Exile (10 page)

Aurelia blinked. She ought to react to that, but how could she? There was too much to comprehend.

Her friend’s hand closed upon hers. “Robert is leaving the estate, Aurelia. Tonight. After dark.”

Reality emptied as Aurelia’s stomach already had. “No,” she found herself saying, without logic. “He didn’t say—”

“He discussed it with Thomas.”

Thomas?!
She flung away Daria’s hand. “He hasn’t discussed it with
me.
”

Her friend didn’t flinch, instead holding out the smock to go with the skirt. “It should not come as a terrific surprise.”

Perhaps not.
The cold realization gusted through Aurelia as she dressed. Over the past five weeks, Robert had become more and more distant. That was why she had gone running down to the stables today. She had needed the excuse in order to see him.

But how could he think of leaving without telling me?
She tried to say the words aloud, and they came out, “How could he leave without me?”

“Do you want to go?”

“Yes.” Well, there it was. The truth.

“Then go.” Daria crossed the room and opened the wardrobe. “Just”—she paused—“don’t hurt him, Aurelia.”

Hurt
him?
Aurelia felt numb. “What do you mean?”

Her friend returned from the wardrobe with wool stockings and Aurelia’s battered riding boots. She did not release them. “You must know.”

Know what?
“Daria.” Aurelia’s tone was threatening.

“He’s in love with you.”

The world stopped. For one long, outrageous moment, Aurelia let herself consider the statement. He had
kissed
her. Once. And saved her life. More than once.

But the idea that he could be in love with her did not—could not be true. “That’s nonsense.” She had tried to let Robert know she wanted to spend time alone with him on the way to Sterling. And he had rejected her. He was
still
rejecting her.

Daria handed her the stockings. “Honestly, Aurelia. There’s nothing wrong with being in love.”

Aurelia was not at all certain of that. What had love ever done for the people she knew? She thought of Lord Lester’s unrequited devotion to a woman who never left her room. The king’s blind attraction to Elise, a woman who might have murdered her first husband. And Melony’s twisted passion, which had turned Chris into a killer. And a corpse.

“I don’t expect love, Daria. It’s not in my destiny.”

“Why not?” Her friend crouched down as though to help put on the boots. “You chose to leave the palace,” she pointed out. “You refused to marry the man your father wanted. Why can’t you marry for love?”

For a ridiculous half-moment, Aurelia let herself picture the image her friend had just suggested: a life in a cabin on the frontier with a husband, their children running around them, wheat fields in the background, the sunlight glowing. The vision was so thin, Aurelia could see through it.

She snatched the boots and jammed them onto her feet.

Marriage was not happily ever after. Even Daria’s. Aurelia was no fool. She knew that Thomas’s real role at the palace had been to inform upon her own status, and that of the king, to Lord Lester. What must it have been like for Daria to realize that her husband had initially been interested in her only as a means for reconnaissance? And how must Daria have felt when she arrived at her husband’s home and learned he had been keeping so many secrets?

“If not for love, then why do you want to go?” Daria asked.

Aurelia tightened the laces of her boots. “It’s
my
expedition.”

“I don’t think the expedition is that important,” her friend replied.

It
was
though. Aurelia faced the reality she had been avoiding for the past five weeks. And yet even without speaking about her broken dream, the need for the expedition and its true purpose—to learn more about her people—had only become more obvious. She had known nothing about the inhabitants of the Asyan and very little to match her mother’s description of the Valshone. And those were only two regions of Tyralt. She needed to complete this journey.

But she did not have time to explain that to her friend. Now was the time to say good-bye.

“Thank you ... Daria.” Aurelia’s eyes clouded. “Thank you for coming here tonight and telling me. I’m sorry things haven’t been ... easier between us.”

Her friend’s fingers threaded through her own. “I know. But you have been through so much in the past two months, more, I’m sure, than I know. How could I have expected you to stay the same?”

Aurelia blinked. They had both changed.

“You are so strong,” her friend continued.

How could she have noticed the change and still think Aurelia was strong?

Daria swung her friend’s hands. “Try not to be too hard on Robert tonight,” she said. “You know he honestly thinks he is making the best choice to protect you.”

“He doesn’t love me, Daria. If he did, he wouldn’t be planning on leaving me now.”

“If he didn’t, he would have left for the frontier two months ago.” Daria enfolded her in an embrace.
She was still a true friend
, Aurelia realized. The type to challenge a crown princess who had just received the shock of her life. Or to enter a room without permission so that her friend would not be irreparably injured by someone else’s disappearance. Aurelia returned the embrace.

