The Shadow Throne (12 page)

I
grabbed the shoe and leapt to my feet, hoping for any sign of her, or at least some clue as to where she might be now. Nothing indicated how long the shoe had been here or what direction she had traveled. Was it possible she had passed through as a captive of Mavis’s army?

I cut the leaves, then ran back to Tobias. Mott was already there with him and stood vigil, listening and watching for anyone’s approach while Tobias continued washing Mavis’s ankle. I pushed past him and thrust the shoe in Mavis’s face. “Do you know where this came from?”

Mavis’s eyes widened, though it wasn’t clear whether he recognized the shoe, or because he was surprised to see a woman’s shoe of that quality in a place like this.

“I asked you a question!” I yelled. “Now answer me!”

“You’re not Avenian,” he replied coolly. “That was easy enough to figure out. You lost your accent just now and these two others with you have the accent of Carthya. You are the youngest of them all. Why do you give the orders?” His eyes brushed over me, resting briefly on my forearm with the mark of the pirates, the bruises that were still visible on my face, and the sword in my hand. “I know who you are . . . Jaron.”

So Mavis was not as stupid as I had thought. Either that, or I was less clever than I wanted to believe. Neither improved my opinion of myself, or boosted my hopes to pass through this area unnoticed.

In his protective way, Mott walked toward us, but I didn’t think Mavis was in a position to harm me. I knelt beside him with the shoe still in one hand and the plant he so desperately needed in my other.

“Help me,” I said. “Then I will help you.”

His eyes remained focused on the plant. “I see. Either I tell you what I know about that shoe, or you will let me die. Is that right? Carthyans are no better than Avenians.”

“You dare say that, after we rescued you, knowing who you are? You are on my soil. You attacked us!”

Mavis turned away. “I follow my orders without question, as a good soldier would. You ask the same from your soldiers.”

“No, I ask them to be good people. That way, if they follow my orders, I will know I am doing the right thing.” Tobias extended his hand, and I thrust the plant leaves at him. “Do what you must for this boy and let’s be on our way.”

But Tobias only gripped the leaves tighter. “If he knows about Amarinda —”

“He wants to play games with us. We’d do better to just pick up her trail while it’s still fresh. So wrap his leg and we’ll go.”

Tobias stripped open the leaves to reveal a sticky yellow gel. He ran his fingers through it and then applied the gel to Mavis’s leg. Mavis arched his back as it stung the wound, but the worst of the pain seemed to pass once Tobias wrapped it with a rag from Mott’s saddlebag.

Tobias handed the boy the remaining leaves. “You need to check that wound often and keep this gel on it until you’re entirely healed. It might not stop the infection entirely, but if you do as I say, it should keep you out of danger.”

With that, Tobias stood and we hurried to our horses. Mott even lifted his saddlebag and found a spare roll, which he tossed to the boy to eat. “You are in our debt now,” Mott said. “Remember that.”

“I’m the lowest soldier of Avenia,” Mavis said. “I cannot repay anything to a king.”

“You’ll find a way,” I said.

“Let’s leave.” Tobias started away with his horse. “We must hurry.”

Mott and I followed, but before we had gone far, Mavis called after us, saying, “We saw the girl who wore that shoe and chased after her, but she got away. I don’t know where she is now, but she’s not with my army.”

I met his eyes and nodded in gratitude. Then without a word, I turned and hurried after Mott and Tobias, already on their way to find the princess.

M
ott had told me once that he was skilled in tracking, but I hadn’t appreciated his claim until I saw him at work. Once we lost the princess’s footsteps in the soft soil around the stream, he got off his horse and began showing me how he worked.

There were some things I already understood — to look for crushed grasses or bent twigs that indicated a person had passed that way. But Mott used a stick to measure the distance in her stride and then used that information to estimate where her footsteps should fall to find the trail again. It was slow work, requiring our horses to be led on foot, but after we had gone some distance, the indents suggested she was walking, not running, and the prints were less than a day old. If we kept at it, we should find her.

We continued this way for several hours, until the sun began to sink in the sky, and along with it our hopes of finding her before nightfall. That decision was sealed when we came upon another stream with no visible footsteps on the other side.

“She could’ve walked in the water, upstream or down, and exited anywhere.” Mott’s frustrations were clear. “It’s too dark for us to follow now. We should make camp and start again tomorrow.”

“We must keep going or she’ll get even farther away,” Tobias said. “Let’s try upstream. That would take her closer to Drylliad.”

“And closer to the soldiers who chased her,” I reminded him. “She’s already much farther south than I’d have expected. She may go south yet again.”

