party, and the reason for that becomes evident in the early morning as we travel northeast toward the mountains. More and more fields and even forests have been reduced to burned, smoking ruins. The stink of smoke and char fills the air in some places until it’s difficult to breathe.
“The Zhagarn and Fell came this way,” Trick says, and I nod. No one in Khyrrus would put these lands to the torch like this. The destruction is massive, and I force myself not to imagine what happened to any people the Zhagarn encountered when they were here.
Kaelen, Chitai, and Andras ride over to us, as grim as I’ve ever seen them.
“I can’t believe they’ve encroached so far in such large numbers,” the prince says.
“They made it all the way to Pallanhold,” I remind him.
“That was a small expeditionary force. This is carnage on a level I’d expect to see only if an entire cohort were on the march. And we didn’t see any sign of them. Where did they go?”
“These fires were set recently,” Andras says, constantly scanning the area, his bow strung and ready across his saddle. “It doesn’t make sensethat we haven’t seen any of their tracks or their camps.Something.”
“How are they moving around unseen?” Kaelen’s voice is sharp with frustration. “Andras? Chitai?”
“No clue here, riverlander,” Chitai says, more than her usual number of knives on display and her war band showing. “We’ve heard rumors that Corvynne can help her people move with stealth. We—the Eagle Clan, at least—have not seen this with our own eyes. We should ask the sorcerer.”
But when Elianna wakes, she doesn’t know, either.
“Maybe,” she says slowly, looking doubtful. “I told you before about the magic of bending light. There was an ancient skill of bending light together with air. This magic could hide even a large party, if the sorcerer were powerful enough. But we have had none that strong in centuries, as far as I know.”
“We need to keep moving. We’re not that far from the base of the mountains,” Kaelen says. “If we keep riding through the day, we should reach the road to the temple by nightfall.”
“That’s two days straight with no rest,” Sergeant Neville points out. “Fine for us, lad, but Soli may need—”
“I’m fine,” I say.
Kaelen nods decisively. “Let’s get to the temple as quickly as possible. There may be more bounty hunters, or worse, behind us, and the temple should be a safe haven for a night.”
“We’ll find the second key there, too,” I say, touching the amulet and the first key through my shirt. “Artemisen will be able to speak to us again. We need to start that list.”
“First question: why did it have to beunspeakableevil?” Trick rolls his eyes. “Why couldn’t she find ordinary,speakableevil to protect the keys?”
“I doubt she’s the one who set the guards in place,” Chitai says. “That sounds like a countermeasure by Corvynne.”
“Better and better,” I say, then urge Cloud a little distance from the others. I need quiet to think about those questions and what’s coming next.
Everyone else seems to be tired of talking, too, so we ride on in silence, watching for traps and brigands and Zhagarn and Fell.
I hope we can at least make it to the temple unscathed.
But I’m not holding my breath.
TheValourian royal family members, almost without exception through the ages, possessed extraordinary skills in the areas of strategic thinking, swordplay, and politics. However, this can be tempered by a tendency to arrogance and, at times, an epically unfortunate stubbornness.fn1
—A History of Valourian Royalty, author Terrance Larkspur, Chief Scribe
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
