Finnikin of the Rock

strong. It's the least we can leave her with.'

Sir Topher nodded. 'If we are to make the tide, we must leave soon.'

Finnikin was stunned at how swiftly Sir Topher had made his decision, but the look in the older man's eyes warned him not to protest. Biting his tongue, Finnikin watched as the High Priestess took the girl's head in her hands and pressed her lips tenderly to her forehead. He saw the girl's eyes close and her mouth tremble, but then her face became impassive again and she walked away from the High Priestess without a backward glance.

The descent was as nauseating as the climb up, made worse for Finnikin by the burden he carried in his heart. Taking this girl halfway across the land had not been part of the plan he and Sir Topher had worked out in the early days of winter. The uncertainty of their new path did not sit well with him.

When they reached the base of the cliff, they passed the group of kneeling pilgrims. A hand snaked out to grab the cloth of the novice's cloak.

'Your feet,' Finnikin said, noticing for the first time that she was barefoot. 'We can't afford to be slowed down because you don't have shoes.'

But the girl did not respond and continued walking. It was only when they were a good distance from the cloister that she looked back and he saw the raw emotion of loss on her face. By then the waters reached their knees and Finnikin feared they would not make it to safety without being washed away. Here, the tide was said to return at amazing speed and pilgrims had drowned without any warning. He grabbed her arm and pulled her forward, and suddenly her look of vulnerability disappeared and in its place was a flash of triumph.

As if somehow the novice Evanjalin had gotten her way.

Chapter 2

In the days that followed, cold winds gnawed at their bones and a winter that refused to end kept the days short and darkness a constant companion. Sir Topher decided that the best route to Sorel would be to cross into Sarnak and follow the road through Charyn. Although the quickest route was down through Belegonia, Sir Topher argued that they would not return to Sarnak for at least another year and there was a chance they would encounter survivors from the massacre. On this point Finnikin agreed; it was their destination he could not accept.

'We're making a mistake,' he said on the third morning, forced now to dress behind a tree. He pulled on his buckskin trousers and then his boots, tucking a tiny dagger next to his calf.

'As you have now mentioned for the tenth time, Finnikin,' Sir Topher called out with maddening patience.

Finnikin had come to appreciate Sir Topher's patience over the years, ever since he had been placed in his care by Perri the Savage, his father's second-in-charge. Today, however, there was more irritation than appreciation.

'Sorel,' he muttered as he stepped out from behind the tree. 'No one goes to Sorel. No exile would set up camp in Sorel. Not even the people of Sorel want to live in Sorel.'

'Let's accept our path, Finnikin, and hold our tongue, as the novice does so beautifully,' Sir Topher replied.

The girl did little to lessen Finnikin's frustration. At night he watched her toss in her bedroll as though possessed by demons, crying, gritting her teeth, calling out with such despair. As they trekked across the flat treeless earth, sometimes her body would slump as if what she dreamed was weighing down her spirit. Other times there was a spring in her step and a soft dreamy smile on her lips, as if she was remembering a moment so happy that it effortlessly carried her over the cold barren land.

Deep down, Finnikin knew there was something more to his unease than this strange girl traveling with them. The mention of the heir had awoken memories, and with them came a restlessness, a sense of futility about the future. In the past ten years, the pages of the dead in the Book of Lumatere had grown. There were those who had been slain in Sarnak, those who had died in a plague village in Charyn, those who had drowned when the floods in Belegonia swept over the river camps. Without their own healers, there were no cures for the ailments that others in the land seemed to easily survive.

When they crossed the border into Sarnak, there was little relief from the weather, but a hot meal was more readily available and Finnikin was glad to be able to leave behind the stale bread and moldy cheese that had been their staple diet for over a week. Trees and shrubs began to appear beside the road, and as they continued east, they found themselves in thick woodland, where they decided to camp.

* * *

That night, as Sir Topher pored over the map, Finnikin caught the girl staring at the sword that lay by his saddlebag.

'It's my father's,' he said gruffly. He pulled it out of its scabbard. The grip was plain, except for a stone—a ruby, rich and bright—embedded in the handle. As a child, Finnikin had imagined it had powers. He believed anything Trevanion touched did. The novice reached out and placed a finger on the stone.

'The ruby is the official stone of Lumatere. Did you know that?' Sir Topher asked, looking up from his map.

In response, the novice dug her hand deep into her pocket and withdrew a ruby ring. She gently traced its contours, then extended her hand as if offering it to Finnikin to take. When he made no attempt to touch it, Sir Topher reached over and examined it instead. Finnikin could see from the warmth in her eyes that the ring held memories much the same as his father's sword did. At the thought of his father, he was suddenly swamped by a wave of grief. Standing abruptly, he grabbed the crossbow and disappeared into the woods.

Later, Finnikin emerged from the forest with two fair-sized hares. With little fuss, the novice took one of the hares and sat by the fire, cutting into the skin and stripping it from the body of the dead animal with ease. As Finnikin watched, she wiped her brow, leaving a streak of blood across her face. Feeling his gaze on her, she looked up, and in the flickering light of the fire, he saw a fierceness in her eyes that no humble dress or pious look could disguise.

Sir Topher was melancholy that night, and the mead they had secured in the border town had loosened his tongue. Finnikin knew that in this state, Sir Topher would drink and talk. Always about the five days of the unspeakable. Finnikin loved this man dearly and knew he would be dead if not for his mentor's kindness, but when Sir Topher spoke of those days, Finnikin wanted to shout at him to stick to facts and plans. Facts and plans had results. The days of the unspeakable were impossible to explain or to solve. Finnikin had learned over the years not to think of anything beyond the practicalities of getting from one point to another. To focus on the achievable. Locating a piece of land for the exiles of Lumatere was achievable. But only if they could find a benevolent host, and he knew in his heart that the kingdom of Belegonia was the place. Most of the time Sir Topher agreed, except when he was drinking mead and succumbing to memory.

The girl showed interest in Sir Topher's story. She put aside the half-skinned hare and kept his words flowing by refilling his cup each time it emptied. Sir Topher relished the opportunity to tell the tale again.

'Does she need to know?' Finnikin asked at one point, not looking up.

'The silence that meets us in every exile camp is a paralysis that has been passed on to the next generation,' Sir Topher said reprovingly.

And so Finnikin heard it again. How the enemy had come in the dead of the night. How they were never able to explain how the assassins had managed to get past the guards, for it was only five days later that the kingdom gates became impenetrable, and questions stayed unanswered. Some said the assassins were in Lumatere long before that night, hiding and plotting to sweep through the palace and take the lives of every single inhabitant: the cooks, the guards, the ladies-in-waiting, the pages, the nursemaids, the groundsmen. Sir Topher had been sent to Belegonia with the ambassador on palace business and had lived with the guilt of surviving ever since.

It was Trevanion, captain of the King's Guard and Finnikin's father, who made the gruesome discovery. At the second change of guard, he returned and found the first man dead at the palace entrance. A path of bodies led to the grand hall where the king, queen, and three older princesses were found slain. A desperate search for Balthazar and Isaboe followed. Balthazar alive meant the survival of Lumatere. It meant that no stranger would dare enter the kingdom and claim it as theirs. The King's Guard searched every house in the palace village, every square inch of the Flatlands, crossed the mountains, searched the Rock Village, and scoured the caves. Finally, they