Finnikin's hand was still against Trevanion's chest; his father's heart was beating out of control.
'She remembers the nights you lay with her when she worried about something happening to you. 'What would I do without you?' she would cry. Do you remember your response, Captain Trevanion? 'What needs to be done, Beatriss.'
Trevanion shook his head with disbelief.
'You ask why I do not talk of the sleep,' Evanjalin said. 'Because most days it is dark. Their souls are sad, and our goddess is weeping with despair for her people. However, Beatriss the Beautiful has become a sower, this despite the fact that each time her crops grow, the impostor's men destroy them. But Beatriss the Bold refuses to stop planting.'
No one dared break the silence until Trevanion pushed Finnikin's hand away. 'You know things that only I could know.'
'No, Captain. You are wrong. I know things beyond what you know. Things that even I cannot understand. But my heart tells me to go north. Every waking hour and every sleeping moment tells me that there is life within Lumatere and that they wait. For us.'
Trevanion took a ragged breath and walked to the entrance of the tent. Finnikin watched, wanting to go to his father and plead with him to join them. Offer him comfort. But he had no idea how.
'There is a village of rocks in Yutlind where I've been told my Guard has settled. South,' Trevanion said.
Finnikin's shoulders slumped. 'Father, please ...'
'I will not return to Lumatere without my men.'
A sob of excitement escaped Evanjalin's lips. She flew into Trevanion's arms and then remembered herself and jumped back. She fell to her knees at his feet, but Sir Topher pulled her up.
'You will have no regrets,' she said to them all. 'I promise you. On my life.'
Four days later, they began their journey alongside the priest-king and the exiles. A handful of the exiles stayed behind to tend to the fever camp, but Sir Topher and Trevanion had been firm that the priest-king would not be one of them. Their groups would separate when the road diverged. The priest-king would take his people west to Belegonia, and Finnikin and his party would travel south in search of Trevanion's men. But for a day they walked side by side.
Finnikin found himself looking at his father again and again. When Trevanion caught the look, he frowned. 'What?' he asked gruffly.
Finnikin shrugged. 'Nothing. Just that I heard Evanjalin say a family of sparrows has petitioned the king of Sorel to be freed from your hair.'
The priest-king gave a snort of laughter, and after a moment Trevanion joined in and Finnikin's heart warmed at the sound of it. Trevanion wrapped his arm around his son's neck like a shepherd's hook and dragged him along playfully. When he let go, Finnikin thought he would have liked his father to hold on a moment longer.
When the road split in two, Finnikin watched the exiles go, a mixture of fear and hope on their faces.
'Until we meet again in Belegonia,' the priest-king said.
'In the town of Lastaria on the coastal road,' Finnikin reminded him as they embraced. He stood with Sir Topher, watching as Evanjalin led the way south with Froi and Trevanion.
'Salvation paved with blood, you say?' Sir Topher asked the holy man with a sigh.
The priest-king nodded. 'But salvation all the same, Sir Topher.'
Part Two
All the King's Men
Chapter 11
The flooding rains of Sorel pounded the earth for days, forcing them to spend the week lodging in a barn when the road to the south became impassable. It was a painstakingly slow beginning to a search that would take them into the most war-ravaged kingdom in the land. While Sir Topher taught Froi the language of Lumatere, the others pored over their maps, searching for alternative routes to reach Trevanion's men, who he believed were hiding in one of the rock villages of Yutlind Sud. The most common route was to cross back into Belegonia, which bordered Yutlind from the north. But Trevanion was an outlaw in every kingdom of the land, and the road into Belegonia was too dangerous. If they traveled west through Sorel to its port, they risked having to pass through the mines as well as deal with a treacherous waterway, the Gulf of Skuldenore.
'Pirate ships,' Finnikin said. 'Tipped off by corrupt port officials who take a cut of anything plundered.'
'Corruption in Sorel? Surely you jest,' Sir Topher said, walking over to join them.
'Even if we manage to land in Yutlind,' Finnikin continued, 'the heaviest fighting is in the north and the Yuts always attack first and ask questions later. I say we cross the mountains. To get here,' he said, pointing to the independent coastal province of Sif, south of Sorel. 'We pay passage on a merchant cog that travels south. There is a small port on the Yack River in Yutlind Sud. From there we travel up-country.'
'The south is a mess, Finnikin,' Sir Topher argued. 'No one knows who is in charge or who is to blame or who is an ally or an enemy.'
'So the last thing on their minds will be a party of Lumateran exiles and an escaped prisoner.'
'Then we travel to Sif,' Trevanion decided.
After the dark world of the mines and the fever camp and the dampness of the overcrowded barn where the stench of body odor permeated every one of his senses, Finnikin was relieved to see the snowcapped mountains in the distance. Though the mountains looked invigorating from afar, he never imagined how terrible their beauty would become as they ascended. Nights were bitterly cold, the icy wind numbing their faces, cloth swaddling their mouths and noses, where saliva and mucus feasted together.
They spoke little during the day. The wind was too severe and the trail too backbreaking to waste energy on talk. Sometimes, when his fingers ached from the stinging cold and his skin felt torn to shreds from the bluster, Finnikin imagined the life he would have had if he'd settled for a role as an advisor to a foreign king. Instead, he was trekking across the land for a Guard that may not want to be found, on his way home to a kingdom that no longer existed.
On the fourth night, they camped inside a cave, their bodies convulsing, their bedrolls packed tight against one another. They rotated every few hours to ensure that everyone would have a chance to sleep in the warmth. Finnikin dreamed that he was nestled in a womb, speaking to Beatriss's baby. When he woke, he found himself in the arms of his father and his own wrapped around Evanjalin. He knew she had been walking the sleep over the last few nights and wondered, as she twitched in his arms, if she was again. Her hair was now a thin dark cap on her scalp, and a strange kind of beauty had begun to appear in her face, despite the grime. Every feature was strong, strangely put together. Although she was thin from their journey, nothing about her seemed delicate. Yet Finnikin had seen brief moments of fragility. A look on her face as if she had just remembered something painful, her breath catching. At times it was as if she could barely raise her head from the demons that weighed her down.
'Sir Topher! Sir Topher!'
Finnikin heard her voice. He hadn't realized he had fallen asleep again.
'I think I've worked it out,' she said.
Sir Topher woke with a start. 'Goddess of Sorrow, Evanjalin! Can it not wait till morning?'
'Worked what out?' Trevanion demanded. Finnikin sat up, yawning. The last embers of the fire were glowing, and the dampness was back in his bones.
'They may not be dead,' she said dreamily. 'The baker dreamed of cherry blossoms. He lit a candle and made a sacrifice to the goddess Sagrami.'
'Evanjalin, you need to sleep,' Finnikin said. 'You're not making sense.'
But she shook her head. 'No, I need to stay awake and put the pieces of all the sleeps together.'
