“Miguel,we shall have the others go.” She motioned toward Tala’s carriage, ten or so down the line. “I will flag down—”
“No,Sera.” He was already on the move. Straightening the hat he wore as part of his disguise. It was dirty, the brim snakebit from the elements, and so caked with dust that it was impossible to gauge the original color. He wore Ula’s sword as his own, and she had his dagger on her hip, her own hair tied in the twin braids popular in the Isilean Caravan, rather than the single one and handkerchief she usually wore. The disguises weren’t much, but the subtlety was the key anyway.
“Please don’t,” Ula pleaded, though she obliged as she fell in step beside him. Amarande and Taillefer were up ahead, but they were plodding—the guards proud of their work, showing off. And the people gave them what they wanted.
“Everyone is watching them,” he argued. “Not us. If thousands of people are gawking, no one will notice us.”
Ula sighed at her own logic, tossed back in her face. “We should tell the others.”
“If they are any good at their jobs, they have already observed us leaving.”
“Miguel, I do not agree with any of this.”
“You know it is the right thing to do. If you were alone, Sera, you would have followed them without hesitation.”
Ula was silent. That was enough of a confirmation.
Heads down, they swept past the healer’s carriage—Luca hoped they’d rushed away. Someone would want to trace the first murmur of his name.
Next, they slipped past the crowd, still bunching around the lane of packed earth where the fight went down. Blood spattered black against the russet dust, boot marks etched in a sweep of lunging steps and countermeasures.
“This could ruin everything,” Ula whispered at his side. “Change everything.”
“It already has.”
They skirted along the edges of the path, gaining ground. Two guards buffered Amarande’s back from the crowd. She was shorter than her captors, but with every few steps the rising sun hit just right, and the fall of her reddish hair flashed through the space between bodies.
A beacon. A flame in the dark.
It was one thing to know the direction of the final goal—to envision it on the back of one’s eyelids and flesh it out in dreams. It was quite another to see the end goal right before you, in danger, being delivered to the person who had every reason to kill you on the spot.
The line of gawkers grew—word of the princess’s capture making it around the camp. Luca and Ula let the newcomers—stacked a dozen deep watching the procession—provide cover as they made up enough time that they were quickly in line with Amarande.
Her chin jutted proudly forward, one guard holding her bound hands, the other leading the procession. Luca wished she would catch his eye through the distance. As she had during her father’s funeral. Amarande always seemed to know where he was at all times.
Look here.
See me.
I’m here for you, Ama. Always, Princess.
Luca did not know if her sixth sense would work when she believed him miles away and not simply yards.
“Why is she with him?” Ula whispered. “Not exactly discreet in that uniform. Even with the outer cloak. He’s too clever to ruin her disguise with his own—unless hewantedto.”
“Your questions are my own. And they are important. But none of it matters if the Warlord slits her throat on sight.”
The blue-and-gold spire of the Warlord’s grand tent was only a few rows of campsites away. Everything this close to the fire pit lived in a plume and haze, the air stinging as it hit the lungs, even with the flames extinguished.
“For a prisoner like her it will be a spectacle. And a spectacle takes time to produce.”
Luca hoped she was correct. Though the march through the camp was much more of a spectacle than the actual delivery of the prisoners. Without a public word from the Warlord, the guards simply pulled back the fabric entrance to the tent and shoved Amarande and Taillefer within. A moment later and the guards reemerged to bracket the entrance, hands firmly on the pommels of their stowed swords.
Luca’s pounding heart stuttered in his chest.No.He had to see. He had to know what the Warlordwoulddo to her.Coulddo to her.
“There.” Ula knocked his cheek with her knuckles, redirecting hisgaze to the back side of the tent, nestled against the body of the Warlord’s carriage. Without hesitation, Ula skirted through the long shadow thrown by the dawn and sank to her stomach, sweeping herself beneath the carriage. Luca followed her lead, and they scooted and shuffled until their bodies were completely covered by the carriage, the wheels and shadows welling between the tent structures, keeping their cover.
From there, they could peer into the Warlord’s tent, the edge of the blue fabric within arm’s reach. The back exit was tied closed, but the wind had caused it to sag in the night. And though what they could see was slim and suspect, if they held their breath and faced their ears so they were just beside the edge of the shadow, Luca and Ula could hear every word from within the tent as clear as day.
