Froi had been on his own now for the better part of the day, traveling through a labyrinth of caves as he followed Hamlyn’s map, which was peppered with a series of twists and turns and strange markings. He marveled each time he came face-to-face with a matching symbol carved into a crevice or the image of a bison scratched onto the ground, its hump pointing him in the direction of the people he needed to be with. Hamlyn had explained that the underground caves were built thousands upon thousands of years ago, when those of Sendecane had taken on the worship of the goddess Lagrami. They had been persecuted by their godless king and escaped across two kingdoms to hide in Charyn, preferring to burrow their way into the earth rather than give up their faith. In later years, their descendants settled aboveground in the kingdoms of Charyn, Lumatere, and Sarnak. The Rock people of Lumatere were fair in skin and gold of hair, much like Grijio of Paladozza and Hamlyn and Arna of Jidia. Froi had grown up among those in the Sarnak capital with the same coloring. Had they come from the same Sendecanese who had hidden in these caves in the past? Was it why Finnikin’s people settled themselves on a rock and not the Flatlands or Mountains? He thought of Quintana, who looked different from everyone Froi had come across. She was every color of Charyn stone. Flecks of browns and grays and golds.

Outside the caves and back at the base of the gravina, Froi couldn’t help but marvel at how it had taken him half the time to travel back to where he had begun his journey. He wondered what else the caves could offer those who were desperate not to be found. He waited until early morning to make his way to the others, praying they would still be there. He was more than half a mile upstream and could see only three of Bestiano’s riders. He figured they would have had no clue about where he was this last week. Perhaps they had become lazy. But not too lazy. They wanted Quintana. Bestiano wanted her. She was his only way back into the palace and to power. Bestiano’s capture of the king’s true assassin, the king’s own treacherous daughter, would bring him some kind of credibility among some of the provincari. Despite everything that had taken place between them, Froi was her only chance of survival. If Quintana, Gargarin, Arjuro, and Lirah had left the cave or been caught by the riders, Froi would search for them and not return to Lumatere until he knew they were safe.

Later that morning, he crept through the entrance of their cave. When he was satisfied that the branches and bracken were back in place, he turned, only to see Lirah wielding Gargarin’s staff at his head. Froi ducked, and something flashed in her eyes. Was it relief that he wasn’t a rider? Or relief that he had returned?

“You got lost, did you?” she asked coldly.

They stared at each other for a long time, and Froi felt the anger return.

“Not what you wanted, am I, Lirah?” he spat out. “Not what you dreamed of?”

“I never wanted and I never dreamed,” she said quietly, taking the pack from his hand. “So don’t presume you know what passes through my head.”

She walked away but turned when he didn’t follow.

“I think it frightens her more when you’re not around than when you are,” she said. “Come.”

There were no hugs or tears on Froi’s return. Only hostility. Quintana was cold, and Arjuro plain grunting rude. Gargarin refused to look at him, his head bent over his wretched sketches of water troughs and whatnot. In the center of their cave, Froi emptied his pack. He saw their eyes widen when the bread and cheese and bacon appeared before them, and he wondered how long it had been since they last ate.

“You think we’ll forgive you, just like that,” Arjuro said, keeping his distance.

Froi retrieved a bottle of mead from his pack. “As I don’t believe I did anything that requires forgiveness, I’ll merely hand this over for you to swill in silence.”

“You’ve been gone six days,” Gargarin shouted, finally looking up and throwing his pages across the cave. “Six days! We thought you were dead!”

Froi was surprised by his outburst. Lirah merely picked up the scattered papers, shuffling them together. Quintana was staring at the food. She looked pale and drawn, the dark circles under her eyes even more pronounced.

“Eat,” Froi ordered. But still she refused to step closer.

“Who gave you all this?” Lirah asked, kneeling beside Froi, pages in hand.

“A couple on a farm beyond the gravina,” he said, breaking some bread and placing a piece of cheese inside. He held it up to Quintana, who gazed at it hungrily. When she refused to take it, he bit into it, chewed, swallowed, and held it out to her again. This time she took it.

“I tried to steal a horse and they let me stay a night or two.” He looked at them, nodding. “Good, honest people. They treated me like they would a son,” he added, his tone emphasizing the last part.

Arjuro took a swig of the mead, wiping his mouth with satisfaction. “Who would have guessed? He’s a needy little thing, isn’t he?”

