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“I asked you a question, creature,” Ladrien continued, voice dark. “I will have your answer.”
Juliana coughed, adopting a raspy voice she hoped matched whatever creature she was pretending to be. “Just getting the cart ready, Your Majesty, as instructed.”
“I thought Merryweather was in charge of these supplies?”
“I don’t rightly know who gave me the instructions,” Juliana continued, still not daring to look up. “I didn’t want to ask. I just do as I’m told, me…”
Ladrien remained in front of her, still as stone. For one horrible moment, Juliana was sure she’d been rumbled.
But Ladrien merely tapped the side of the cart with his staff. “Be careful with this,” he warned.
“I assure you, Sire, I will be.”
He swept off without another word.
Juliana took a deep, steadying breath. That had been far too close. But of course—he did not expect her to be able to lie. He thought all the mortals were fleeing for the border or trapped inside Acanthia. He had doubtless not spared one thought for the mortal guard he’d met a few days beforehand, probably assuming she’d fled.
He did not expect them to resist.
Still steadying her breathing, Juliana clambered up into the seat of the cart and shook the reins. She was driving these explosives out of here.
She expected some resistance, someone to run forward and ask her what she was doing, but although someone double-checked her supplies before the road out of the quarry, no one else said a thing.
It was a long, slow ascent up the mountain, her heart hammering in her chest the entire time. She could still feel Ladrien’s gaze on her, like a plate of iron. She hadn’t even failed yet, but all her earlier confidence had been stripped away, replaced with cold, dark dread.
She barely breathed until she reached the top, and even then, following the convoy on the road to the border, she knew she couldn’t relax. She needed to find a way to slip out of the procession.
Thinking swiftly, she took her smaller dagger from her belt and slashed through the traces linking the mount to the cart. With a sharp yank of the reins (and a murmur of apology under her breath) the toad lurched off over the snow. She let out a frustrating cry as it barrelled past another supply cart, causing just enough of a fuss that no one noticed her scrambling out of her seat with an armful of explosives, heading for a copse of trees.
Waiting until the majority of the carts had passed, she slunk away to join Dillon at the designated meeting place. His eyes widened when he saw her, and he drew his sword.
“Steady on! It’s me,” she said, dropping to the floor and picking up handfuls of snow to try and sponge the dirt and paint away.
“Juliana?”
“Who else?”
“Good point.” He turned to the explosives she’d set aside. “You actually did it. How did you get all of that—never mind. We need to work quickly. It’ll be dark soon and we donotwant to be traipsing around in the dark and the snow…”
Juliana groaned. “Too right. Here, you take these ones. I’ll do the last.”
She took a moment to double-check the rudimentary map they’d drawn into the ground, and then set off without another word, setting her charge as Dillon had instructed and trying not to count the minutes before his return. Sometimes, she could make him out in the snow, but other times he was invisible. The pit, meanwhile, swarmed with energy… and her cart still sat abandoned beside the road. How long until someone questioned it?
Come on, Dillon, come on…
After an age, he reached her side, breathless and ruddy faced. He held out two crystals, connected to the explosives by magic Juliana couldn’t fathom, as she positioned her rocket towards the mountain peak.
“So, I guess that’s it then,” he remarked, as she dithered with the rocket.
“What is?”
“We get Serena to wake up Hawthorn, and they marry.”
“That was always what was supposed to happen.”
“Was it?”
“What other ending could this possibly have?”
