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“The same as the previous night.” Horik’s hulking frame is strapped with a dozen weapons. I let his size fool me once in Cirilea’s sparring court and assumed he would not be able to compete. I ended up pinned to the dirt beneath his blade and listened to Abarrane’s mocking laughter for months after. He is one of the fastest of the legionaries. Couple that with his strength, and he is a force to be reckoned with.
Something tells me we will need that before long.
Abarrane’s sharp gaze roves the dusk beyond the wagon, narrowing.
There is nothing from what I can see but the arid, craggy ground, speckled by boulders. A thousand shadows but no hint of threats hiding within them. “One of Telor’s scouts, perhaps?” The sun has barely dropped past the horizon. It’s still too early for the saplings, unless they’ve found adequate cover in a nearby hole, which is unlikely.
“Or one of Ybaris’s,” Elisaf offers.
“Be prepared for all of them. Loth? If you will.”
He pulls the lever, setting invisible mechanisms within the wall in motion. The heavy iron portcullis draws upward smoothly.
I test the flames in the torches that line the tunnel, letting them flare under my affinity’s touch. Each night, Ulysede ignites with light of its own accord, as if sensing our need. If the city didn’t leave me so unsettled, I would appreciate its sentient abilities.
“Brace yourself, Your Highness,” Abarrane warns. “The blood curse returns with a vengeance the first time.”
“I’m prepared.” I haven’t stepped outside of Ulysede’s gate since we arrived, but now I sense a strange tingle along my throat and a sting in my gums where my needlelike incisors drop.
Four steps out, I realize Abarrane wasn’t exaggerating. An overwhelming wave of need hits me, buckling my knees. I stagger, reaching for the wall to balance myself as my vision blurs. My incisors drop of their own accord, so fast they cut into my bottom lip. All I can do is breathe through it until it subsides into nothing more than an irritant.
When I pull myself upright, the legionaries are strolling for the wagon as if unfazed.
Like me, Elisaf struggles, still down on one knee. “Fates, this feeling …” He grimaces.
It is as terrible as when I was six years old and hit with the lust for blood the first time. “How many trips out here before your tolerance grew?” I call out. Abarrane has been through these gates every day since we arrived.
She flashes a smug smile over her shoulder. “Whatever do you mean?”
Elisaf casts a vulgar gesture—a rarity for him—and it earns her wicked laughter.
The air is noticeably cooler, another sign that wherever we go once we step through those gates, it isn’t Islor. I scan the clear, star-filled sky, half expecting the same two moons that cast light in Ulysede each night. But there is only the one.
What will become of Islor after the next Hudem? If my foolish brother goes through with this arranged marriage, he will regret it, there is no doubt about that. Kettling will not honor any alliance when it comes to the crown. They will betray him. My father knew it, I knew it. But the decisions we’ve made have always been a thorn in Atticus’s side. I shouldn’t be shocked he’d do the opposite.
We navigate around the boulders, closing in on Horik and Abarrane. From this distance, my affinity can’t reach the torch flame at the gate. “Why must the wagon be so far out?”
“When the sapling screams, that imbecile screams, and I recall a tongue lashing from His Highness the last time there was too much screaming for the princess’s liking.”
“The mortal is still alive?” Genuine surprise laces my tone. We took that mule of a man prisoner in Norcaster after he divulged information about Lord Isembert’s deal with the saplings. We thought he might have more information to share.
“If he hasn’t revealed anything by now, then surely he has nothing to offer,” Elisaf says.
“On the contrary, he offers me entertainment while I work on the sapling. You should hear the stories he sputters to see what might save his vile life.”
I shake my head. “The things that amuse you cause me worry, Abarrane.”
Elisaf slows, his narrowed focus on the ground. He crouches.
“What is it?”
“Grass. A few blades.” He plucks one from the ground and holds it up in proof.
Abarrane snorts. “Do you suddenly fear vegetation?”
He ignores her, peering up at me. “Do you recall seeing anything the day we arrived?”
“No. Nothing.” Barren, dry soil, devoid of so much as a weed. It’s been this way for as long as anyone can remember.
“And yet now there is grass. Here …” He stands and walks a few steps, then points. “And there too. As the land prepares for winter.”
“It is coming up all over the place. I’ve seen it in the daylight,” Horik confirms.