For a long time there was only the sound of chewing and grunting. Froi watched them all, a strange sort of peace coming over him.

“I know how to get to Jidia without the riders seeing us.”

Everyone stopped chewing and stared.

“The steps of Jidia,” he said.

Gargarin shook his head with disbelief.

“It’s a myth.”

Froi waved the map in front of his face.

“Not according to this map. We’re going to have to take a chance and leave here. The cave is half a mile downstream. If we travel in the dark, in the early hours of the morning, we should be safe.”

“I say it’s a mistake,” Gargarin said. “We could be following a trail that does not exist and end up creating a prison for ourselves in those caves. Starving to death at that.”

“Always the optimist,” Arjuro muttered.

Later, Froi and the others lay, trying to sleep. All except for Quintana, who still sat upright, fighting to stay awake.

“I dreamed,” Quintana said. “Two nights past.”

While the others murmured their acknowledgment, as though they had become used to her ramblings, Froi’s heart began to hammer in his chest.

“I dream between sleep and wakefulness,” Quintana continued indignantly.

“I, for one, would like to have the opportunity to sleep now, so I can dream,” Arjuro said, drowsy from the mead.

Gargarin made a sound in agreement, but Froi kept his eyes on Quintana, the light from the flames making her look ghostly, even fragile.

“What did you dream about?” he asked, and he couldn’t keep the gruffness from his voice.

Quintana held up a thumb and two fingers, a question in her eyes. It was the identical gesture Lirah had captured and painted on the wall of her prison all those years ago.

Froi crawled out of his bedroll and picked up Gargarin’s quill and papers. He tried to get closer to her, but she hissed like the cats he had seen on the streets of the Sarnak capital, protecting their litter from the daggers of hungry men.

“Froi,” Lirah warned from her bedroll.

Froi began to draw. “I dreamed of this,” he said when he finished the sketch, holding it up. “I dreamed . . .”

He felt his face warming up.

Suddenly the others were wide awake and looking his way.

“You dreamed what?” Gargarin asked “What have you drawn there?”

Froi held it up over the light of the fire.

“I dreamed she was drawing these letters on my body,” he mumbled.

He felt four sets of eyes on him, three sets looking at him questioningly. “Didn’t you say nothing intimate took place between you two?” Gargarin asked suspiciously.

“Didn’t say that at all,” Froi said, on the defensive. “What makes you think something did take place between us?”

Arjuro made a rude sound. “It’s in your voice, you little snake.”

Lirah was looking at Quintana as suspiciously as Gargarin had looked at Froi. “I thought you said he pleaded illness and lack of interest each time,” she said.

“Well, he did,” Quintana said indignantly. “But on the final night, he was up for swiving and I was reassured once again that the gods had sent him to break the curse.”

“We don’t use that word, Princess,” Gargarin said politely.

“I use it all the time,” Arjuro said. “One of my favorite words, actually.”

Froi didn’t think there’d be any sleep tonight, judging from the idiotic conversation.

“What made you so sure he was sent to break the curse, Quintana?” Lirah asked patiently. “Why not the other last borns?”

“It’s written all over him. Have I not said that over and over again, Lirah?” Quintana asked, annoyed.

Froi shuddered. There were too many signs to ignore now. Hamlyn’s dream of his son. Quintana’s strange words. Rafuel’s excitement that day in his prison.

When no one had spoken for a while, he turned to them, giving up the pretense of anyone getting sleep.

“The man whose farm I worked dreamed that his son warned him about someone coming their way with the words of the gods written all over him.”

Now he truly had everyone’s attention. Gargarin stood and walked to where Lirah was studying Froi’s sketch.

“What is it?” Froi asked.

“You’ve never seen this?” Lirah asked, surprised.

He shook his head, frightened by their scrutiny. Lirah looked at Quintana. “Can we show him?” she asked with a gruff gentleness.

Quintana studied Froi a moment or two before gathering her hair in her fist and turning to reveal her neck. The sign of the last-born girls. Identical to the lettering he had sketched on the parchment. In his dream, she had painted the strange word on his back with strokes that had made his skin feel alive. He had awoken, aroused. Had some kind of sorcery helped her creep into his dream as Isaboe was able to do with Vestie of the Flatlands?

“What does it mean?” Froi asked, his throat feeling as if he had swallowed sand.

