My jaw turned rigid. I never held my station over fellow soldiers, but I didn’t hesitate now. “Tread carefully, Orrin. You speak of your future queen.”

Sven looked at me and subtly nodded.

Orrin sat back, a feigned look of fear in his eyes. “Well, hang me. Looks like our prince has finally polished his jewels.”

“It’s about time,” Tavish added.

“I pity the Vendan who stole her away,” Jeb chimed in.

Apparently none of them minded my pulling rank. It seemed that maybe they were even waiting for it.

“The one thing I don’t understand,” Jeb said, “is why that Vendan didn’t just let the bounty hunter slit her throat—do his work for him.”

“Because I was standing right behind him. I told him to shoot.”

“But then why take her all the way to Venda? Ransom?” Tavish interjected. “What was his purpose in taking her?”

I remembered how Kaden had looked at her that very first night, a panther on a doe, and how he had looked at her every day after that.

I didn’t answer Tavish, and maybe my silence was answer enough.

There was a long pause and then Orrin belched. “We’ll get my future queen back,” he said, “then we’ll skewer all their bloody jewels on a stick.”

And then there were times when Orrin’s crude tongue seemed more refined and eloquent than any of ours.

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

I sat on the grassy edge of the riverbank watching the rippling current, my thoughts jumping between past and present. The last few days, I had conserved as much energy as I could, trying to put weight back on. I spent most of my time in the meadow under the watchful eyes of Eben or Kaden, but I blocked them out as Dihara had shown me, trying to listen. It was the only way I had a prayer of finding my way home again.

When I cocked my head to the side, closed my eyes, or lifted my chin to the air, Kaden thought I was continuing to perform for the others, but Eben regarded me with wonder. One day he asked me if I had really seen buzzards picking at his bones. I replied with a shrug. Better to keep him wondering and at a distance. I didn’t want his knife at my throat again, and according to Kaden’s own words, their belief in the gift was all that kept me alive. How long could that last?

After breakfast this morning Kaden told me we had three more days here before we left, which meant I would need to be on my way sooner. They were all becoming lazy in their watchfulness since I’d made no efforts to flee. I was slowly crafting my opportunity. I had circled the camp looking for weapons I might filch from the vagabonds, but if they had any, they all seemed to be stored away in their carvachis. A heavy iron spit, a hatchet, and a large butcher knife were the best the camp had to offer—all easily missed and bulky if I tried to slip one into the folds of my skirt. Kaden’s crossbow and sword and my dagger were all inside his tent. Sneaking in there was an impossible task.

Besides a weapon, a horse would be essential for escape, and I was fairly certain that the fastest horse belonged to Kaden, so that was the one I would take. Therein lay another problem. They left the horses unsaddled and unbridled. I could ride bareback if I had to, but I could go much faster with a saddle, and speed would be essential.

I spotted Kaden in the distance, standing by his horse and brushing it, seemingly attentive to his task, though I wondered how often he had looked my way.

I was still pondering something he’d told me last night. I had spent most of yesterday trying to understand the ancient Vendan language, and I had asked him if he had ever heard of the Song of Venda. He knew of it but explained that there were many songs sung in various versions. They were all said to be the words of the kingdom’s namesake.

He told me Venda had been the first ruler’s wife. She had gone mad and sat on the city wall day after day, singing songs to the people. A few she wrote down, but most were memorized by those who listened. She was revered because of her kindnesses and wisdom, and even after she went mad, they’d come to hear her wailings, until finally one day she fell from the wall and died. It was believed by many that her husband was the one who pushed her, unable to listen to her nonsense any longer.

Her mad babble lived on, in spite of the ruler’s efforts to ban it. He burned all the songs he could find that had been written down, but the others took on a life of their own when they were sung by the people as they went about their day. I asked Kaden if he might be able to read a passage of Vendan for me, and he said he couldn’t read. He claimed none of them did and that reading was rare in Venda.

This puzzled me. I was certain that back in Terravin I had seen him read several times. Berdi had no menus at the tavern so we recited the fare, but there were notices pinned outside, and I was sure I had seen him stop to look at them. Of course, that didn’t mean he understood what he saw, but at the festival games, I thought he had read the events board along with the rest of us, pointing out the log wrestling. Why would he lie about being able to read?

I watched him pat his horse’s rump, sending him into the meadow to graze with the others, and then he disappeared into his tent. I turned my attention back to the river, tossing a small flat pebble and watching it sink and nestle in next to another. My time in camp with Kaden had become awkward several times, or perhaps I was just more self-conscious now.

I had known he cared about me. It was hardly a secret. It was the reason I was still alive, but I hadn’t quite grasped how much he cared. And in spite of myself, I knew in my own way, I cared about him too. Not Kaden the assassin, but the Kaden I had known back in Terravin, the one who had caught my attention the minute he walked through the tavern door. The one who was calm and had mysterious, but kind, eyes.