The sentinel merely glared.
No one knew what business the two had, but the whole inn had gone quiet, and the air was thick with tension. I was barely aware of the dozen villagers around me, all with their faces pressed to the ground as if the walls were crumbling.
I stirred uneasily, shifting my balance from one foot to the other. I was sure Takkan would punish his cousin for hisimpertinence.
Instead he spun away, as if forgetting me entirely. “Gather your things,” Takkan growled to the sentinel. “I’m to take you home.”
As Takkan stormed away, I slipped back into the kitchen and scooped up what soup remained in the pot. I poured it into a bowl, almost spilling it once again as I hurried out the kitchen door.
I had not expected Takkan’s cousin to be right outside.
He caught me by the arm, steadying me before I crashed into him. “In a rush to leave?”
I wasn’t startled, merely nervous for the soup. It was all there was left.
I held out the bowl.For you.
“Thank you.” He raised it to his lips, then hesitated and lowered the bowl.
“Do you wish to come with us?” he asked, so quietly only the two of us could hear. “We’re headed south to Iro. Have you heard of it?” Wistfulness touched his voice. “It is beautiful…the most beautiful place in Kiata when it snows.”
His offer moved me, but the irony nearly made me laugh. Of course I knew of Iro—the prefecture of Castle Bushian. I swore my tutors had been bribed to tell me daily of its magnificence. How Iro was surrounded by mountains and the Baiyun River—an oasis in the dismal North. All useless attempts to mollify me about my betrothal.
Yet when the sentinel spoke of its beauty, I believed him. His voice was thick with homesickness—and raw with a wonder that could not be feigned. I almost wanted to see it for myself.
“It isn’t far,” continued the sentinel, “just past the North Sea Strait, on the mainland. I could find work for you in the castle if you wished. Your life would be easier than it is here.”
I shook my head. Much as I liked him, my mission was to find my brothers. Besides, I wanted nothing to do with his cousin Takkan.
Disappointment tugged at the young sentinel’s mouth, but he drank the entire bowl of soup. “It was no fluke,” he said, chewing deliberately on the radishes.
I took his bowl, assuming he was finished and would leave, but he unknotted a tasseled blue charm from the fan on his belt. On it was a small silver plate with the wordcourage.“If you do find yourself in need of work, show this at the castle gate. The guards will not hesitate to admit you.”
He offered me the charm, but I wouldn’t take it. It was a thoughtful gift but utterly worthless to me. I reached for his dagger instead—sheathed beside his sword.
“You want that?” Surprise, then mirth, touched the sentinel’s warm eyes. “You’re a brazen one. All right, keep it. But stay off the roads at night—bandits grow bold, with many of the sentinels away looking for the royal children.”
He hesitated, then attached the charm to its hilt before giving it to me. “Try to be careful.”
Our fingertips touched, and my heart gave a little skip. I’d never gotten his name.
But when I looked up again to ask, he was already gone. I went to the window, watching his horse until it disappeared down the narrow road beside the sea. Once he was gone, I slid the shutters closed and didn’t give the sentinel another thought. There was too much to be done, now that I had the means to leave.
That night, when everyone was asleep, I loaded an empty rice sack with as much as I could carry—some pickled vegetables, salted fish, freshly griddled shrimp. I wished I’d had time to prepare food that would last me the full journey, but I couldn’t be choosy.
Come dawn, when Mrs. Dainan woke and discovered there was no soup simmering on the stove, I would be longgone.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I bought a boat from a fisherman in Tianyi Village. He had to think me addle-brained for sailing away on the cusp of winter, but he taught me how to cut the sea with my oars, how to read the wind to navigate south, and how to throw a net to catch fish.
Meanwhile, his wife tucked a blanket and a box of fried fishcakes and boiled eggs into the boat. Their daughter also tied a charm—a little red doll with two beads as eyes—for protection. When I found them, hours later, the unexpected kindness nearly brought me to tears. But I’d promised Kiki no tears, not until I found my brothers.
A few hours before dusk, I left the island at long last, helming a boat barely long enough to fit me lying down, and with one sail that juddered against the wind.
Doesn’t look like it’d hold up well against a storm,Kiki said, voicing my worries.
The sky’s clear,I replied as I rowed.There’s no stormahead.
