Leaving Sorel became their only priority, and despite Trevanion’s objections to anything Evanjalin suggested, they agreed with her that the lawless town at land’s end was their best bet for survival. Speranza was a place that had been conquered, reconquered, and relinquished so many times that no one seemed to remember who governed it. In such a place, the presence of two escaped prisoners, even one who looked as if he had stepped out of the depths of hell, would go largely unnoticed.
At midday they entered the courtyard of the tavern in town. From the balconies, women beckoned to them with gestures that needed no interpreting. As they pointed and purred, Finnikin heard Evanjalin give a snort beside him before going off to tether their horse.
Inside, the women had descended into the main room. Finnikin watched as Trevanion quickly became the center of attention. He remembered how the ladies of Lumatere would fawn over the captain of the King’s Guard. The brutal years in the mines of Sorel had not altered the striking features of his face. With his knotted hair tied back and his dark beard cropped, he still had a presence that attracted the opposite sex, despite the unhealthy pallor of his skin.
Sir Topher returned, holding a key. “Come, Evanjalin, I have booked us a room. Perhaps a rest?” he suggested, all too aware of what was on offer for the others.
Finnikin stole a glance at her, but then the women with wicked laughter in their eyes were upon them and he allowed one to take his hand.
Later, he stepped onto the tiny balcony beside the bed and watched the vendors pack away their stalls. The tavern girl playfully pulled him back toward her. He had enjoyed their time together. She had required nothing from him but pleasure. No intelligent banter, no request to save a kingdom or sacrifice a part of himself. But he resisted the temptation to stay and pulled on his clothes before grabbing his pack.
In the courtyard, he sat at a table and retrieved the Book of Lumatere. He thought of Evanjalin lying in the room above and remembered their conversation from the night of his arrest. He had trusted her, and she had deceived him. He flicked through the book, his fingers running over all the names he had recorded over the years. But then he turned to a page of unfamiliar handwriting, and his breath caught. There, in a small neat hand, was page after page of names, some written with self-assurance, others with a tremble.
He stood, about to make his way into the tavern to find her when he realized the horse post was empty.
“The horse?” he called out to the stable boy. “Who took our horse?”
“You brought no horse,” the boy said.
“The novice did.”
“Who?”
“Girl. Blue woolen cap. Dressed like a boy.”
Recognition registered on the boy’s face. “She came back for it.”
“Where did she go?” Finnikin asked uneasily. The boy ignored him, and Finnikin walked away, trying to decide whether to call Trevanion and Sir Topher. Instead, he turned back to the boy. “If I were to continue down the road to the south, what would I see?”
“Not another village for at least a day.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing,” he repeated.
“And how far to the closest village going east?”
“I tell you there is nothing,” the boy said as Finnikin began to walk away again. “Except for the camp.”
Finnikin’s heart slammed in his chest. “Camp?”
“Of the filthy exiles. Should round them up and —”
Finnikin did not stay to hear the boy’s suggestion. He took the road out of town and headed east.
He smelled the camp before he saw it. But nothing had prepared him for the sight. It was spread over more land than the town he had left behind, but never in his travels with Sir Topher had he seen a camp more damned. Those standing at the edges watched him with empty eyes. This is not life, Finnikin thought, just day-to-day survival. He heard the heart-wrenching wails of babies crying from hunger.
When he saw no sign of the horse, he was torn between relief that Evanjalin might not be there and a fear of where else she could be.
“I’m looking for a girl. Bare head, dark eyes,” he said to anyone who looked in his direction.
When no one responded, he began to make his way through the rows of makeshift tents. Children with bloated stomachs stared at him with the vacant expressions they had inherited from their parents. Flies hovered over their faces and fed from their open sores.
A hand reached out and gripped his arm. It was a man, little older than Finnikin, his skin stretched taut over prominent cheekbones. “You are heading toward the fever camp,” the man said. “You had best be on your way, for it catches you fast.”
