Emariya swallowed hard, staring off into the campfire that had been left to guide their way out.
The flames danced, welcoming her. She blinked hard, snuffing out the life of the flame before shrugging off Garith’s hand.
The copse of trees towered above her, reaching toward hope and open sky. Emariya tried to look everywhere but at her companions. She didn’t have any hope to reach for. All she had to surround herself with was anger.
“Emariya.” Torian’s breath warmed her as he leaned close, speaking into her ear. “Don’t be angry with Garith. My sister is almost as hardheaded as you are.”
She thought she heard Blaine chuckle, but wisely no one said a word.
“We left the horses hitched over there,” Rink said. “Just on the other side of these trees.”
Glad to have a direction, Emariya lifted her tattered skirts, not unaware of the irony in them. She’d presented herself at the gates of Damphries as a polished princess, and High Seat of the Great Council.
Hope that soon she’d have arranged a lasting peace and secured a treaty with Sheas had guided her.
Now she left as a tattered, dungeon-stained fugitive. Her brother had scored yet another victory, intercepting her plans. Reeve had just become her new priority, along with Terin. She’d intended to see to the Council first and then him, but now hatred of her brother and fury at the Council melded into one white-hot rage ready to spill over at the first convenient target.
Through the trees ahead, Emariya caught a glimpse of Raina’s white flank. Thorns tugged at her skirts as she hurried through the underbrush between the trees.
“Are you going to say anything?” Torian asked.
She answered with silence.
Torian let out a loud, exasperated sigh. “Emariya, if I’d had my way we would have left as soon as we had you out of the dungeon. We didn’t get Terin out, but we did exactly what we intended. We saved
you.
Regarding Terin... I don’t know what the future holds with us and her anymore. I really don’t. I want to save her. And I want to strangle her. We tried our best, but she didn’t want our help.”
The anger she’d worked so hard to hold in spilled over. Spinning to face him, she screamed. “Our best wasn’t good enough. And that’s just it. You would have left her there, without even trying. You put me over her so easily, it’s like you’ve forgotten her.”
Torian paled. “I would never forget my sister.”
She’d started and there was no stopping now. “You’ve a funny way of showing it. You risked everything to come after me, and I love you for it, but what about her? Is she not worth the risk?”
“Yes, I came for
you.
”
“But why?” Emariya stamped her foot. “You come for me, and you leave her. Why me? Why this time?” Her shoulders began to tremble and Torian tried to put his arms around her. She pushed away.
“Because without you, life wouldn’t be worth living. I’d risk my life to save you, because if yours is lost, so is mine.” He tried again to take her in his arms and this time she let him. His fingers smoothed back her hair. “I’ll come for you, always.”
Her teeth chattered. “I was so afraid. And I worry, maybe if you could leave her, you could leave me.”
“Shh, no. Never. Riya, I love my sister. I always will, but you are my life now.”
“I still want to save Terin,” she whispered. Her fleeing anger left her spent and exhausted.
“We have enough to worry about without wasting time and resources on someone who doesn’t want our help.”
“Damn the Stones,” Emariya said. “She’s not thinking clearly because of the pull. That’s all it is.
If we get her away from him, she will be able to think more clearly—despite the ache she will still feel for him.”
“I’m inclined to agree, but I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it,” Torian said.
Raina nickered a soft greeting and huffed warm, sweet breath into Emariya’s cupped hand. “Hello, girl. Miss me?” Emariya reached up, untying the horse’s lead from the tree limb her companions had left it on.
“I think she missed me more, she told me you haven’t been properly spoiling her,” Rink teased.
Raina bobbed her head as if agreeing, making everyone laugh.
They mounted quickly, and started around to the waiting forces. Even though it would have been quicker to follow the wall of Damphries, they thought it best to keep under the cover of trees as long as possible.
“You never did explain how you came to be here, Rink,” Emariya said.
“Oh, easy. Your brother stopped at Calkirk to send pigeons to the other Councilors. Lady Dariah, The Three bless her, told all the estate why he was there and what his plan was.”
“His plan?” Emariya asked, filled with dread.