And before she had the chance to wipe the tears from her eyes, Daria was gone.

The light outside the window was failing, and Aurelia could not bear another good-bye.

But was it fair, she asked herself, to leave her mother like this?

She thought about the woman up in the Blue Room. The woman who had locked herself off from her entire past and had built an almost sacred refuge to keep it away, but then, piece by fragile piece, had allowed Aurelia in. Yet, in all that time between them, there had been no laughter. No touch. No tears, except for that first heart-wrenching day.

I didn’t know if I could survive ever having to say good-bye.

Yes, Aurelia realized. In fact, this was the only way, for either of them.

Nothing could be gained by a return to that room. She had already learned everything she could from this encounter, and her mother was too fragile to withstand such a personal departure. There would be no warm embrace between them, no true relationship, no future. Because her mother was never going to leave that room. And Aurelia
was.
She had survived. And somehow, in the process, the chasm within her own chest had healed, if not filled. Her mother’s emptiness and fear were not her daughter’s fault. And they held no power over her.

Robert found Aurelia, fast asleep, on the back of his horse.
Impossible
. At first, he thought she was an illusion, conjured by his own exhausted mind and the shudder of the lantern’s glow against the stables’ pitch-colored night. It was late. Hours and hours later than he would have chosen to leave—hours of agonizing over whether he was making the right choice, whether, after all the extra time, he would have the strength. But Thomas had insisted Robert wait until word of his departure had cleared the chain of command—a delay that had taken an eternity. And most of his sanity. So it did not seem all that strange that now he was having delusions.

You promised,
the vision seemed to say.

“She’s safe here,” he tried to argue. But he
had
promised, before the flames that night, promised her he would not leave her. And it didn’t matter that she had been asleep, as the vision was now, resting with her arms dangling along his stallion’s neck and shoulders, her cheek pressed into his mane, her left knee cocked, her boot wedged just enough to be caught in the stirrup.

Robert’s mind tried to make sense of that detail.

He had not saddled and bridled Horizon. It was the task he had been dreading, the final task. Because, somehow, to tighten that cinch, to strap on his supplies—the pack, the canvas Thomas had given him, the extra sack Daria had thrust into Robert’s hands at the last minute—to go through those final mundane actions, was to sever the greatest bond in his life.

I can’t do it.
Robert sank back against the wall and lost himself in the darkness. Even if he left tonight, if he managed to force himself out onto the path or the Northern Road or even across the Gate to the frontier, it would lead to the same thing. A night, a week, a month from now, he would have to turn around. And come back for her.

Relief washed through him.

But when he lifted his head, the vision remained: that of his stubborn horse tolerating a sleeping passenger.

Impossible.

But Robert drew closer. He reached out and felt the sticky texture of the saddle’s leather. Could one envision touch? Could he have imagined that crease, so fine, running along the curve of her neck? Could he conjure movement, the oh-so-subtle rise and fall of her chest and stomach as she breathed?

“Aurelia.” He reached out gently. A strand of her hair tumbled at his touch. His breath caught, and he pulled back, then reached again. Her shoulder was warm beneath his hand. “Aurelia.” He pressed down lightly.

She looked up at him, her eyes peering through sleep, straight into his.

He fell back for an instant. It was
her.
No illusion.

Impossible.

“How are you here?” he whispered.

She eased her head up along the stallion’s neck, her sleepblurred words running together. “You’re not leaving me behind.”

He closed his eyes. The feeling that rioted through his chest and gut had no right to be there.

“This is my expedition, Robert.” A long, soft yawn interrupted her speech. “I intend to finish it.” She buried her face back in the stallion’s neck. His stallion. His ornery, disloyal, docile stallion.

You know,
Thomas’s final, expressionless words came back to Robert,
you can always borrow that old roan at the end of the stables if that stallion of yours can’t handle all your personal effects.

The crown princess of Tyralt: a personal effect.

His gaze shot back toward the pile of supplies by the stall’s entry. No wonder Thomas had insisted on the canvas tent, even though Robert had stated he could sleep rough. And no wonder Daria had waited until he was halfway out the door to thrust that extra pack in his hands, when he was too tired of waiting to take the time to inspect it. And the delay? Had Thomas been stalling to ensure that Her Royal Highness would be able to leave the estate, alone with Robert?