Faced with one choice no more certain than the other, Tobias reluctantly agreed to make camp. Mott prepared us a fire while Tobias and I put together a simple stew. After eating, we sat around the fire with little to say. Tobias went to sleep first, insisting we begin again at first light. Mott followed shortly after, and I lay down near the dwindling fire, but sleep would not come. I should have arrived at Falstan Lake that day, and although I had no regrets for helping Mavis, and certainly the search for the princess was a priority, I still felt disconnected from the war I was supposed to be leading. I worried that my country was collapsing from the center, even as I rode uselessly in circles around the action.

Finally, I drifted off, but it was a restless sleep filled with haunted dreams that kept me on edge. In them, Amarinda was on the same ridge in the camp where Imogen had fallen, begging me to come after her. Telling me that she was intelligent and strong and would fight for me. Then I heard the whoosh of an arrow —

I woke up with a start, sweat on my brow. But I soon realized it wasn’t the dream that had awoken me. Something near us had made a noise.

The horses were tied close by, but not immediate to our camp. Whatever the noise had been, it was minor, but something clearly had disturbed them.

As silently as possible, I reached for my sword and got to my feet. I poked at Mott and Tobias and, when they awoke, motioned for them to follow me. We had only taken a few steps when we caught the sound of our horses on the run. We gave pursuit, Mott racing far ahead of Tobias and myself. One of the horses must’ve pulled free. Mott caught it and, jumping into its saddle, set off to get ahead of the thief and force him back this way.

Tobias and I kept running in the direction of the noise. I yelled at Tobias to run to the right, in case our horse thief circled back that way. The thief continued forward, but another of our horses escaped and veered toward Tobias. He was able to grab the reins and calm the horse enough to climb on its back, then he set off as well, leaving me alone.

It wasn’t long before I lost sight of him, and Mott was already too far away. I wasn’t sure which way I should go until several minutes later when I heard Tobias yell, “Help! I see him!”

They were coming toward me, and I ran to intercept. The thief would come upon me first and be greeted by the sharp end of my sword.

Only it didn’t happen that way. When Tobias cried for help, our thief responded.

“Tobias?”

That was the princess’s voice.

Still running forward, I saw her approach in the moonlight. Amarinda had stolen our horses, and now that she recognized a friendly voice, she immediately turned back to race toward Tobias. When they were close, she slid from her horse, as did he. I was near enough then to call out to her, but something silenced me. Somehow, this reunion belonged to them, and not me. So I only watched as the princess called Tobias’s name and ran to embrace him. Several days ago, when I had seen them pressed together in the small space of the escape carriage, they had looked uncomfortable and awkward. Clearly, that had passed now.

“How did you get here?” she asked. “When you were captured, I thought” — her voice choked — “I thought they’d do to you what they did to Jaron.”

Tobias saw me behind them and released her as if she burned him. With an eye on me, he said, “My lady, what they told us about Jaron was a lie.”

Then he turned her to face me, and she stared a moment as if unable to believe her own eyes. The light from above was fairly dim, but her long brown hair tumbled in tangles down her back, her fine dress was torn and stained, and she was limping from having only one shoe to wear. She was dirty and ragged and clearly exhausted. Through all that, she was as beautiful as ever.

“Jaron?” She stumbled forward in disbelief. “Is this possible? They said you were dead.”

“I nearly was.”

“But how —” Amarinda was close enough then to touch me, and her face melted in sympathy. She reached out a hand to brush a lock of hair from my face. The hair had covered a dark bruise on my temple, a personal gift from the vigil Terrowic to me. “Jaron, what did they do to you?”

Rather than answer, I took her hand and kissed it, then asked, “Tell me of yourself. What do you need?”

She smiled. “All is well, my lord, but I am hungry.”

“We have food at our camp.”

“I know. I smelled it cooking earlier tonight, and in fact, that’s how I found your camp. But when I got there, I saw the Avenian uniforms, and the horses packed with Avenian saddles. I had no idea it was you. My plan was to release the horses, and when you all went after them, to sneak into camp for some food.”

“It was a risky plan.”

“Yes, but I was very hungry. And taking this risk turned out better than I could’ve hoped.”

By then, Tobias had brought his horse over to us. Despite the embrace he had just shared with her, he was awkward once again as he assisted her into the saddle. I climbed up next to ride with her back to camp. Her arms were around my waist, but I felt her turn back to look at Tobias as we rode off. It sealed in my mind a suspicion that had been growing for some time.

Tobias and the princess were in love.

M
ott joined us soon after we arrived at camp, and was clearly as relieved as the rest of us to find the princess safe and unharmed. But I also caught him staring at me with his brows pressed low. Clearly, he understood that something was bothering me, but he knew better than to ask.