Finnikin looked past him. Excrement lined the path to the next camp, and he could hardly breathe from the stench of vomit and shit and death and sickness. He stumbled to the side and emptied his stomach of the mutton soup and ale he had consumed at the tavern. As he stayed bent, he stared with horror at the body of a woman in front of him, eyes wide open, flies feeding.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was the man again, compassion on his face. Somehow compassion survives, Finnikin thought in wonder. He stood up, ashamed, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
“Are you looking for the priest-king?” the man asked.
Finnikin was stunned. “The priest-king? Our blessed Barakah is here?”
The man nodded. “In the fever camp.”
Finnikin walked away, covering his mouth with his hand.
“Come back for us,” the man begged. “Whoever you are, do not forget us.”
Beyond the tents, Finnikin saw a stretch of land that marked where the exile camp ended and the fever camp began. The fever camp was an assortment of the most basic living quarters, made up of sheets and blankets tied to posts. Bodies littered the space beneath them. Those who were bent over the sick looked like living dead themselves.
But worse was beyond the sick huts. A lad with a corpse slung over his shoulder walked by, and Finnikin followed him to a pit dug deep into the earth. Men. Women. Children. Those his age who would never lie with a woman as he had that afternoon. He saw girls, their hair the color of spun gold, or waves dark and thick. The beautiful girls of Lumatere. Dead. Piled on top of one another. Layers of wasted skin and bones. The lad passed him twice, each time carrying a dead body that he proceeded to throw into the pit of the dead. Finnikin noticed the boy’s strong hands. Craftsman’s hands. Made for rebuilding.
But there was no place for rebuilding here. Just burying.
He sensed her before he saw her. She was walking toward him from one of the blanket hovels, holding a baby in her arms. A baby so still, Finnikin knew it no longer breathed. Evanjalin looked up and their eyes met across the pit of the dead.
Look away, he told himself. Do not let yourself get lost in those eyes.
When she reached him, he watched her search for something, desperation in her movements.
“What are you looking for, Evanjalin?” he asked.
“His mother,” she said in a broken voice. “She died earlier with the baby still attached to her breast.”
He wanted to walk away. Go back to the sleepy girl in the tavern who asked nothing of him but three copper coins. Who made him forget for a moment, when he was deep inside of her, this girl with large pools of night-sky for eyes.
Evanjalin continued to search among the bodies, and then he saw where her gaze ended. At a woman sprawled in a pit, arms outstretched. Evanjalin looked at the babe she held and crouched down. He could see that she planned to slip into the grave. And before he knew what he was doing, Finnikin climbed into the pit and she handed him the baby. Stepping around the bodies, he made his way to where the mother lay and placed the child on her breast, wrapping the dead woman’s arms around her boy.
He felt dry sobs rising inside him, carving up his throat, and when Evanjalin held out her hand and pulled him out of the pit, he knew she could read it all on his face.
“Do not cry,” she said fiercely, but her own tears flowed. “Do not cry, Finnikin. For if we begin, our tears will never end.”
He held her face in his hands, her tears catching in his fingers, his forehead against hers. Cursed land, Sir Topher had said. Cursed people.
The priest-king had altered so much since the old days of Lumatere that Finnikin hardly recognized him. Finnikin had been in awe of the holy man as a child. Even Lucian believed he was some kind of god in his elaborate robe trimmed with gold, each finger adorned with rings. Today he wore a grubby brown mantle and hood; his beard was long, his feet sandaled. A toe or two seemed to be missing, and the marks of age stained his hands. The only reminders of the man he used to be were the deep laugh lines around his eyes. The priest-king had always loved to laugh.
“You’re still here,” the holy man muttered when he saw Evanjalin. “I told you. This is no place for one so young and healthy.”
“This is no place for anyone,” she corrected softly. “You are the priest-king. You need to lead these people home.”
The man shook his head. “A title that means nothing outside the kingdom.”