“He knew you’d be heading for Damphries—Alrec shot down your pigeons—so he wanted to lay a trap there for you. To make it all official-like he needed the Council to witness it. He also wanted the Council to witness him marrying Princess Terin. Then they would be caught up in it all, and and it would be harder for them to go against him later.”
Torian broke in. “But he hasn’t married her yet?”
“I don’t think so.”
“He was probably trying to garner sympathy with the Council before he did it,” Garith said.
“Hence the trial coming first.”
“So the wedding will be soon, most likely.” Torian frowned, a faraway look in his eye.
“I still don’t understand,” Emariya said. “So your father heard from Lady Dariah. But where do you come into it?”
“We’d sent a message to Calkirk from the fjord, asking if they had anything to spare for our outpost. So then, when he heard about Reeve planning a trap for you, my father sent a rider to me at the fjord.”
“And Rink came riding furiously to us, offering the information,” Torian said. He smiled proudly at the boy.
“We were outside, scratching our heads to come up with a way to get back in. Blaine was supposed to get them to open the gates if he could—”
“But I hadn’t been able to. Guards were constantly with me,” Blaine explained.
“The Council had been instructed to come in through the tunnel if the people outside wouldn’t let them through, which of course Lady Dariah told everyone.”
“So we found the tunnel, and came as fast as we could,” Garith said.
“They never would’ve found it without me, either,” Rink said. “It’s hidden real good, the entrance, I mean.”
“But who unlocked the door at the end, from inside?” Emariya asked.
“Lord Calkirk, of course,” Rink answered.
“He was on your side from the beginning,” Blaine added.
“What about the other Councilors? Were you able to pick up anything from the rest of them?”
Emariya asked, thankful that Blaine had not turned against her. She never would have expected him to remain inside, just to support her.
“Councilor Ralston was firmly in your brother’s pocket—from what I could tell it was because he siphoned any resources sent for the Uplands for himself, with Damphries.”
Emariya’s stomach twisted at the news that Eltar’s own Councilors were betraying their people.
“What about Lord Felton?” she asked.
“He was undecided. And Bosch was...amusing.” Blaine laughed.
Emariya joined in, laughing also. “Yes, he can be that.”
Through the trees up ahead, the sounds of happy spring birds had been replaced by the sounds of the sprawling camp of angry citizens and weary militia.
“Your grandparents will be happy to see you,” Torian said. “I thought your grandfather was about to fillet me alive when I came out without you.”
“Before we go to see them I need to get... Oh no!” Emariya cried.
Torian reined in his horse, alarm on his face. “What is it?”
Garith and Blaine looked around, likely trying to determine the source of her sudden exclamation.
“All my things are still in the estate. I need my mindroot.”
“Alara and Kahl probably have some, we’ll ask them before we worry,” Blaine suggested.
Torian hung back as their party rode into camp. Emariya’s grandparents rushed out and greeted her. He watched them embrace for a moment, before handing off the reins of his stallion to a solider and striding back into the forest.
You saved Emariya,
he told himself.
That was what you wanted. She would have been put to death,
sooner rather than later, but you saved her.
The thoughts came easy, but relief did not.
You saved her,
but left your sister and now your beloved hates you.
It’s not easy trying to save the world, is it? You have to make hard choices that no one else wants
to.
The sentiment popped so clearly into his head, Torian wasn’t sure if he’d thought it or heard it.
Wonderful, so now I’m hearing voices, too.
He supposed it was possible. When he and Emariya bound themselves together he’d felt the increased power course through him as their blood merged into one. Of course, it was also possible, and probably likely, that he was just losing his senses, sinking into his father’s madness.
The melting snow had seeped into the ground, leaving the earth saturated. Satisfied that he was out of view of the camp, Torian sank to his knees on the sponge-like moss beneath him.
Torian dropped his head into his hands and began to sob.
Emariya broke away from her grandfather’s embrace and looked behind her.
Where did Torian go?
“Do you have any more mindroot?” she asked. “I wasn’t able to retrieve my things from inside the estate before we made our escape.”
Worry filled her grandfather’s eyes. “Did your mother...”
Emariya nodded. “She tried.”