Impossible.

But he found himself exiting the stall, walking down to the end of the aisle, and pulling the sturdy spotted mare out of her sleep. Found himself tugging her back in the direction he had come and strapping on both packs, the canvas, and a saddle he knew would not bear a rider tonight. Found himself arguing all manner of logic in his head.

He should wait until morning and discuss this with her stepfather. But in the end, she would either win or run off anyway.

There should be an escort. A new set of armed men. But they would only attract attention and destroy any advantage gained by waiting for the palace guards to leave Transcontina. Those guards
must
continue to believe Aurelia was dead. Which meant she could not travel as herself. She would have to be a commoner.

Impossible.

Robert allowed his gaze to return to the sleeping figure on the back of his half-wild stallion.

There was nothing common about her.

And though she had proven she could blend in with any level of society on the streets of Tyralt City, that meant nothing across the gateway to the frontier. And she had no concept of that.

Though neither did many of the people making their way north for the first time.

Perhaps it would work. If he helped her. If she would listen to him.

Impossible.

Robert attached a lead rope from the halter of the roan to the saddle of his own horse. And retrieved Horizon’s reins. Then, gently, he eased her drowsy figure forward, mounted behind her, and clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth, urging the stallion into motion.

Aurelia shifted, gave a soft, sleepy-headed sigh, and folded herself into Robert’s arms.

Impossible.

But she
was
impossible.

Chapter Nine

INTO THE LION’S JAWS

AURELIA AWOKE IN ROBERT’S ARMS. SHE HAD NO idea how she had come to be there, but it felt nice. Warm. Like her entire soul had been healed. And she did not want to move in case she might lose that wonderful sensation. Or her balance. It felt like she was on horseback, though she had not ridden since—

She did not want to think about that cold night. She just wanted to remain here. Awake. Free from the nightmare, where Daria had told her ... told her what?

Robert’s chest shifted, and Aurelia snuggled deeper into it. The Daria in the dream must have been crazy. Because Robert would never leave without saying good-bye. And he could not possibly be in love—

The thought jolted Aurelia from her lulled state, and her eyes flew open. The arms were real. And the chest. And those blue, blue eyes. For the first time in ten years, she almost fell off a walking horse.

She would have fallen if Robert had not grabbed her shoulder and hauled her back into his embrace. Which she had no reason—none—to accept.

She reached up and slapped him.

The grip on her shoulder released. And she dropped down of her own free will.

Onto a road. A trail, really. Through this same cursed forest, its branches, limbs, and heavy foliage pushing in around her. Her feet launched into a rapid walk. Right. Left. Right. Left. She had no idea where she was going, and she did not care. She just needed to escape the young man behind her and unravel her tangled memories of the previous night.

What had happened?

How had she gotten here?

Her ankle threatened to turn on a wheel rut, and she hopped forward, biting her lip, then forced herself on, into the memories. She remembered now the horrible discussion with Daria. And being ill. And the hurried good-bye letter she had written to her mother and stepfather. Then going down to the darkness of the stables and waiting beside Horizon, rehearsing over and over what she would say to Robert when he came. But he had never arrived.

And she had longed to fall asleep but did not dare. So she had saddled and bridled Horizon and climbed onto the stallion’s back.

Where she must have slept anyway. Because that was the last thing she could remember. Until waking up in Robert’s arms. Which made no sense.

“Aurelia.” The voice behind her was too low to the ground for him to be mounted. The sound of his steps drew nearer to her own.

“Why?” she said, staring at the needle-covered trail and cursing her voice for its trembling. “Why would you leave me without a word?”

The answer did not come. Only silence, probably Robert gathering himself mentally, thinking through what he was going to say. She hated that about him—that unfair amount of patience.

“Why?” she insisted.

His voice was almost sad. “I couldn’t.”

She stumbled. “But you intended to.”

His hand clutched at her elbow. “Aurelia, I want you to be safe.”

That stupid word again! She yanked away and continued walking. Always, always with Robert it was the same thing!

He grabbed her elbow once more, spinning her toward him, then held her by the shoulders. “We’ve been through this before, Aurelia. It’s time we face it. I know you don’t want to believe that your safety is a good enough reason for making a decision. But it is to me.” Those blue eyes were intense. “I need you to understand that.”

The air scraped through her chest. She knew how foolish it must seem for her to be mad at him for trying to protect her, but since when did that protection mean abandoning her? Didn’t he know what her life would be like?

