CHAPTER ELEVEN

KADEN

Enjoy your pet for now.

Every aspect of the words ate at me.

Enjoy.

Seeing Lia’s fear made it impossible to enjoy anything. Seeing her paraded through the hall in a sack made me sick in a way I hadn’t been since I was a child. Why hadn’t I thought it out? Was I as thick as Malich? Of course, the Komizar couldn’t treat her as an honored guest. I hadn’t expected that, but seeing her grasping at fabric to cover herself—

I slammed a cupboard shut and rummaged through another in the larder under the scrutinizing eye of the cook. She didn’t approve of me raiding her kitchen.

“Here!” she snapped, slapping away my hand when I reached for a wheel of cheese. “I’ll do it!” She grabbed a knife to cut off a chunk for me. I watched her move about the kitchen, gathering more food.

Your pet.

I knew how the Komizar perceived royals. I couldn’t blame him. It was how I had perceived them too, but she wasn’t selfish fluff wearing a crown. When she had defied all of us and killed Eben’s horse, that wasn’t fluff.

For now.

Temporary. Fleeting. Provisional. But bringing Lia to Venda was a forever move for me. An ending—and a beginning. Or maybe it was a return to some part of me I didn’t want to die. Don’t do it. The words had beat through me back in Terravin as I had watched her walk alone through the woods. They had tapped in my skull again as I had sat in the barn loft, drawing my knife across my whetstone.

I had never defied an order before, but I hadn’t disregarded his command just because I fell for the charms of a girl. Lia was hardly charming. At least not in the usual way. There was something else that drew me to her. I’d thought just getting her here would be enough, and that once she was here, there’d be no reason to kill her. She’d be safe. She could be forgotten, and the Komizar could move on to his other plans. I’ll decide the best way to use her. But now she could become part of those plans.

Lia’s words on the battlefield had echoed through my head since the day she said them—for evermore—and for the first time, I was starting to understand how long that was. I was only nineteen, and it seemed I had lived two lifetimes already. Now I was beginning a third. A life where I had to learn new rules. Living in Venda and keeping Lia alive. If I had just done my job as I always had before, I wouldn’t have to worry about any of this. Lia would be another forgotten notch on my belt. But now she was something else. Something that didn’t fit into any of the rules of Venda.

She asks for another story, one to pass the time and fill her.

I search for the truth, the details of a world so long past now, I’m not sure it ever was.

Once upon a time, so very long ago,

In an age before monsters and demons roamed the earth,

A time when children ran free in meadows,

And heavy fruit hung from trees,

There were cities, large and beautiful, with sparkling towers that touched the sky.

Were they made of magic?

I was only a child myself. I thought they could hold a whole world. To me they were made of—

Yes, they were spun of magic and light and the dreams of gods.

And there was a princess?

I smile.

Yes, my child, a precious princess just like you. She had a garden filled with trees that hung with fruit as big as a man’s fist.

The child looks at me, doubtful.

She has never seen an apple but she has seen the fists of men.

Are there really such gardens, Ama?

Not anymore.

Yes, my child, somewhere. And one day you will find them.

—The Last Testaments of Gaudrel

CHAPTER TWELVE

I startled awake, gasping for air, and looked around, taking in the stone walls, the wooden floor, the heavy quilt still covering me, and the man’s shirt I wore for a nightgown. It wasn’t a dream. I really was here. I glanced at the rug on the floor next to me, empty, the blankets from last night neatly folded and returned to the top of the barrel.

Kaden was gone.

There had been a storm last night, winds like I had never heard before, loose bits of the city battering against walls. I thought I would never sleep, but then when I did, I must have slept hard, drawn into dreams of endless rides across a savanna, lost in grass waving far over my head, and stumbling upon Pauline on her knees praying for me. Then I was back in Terravin again, Berdi bringing me bowls of warm broth, rubbing my forehead, whispering, Look at the trouble you get into, but then her face transformed into my mother’s and she drew closer, her breath searing hot on my cheek—You’re a soldier now, Lia, a soldier in your father’s army. I thought I had sat up awake, but then beautiful, sweet Greta, a golden crown of braid circling about her head, walked toward me. Her eyes were blank, sightless, and blood dripped from her nose. She was trying to mouth Walther, but no sound would come out because an arrow pierced her throat.

But it was the last dream that actually woke me. It was hardly a dream at all, only a flash of color, a hint of movement, a sense I couldn’t quite grasp. There was a cold, wide sky, a horse, and Rafe. I saw the side of his face, a cheekbone, his hair blowing in the wind, but I knew he was leaving. Rafe was going home. It should have been a comfort, but instead it felt like a terrible loss. I wasn’t with him. He was leaving without me. I lay there gasping, wondering if it was only the Komizar’s prediction haunting me. The emissary has a better chance of being alive at month’s end than you do.

I threw back the quilt and jumped out of bed, inhaling deeply, trying to lift the weight on my chest. I looked around the room. I hadn’t heard Kaden leave, but neither had I heard him the night he came to kill me in my cottage while I slept. Silence was his strength, while it was my weakness. I crossed the room to the door and tried it, but it was locked. I went to the window and pushed open the shutter. A blast of cold air hit me, and goose bumps shivered up my arms. A glistening, dripping city was laid out before me, a raw, smoky pinkness to it in the predawn light.