Gargarin was studying his face. “It means that perhaps something good came out of Abroi after all,” he said quietly.

Froi was shaken awake. In an instant, his hand snaked out and caught the throat of whoever loomed over him. When he saw Gargarin’s pale face, he let go, shoving him away. “I could have killed you, idiot!”

“What is it?” Arjuro murmured from his bedroll.

“Come with me,” Gargarin said. “Both of you.”

Froi looked over to where Quintana sat watching them, the lids of her eyes heavy with fatigue.

Gargarin led Froi and Arjuro to the small entrance and began to crawl through the tunnel into the first cave. They followed him out into the dark.

“The sun is about to rise,” Gargarin whispered. “Humor me. Please.”

Gargarin’s eyes flashed with a fervor that Froi hadn’t seen in them before. There was too much strangeness in the air, and he wanted to run from it all. He wanted to follow bonds and plow land. Not believe in a grieving father’s dream and a mad girl’s ranting.

“Those who are gods’ blessed can read the words of the gods when the sun appears.” Gargarin said. “It’s why Arjuro wakes early and why he sat on the godshouse balcony each morning. He was waiting for a sign to appear on the palace walls.”

Arjuro looked away, a bitter expression on his face.

“But perhaps you’ve been looking in the wrong place, Arjuro. On the night Froi was left with them, the priests of Trist dreamed that the words of a prophecy would appear in the palace. True? I never believed that. I thought they’d appear in any one of the thousands of caves in Charyn, and when I was released, I searched for years and years.”

Arjuro’s eyes finally met his brother’s.

“You should have gone to Paladozza,” he said sadly. “At least De Lancey would have given you an easy life.”

“Some men aren’t born for an easy life, Arjuro. And I’m not out here for regrets and what-ifs.”

“Then what are we doing out here?” Arjuro asked.

“Remember the readings of Carapasio?”

“Who?” Froi asked.

“A first-century gossip,” Arjuro said. “He bored us to death with his ramblings about life a thousand years ago. I had to read them as part of my godshouse education when I was sixteen.”

“He means I read them for him and recited them to the priests who thought I was Arjuro,” Gargarin said.

Arjuro looked sheepish. “But I did end up reading them later.”

“Where were the words of the gods first written in Charyn?” Gargarin asked his brother.

Arjuro was confused for a moment. “Why do you ask —”

Arjuro stopped, some kind of realization on his face.

“What?” Froi asked, now looking from Arjuro to Gargarin. “Can one of you explain instead of doing that frightening nodding thing where you look too alike?”

“The gods wrote their words on the body of the first oracle. She had pitched her tent, drawing crowds from all over the Citavita with her ability to foretell the future. She had no past and no name, but written all over her were the names of provinces and the rules for living and dying. It’s how they find the oracle each generation. An oracle dies, and soon after, a young girl arrives on the doorstep of the godshouse after traveling for days and weeks. No family. No past. Sent by the gods, they say. Except for these last eighteen years.”

“And you believe that?” Froi asked.

“Get undressed, Froi,” Gargarin said.

“No!” he said, horrified. It was freezing, and if the riders came across them, he’d be unarmed.

The sun began to appear in the sky, and Gargarin snapped his fingers impatiently. Froi grunted, annoyed.

“Trust me,” Gargarin hissed.

Froi removed his clothing, grumbling.

“Be careful,” Gargarin said, and Froi realized he was speaking to Arjuro. “Don’t look straightaway, Ari. Remember what it would do to your eyes when we were children.”

Froi had no idea what he was speaking about. He tried to twist his body so he could look over his shoulder to his back. But he saw nothing.

“What’s there?” Froi asked, half believing that perhaps words would magically appear. Gargarin forced him still, cold hands on his shoulders. Froi waited, felt the moment the sun entered the cave, welcomed the way the light crept in, caressed his arm, his shoulder, and then all over his body. And still he waited, wanting to believe, not realizing how desperate he was to.

Then he heard the sound. Of pure unadulterated pain. Froi swung around, and Arjuro was bent over, palms to his eyes, writhing in agony. Gargarin was beside him in an instant, but Arjuro pushed him away.

“I can do it. I can do it.”

“What’s happened?” Froi asked.

“Turn. Turn,” Arjuro whispered hoarsely, his eyes weeping blood. Froi shook his head again.

“Turn, I say.”

