were too narrow and long to allow an army to invade. And in that way, Gargarin and Lirah would stay safe in Paladozza. Try as he might, he couldn’t get their faces out of his head and already felt a strong sense of loss knowing he might never see them again.
They rested that night close to the stone that would take them out into the hills of the north. The space was too small for comfort, but Quintana curled against him, asleep in an instant. Froi couldn’t help thinking of Isaboe when she was carrying Jasmina in her belly. The way everyone in the palace fussed over her. How Finn would prop her up against him and knead her shoulders and back while she gave Sir Topher instructions on how to deal with the merchants in the main village who refused to work with some of the Flatland lords. Froi couldn’t count the amount of times he’d ride from Sayles to the palace on an errand for Lady Abian, who insisted that the Queen have the best apples their orchard had to offer, or the days he had accompanied Finn to the mountains because the juiciest berries in the kingdom were grown there and Isaboe deserved the best.
‘You are all becoming tiresome,’ she’d complain. ‘I’m carrying a child, not dying of an ailment.’
And Froi wanted all of that for Quintana. He wanted to hear her complain how tiresome they all were with the attention they were giving and how she was sick of resting and sick of taking warm baths and sick of her people waiting on her hand and foot. Yet here Quintana was, crawling through the bowels of a city for a kingdom of people who would never truly understand what she had sacrificed for them.
Hours later he shook her awake gently and their journey continued.
‘I’ll hurt the babe,’ Quintana said, as they used their elbows to crawl along the jagged contours of the ground beneath.
‘It won’t be for too long, Your Highness,’ Olivier gasped. ‘My mother told me often that she took a tumble a time or two on the docks of Sebastabol when she was carrying me.’
‘That’s no comfort, Olivier,’ Froi said. ‘You’re an idiot most times.’
The tunnel finally spilled out into a larger cave and soon they’d be out in the hills. Froi felt the breeze come through the cracks in the stone and he smelt their freedom. His eyes met Quintana’s and he saw hope there. The hills would be a safe enough refuge and in days to come they would be back with the Turlan mountain goats. It made Froi laugh to think of it.
‘When we get to Turla, Olivier, do not try to prove your manhood,’ he said, as they followed the lastborn.
‘I’ve never really been one to do that,’ Olivier said.
‘Then you’ve not met the Turlans,’ Quintana said.
They reached the last stone and pushed it aside, shielding their eyes as light poured into the cave. Crawling out first, Froi could see they were in a small ravine with a stream between them and the hills on the other side. He climbed up to the cave top they had come from and saw the woodlands further north.
When he jumped back down, he took Quintana’s hand and they walked further along the stream, ready to cross where the water was a trickle. Quintana looked up in the distance and the rare smile she gave Froi lit up his heart.
‘To the hills we go,’ she said. He pressed her palm to his cheek.
The arrow took him by surprise and he grunted from the pain as it ripped through his thigh. Froi pulled Quintana down to him, crawling behind the closest rock. Olivier followed, and Froi could hear his ragged breath. He stole a look over their hiding place and his blood ran cold. Men were scattered across the stream and throughout the hills with their bows cocked, pointing down at them. At least fifty. Neither unprepared nor surprised. Waiting. Some were dressed in the uniform of the palace riders and Froi knew that Bestiano’s men had been waiting. They had been betrayed.
Froi took in his surrounds. He had to think fast. It was safer to climb the rock behind them and run for the woodlands than it was to return to the tunnel.
‘There,’ he said, taking a quick painful breath and pointing to a large boulder.
Olivier was panicking. Froi could see from the sweat on the lastborn’s brow and the tremble in his body.
‘Olivier, help me with this,’ Froi gasped, placing a hand over the arrow in his thigh. He needed to get it out. But Olivier could only stare at it in horror.
‘Squeamish? You idiot!’
Without Olivier’s help, Froi placed both his hands around the arrow’s base and pulled it free with a hoarse shout of pain. He stole a look again and saw that Bestiano’s riders were still waiting. He wondered if the three of them stood a chance.
‘Froi, listen to me,’ Olivier said. Pleaded. ‘They’ll protect her. And they won’t kill you. I promise.’
Froi froze. No, he thought. Not Olivier. He trusted this lad with his life. With Quintana’s life and that of his unborn child. His eyes met the lastborn’s and he saw the truth there.
‘Olivier?’ Froi said the word, his voice broken. ‘Have you betrayed us? Have you led us into a trap?’
Quintana gasped and Froi saw her horror and fear.
‘Not a betrayal, friends,’ Olivier said. ‘A reprieve. You can’t keep her safe, Froi. You can’t. The Avanosh people almost took her from us. They would have made her a puppet to Sorel. Who will be the next lot to try to take her, Froi? At least Bestiano –’
Quintana cried out at the sound of Bestiano’s name, her arms clutching her body as she wept with futile rage.
‘How could you do this to your queen?’ Froi bit out with fury.
‘How could I not?’ Olivier shouted back. ‘I love my kingdom, Froi, and I will keep it safe. It was the pledge I made to the men you sent to keep me prisoner while you became Olivier of Sebastabol. And they gave me worth. All my life a useless lastborn, and for once, I had purpose.’
Froi took deep breaths to alleviate the pain and to think. Think, Froi. Think.
‘Rafuel of Sebastabol despised the King and Bestiano, you fool,’ Froi said.
‘No,’ Olivier said shaking his head, emphatically. ‘Zabat said –’
‘Zabat? Zabat was a traitor. He switched sides, Olivier. Took you with him without you even noticing. The men who kidnapped you belong to the Priests of Trist and Zabat betrayed them to the riders. Bestiano’s men killed Tariq.’
Olivier shook his head, refusing to believe.
Froi secured the bow and placed the quiver of arrows on his back.
‘You are putting her life in danger, Froi!’ Olivier said, a plea in his voice.
Froi snarled. ‘The first man who fires a bolt at Quintana and the child she carries puts her life in danger.’
Froi held a hand to Quintana’s frightened face. ‘She does not go to Bestiano,’ he promised.
He took in another deep breath of pain, his eyes fixed on Quintana’s. ‘We’re going to run up to that boulder,’ he said, pointing up. ‘They won’t shoot at you, so don’t stop until you reach it.’
‘But they’ll shoot at you,’ she said.
‘And I’ll shoot back.’
‘You’re putting both your lives at risk,’ Olivier cried.
‘A curse on you, Olivier,’ Froi shouted. ‘A curse. You put both our lives at risk and if I ever know that you’ve returned to Paladozza to taint the lives of Grij and Tippideaux and De Lancey and Lirah and Gargarin, I will hunt you down and tear you apart limb by limb.’
Froi looked at Quintana, struggling to his feet. He drew his bow, gave her a nod, and they both ran.
He never stood a chance. The arrows came for him. Another to his thigh. One to his calf. One to the side of his torso. All those drills in the meadows of Lumatere and all that instruction, but Froi never stood a chance. When they reached the boulder and she saw the arrows, Quintana’s cry was full of rage and Froi could have sworn he felt the earth move around them. But the despair was also Froi’s, the knowledge that he could not protect her and his child. It made him want to weep.
He pressed her down behind the rock, trying with all his might to keep the grimace of pain from his expression. Her hands hovered around him, as if she had no idea where to place them. Froi reached out and gripped one of them.
‘It’s not that I liked you least,’ he croaked through his pain, ‘it’s that I feared you most. The Reginita taught me to like you. There was a strange joy to her that lifted my spirits. But you, Quintana of Charyn, you made me love
