All eyes were focused on Lord Sarlon. He took a step back, his hand dropping to the sword at his waist.
“Guards, arrest Lord Sarlon for treason against the crown.” Adeline pointed, the gesture still strong despite the tremble he could see in her.
The guards rushed Lord Sarlon. He turned to flee, but he had nowhere to go. The guards quickly tackled him, flattening him to the ground.
“Be careful of the poison!” Adeline shouted, but Lorne wasn’t sure anyone could hear her over the commotion of the arrest. Her knees buckled, and Lorne caught her before she fell.
Thaddeus appeared out of the crowd. “They’ll search him. Surely he’ll have the antidote on him. He wouldn’t want to accidentally poison himself.”
“If he were smart, he’d have taken the antidote already and no longer has it on him.” Lorne swept Adeline into his arms again. She was shaking even harder, curling in on herself as if her stomach hurt. “Nor would I trust anything from Lord Sarlon’s hands. Any supposed antidote he provided might just be even more poison.”
The lines in Thaddeus’s face deepened. “Then…”
“I’m taking her to Lalsacia.” Lorne spun and marched toward the Lalsacian lines. Thaddeus and theKelvernese lords would have to finish calming things down. He didn’t dare wait any longer.
Orvyn hurried forward, tugging a large black horse and a large chestnut on leads in each hand. “Sir.”
Just a hint of a smile creased Lorne’s face as he took in the black horse. Warrior, his own destrier. His father must have brought the horse along in anticipation of Lorne’s return.
Lorne had to pass Adeline to Orvyn to swing into the saddle. Once Orvyn handed her back, Lorne settled her in his lap as best he could. The high pommel of the saddle must have been digging into her hip, but she didn’t complain as she held onto him, her face pressed into his shirt.
With one arm around her to hold her steady, Lorne gripped the reins and nudged Warrior with a squeeze of his legs and a click of his tongue.
Warrior burst into a trot, then smoothed into a canter. The Lalsacian guards parted, giving him a clear path. As he plunged onto the other side, Godwin and Orvyn rode into place beside him. If any of Adeline’s Kelvernese guards managed to grab horses and join them, Lorne didn’t look back to find out.
He cantered up the hill toward the wooden palisade cutting across the landscape. As they neared, Godwin began shouting, ordering the soldiers there to open the gates in the name of the prince.
The gates swung open, and Lorne’s destrier charged through without slowing his pace. On the other side, soldiers hurried out of their way as Lorne led the charge through the Lalsacian encampment, itslayout nearly identical to what he’d seen on the Kelvernese side.
Then he was out on the far side, his horse charging down the slope of the saddleback ridge.
He kept the destrier at a steady canter for some time, keeping an eye on the horse’s gait and feeling his steady breaths between his legs. As much as Lorne wished to push the horse, pushing the destrier too hard wouldn’t help Adeline.
As a war horse, the destrier was bred for carrying the heavy weight of an armored soldier and its own armor into battle. Unlike a saddle horse, the destrier held up under the weight of two people far better, as it wasn’t that much different than a man in heavy gear.
After a while, he let the horse slow into the walk, the destrier’s nostrils flared and his chest heaving but no more than he would have in a charge into battle.
In Lorne’s arms, Adeline convulsed, then turned her head to retch. He adjusted his grip on her to let her heave and retch to one side of the horse. Transferring the reins to the hand around her waist, he smoothed her hair away from her face.
There was nothing more he could do but hold her and get her to the fleech dragons as quickly as possible.
Once the destrier had rested, he nudged it back into that easy canter, despite the desperation shuddering through him to kick the horse into a gallop.
He wasn’t sure how many miles passed as he, Godwin, and Orvyn alternated walking and cantering the horses. Around them, the mountains grew more forested, the foothills more rolling.
In his arms, Adeline went from retching and shivering to lying still, and the only things letting him know she was still alive were the faint breaths on his cheek and her occasional shudder in his arms.
The road ahead darkened as it disappeared into the thick vastness of the Donnaris Forest. Dense stands of spruces, cedars, and pines intermingled with a handful of oaks and maples that had somehow managed to grow between the evergreens.
Once they were fully enclosed by the trees, Lorne drew Warrior to a halt. The destrier didn’t prance or toss his head at having to stop as he normally would. Instead, he stood there, blowing and lathered, as done in as Lorne had ever seen the large horse.
Without waiting for the others to dismount, Lorne swung his leg over the saddle and slid to the ground with Adeline in his arms. His knees nearly buckled, and he had to stagger several steps to regain his balance. But he didn’t fall, and he didn’t drop Adeline.
He strode away from the horse, trusting that one of his men would see to walking Warrior to cool him off. Instead, he tottered a few yards deeper into the forest before he sank to a mossy spot at the base of a cedar, Adeline still clutched in his arms. Her head lolled against his arm, her face so achingly pale that he pressed trembling fingers to her throat to check that her heart was still beating.
Her pulse was there, thready and faint. She wouldn’t linger much longer.
Lorne gathered a deep breath and let out an undulating, chittering call.