Froi swung around, his heart hammering, sweat pouring from a body that seemed on fire, and still he heard the gasps coming from Arjuro.

“He’s in pain,” Froi argued. “This isn’t right.”

“If I speak it aloud, are you still able to write it down?” Arjuro asked Gargarin, his voice broken.

Gargarin was staring at Froi, stunned. It was as though he were seeing him for the first time. “Stay still,” Gargarin said, almost reverently. “Speak it, Arjuro. We will decipher it together later.”

Arjuro spoke, and Froi heard words from a strange tongue. Not of Sarnak or Lumatere or Charyn. A tongue, not quite human, spoken from a voice so torn that it made him sick to think of the pain. Gargarin scribbled down his words with twisted fingers, sometimes asking Arjuro to repeat a word.

When Arjuro was finished, Froi dressed quickly while Gargarin pulled Arjuro to his feet, trying to hold his brother up with his own feeble body. Froi pushed him gently out of the way, placing Arjuro’s arm around his shoulder.

A startled Lirah was on her feet the moment they entered their nook.

“What happened?” she asked, helping Froi lay Arjuro down. His eyes were red raw and still weeping blood.

Gargarin tipped the mead into the cloth of his shirt and wiped Arjuro’s face clean and Froi saw tears in the priestling’s eyes.

“I thought they had forsaken me,” Arjuro whispered.

And Froi could see that Arjuro was crying with joy.

For the next two days, Gargarin and Arjuro sat with their heads together, scribbling, arguing, writing. Froi was used to their silence together, but not this. There were times when he saw the power of the brothers combined and understood what it was that made them so desired in the godshouse and the palace. He came to understand the difference between the gods’ blessed and a smart man. His uncle was one. His father the other.

Later that night, Gargarin shook him awake. “We’ve got to remove her from danger,” he whispered. “I don’t know what she is . . . what you both are, but if I’m going to believe anything in this damned life of mine, it’s that the gods sent you to cure this wretched kingdom.”

Froi sat up and retrieved the map from his pack.

“Then we do this my way,” he said. “We take the steps to Jidia.”

Early the next morning, before the sun rose, they left their hiding place and traveled upstream to the cave that would lead them to Jidia. As they passed the camp of riders, Froi could see two on guard. He made a signal toward the others, and they stayed low behind two fallen logs while Froi stealthily climbed the closest tree. Once up high, he shot three bolts from the crossbow into undergrowth on the other side of the stream. Alerted to the sound, the two riders made their way across the water. The moment the men were out of sight, Froi leaped down and led the others away.

Inside the caves, they traveled for most of the day, Froi forced to stop time and time again, searching for the next instruction on the map. When he stopped for the umpteenth time, Arjuro took the map from his hands and studied it a moment before handing it back and leading the way. At first Froi was irritated. There were no secret symbols or ancient words that needed to be deciphered. But then he realized Arjuro had an extraordinary ability to recall what he had studied only once. The priestling never looked at the map again.

“Don’t ask me to explain it,” Gargarin said quietly. The cave had narrowed, and they were now walking one behind the other.

“Perhaps it comes with being gods’ blessed,” Gargarin said. “When we were younger, he could read a book and memorize every page, regardless of its size.”

“Then why did you sit for Arjuro’s exam when he would have had a better chance of remembering every detail?” Froi asked.

“The gods’ blessed might have genius,” Gargarin said, “but that doesn’t stop them from being lazy.”

In front of him, Quintana stumbled. With no sleep, little food, and fatigue beyond anything he had seen in her yet, she had trudged most of the day.

“Not long now,” Lirah reassured her, despite the fact that they had no idea how long it would be.

“I can carry you,” Froi said quietly.

He heard a low growl come from Quintana.

“I think that means no,” Arjuro said.

There were one thousand, three hundred, and twenty-three steps to Jidia. They were narrow and steep, with nothing but dents in the stone, molded by shoulders pressed into the smothering walls over thousands of years. Arjuro’s oil lamp extinguished, and it was pure darkness, the type of darkness to conjure up evil. On the steps of Jidia, there was no place to rest. No space above their heads. No room for one foot to stand alongside another. No end in sight. Three years training to be the most powerful warrior in the kingdom and nothing had prepared Froi for this.