“I could never stay at the Fortress, Robert, locked away from the world like my mother. I was ... afraid after the last attack. I am ... afraid.”

The grip on her shoulders softened.

“But I can’t ...” She struggled to voice the fear that had stalked her ever since she had first entered the Blue Room—a fear that had not fully revealed itself until her last discussion in that virulent refuge. “I can’t become her.”

“Aurelia”—his right hand moved to the side of her face—“you are nothing like your mother.” The words were so calm. So certain.

“How can you say that?” she asked. “When I look exactly like—”

“You confronted Lord Lester’s men in the forest. And then His Lordship. You went into the village and talked to the people there face to face. And last night you climbed up on Horizon’s back and fell asleep.”

Was that last part meant as a critique? But his tone had sounded more like pride. And he was right. She
had
done all those things, after the attack. Confusion swept through her chest. Which side of the argument was Robert on?

“I could never live my life without purpose,” she said, trying to clarify her own viewpoint. “The expedition is important. I need
you,
” she repeated his earlier words, “to understand that.”

“I have always believed in the expedition.”

Had he?
Yes.
He had told her she should travel to the frontier.

“But I can’t protect the crown princess,” he said.

“The expedition was never about the people seeing the crown princess, Robert,” she tried to explain. “It was about me learning about them.”

“I know,” he replied, his fingers still on her cheek. “But I can’t take you north—”

“Robert, we have to go north. I have to see the frontier and the desert. I can’t deny half my country.”

His hands locked on her shoulders. “I was going to say I can’t take you north unless—”

“I have to pretend to be someone else.” That had been the plan, the one she had prepared to share with him last night.

“Yes.” His sudden agreement startled her. “You’ll be Daria. And I’ll be Thomas. It’s safer if we invent as little as possible.”

She stared at him, wide-eyed. He had thought this out already.

“But, Aurelia, if we do this,” he continued, “there are things that we need to settle first. This territory—it’s different than the capital and central Tyralt. It’s harder. Raw. And mistakes have repercussions that you won’t be able to see. You asked me to be your guide, and I need you to let me do that. To trust my judgment. Can you?”

Now
he asked her this? After last night?

And yet she could not quite bring herself to say no. “Will you promise not to leave me?” she said. “Even for my protection? At least not without telling me?”

His hand dropped from her cheek. His eyes closed, the vein on his forehead pulsing, and his fingers formed into a fist. “I swear it,” he said, with a tone of fealty. When his eyes opened, they were wet.

She reached out toward those glistening eyes. “I trust you, Robert.”

“Good,” he said, taking her hand. “Because we can’t detour around Transcontina. We have to walk straight into the Lion’s Den.”

Robert felt no regrets. The floating sensation in his chest was closer to euphoria. They traveled east for three days, and he told himself he had no time for looking back. Or for second thoughts. Instead, he drilled Aurelia on the answers she would give if asked about her identity.

But one of her questions caught
him
unawares.

“Have you ever heard of the Right of Valshone?” she asked on the final morning in the forest.

His hand jerked, and the stallion snorted, kicking at the trail. “Your father terminated it,” Robert said, referring to the marriage treaty that would have made his own feelings for Aurelia even more illogical. “A decision I fully support.”

Wait! Had he said that last part aloud?

Her cheeks had gone a dark red, and her focus was intense as she prodded the elderly roan.

Robert tried to cover the awkward moment. “I’ve always assumed you approved of his choice as well.”

“I never knew of the Right until four days ago.”

How was that possible? The Right of Valshone had everything to do with Aurelia. But then again, it never had, because her father’s edict had come so shortly after her brother’s death. And until that time, her brother would have been the one bound by the law.

“Where did you learn about it?” she said, leaning forward as if that would transform her slow mount into a racer. “Not in school?”

No, he guessed not. “My father ...” Though now that she mentioned it, his father had discouraged Robert from ever discussing the topic with her. “I think, perhaps, people were afraid it might disturb you, hearing how the king changed the law because of your mother.” He watched closely to see how she would react to his mention of the woman she had left behind.

There came a pause of acknowledgment, and the mare stopped walking altogether. But Aurelia did not allow either to halt the conversation. She dismounted and began checking the mare’s hooves. “I can’t imagine the Valshone were pleased with the change in my father’s policy.”

