“Did you ever cut the line again?”
“No.”
“And what of Dunixi?” Luca asked.
“He came when we were thirteen and fourteen turns of the sun,” Ula replied. “Son of a shipping magnate that fell afoul of the Eritrian crown. Father was thrown in prison, mother was already dead, so he was sent to the orphanage as part of the sentencing. Everything wound up with the Crown—the ship, the son, those stupid rings.”
She nodded to Osana here, as Urtzi made to clarify. “His father’s rings.” It wasn’t his usual from-the-gut pronouncement; something bitter wove throughout. “He stole them off the ship as they were being taken. His father never even knew he had them.”
Luca grinned. It would be like Dunixi to grab anything of worth before running—especially if it wasn’t actually his. “I have a feeling he liked to show those rings to anyone with eyeballs.”
“You would be correct,” Ula spit.
“And yet you followed him anyway,” Luca pointed out. “Why?”
Urtzi replied for the two of them. “He got us out.”
That answer was enough for Osana. “That’s why I followed the princess—she got me out. Though it was quite obvious she was the real deal, unlike that blowhard. Sorry, but he was.”
Ula shrugged. “I don’t deny it. But that blowhard came up with the plan. Knew where his father’s ship had been impounded. We were old enough to know that children like us were never actually adopted, never sent into the world on our own accord. If we’d stayed, Urtzi and Dunixi would’ve been conscripted within a month—the Eritrian army is different than that of Ardenia. In Ardenia, anyone with smarts can rise to be an officer. In Eritri, only the children of nobility are officers; the rest are grunts. And the orphans are front line.”
“Especially if they were not of Eritri,” Urtzi added, that bitterness back. Urtzi did not explain why he left Myrcell for Eritri in the first place. Luca did not ask—refugees rarely had a happy reason for being displaced.
“I wouldn’t have been pulled into the army,” Ula clarified. “I would’ve been pushed onto the streets with no skills and no savings. Exactly as I came to them in the first place—”
Ula’s words died out as a commotion came from outside—the goats in a ruckus.
“Erfu!” Mannah exclaimed, startling awake—she’d had years of practice in awaiting her husband’s reappearance under the cover of darkness. She stood from her rocking chair, blanket dropping to the floor, and yanked open a single shutter, as she must have done so many times before.
As it yawned open, a brilliant light flared beyond the window.
Fire.
She shoved open both shutters.
The barn was completely aflame.
Luca and Ula shot up, and Osana’s and Urtzi’s chairs scraped back from the table—as something else came into view.
A rider.
No, more than one—three. Three men on horseback, torches in hand.
Two bent toward the split-rail fence surrounding the upper levelof the property, the grazing area beyond—lighting each and every rail on fire with the methodical precision of priests lighting candles to the stars.
The third headed straight for the house.
“Out, out, everyone out!” Luca shouted. There was an audiblewhooshas the flames touched the eaves.
This close to the Torrent, rain was sparse, especially in the summer, and the structure was made of juniper wood and dry as a bone. Within a minute or less, the whole thing would be engulfed.
Ula gathered the tinctures, thrusting them into her saddlebag, while Urtzi hauled the rest of the half-packed saddlebags and jug of sagardon. Luca hastily packed the map, unsheathed his dagger, and took Mannah’s hand. She’d grabbed a fire poker as means for a weapon.
“Mannah, is there a place we can run to? Somewhere we can hide?”
“Through the rear door,” the old woman directed. “We can scramble down the ravine—Erfu and I maintain a cave. Stocked with supplies.”
Closest to the rear door Osana grabbed her sword and used her blade to wrench it open without touching the hot metal handle, and held it ajar. Mannah and Luca led the way, but just as they all entered the yard Ula shoved past the line and ran back into the house as the whole front smoldered.