But it was Arjuro who stopped, trapping all of them behind him. His breath was ragged. Not the sound of weariness but of being choked of air, because hideous memories could swallow a man whole. And suddenly Froi was trapped someplace else. In a past so painful. A hand pressing his head down into the folds of a filthy straw mattress. He wanted to fight whoever it was. Had always tried, but he wasn’t strong enough. Because he’s just a boy and he’s so small and when he grows up, he’ll learn how to fight and he’ll learn how to kill, but for now he just wants to breathe!

“Blessed Arjuro, I’m very tired,” Quintana said indignantly, with only the sound of their ragged gasps surrounding them. Froi thought he would beat the others out of the way, if only he could move and breathe. So he counted in every language he knew, took gulps of air that was still and stale, attempted everything he could to crush the thoughts that ran through his head. That he would die on these steps. He’d die, because he was weak and pathetic and too scrawny to protect anyone, let alone himself. He was nothing.

“Arjuro!”

Lirah’s voice was loud and firm. On Froi’s shoulder, he felt a gentle hand. Gargarin’s. As though he knew that it was not only Arjuro who was suffering in this darkness.

“You’re not there, Arjuro,” Lirah said. “You’re here. Where he can’t hurt you. You’re safe!”

And all Froi could feel was Gargarin’s hand and all he could hear was Arjuro’s breath begin to even and all he could see was Lirah two steps before him. Lirah, who knew Gargarin’s worst nightmares and in knowing his, she knew Arjuro’s.

You’re not there, Froi. You’re here. You’re safe.

And they continued to climb.

The steps to Jidia didn’t quite lead to Jidia. They led to another cave, where they chose to rest for the night. Gargarin lay out the last of the twigs and reeds, and they huddled around the meager fire, sharing what was left of their bread crust and cheese rind. It was some time before anyone spoke.

Later, Gargarin and Arjuro sat apart from the others, deciphering the words from the gods. Gargarin would show Arjuro the parchment, and most times Arjuro would disagree.

“I think that’s the language of the godshouse of Ariadinay and this comes from the godshouse of Trist,” Arjuro said, pointing to the words. “Different gods trying to break the curse.”

Quintana would look up from where her head lay on Lirah’s lap. Tonight she was pure Aunt Mawfa. Froi could have sworn he saw her place the back of her hand across her brow.

“Why don’t they just ask me, Lirah?” she asked. “I can tell them what it says.”

“Because they’re idiots,” Lirah replied.

Arjuro scribbled down more words and showed Gargarin, who shook his head. They had been secretive in their work, and Froi knew that they would reveal little until they were confident.

“You’re wrong,” Gargarin said.

Froi sighed. It meant another exchange. The last had almost resulted in a slapping sort of fight over parchment and quill that was horrifying. Froi tried not to imagine the humiliation of Trevanion and Perri witnessing it.

“Who’s gods’ blessed?” Arjuro snapped. “You or me?”

“Oh, that is stooping low,” Gargarin retorted. “Being able to read the words written by the gods themselves means nothing if you haven’t studied the different interpretations. If you hadn’t wasted most of your youth inhaling the reed of retribution and swiving De Lancey, you’d probably know a thing or two today.”

“I’m quite intrigued by the reed of retribution,” Froi murmured from his bedroll.

“It made them both stupid,” Lirah said. “They loved nothing more than stripping naked and reciting very bad poetry with an adoring De Lancey looking on.”

Arjuro and Gargarin exchanged stares of such incredulity that it almost had Froi laughing. Even Quintana lifted herself to see their reaction.

“Artesimist? Bad poetry?” Arjuro asked.

“You’re a disgrace to Serker, Lirah,” Gargarin muttered. “Artesimist was the greatest poet of all time.”

It was hours later when Froi sensed that they were finished. It was in their hushed whispering and stolen glances at Quintana. Their expressions were slightly manic and strangely euphoric, despite the day’s harrowing journey.

Quintana watched them watch her, and all three waited for another to speak.

“What is it you want to know?” she finally asked.

“What you saw written?”

“On the assassin?” she asked.

Gargarin glanced over at Froi, a ghost of a smile on his face. Froi bit back his anger.

“You’ve worked it all out?” she asked.

Gargarin nodded. “Well, not just me, of course. Arjuro helped.”

“Then why do you ask what I see written on the assassin’s back when Arjuro has witnessed the words himself?”

Gargarin was silent.