“Maybe not.” Robert circled back on Horizon. This was dangerous territory, retracing the past. “But since one of their own ended the law in practice”—he referred obliquely to her mother’s flight from the capital—“before your father did it in writing, I guess they had no choice but to accept. Though it’s hard to know, since the only person the Valshone send to court is the Heir to the Right.”

Aurelia lifted one of the roan’s hind hooves. “Did my father ever send liaisons to ease the change?”

Robert shrugged.

She frowned, switching to the mare’s foreleg. “Your father—did he say anything about whether the Valshone intended to maintain their side of the treaty?”

She was worried about the repercussions, Robert realized. Here, hundreds of miles north of the Valshone Mountains, and nearly two decades after the Right of Valshone had been brought to an end.

How could he help but love her? “There haven’t been any threats of attack on the southern border,” he said in an attempt to comfort her. “We seem to be safe.”

As safe as any of us are in this kingdom,
Thomas’s skeptical words taunted back in Robert’s head.

Aurelia plucked a stone from the upraised hoof. “And if the people in the south never send anyone to court, how would we know if there
were
an attack? One would think if the inhabitants of the mountains were once important enough for the former kings of Tyralt to make this treaty, then the Valshone must be just as vital to this country today.”

“Yes,” Robert replied, and for the second time, he opened his mouth and said something he had not planned to vocalize. “But your father, and the rest of the court, have never been particularly interested in the people at the far reaches of Tyralian society.”
What am I doing talking politics?

“My father cares about Tyralt.” Aurelia flung the stone into the trees. “He may have been willing to marry me off to save his own reputation, but he wanted to do it at the greatest benefit he could manage for this country.”

Robert cringed, unable to accept her defense of the king’s shortsighted attempt to barter her off. “Your father cares about Tyralt’s power. I’m not so sure he cares about the needs of the people living here.”

She did not flare back, as he had anticipated, but she did not grant him the point either. Instead, she moved to the front of the roan and pulled lightly on the reins. “I think ...” Her eyes studied the horse’s gait. “I think he cares, but he’s too afraid of change; and he’s surrounded by people, those already at the center of power, who want to use Tyralt’s resources for themselves.”

“Like the queen.” Robert dismounted, leaving the stallion between them.

Aurelia did not bother to argue. “She’s never had any interest in people outside the aristocracy.”

“Maybe that’s why the Treaty of Valshone was made.” Robert’s focus blurred on the path as he thought aloud. “Not to protect the southern border, but to ensure that another voice was always heard at the palace. After all, the Battle of Gisalt would never have been a surprise if the Tyralian king had had regular correspondence with the Valshone. And the Valshone would never have lost so many warriors if they had asked for support from the Tyralian military.”
In the name of the crown, I’m still talking politics!

Something swatted him on the head.

Aurelia, who had somehow remounted the roan without his notice, was leaning over his temperamental stallion, her pack crushed upon his saddle, the strap dangling loosely from her hands. “So you think I should marry a member of the Valshone after all?” she said, teasing him for the first time since the night of the burning tent.

A warmth he had not thought he would ever feel again washed through his body. “No, of course not,” he rallied. “Marriage to you? That might destroy all hope for peace in this country!”

She swatted him again. And his stubborn, half-wild stallion just let her do it.

Aurelia’s first impression of Transcontina, when she stepped out from the shadows of the Asyan to peer down into the open river basin, was of sheer magnitude. The sun’s high-noon rays powered down onto hundreds and hundreds of white sails. Not ships but wagons. Heavy, curved wagon boxes with white canvas hoods. On every last section of cleared land between the basin’s bowl-shaped walls and the deceptively calm waters of the mighty Fallchutes. Not a city, she thought, as she witnessed those wagons. A fleet.

“That’s Transcontina.” Robert motioned toward a small, insignificant structure at the center of the wagons. Four log walls with sharpened ends pointing toward the sky, their intended aura of strength dwarfed by the mass around them.

“If
that
is Transcontina, then what is this?” She gestured at the fleet below them.

“People who want to settle the frontier.”

“All of them?” she gasped.

“Yes.” He turned around and headed back into the shadows of the forest, guiding both horses.

Was it possible so many people could crave adventure? She sent another stunned gaze down into the basin, then hurried after him. “Robert, what are you doing?” It had taken her two months to get out of this wretched forest. She wanted to stay out.

He wrapped Horizon’s reins around the saddle horn and attached a lead rope. “I’m hitching the horses here. Horizon is too conspicuous, and he doesn’t lie when asked to identify himself.”