Lucian and Rafuel exchanged a look. ‘All your men have been instructed to keep away,’ Rafuel lied. Only Harker and Kasabian had been told to keep away. Rafuel had kept to their decision not to tell Gies about the women.
They travelled through the woods in silence. Rafuel stayed ahead for most of their journey. Lucian had a strange feeling that Tesadora and Rafuel were keeping something from him. About the bloodied scene they had come across.
‘Doesn’t it concern you that the mother of your heir is so savage?’ Lucian asked, just before they reached Tesadora’s camp.
Rafuel stopped. He glanced at Tesadora, who looked away, her expression closed.
‘Handy, of course,’ Lucian mused. ‘But her actions were savage and not at all princess-like. I’m not condemning, by the way. Just remarking that she’s certainly her father’s daughter.’
‘That’s condemning,’ Rafuel bit out. ‘If you’re comparing her to the dead King, in my eyes that’s condemning!’
‘Leave it,’ Tesadora said. ‘Go back and find out if Galvin was working alone, Rafuel.’
Rafuel swallowed hard and Lucian saw the despair in his expression.
The Charynite walked away, but then turned back.
‘Thank you,’ he said to Lucian. ‘You didn’t have to be there tonight, Mont, but we were fortunate that you were in the valley all the same.’ He held out a hand and Lucian knew to shake it. Rafuel still didn’t walk away.
‘She recognised him as the hangman and she froze from the shock of it,’ he said.
‘Regardless, you saw what she did to him,’ Lucian reassured. ‘As I said, your princess knows how to look after herself.’
Rafuel and Tesadora exchanged another look and then the Charynite was gone.
They reached the camp where Tesadora’s girls slept. Tesadora walked Lucian to his horse and waited as he mounted. Usually there were no goodbyes, but tonight he sensed that she wanted to speak. He embraced her quickly.
‘Lucian,’ she said quietly as he mounted his horse.
When he looked down he saw tears in her eyes.
‘Quintana of Charyn didn’t kill the man,’ she said. ‘Phaedra did.’
Chapter 28
The days were long and the boredom turned the Lasconian lads restless.
‘We’ll run a race to see who’s fastest,’ one of Florik’s lads said. ‘No one on the mountain has been able to beat Florik. So we choose him to race you, Lumateran.’
‘What’s the prize?’ Froi asked.
The lad who spoke for Florik shrugged. ‘There’s no need for a prize. It’s a friendly competition.’
‘We run this wall,’ Florik said. ‘Stand with your back to me and then we’re off. Whoever returns to this point first is hailed the winner.’
It seemed too easy and it didn’t involve a beating and Froi could think of no better way to relieve the tedium on the watch at this time of the day.
‘Count of three,’ Florik’s lad said.
Florik was off at the count of two. Froi bolted in the opposite direction and the more ground he covered, the more his pride demanded this victory. The only way to win against these lads was to show that their numbers weren’t enough to break him.
His was a straight run to begin with, but then parts of the route plunged down steep spiral steps and up again and Froi took them, two at a time, heart hammering until its beat was a song that spurred him on, forcing him to fly the confines of this prison he had found himself in. He heard them chanting, ‘Florik! Florik! Florik!’ and he shut his ears and kept his pace, stealing a look below to the flicker of movement in the bailey where he suspected the lads and the older men had come from the keep to watch the race. But Froi blocked their voices from his mind and reached the second turret where he and Florik passed each other. Florik’s hand snaked out to hold him back, but Froi swiped at it with such force he heard a grunt from the Lasconian as he pulled himself free, racing through a section of the walkway concealed from the grounds below. Froi raced through its tunnel, heard the sound of his own breathing, grunting, echoing harshly, then came out into the light again as if he was flying straight into the blue of this early spring sky. He could smell his victory. But suddenly as he rounded the final turret he tripped over something wedged between the stone of the inner and outer wall. It was a short sword, there to do exactly what it had done; placed on so blind a corner because Froi would never have seen it coming. As he stumbled to his feet he knew he had lost.
He heard the cheers for Florik as he neared the finishing place. Down below in the bailey, Dolyn and the elders were beckoning Florik to join them. Gargarin signalled and Froi knew he was being instructed to come down and stand beside the winner.
‘No man can outrun a Lasconian,’ the elder said as Froi reached them. He and Florik stood side by side, Florik’s arm raised in victory. ‘The little King’s blood runs from our spring.’
Gargarin and Arjuro came to find Froi on watch late that night.
‘Are you sulking because he won a race?’ Gargarin asked.
Froi didn’t respond. He preferred not to see it as sulking.
‘When you accomplish something it should be for no one but yourself,’ Arjuro said.
‘Yes, yes. If we could all be as wise as both of you,’ Froi said.
‘Gods,’ Arjuro muttered. ‘I wish I could go back to my youth and slap myself hard across the face for being as snarky as you are at times, Froi.’
‘You were very annoying,’ Gargarin said to his brother.
‘You, equally so.’
Arjuro held out his ration of food to Froi, who stared at the dry horsemeat.
‘If they go anywhere near Beast, I’ll kill them all.’
‘They need to feed themselves,’ Gargarin said.
‘They should have thought of that before they holed themselves up in this place,’ he hissed.
A shrill cry came from the darkness of the woodlands.
‘Something’s happening out there,’ Froi told them. ‘I’ve heard cries through the night. Humans and horses. Most of Bestiano’s army would have passed by now, heading north, but something in that woodlands is finishing off Nebia’s flanks.’
‘Yes, but who?’ Gargarin asked.
They were eerie sounds, eaten up by the space between the little woods and where they stood. By the time the sound reached them, all that remained was a distant echo.
‘The sentinel in the tree hasn’t been there the whole day and that could only mean there’s been some sort of attack,’ Froi said. ‘I can take advantage of it. Venture out and see what’s happening.’
Gargarin shook his head. ‘I don’t want to take the chance,’ he said. ‘Just say they’re lying in hiding, waiting for us to do just that. It could be a trap.’
‘But we can’t stay here,’ Froi said quietly, in case one of the Lasconians were listening. ‘Tariq’s people are idiots. They picked the worse place to set up camp. We might be protected by these walls, but we’re trapped and Bestiano knows we’re here. He wants you dead. For all he knows, Quintana is with us, and he wants her. We need to move.’
‘But where?’ Gargarin asked. ‘We’ll only end up wandering aimlessly searching for her, Froi. We have no idea which direction to turn.’
‘We’ve run out of chances, Froi,’ Arjuro said. ‘We’ve escaped death too many times. Gargarin. Me. You. I agree that we stay put. The next time it could cost us our lives. Maybe Lirah’s.’
Froi looked away.
‘Did you have an argument with her?’ Gargarin asked quietly. ‘Lirah?’
‘Why?’