“When we return to Lumatere —”
“If you want her to live, take her away,” the priest-king said.
Finnikin knew they were being dismissed. He turned to Evanjalin. “There will be no return,” he said quietly.
She glared at him. “Look at them. Do you believe that a strip of land in someone else’s kingdom will be any better than this?”
“How can you even ask that, Evanjalin?”
“What did they do to a newborn in your rock village, Finnikin?” she said, taking his hand and clenching it into a fist. “Wrapped their little hands around stone from the village, binding it tightly for days. As they did with those from the Flatlands. Earth from the fields clenched in their fists. Silt from the river clenched in their fists. Grass from the mountains. Leaves from the forest. Joining them to the land.” She blinked back tears. “We don’t want a second Lumatere. We want to go home. Take us home, Finnikin.”
She turned to the priest-king. “Blessed Barakah, if you return with us, people will follow. Those who are well. We will return to Lumatere where healers —”
“The healers are all dead, Evanjalin,” Finnikin said, his anger rising. “The Forest Dwellers, the novices of Sagrami, any of them who had the skill and gift to heal are all dead. I was there. I heard their screams as they burnt at the stake. Even if we were able to get inside Lumatere, there is nothing to go back to. Can you not understand that? The only hope for our people is a second homeland in Belegonia.”
“Why do you fear returning, Finnikin? Were you not the one who swore an oath with Balthazar to save Lumatere?”
“Prince Balthazar?” the priest-king asked.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “For if he lives, he is now King Balthazar.”
“And does he live?”
“Evanjalin dreams he does,” Finnikin mocked. “Do you have a plan, Evanjalin?” he demanded. “Do you believe you will belong to him? A commoner to marry a king?”
Fury flashed in her eyes. “Remember this,” she seethed. “Our queen was a commoner. From the Mountains of Lumatere. Do not dare scorn such a match.”
“Quiet!” the priest-king said. He waited for their silence. “So you dream of King Balthazar and believe that this is enough to convince me to follow you across this godsforsaken land in search of a country cursed?”
“No, blessed Barakah. I believe you’ve been told many times that Balthazar lives, and each time has proved to be false. But I can give you another name,” she said, staring at Finnikin.
“I have work to do,” the older man said, getting to his feet. “Names mean nothing to me.”
“Not even Captain Trevanion?”
He stopped and turned, stunned. Then he looked at Finnikin as the truth dawned on him. “Finnikin of the Rock? Son of Trevanion of the River?”
“The very same,” she said.
“I can answer for myself,” Finnikin snapped.
“He has escaped?” the priest-king asked.
Evanjalin nodded.
“Is he with his Guard?”
“No. With a whore,” she explained.
“Evanjalin!”
She looked at Finnikin with disbelief. “Oh, so now we are bashful?” But then she turned her attention back to the priest-king. “If we bring him here with the king’s First Man, will you be willing to convince these people to go north, blessed Barakah?”
“Bring them to me and we will speak.”
Despite everything they had seen, Evanjalin looked pleased with herself as they set off back to town. Instead of taking the main road, she crossed into the woods. “A much more pleasant track for walking,” she said. “The river runs by here.”
Finnikin stopped suddenly. “The horse? Where’s the horse?”
She shrugged. “I don’t have my horse anymore.”
“Your horse? The horse was mine.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Evanjalin continued walking up the track. “You would never have stolen the horse in Sarnak if I didn’t encourage you. So I consider it mine.”
“But I officially stole it,” he argued.
“Fine. But the horse you officially stole was actually re-stolen and we had to trade the thief from Sarnak for it, so really the horse could be considered his,” she said over her shoulder.
Finnikin tried to control his anger as he caught up to her. “So why don’t you have his horse anymore?”
“Well, a wonderful thing happened while you were off whoring. I discovered that the thief spoke the truth and had sold the ring to a peddler from Osteria who happened to be traveling in these parts.” Evanjalin dug into the pockets of her trousers and held out the the ruby ring. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked, a smile of pure delight on her face.