“Ah,” she said, nodding, “You’re testing me. You want to hear it from me first, in case you think I’m influenced by your words.”

“Perhaps we’re testing ourselves,” Arjuro said. Even after a day or two, his eyes were bloodshot and swollen from having read the words of the gods in their purest form.

Quintana tilted her head, studying Arjuro’s face.

“It doesn’t hurt so much to read if you go like this,” she explained, squinting fiercely. Froi heard Arjuro chuckle.

“Wish I had been told that long ago,” he said.

This time it was Quintana who was silent.

“What did you see written, Princess?” Gargarin asked again.

She looked up at Lirah, who nodded with encouragement.

“The one who reigns must die

At the hands of she born last,

And the last will make the first

When the bastard twins are one,

And blessed be the newborn king,

For Charyn will be barren no more.”

Arjuro and Gargarin let out ragged breaths in unison. Gargarin placed his head in his hands.

“I didn’t know you were bastard twins,” Froi said, confused.

“We’re not,” Arjuro said. “You are.”

“What?” Froi was on his feet, staring at Quintana, horrified. “We’re twins?”

“Calm yourself,” Arjuro said condescendingly. “The princess is the bastard child of the oracle and the king. You’re the bastard child of these two. Born almost at the same moment in the same palace.”

Froi was still confused. “I don’t understand what it means by ‘when the bastard twins are one.’”

“And if you don’t understand it, fool, I’m not explaining it to you,” Arjuro said.

“Joined,” Gargarin explained instead. “Joined,” he added, for emphasis.

“Oh,” Froi said, his face flaming again. “You mean when we . . .”

“Swived,” Quintana said. “I do remember the exact moment when we became one, because I —”

“No need for detail, Quintana,” Lirah said. “Remember what I told you. If you talk of such things, you’ll only be judged by strangers.”

The atmosphere in the cave changed the moment Quintana did. Her stare toward Lirah was bitter. Froi could see that the others were uncomfortable with this Quintana. They liked the indignant princess, and she knew it.

“We’re judged by strangers now, Lirah,” Quintana said coldly.

Arjuro moved closer to her. “May I?” he asked. She nodded, and he sat before her. “Do you know where she is?” he asked quietly.

He was speaking of his beloved oracle.

“When I was a child, I told Lirah that I knew a way to see my mother and for Lirah to see her beloved boy waiting for us in the lake of the half dead. So I ordered Lirah to cut our wrists in the tub.”

“Gods,” Gargarin muttered. Lirah looked away, the memory so painful.

“But Lirah saw nothing and came back half mad, so they placed her in the tower.”

“And you?” Arjuro asked, hopeful. “You saw the oracle?”

Quintana looked up at him and shook her head.

“No. She never reached the other side. Sir Gargarin told us that he didn’t know her name, so how could she find her way?”

Her eyes stayed on Arjuro. “But we sensed a part of her across the gravina, blessed Arjuro.”

“Is that why you wanted to throw yourself in?” Arjuro asked. “So you could be with her?”

“Throw ourselves in?” she asked, astonished. “Why would you think such a thing? We wanted to enter the godshouse. We sensed our mother’s happiness there. Her scent. Her voice. It’s where she dreamed, and those dreams still hovered in the air. We tried over and over again to speak to you about allowing us in, but you didn’t seem to hear us. Sometimes, we’d try to get as close as possible to the godshouse across the gravina, but we were afraid to leap.”

Arjuro looked down, shamed.

“But when I visited the lake of the half dead that time with Lirah, we did return with a spirit. I didn’t realize who that was until you told us the story of our day of weeping, Sir Gargarin.”

She didn’t speak, and they all waited, desperate for more answers.

“Princess?” Gargarin prodded gently.

Froi recognized it clearly. There was talk in her head. He recognized it in the way her face twitched and flinched. She mouthed words, but they heard nothing.

Lirah reached out a hand to touch Quintana’s mouth.

“Don’t let this kingdom turn you into a voiceless fool, brave girl,” she said. “Speak.”

Quintana’s eyes refused to meet any of theirs. Was it her madness that she was trying to conceal?

“One of us returned,” she whispered, “with the spirit of the sister who died.”

Froi saw his own confusion reflected on Gargarin’s and Lirah’s faces. But not Arjuro’s.

“Which of you is Quintana, and which one is the sister?” the priestling asked.