We built up the fire for her warmth, offered her tea, then Mott began warming her some food while Tobias and I reorganized the camp for her comfort and privacy. For his own safety, I would’ve preferred it if Tobias worked much farther away from me, but he seemed too focused on her return to be aware of my anger. While we worked, she told us the remainder of her story from the time Tobias had been captured.

“I knew I had to get inside Carthya’s borders,” she said as she ate. “But they were searching for me so heavily in the north, I was forced to go south. Finally, I was able to cross into Carthya and hoped to find some of our own people who would help me get to Drylliad.”

“Everyone’s gone to Drylliad already,” I said. “It’s not safe for the families out here on their own. And especially not safe for you. Why didn’t you go on to Bymar, as we planned?”

My tone was harsher than it ought to have been and she would have been justified in replying with equal harshness. But instead, she softened her words. “They told us you were dead.”

“I might’ve been! That’s all the more reason to protect yourself!”

“No, it meant I had to return to the castle so that our people could be assured the throne still stands! If they know what they are fighting for, people will continue to fight, but if word spread of your death, they would start to wonder. I had to return so that I could provide them a purpose.”

I stopped my work to steady my emotions. Whatever else I felt, words like that marked her as a true royal. There was no question of either her courage or nobility.

Tobias said, “The night before we left the castle, you asked her to rule if something happened to you, and to consider a husband from Carthya. She only did what you wanted, Jaron.”

“Really?” I didn’t need his help with this. He’d already helped me plenty. I felt my anger rise again. “Is this what either of you think I want?”

Amarinda drew in a breath to say something, catching my attention, but she remained silent. We continued staring at each other until Mott stood and said, “I’ll check on the horses.” He cocked his head at Tobias. “You should help me.”

“Why?” Tobias clearly wasn’t interested in going anywhere. “They’ve been fed and watered, and their knots are good.”

“Because I told you to come and help!”

From the tone of Mott’s voice, Tobias must’ve realized their leaving had nothing to do with the horses. But I didn’t miss his glance back at Amarinda, full of sympathy that she was left alone with me, and regret that he would not be allowed to remain here with her.

I carried another log to the fire, then sat on a fallen tree trunk to watch it burn. This night seemed to have gone on forever, and all I wished for was that it might end. Before long, Amarinda came to sit near me, and we watched the fire together. Something needed to be said, but I had no idea where to begin.

Open as the sky was around us, I suddenly felt closed in, and my heart raced, though I couldn’t be sure why. Was I angry? Not really, though I had every right to be. Hurt? Yes, though if she had believed me to be dead, her affections for Tobias weren’t intended to cause me any sadness. Perhaps I felt displaced, as if I belonged nowhere, and to nobody. In all the glory of being a king, I was still an unwanted orphan of the streets.

Finally, she said, “While you were with the pirates, Tobias spent a long time trying to help me understand you.”

I scoffed. “Yes, I can imagine that took many hours.”

“It was more like many days.” She smiled back at me, but not in a mocking way. I doubted she was capable of that sort of unkindness. “He told me that, back at Farthenwood, you once said you had no desire to be king. Was that true, or only part of your disguise as Sage?”

A quiet sigh escaped my lips. “Nothing I said at Farthenwood was more honest.”

“We’re very different people, Jaron, but in that one way, we’re so much alike. You never wanted the crown, nor did I. In fact, in all my life, I have never been asked what I wanted.”

How familiar that sounded. My own complaints weren’t so different.

She continued, “From the moment of my birth, I was a betrothed princess, destined for your brother. When I was old enough, I left my home in Bymar and came to live in Drylliad, to get to know Darius better. Eventually, I gave my emotions to him and anticipated a life of happiness at his side. Then one morning he was dead. Gone. And almost as quickly I was expected to put aside everything I ever felt for Darius, to pretend that I wasn’t completely hollow inside. On the same night that Darius’s murder was confirmed, I was suddenly faced with betrothal to another husband, to you. I know that’s how things had to be, but I don’t think anyone understood how hard it was to face you, looking so much like Darius and yet serving as a constant reminder that he was gone.”

“Please forgive me.” I felt selfish to my core, to have dwelled so much on my own wishes and frustrations that, for all this time, I had failed to consider the pain she must have felt.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” she said. “The betrothal wasn’t your desire any more than it was mine. Yet despite all that, we built a friendship. And then as the war began, you became the first to ever ask what I wanted for my life. To marry you, if I wanted, or to choose my own way. I thank you for that. In many ways, that is the most love anyone has ever shown me.” She drew in a slow breath, and then said, “You promised never to lie to me, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Then I must ask you a question and beg for your complete honesty.” When I nodded, she said, “Before we left the castle, Kerwyn suggested that you and I should marry. Why did you accept his suggestion?”

