Finnikin of the Rock

Trevanion was silent for a moment. 'Did she... seem happy?' he asked quietly. 'In the dream?'

Finnikin knew he was speaking of Beatriss. 'As happy as she always was when you were by her side,' he said honestly. 'So happy that it made me travel to the end of the earth without questioning where it would lead me.'

When they stumbled into the foothills where the exiles slept, Trevanion called out an acknowledgment to the Monts who stood guard.

'Stay awhile,' he told Finnikin and Lucian. 'Sleep first, and then in the morning take Evanjalin and Froi up to your people, Lucian. Perri and I need to return to the Valley tonight. Saro will know to follow soon.'

Lucian nodded, and Finnikin waited as Trevanion and Perri mounted their horses.

'Rest, Finn,' his father said. 'I fear there will be much for you to do when you reach the Valley of Tranquillity.'

And with one last look at Finnikin, Trevanion and Perri headed west, where their exiled people waited.

* * *

At the edge of the camp, Finnikin and Lucian lay near one of the fires to dry their damp clothing. Evanjalin and Froi were already asleep, and Finnikin covered them with the fleece-lined coats.

'He was my hero. Balthazar,' Lucian said quietly, looking at Finnikin over the small blaze.

'I think you were his,' Finnikin acknowledged.

'No. I think half of him wanted to be Trevanion of the River and the other half Finnikin of the Rock.' Lucian laughed. 'I, of course, wanted to be Perri the Savage, although after tonight I'm not sure I have the stomach for it.'

'There's more to our Perri.'

Lucian leaned forward. 'Anyway, I'm not sure Balthazar would have made the finest of kings.'

'Why do you say such a thing?' Finnikin asked.

'Perhaps better than his father, but not like his mother. My family says the queen married beneath herself.'

Finnikin snorted, careful not to wake Froi and Evanjalin. 'Only you mountain goats would believe you're better than royalty.'

'It's not conceit,' Lucian said. 'She had grit. She had a thirst for knowledge and a ruthlessness, passed on to her daughters, that any Mont would envy. The oldest princess, Cousin Vestie, would have been a great leader. Yata always said she had strength much like her mother, the queen. The king was ... soft, especially with his cousin. So it was no shock to us that that scum beneath our boots found his way back into Lumatere as the impostor king.'

'The impostor king was a pawn who was placed there by the king of Charyn in an attempt to use Lumatere as a road to invade Belegonia.'

Lucian shrugged. 'The king was weak with Charyn. He should have sent in the army the moment Charyn first stopped the goods wagons from the north.'

He looked over at Froi and Evanjalin. 'Do you know why I was certain Balthazar had died that night?' he asked.

Finnikin sighed, wanting to sleep. 'Perhaps because you think you know everything?'

Lucian was in no mood for humor. 'Does your wound weep? The one from the pledge?'

Finnikin nodded.

'So does mine, and that's how I know he's dead and has been from that night.'

Finnikin said nothing.

'The wound lives because the pledge was real. It worked.'

'Lucian...'

'What did we pledge that day on the rock of three wonders, Finnikin?' he whispered urgently.

Still Finnikin didn't respond. There was something about Lucian's tone that was causing his heart to hammer against his chest.

'Balthazar pledged to die protecting the royal house of Lumatere,' Lucian said. 'You pledged to be their guide. I pledged to be their beacon. And ten years later we are all here.'

'Not all of us.'

Lucian moved closer toward him. 'Balthazar's pledge was that he would die protecting the royal house of Lumatere,' he repeated, tears in his eyes. 'Three witnesses saw him running through the Forest that night.' Lucian shook his head in disbelief. 'Not possible. Balthazar would never have allowed himself to live that night if Isaboe died. That's the difference between the king's son and the queen's daughters. The king's first priority was the survival of his wife and children. But the queen's? Survival of the people. Because the people were Lumatere.'

'What are you saying?' Finnikin asked.

'Balthazar took from his father,' Lucian said with force. 'We all honored our pledge. And Seranonna of the Forest Dwellers and two others, who had no reason to lie, claimed to have seen a child running from the Forest that night. The child who stamped bloody handprints on the kingdom walls. I saw those handprints. All the Monts saw them that week we stayed in the Valley of Tranquillity. My father and his brothers had to drag my yata away from them.'

Finnikin could hardly form words. Lucian looked slightly crazed as he pointed at the figure lying beside Finnikin.

'Balthazar protected her. You were her guide. You brought her here because she sensed her people. I was the beacon.'

'Isaboe?' Finnikin said, his voice hoarse with shock. He stared at her sleeping figure as Lucian stood and drew his sword from its scabbard. Instantly the Mont was on guard, but Finnikin could not move. Isaboe. Why would he not have known? How could he not have recognized her? Worse still, he wondered with hurt and rage, why had she not trusted him? After all this time, when they had walked side by side? Yet he leaped to his feet beside Lucian. To do what he was born to do. Protect the royal house of their kingdom.

'You started this when you forced us to cut flesh from our bodies, Finnikin,' Lucian whispered. 'But I would do it a thousand times over to see our queen lead us back home to Lumatere.'

Chapter 23

When the sun appeared in the sky, Finnikin woke her with shaking hands. The exiles had left for the Valley with Saro's men at dawn. Still exhausted, Froi and Evanjalin begged for more sleep, but Finnikin shook his head. There was desperation in him, in Lucian too. To take her to Yata. 'It's only a short walk,' he said quietly. A few feet away, Saro of the Monts was talking with some of his men. He seemed surprised to see Lucian and Finnikin in the foothills and approached them with a questioning look on his face. Until he saw her.

'This is where it begins,' Lucian whispered. A look of intense shock crossed Saro's face. Sensing him, Evanjalin looked up from where she was crouched, tying her boots, then stood and walked toward him. When she reached him, she bent to kneel in respect for the Mont leader. Horrified, Saro pulled her to her feet in the same way Sir Topher had once reacted when Evanjalin tried to kneel at Trevanion's feet. Sir Topher knew, Finnikin realized, had always known. A queen never bent to her people.

Saro of the Monts held his hand out to her, and she took it calmly. Finnikin watched as she walked alongside her uncle. The higher they climbed, the more hurried her footsteps, her fingers clenching and unclenching by her side. Saro looked down at her, and the Mont leader's shoulders shook, overcome with the strength of his feelings.

But when they reached the settlement, she stopped and turned, and her eyes found Finnikin's. He wanted desperately to protect her. To hide her. To take her away to a place where he could pretend she was a novice named Evanjalin. And there they both stood for a moment. Until she turned and walked toward Yata, who stood in the distance laughing at something with Sir Topher as they went about their morning chores. And then the queen of Lumatere broke free of her uncle's hand, a sob escaping her throat as she sprang toward her grandmother, who