destination would disappear into a backbreaking climb. Near the top, at its steepest point, Froi gripped a ledge and held a hand out to Gargarin, yanking him up by the cloth of his undershirt, dragging him over the jagged stone until they both lay face down, catching their breath.
‘You tore my shirt, idiot,’ Gargarin muttered, wincing from pain, his dark hair matted to his forehead.
‘Pity. Never seen a finer piece of woven cloth,’ Froi gasped.
When he stood, Froi was breathless to see the great depth they had left below. Up so high, the jagged walls of the gravina looked unrelentingly cruel and there seemed nothing to soften the greyness of the stone. But somehow Froi saw a beauty to it that was different from the monotony of the flatland that now surrounded him. At least caves and gorges brought an aspect of intrigue. Here in Upper Charyn, he was back in a world of unrelenting tufts of dull-brown grass, gnawed to its edges by overgrazing such as he had seen on the road from Alonso.
He watched Gargarin hobble to the side of the road and feel the dry earth in his hands. Moments later, Gargarin stood and threw the dirt to the ground in anger.
‘Idiots,’ he muttered. ‘
It was the only word Froi would hear for the rest of the day. They travelled in silence and Froi’s dislike for Gargarin of Abroi increased with every step the man stumbled.
That night they set up camp under a star-speckled sky, one that Froi felt he could almost reach out and touch. He’d not seen anything like it since his time with Finnikin, Isaboe, Trevanion and Sir Topher in the grasslands of Yutlind Sud. With Gargarin of Abroi sitting silently before him, he missed those moments of their journey more than ever.
‘Do you think it was the Serkers?’ he asked Gargarin abruptly when the silence almost forced him to break his bond and strangle his companion.
Gargarin looked up. Through the flickering flames, Froi could see there was no question in Gargarin’s eyes. He knew exactly what Froi was asking – whether it was the Serkers who had killed the Oracle Queen and Priestlings. He merely looked annoyed.
‘You’re bored, are you?’ Gargarin asked. ‘You don’t have Zabat to play word games with, so now you’re going to riddle me about the past?’
‘Actually I am bored and it’s not a riddle,’ Froi said. ‘It’s a question I have every right to ask if I’m going to travel to the Citavita and break a curse that began with the Serkers.’
Perhaps Gargarin of Abroi was bored as well because he chose to respond.
‘Pick a province that the rest of Charyn despised because of their arrogance, and use them as the scapegoats. Every kingdom needs a scapegoat for one reason or another. The Yuts have their southerners and the Lumaterans had their Forest Dwellers.’
Froi flinched to hear his homeland named.
‘The Forest Dwellers were murdered by … the man they refer to as the impostor King, the way I hear it,’ he muttered.
‘Because the Lumaterans allowed it to happen,’ Gargarin said flatly.
‘If you say the Serkers are scapegoats then you’re implying that the Serkers were not capable of brutality?’ Froi said.
‘I’m not implying that at all.’
‘The Provincari say –’
‘The Provincari will believe anything that will keep their provinces safe,’ Gargarin interrupted coldly. ‘Why would they want to believe anything else but that the Serkers murdered the Priestlings and tortured the Oracle? What’s the alternative? Believing the attack came from the palace?’
‘They’re dangerous words you speak, Sir Gargarin,’ Froi said.
‘Truth is dangerous and I’m not a Sir.’
The next morning they continued on the path that ran alongside the edge of the ravine. The walls of it had widened until Froi could barely see the other side. He felt as though he and Gargarin were the only two people left in the land, that at any moment they would topple off the edge of their world, never to be seen again.
Throughout the day, he tried again and again to make conversation with Gargarin, but the man refused to speak.
‘Did I do something to displease you in another life?’ he finally asked.
Gargarin continued walking. When Froi reached out and gripped his arm, Gargarin swung around, breaking free viciously and stumbling. Froi went to grab him and they both toppled to the ground. As they lay there a moment, Froi felt the man’s eyes bore into his.
‘I don’t care what you think of me, cripple!’ Froi said. ‘I answer to a more powerful bond. To people I respect.’
‘A bond? Men with bonds are controlled by the expectations of others,’ Gargarin said, his cold tone cutting. ‘Men with bonds are slaves.’
Froi jumped to his feet, counting again and again. ‘Be assured that once inside the palace I won’t breathe in your direction,’ he snarled.
‘Good to hear,’ Gargarin said, struggling to stand. ‘Because my promise to your Provincaro was that I would only escort you into the palace. I’ve given enough to this kingdom.’
The road to the capital dipped and rose and then dipped, and when it rose again, the Citavita appeared before them across a long narrow timber bridge. As Rafuel had promised, the walls of the ravine came into view again, mightier in height than Froi had seen on their journey so far. They travelled across the bridge of the Citavita, with its planks swinging and swaying. Through the mist, Froi saw a tower of uneven rock in the distance, but as they travelled closer he realised he was looking at a cluster of dwellings carved out of the stone, perched atop each other precariously as if about to spiral into the chasm below.
Against the dirty-coloured capital was the white of the castle. Froi saw turrets higher than any he had ever seen before. But looming even higher over the castle battlements was another rock.
‘What is that?’ Froi asked.
‘The Oracle’s godshouse,’ Gargarin responded.
‘What’s keeping it from toppling down?’ Froi asked, trying not to sound aghast, but aghast all the same.
He heard Gargarin of Abroi’s ragged breath. ‘That would be the gods.’
After they stepped off the bridge and onto the more solid ground of the Citavita, they began the steep climb up a winding road that wrapped around the rock of dwellings. Froi couldn’t tell where one home began and another ended and realised that the roofs of the houses were the actual path to the palace.
Lining the winding path, people worked silently selling their wares, but it was a cluster of men, their heads bent low in whispers, their eyes promising malevolence and spite, that Froi noticed the most. These men were no different from the street thugs he had answered to on the streets of the Sarnak capital. In Sarnak, these men had, in turn, answered to no one. Froi could tell that the Citavita’s street thugs were armed and he could have pointed out every concealed weapon. He itched for his own.
When they finally stood in front of the castle gates he understood why no one had ever entered uninvited. Isaboe’s castle in Lumatere was built to provide a home to the royal family. It was only recently that Finnikin and Sir Topher had sat with Trevanion and an architect from the Lumateran rock village to discuss the extra security measures required for their young family and their kingdom.
But this castle was built for defence. Froi stared up at the soldiers with their weapons trained on them. They stared down at him. Up close he could see the castle was built on its own rock, a fraction higher and separate from the rest of the Citavita. Although it was a narrow space between the portcullis and where they stood, there was no moat surrounding it, instead there was a drop into the gravina separating them that seemed to go on forever. Rafuel had given him a strange description of how the gravina narrowed in a serpentine fashion past the palace and godshouse of the Citavita.
‘Gargarin of Abroi?’ a voice rang out towards them.
Gargarin raised his hand in acknowledgement. The drawbridge began to descend across the space, stopping short of where Froi and Gargarin stood. Once on the bridge, it was a short but steep climb up to the gate. On each side a thick braided rope provided a place to grip firmly. Gargarin’s staff fell to the steel beneath their feet and he struggled once, then twice, to retrieve it.
Waiting for them at the gate stood a man of Gargarin’s years, his hair longish around the ears, his mottled