I hadn’t anticipated that question and, in fact, had barely thought about it since then. I struggled with finding the right words to answer her and finally said, “Because Kerwyn was right. If something happens to me during this war, it preserves your role as queen.”

She pressed her lips together and then said, “For you, is that reason enough to begin a marriage?”

In a perfect world, there would only be one reason for marriage, when two people loved each other more than their own lives. But there were other realities of life, often requiring partnerships to be formed for more practical reasons. Marriages to gain a provider or a cook or a companion were common, and for many people, that was enough. Amarinda and I were supposed to marry because of a treaty worked out between our families. Maybe people did marry for reasons other than love, but when I thought about it, a treaty was the most ridiculous reason of them all.

“No,” I said. “I would hope to marry for love, and no other reason.”

She scooted closer to me and I felt the warmth of her presence. When she spoke, her voice was low and gentle. “Jaron, do you love me?”

She might as well have asked me to solve the mysteries of the universe. I’d never asked myself that question because I’d never needed the answer. As part of the terms of returning to the throne, it had always been settled that I must marry the princess. Why question what must happen?

But that was it — I had always felt that I
must
marry her. Never had I
wanted
that.

“Of course I love you.” My words were like a confession, and it felt good to say them. “But as I would a sister, or a dearest friend. I am not
in love
with you.” And with those words, any anger I had felt toward her and Tobias vanished. I could not blame her for withholding emotions that I did not feel either. And if I truly felt any affection for her, then her wishes would be my priority. I had to accept that her happiness came from someone other than me.

The tension in her released as well. “Tobias does not have your wit with words or strength with a sword. But he is good and kind, and I am myself when I’m with him.”

I couldn’t deny any of that. My opinion of Tobias had been dismal when we first met, but once he and I came to an understanding, he had served me as loyally as anyone could. Better still, he had become the truest of friends.

I said, “With his intelligence and his position as a regent, he should give you a comfortable life, though not a royal one.”

She shrugged. “The life of a princess was a grand gift from the king of my country. But it was one I never asked for.”

“You always fit the role perfectly.”

“I will fit my new role well too. Because Tobias is a regent, if we marry, the treaty between our countries will remain secure.”

Which was good to know,
if
I had a country left after this war ended. I took Amarinda’s hand and kissed it, less saddened by her rejection than I would have expected. Perhaps it wasn’t possible for her to break my heart because she had never held it. Or perhaps my heart was already in too many pieces from another greater loss.

I faked a smile that covered those heavy thoughts. “Tobias may be out there wondering if I’m going to order his execution. I think it might be fun to make him believe it.”

“I doubt whether he’d enjoy that joke as much as you do.” Amarinda’s expression was serious, but I was sure I caught a small twinkle in her eye.

Eventually, Mott and Tobias returned. Mott stopped at the edge of camp, seeking permission to rejoin us. I guessed he had spoken to Tobias while they were gone. For, rather than entering, Tobias knelt where he was, with his head down. If he suspected I was angry enough to order his beheading, that wasn’t the smartest position for him to take.

I walked over to Tobias, who said, “The darkest day of my life was when they told us you were dead. Please believe that, Jaron.”

“I do. And I have only gratitude for all you did to help the princess once you heard that news. My blessings to you both.”

Tobias lifted his head and smiled at Amarinda, who beamed back at him. She turned to me. “Thank you, my lord. Then may I extend my wishes for you and Imogen? Wherever she is now, she loves you, Jaron. She is meant for you.”

At the mention of Imogen’s name, I stiffened and tried to remember to breathe. Every time I thought about Imogen, I felt as though I were nothing but hollowed-out flesh. And I had no idea how to react now — it hadn’t occurred to me that Amarinda didn’t know.

Standing nearby, Mott leaned over and whispered into Amarinda’s ear. Upon hearing the news, her mouth fell open and she let out a gasp of horror. Her eyes widened and tears spilled onto her cheeks like rivers of sorrow. “I thought if you escaped the camp, then she had too,” she choked out. “No one told me.” Still shaking her head, she staggered forward and closed me into an embrace, then held me tight.

I wasn’t sure if I was comforting her, or the other way around. But as she cried on my shoulder, it allowed me to mourn as well, in a way I had desperately needed. When she finally released me, the sadness lingered, yet I felt cleansed from the worst of it. I took her hand, kissed it, and then placed it in Tobias’s hand.

“She is always a royal,” I told him. “Love her as nothing less.”

He bowed humbly, then said, “We are forever in your debt. What can we do?”

“Back in Avenia’s camp you asked if I was broken.” I took a deep breath, in full recollection of how near I had come to my own end. “I was. But I am healing and I am ready to fight this war. Help me win, Tobias. Vargan must be stopped.”