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Or perhaps it’s that I’m too old for this because none of the sixteen other casters packed in here like hens in a coop on a cold winter’s night seem to notice.
That is likely because they are too occupied with their terror over what lies ahead.
I shift the curtain aside to peek out the window. “Goodness.” It has been decades since I traveled through Argon’s lowlands, but I remember lush oat fields and fat grazing cows and crops of forest. Now the trees are black and withered, the soil barren, and the only thing feeding are crows on livestock corpses.
“The blight was especially bad this season.” Josephine, a healer stationed in the mid-country villages, explains. “They had high hopes in spring, but then it seemed to ravage the crops overnight. Entire fields gone. The livestock became sick, many died. This winter will be difficult.”
So many will starve. “It did not have to be this way.”
“If only the Islorians were not so cruel,” she says as if agreeing with me.
I resist the urge to correct her, but in the next breath change my mind. This is the problem. These lies Neilina has fostered in Ybaris have taken firm hold of the people living within because it is all they hear, and now they parrot them without thought. “It was not the Islorians who betrayed us. It was the queen and her incessant need for power, and her hatred for their kind.”
It was already quiet in the wagon. Now, I can practically hear each one of them swallow.
“They killed His Highness,” another caster—a young one I don’t recall—speaks up.
“King Barris was murdered, yes. Fates rest his soul. I can promise you, though, that it was not by an Islorian blade, but by one much closer to him. You need only look to the next throne over.”
Several jaws drop at my bold accusation. A few shake their heads in denial.
I sigh, unable to hide my irritation. “And where is the body of this supposed Islorian assassin?” Solange poked at this very issue in the guild meeting. “A murderer of a king would hang for all to see, I would think. Wouldn’t you?” These casters should know better and yet they are like sheep!
“But they killed the princess and the prince—”
“The prince may be dead, and if so, he will have deserved it for his part in his mother’s schemes. The princess is alive and well, and you will see her soon enough alongside the Islorians. What does that say to you, hmm?” Lorel will have me drawn and quartered when she hears of my words, but hopefully, I will be either across the rift or dead before that day. “We are heading into a war of Queen Neilina’s conception and nurturing, and we are all fodder for her ambitions. Nothing more. Do not let yourself be misled by her battle cry.”
Anxious glances flitter about the wagon. I can see they are equal parts frightened and curious.
“You are a scribe,” Godwin, a pinched-face male caster whom I never liked, announces. “How is it that you know such things no one else seems to?”
A smug smile stretches across my wrinkled face. Godwin’s ego always was too big for his breeches. “It is because I am a scribe that I know many things no one else seems to.”
“She speaks the truth about the princess,” a soft voice calls out. A tiny caster with chocolate-brown eyes and hair as dark and rich as a crow’s feather. “I have seen messages that speak to the princess bound to the exiled king. More than one.”
A messenger caster riding with the healers for whatever reason. No matter, she helps my cause. “See?”
They don’t see. Not yet. But they will soon enough. Fates help us.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
GRACEN
The doors to the ballroom crack open and Boaz shoves Wendeline in. She stumbles, almost falls, before catching her footing. “Hurry up,” he barks, earning her jolt and several wide-eyed looks from the children. A few younger and more fragile ones begin to cry, and Sabrina rushes to their side to calm them before they stir a chorus.
I truly hate Captain Boaz. If I had to spend time with him, I think I could hate him as much as I hated Lord Danthrin. I do not understand why Atticus would not replace him with someone more like Kazimir.
Wendeline’s face is drawn, her eyes bloodshot as she surveys the mortal children huddled in their makeshift beds. They didn’t give her enough time to rest. She looks minutes from collapsing. Finally, she spots me waving at her and she moves my way, her body hunched.
A mixture of guilt and relief swells inside me for my scheming this morning. I waited until Atticus was at the door before asking to send her, praying he wouldn’t sense my inner turmoil, telling myself over and over again that some of the children do have scrapes and cuts. They could use her healing touch.