She shook her head.

“I don’t know anymore,” she said. “I don’t know who I am without her, and she doesn’t know who she is without me. We don’t know who came first. All we know is that we share . . . we share . . .” She leaned forward to whisper. “We share the one who may have cursed the kingdom. Lirah says they called us the little savage in the years before she drowned us and that everyone approved of who came back from the dead, because we were tamed.”

Arjuro was entranced with the story. “Go on,” he said, with a reverence Froi had never imagined he would possess for anyone, let alone the daughter of a hated king.

Quintana thought for a moment. “We came back with the words I wrote on the chamber wall. That the last will make the first. And I waited all these years for the one to plant the seed and sire the curse breaker and future king.” Her eyes met Froi’s over Arjuro’s shoulder. “He arrived in the form of an assassin from an enemy kingdom. When I woke up that next morning after he had planted the seed, I knew that the king had to die.”

Let her be a madwoman, Froi prayed. Let her be mad.

“Do you honestly think that I would bring a child into that palace after everything my father allowed to happen to me?”

“Smart girl, my love,” Lirah said.

“I tried to tell the street lords in the Citavita that day of the hanging. But no one would believe me. Except for Tariq and the people of Lascow. It was his idea that we wed. He said it would protect my son’s right to the throne even more.”

She looked up at Gargarin. “I’m the queen of Charyn, sir. A powerless queen except for what I carry in my belly. In less than seven months time, I’ll give birth to the little king. Tariq said you, sir, are to be my son’s First Adviser. Until then, he’s mine to protect, and whatever part I took in cursing Charyn at my birth will not compare to what I’ll do if anyone attempts to destroy me before then.”

She directed those words at Froi with venomous certainty.

He couldn’t think, and he needed to count because Froi’s bond to Lumatere was that he’d destroy anything that was a threat to his kingdom. She was a threat. The child she carried was a threat. His child. His seed.

In an instant, he shoved the others aside and was there before her, dagger in hand.

“Use it!” he hissed, grabbing her hand and closing it around the handle of the dagger. He pressed the blade against his throat. “If I’m a threat, use it the way I taught you.”

“Froi?” Gargarin barked. Lirah and Arjuro tried to drag him away, but he shoved free of them, a wild animal.

“Do it,” he whispered hoarsely, his face close to Quintana’s. “Do it if you fear me!”

She bared her teeth, pressing the blade against his throat, a flicker of victory in her eyes.

“Froi! Enough,” Lirah cried. “She’ll do it. You know she will.”

Both Froi and Quintana pressed harder until he felt the skin tear, the blood trickle. “Do it!”

At that moment, she looked so destroyed that Froi wanted to put her out of her misery and slice his own throat. He had done this to her.

She broke, dropped the dagger, and pushed him with all her might, but Froi held her as she struggled against him, a wild cat in his arms, her hoarse screams muffled against him. He kept his arms trapped around her, his mouth to her ear.

“You will not fear me,” he said, speaking his bond to her. It was the only bond that would count from now on. “If I tell you to run, you run. If I tell you to hide, you hide. If I tell you to kill, you kill.”

And then the fight left Quintana and Froi carried her to his bedroll near the fire, where they wrapped her in blankets, all of them, with hands that trembled with truth.

The last will make the first.

Froi lay against her, and Quintana’s body heaved with fatigue and fear and a desperate need to protect what lay inside of her. She was Hamlyn’s wife Arna, a she-wolf who wanted to protect her babe. His arms were a band around her as she faced away from him, but after a while, he heard the evenness of her breathing and prayed that she slept. Instead, she reached behind and took his hand, holding it up to the dwindling light of the fire, playing with his fingers. On the wall he saw the shape of a rabbit, and he pressed his chin against her shoulder as they watched their fingers dance across the contours of the cave.

And for hours and hours she slept, but no one else could. After so many years of living in a barren kingdom, they could hardly comprehend what this news would bring. Every sound seemed a threat to Quintana. A threat to Charyn.

“Everything changes,” Gargarin said quietly. “Everything.”

And when she woke more than a day later, the crazed stare of sleeplessness removed from her eyes, Froi watched her. Waited to see who they would be facing. But the eyes weren’t cold and they weren’t savage, so he sighed with relief.

“You call me Froi. Not assassin. Do you hear?”

She nodded.

“You may call me Quintana.”