When she’d first greeted Alara and Kahl, Blaine hung back, giving her some space. Now he approached, joining the conversation. “Princess Emariya did well, she fought hard not to succumb to her mother’s grasp.”
She looked to Blaine, surprised at the praise. “Blaine did well, too.”
Alara smiled at her husband. “It’s so nice to see you two getting along.”
“Emariya, you need to keep practicing your walls. Don’t leave yourself at your mother’s mercy if you are caught without your mindroot again.”
Her grandfather’s unexpected rebuke stung because of its truth. Had she practiced more, her mother might not have been able to interfere, and she would have been able to finish what she’d intended.
“But, I partially blame myself,” Kahl said. “I should have gone into the estate with you. I could have helped protect you from Valencia.”
“We had no way of knowing my brother would be here, or that my mother would be lingering either,” Emariya said.
“Come, child. I’ve some mindroot in my tent.” Her grandmother smiled, beckoning her to follow.
The walk to her grandparent’s tent was short, but filled with anxiety as Emariya repeatedly looked around for Torian. Her sense of dread steadily increased. It wasn’t like him to just wander off without telling her.
Alara pressed a tiny vial filled with orange powder into Emariya’s hand. The old woman’s fingers lingered, clasped around Emariya’s. “Emariya, dear, I hope you don’t think I am too forward.” She paused, looking to the tent ceiling as if searching for words written on the canvas. “But, I wanted to tell you not to fear the natural course of things. It stands to reason that you and Torian will eventually have a child. I’ve seen the way you look at each other. Anything born of that love...anything born of you...could not possibly bring anything but good.”
Emariya’s eyes filled with tears. Had she not worried over exactly that? Unfortunately, she’d seen evidence to the contrary. “If only that were true. You, grandmother, are undeniably good, and my mother is undeniably not. And I too...have done...things.” Images of the Damphries soldiers being burned down where they stood flashed into her mind.
Alara’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Perhaps you are right. Or perhaps there is good and bad in all of us, and your mother’s experiences combined with her choices led her down the wrong path. I wish you could have seen the girl she was before the anger jaded her.”
“Me too,” Emariya whispered. After dissolving a dose of the potent orange powder on her tongue, she excused herself, wanting to look for Torian.
Only moments after she left her grandmother’s tent, Emariya ran into Jessa, who was carrying a bucket of water. “Oh!” the girl exclaimed, dropping the bucket. Frigid water splashed against the ground, running in rapid rivulets toward Emariya’s feet. “You’re back!”
Ignoring the overturned bucket, Jessa threw her arms around Emariya.
Afraid she’d be squeezed to death, Emariya hugged her back and then gently disentangled herself.
“I am, all of us are.”
Jessa’s shoulders eased as she sighed. “So everyone made it out all right, then?”
“We didn’t get Terin, and the Council and Reeve are going to be difficult to stop, but yes.”
“And Blaine?” Jessa’s voice rose with unfettered hope.
“Over there.” Emariya smiled, pointing. “And Jessa, he’s not so bad, I guess.”
Grinning, Jessa ran off.
Walk,
Jessa told herself.
You don’t want to seem too eager. Walk.
Despite her best efforts, Jessa’s pace quickened, propelling her toward Blaine’s tent faster than a hawk descending on a mouse. It was too much to hope that her mouse might be expecting—or perhaps even waiting for—her.
From their first meeting back in Sheas Harbor, he’d been a perfect, polite gentleman to her, even being chivalrous at times. All the while, he’d fought and antagonized Emariya at every step. Jessa had no idea what happened inside Damphries, but she wasn’t going to question Emariya’s change of heart.
She’d tried—mostly unsuccessfully—to keep her distance, knowing Emariya didn’t approve. If it was this hard for her, she couldn’t even imagine how difficult it would be for two Stones to stay apart.
They’d never talked about it directly. By the way he looked at her sometimes, she thought he was as interested in her as she was in him. But how could she be sure? Furthermore, there was the issue of his being the current heir of Sheas, while Jessa was a mere handmaiden. Making his father proud seemed to guide most of his decisions, as he fought desperately for Rees’ approval.