across the country as if they wanted to get as far from this place as possible.
‘Do you ever think of travelling through Serker?’ he asked Arjuro.
‘Nothing we can do,’ Arjuro said. ‘I have no chronicle of their names, so I can’t sing them home. Never have been able to.’
Which meant that Arjuro had tried. Froi pulled up a sleeve and rubbed his arm, shivering at the raised hair on it. Arjuro stared at him.
‘The unsettled spirits are dancing on your skin.’
‘I thought we only danced for joy,’ Froi said.
‘Not in Serker, they don’t.’
When it was time to say goodbye they stood huddled by their mounts, fussing with reins and comforting the horses. Being with Arjuro these weeks had been Froi’s only relief from the torment of Quintana’s absence.
‘You died twice in my arms,’ Arjuro said quietly.
Froi looked up at him.
‘It would have been the last thing I could have endured.’ Arjuro said, his eyes filling with tears. ‘Your death would have been the very last I could have endured.’
Froi thought of those strange moments after the attack outside Paladozza. When he knew he was dying, he had heard the Reginita’s voice ordering him away.
‘When I was removing those barbs,’ Arjuro said, ‘and your thoughts and words were feverish, you wept and wept from the memories … from the horror of your memories in Sarnak.’
Froi saw the rage in Arjuro’s eyes, his clenched fists.
‘If I could find the men who did those things to you as a child I would tear them limb from limb.’
Froi embraced him.
‘One day,’ Froi said, clearing his voice of emotion, ‘I’ll introduce you to my queen and my king and my captain; and Lord August and Lady Abian, who have given me a home; and the Priestking and Perri and Tesadora and my friend Lucian; and then you’ll understand that I would never have met them if you hadn’t journeyed to Sarnak all those years ago, Arjuro. And if the gods were to give me a choice between living a better life, having not met them, or a wretched life with the slightest chance of crossing their path, then I’d pick the wretched life over and over again.’
He kissed Arjuro’s brow. Finnikin called it a blessing between two male blood kin. It always had made Froi ache seeing it between Finnikin and Trevanion.
‘I’d live it again just to have crossed all of your paths. Keep safe, Arjuro. Keep safe so I can bring your brother home to you.’
Froi felt an acute loneliness the moment Arjuro mounted his horse and rode away. The sleet half-blinded him and the cold brought a new sort of pain to his bones. But he travelled all day and night, not wanting to rest in a place where he couldn’t shelter from the malevolence of nature. This was ancient land, filled with spirits, and apart from his journey to Hamlyn and Arna’s farm, Froi hadn’t been alone since his days in Sarnak. He fought the need to weep, but blamed it on his aches.
On his second day alone, he saw lights from afar and knew he had reached the Charyn River and the road south to the Osterian border. He couldn’t bear another night of sitting in the saddle with only the horse and his fleece for warmth, and the lights promised everything. They delivered little but a rundown inn that was full to the brim. Froi’s heartbeat quickened when he saw the sign to Alonso. How easy it would be to change path and take the road home to Lumatere. But there was something about De Lancey’s news that made him uneasy. Gargarin was no fool, yet if there was a lesson Froi had come to learn from living with Lord August’s family, it was that the Belegonians could not be trusted.
So he paid a coin for a corner in a crowded stable a mile south of the inn. It was mostly filled with Citavitans who had not found refuge in Jidia and were heading upriver to Alonso. Froi knew how their journey would end. Alonso would turn these people away, forcing them to travel to the Lumateran valley. As he watched these desperate, landless people, he couldn’t fight the crippling fear that Quintana was somewhere out there on her own with no coins to trade, cold to the bone.
‘Any news from the Citavita?’ Froi asked the couple beside him. He had watched the husband tie their pack around his waist in case someone tried to steal their possessions.
‘I was there when the street lords took the palace, and fear for the lives of friends,’ Froi continued, eyeing the bundle of food tied up in an apron.
‘Street lords are gone,’ the woman told him. ‘Nothing left to take. The gods only know who has control over the palace. Every week, a different story.’
‘If Bestiano’s a smart man he’ll return now,’ a bearded man close by said. ‘Best thing for Charyn.’
‘How can you say that?’ another called out from his bedroll. ‘He’s a killer of kings.’
‘But strange that the moment the King was killed, there’s news of an heir to be born,’ the bearded man continued. ‘Perhaps the answer all along was to rid ourselves of the King. Bestiano could be the hero of this kingdom.’
‘They say Bestiano is the father of the future king,’ a woman called out.
The bearded man made a sound of approval. ‘If he’s smart, he’ll take the poor mite out of that mad-bitch Quintana’s hands the moment it’s born.’
Froi flew across the space, landing heavily on the man, pounding his fists wherever he could land them. He felt arms drag him away, their fingers pressing deep into his wounds and he pulled free.
‘You dare talk about the Princess in such a way,’ he raged. ‘I challenge you to speak those words when the future king grows to be a man. I dare you to say them about his mother to his face!’
The bearded man cowered away. ‘Who are you with your fancy talk?’
‘Someone who knew them,’ Froi said. ‘Knew the heir Tariq of Lascow. Knew that he sacrificed his life to keep Quintana of Charyn safe. I defy you to dishonour his memory by claiming Bestiano a better man.’
The words felt like rough parchment in Froi’s mouth, but there was silence all around.
‘They breed good men in Lascow,’ the husband from the Citavita said. His wife stared at Froi. ‘Tariq of Lascow would have made a just king if he had lived,’ she said.
Later, the wife held out a dry strip of meat to Froi and he ate it, shamed that whether she had given it to him or not, it would have somehow ended up in his belly. She looked at him closely, confused. ‘You remind me of someone. I don’t know who,’ she said quietly. She reached over and he flinched, but her hand touched his face gently.
When she was asleep, Froi felt her husband’s eyes on him. ‘She doesn’t usually take to your kind,’ the man said.
‘My kind?’ Froi said coolly. Who wasn’t it safe to be now? A Lumateran assassin? A Serker lad? A defender of the Princess?
‘A young one,’ the man said. ‘My wife … she usually turns away. She bled on the day of weeping. It was close to being born, our child was. She bled it and has spent the last eighteen years turning her eyes away from lastborns or the young.’
The man looked down at his wife, but then back at Froi. Then he smiled. ‘It’s not your face. It’s something else. It’s in your spirit. I feel it as well.’
Froi relaxed for the first time since he left Arjuro, and lay down on the straw. Although he had been taught not to take chances, he had a sense that the couple beside him were not a threat.
‘How many inns are on the river border across this stretch heading towards Osteria?’ he asked the man softly in the darkness.
‘Three. One is closed for the winter, though. You’ll be lucky to get a bed. But I would not head that way, lad.’
‘I’ve no intention of returning to the Citavita,’ Froi said.
‘It’s not the Citavita you need to fear,’ the man said. ‘There’s talk that the Osterians have allowed the Belegonians to camp across the river. If they decide to cross, there’ll be nothing left of us. It’s why we’re heading towards Alonso. Don’t head south, lad. Come north with us.’
Froi sighed. Oh, to head north to Alonso. It would be so easy to follow these people. He was closer to Lumatere than he had been for the past five months and all night his dreams beckoned him home.
