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“How is she tracking you?”
Madinia narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know. No one else knew where I was, and I’ve been careful.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I. She wants you free for her own reasons—that bitch doesn’t have a heart. But she still helped. If I hadn’t found a way to decode her message, you’d be wandering around the forest, hiding from Regner’s men.”
She had a point.
“Poison’s Homeland,” she said. “She knew I’d figure out what that meant.”
“Poison’s Homeland?”
“Her horse. His name is Poisoned Apple. He was purchased from a breeder near the dungeon. Once I knew the general area to search, all the guards coming and going made it easy to see where you were being kept.”
“Maybe too easy. You weren’t worried about it being a trap?”
She gave me a derisive once-over. “Of course I was. But decisions had to be made.”
“Thank you for coming for me.”
She sniffed. But her shoulders straightened, and I hid a smile. Prickly Madinia.
“What do you think she wants?” I asked. My horse snorted, and I gave her an encouraging stroke.
Madinia sighed. “There is only one thing she has ever wanted. Her son.”
“Youthink she’d work with us if we freed him?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “I spent years watching her. I know how her mind works. She’s calculating and clever. If she doesn’t know the truth about the man she married, she at least knows something isn’t right. And she’s helped us twice now.”
“You truly think this is all for Jamic?”
She pushed her hair off her face. “Somewhere along the way, she became his mother—against her will. He is the one thing she cares about. We find him, and we’ll control her.”
I felt my brows shoot up. Not long ago, Madinia had been concerned we would use Jamic—just like everyone else had. But obviously, when it came to her relationship with the queen, it was personal.
“Think about it, Prisca,” she said when I didn’t reply. “She’s in that castle, close to Regner all day, every day. The only way he has managed to keep her in line is by dangling Jamic in front of her. Once Regner kills him and takes his place, he has no use for her, and she knows that too.”
She was right. Either way, we needed to find Jamic before Regner reinforced the barrier. And if Kaliera was willing to help us make that happen, we should listen.
Still, I couldn’t let myself fully trust her.
Not after I’d seen what she had done to Wila.
We fell into silence after that. All I could see was Cavis’s face. The grief for his family. And the acceptance that this was how he would die. I hadn’t been enough to save him.
Depression would suck the life out of me if I let it. It would steal the strength from my muscles and the courage from my bones. I wasn’t ignorant enough to think I could merely choose not to feel what I’d been through. But I would lock it in the box that held the loss of my parents—all of them—the loss of Wila, Thol, Cavis. The loss of the person I might have one day become if I hadn’t been clawed by grief and rage.
At some point, that box would open.
If I weren’t careful, it would become too full—the lid no longer able to close. And all the pain I refused to feel would flood me.
But for now, I slammed that lid shut, buried it beneath a pile of rubble, and nurtured the flame of my fury.
Madinia turned in her saddle, facing me. “There’s a village ahead. But I don’t think we should stay there. It will be the first place Regner’s guards check. You hide with the horses, and I’ll buy supplies.” Madinia raked her gaze over me and wrinkled her nose. “Supplies such as soap.”
My mouth twitched. Something that might have been relief flickered in her blue eyes. Those eyes widened as a shout cut through the forest.