“Dazzling,” he muttered, bristling at the way she’d said “whoring.”
“You’ll like this route. The river will look lovely at this time of day,” she said.
But there was nothing lovely about the river as far as Finnikin could see. Just the ugliness of the slave traders of Sorel, their young prey, male and female, trapped in cages set upon barges. The females looked no more than children and made up most of the cargo.
There was little room along the bank, yet greedy buyers were pressed against one another, bidding for humans as if they were livestock. Sorel was the only kingdom with no laws against slavery, and Finnikin had heard rumors that children were branded like animals. As always, he willed the voice inside of him to take over. The one that told him he did not know these people and could easily forget them the moment they were out of his sight. And then he saw, between the shoulders of the two buyers in front of him, the thief from Sarnak. Tied to a timber horse post, naked and shivering.
Finnikin knew the thief had seen him. He saw surprise in the boy’s face, then something else. A pleading. The boy began to mouth something, his lips moving desperately.
Finnikin pushed his way through the crowd of buyers. The thief kept his gaze on him, his mouth moving even as they untied him. When one of the traders noticed him speaking, the back of his fist caught the boy across the face and the thief staggered to his knees. But still he lifted his head and his mouth continued to move.
And then Finnikin realized with horror what the boy was saying.
“Kill me,” Evanjalin said beside him. “That’s what he’s asking you to do.”
Kill me. Kill me.
Finnikin found himself reaching for the dagger in the scabbard on his back. He dared not look at Evanjalin. “We didn’t take this route because it was a pleasant walk, did we?” he said angrily.
“I thought you loved the river,” she said.
“You meant for this to happen. You knew he was here, and you want to save him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Finnikin,” she snapped. “Why would I want to save a worthless thief who tried to rape me while I slept?”
When Finnikin didn’t respond, she shrugged. “But then I thought of your pledge. The one from the rock in Sorel where you said you’d search the land for the orphans of Lumatere and bring them back, and I believe you’ll want to save him. If you get the boy now, you won’t have to come back for him when you’re nice and settled with some lord’s sweet, fragile daughter.”
“You are evil,” he seethed.
“Oh, the way that word is thrown around!” she said. “Everything is evil that humans can’t control or conquer.”
“What do you expect me to do?” he argued. “Fight the traders for the thief? You’re the one who sold him.”
“Because I needed a horse for your escape,” she replied calmly.
“Which I would not have needed if you hadn’t betrayed me. Then you go and sell the horse for the ring. So now we have no horse,” he continued, “and a ruby ring that I’m presuming you’re going to trade for a useless thief.”
“What a ridiculous suggestion,” she said. “He stole the ring in the first place!”
Finnikin held the dagger tightly, a splinter from the wooden handle digging into his palm. He looked up at the thief and saw bleak relief pass over the boy’s face.
“I will do the right thing and put him out of his misery.” He wondered when the horror of the day would end.
“And if you miss?”
“I never miss.” There was no boasting in his tone, just sadness. Finnikin turned the dagger and held the blade between his thumb and finger. He stared at his target, bile rising in his throat. But before he could take aim, Evanjalin placed a hand on his arm and took the dagger from him.
“We are not going to buy the thief, Evanjalin,” he said wearily.
“Of course not,” she said, leaning to whisper in his ear. “We’ll just steal him.”
“And what are we supposed to do? Storm the barge? I don’t have my father’s sword, and I can’t see myself succeeding against ten traders and these feral buyers whose type I recognize from the mines. Remember the mines where you put me? For which I will never forgive you.”
“And I will never forgive you for the whore!” There was anger in her eyes. “We wait until someone buys the thief and then we ambush the buyer. Which means, Sir No Sword and Three Knives, our chances of success are high, because I’m presuming there will only be one buyer to fight.”
“And what makes you think I carry three knives?”
She clutched his forearm where the smallest knife was hidden, then placed her arms around him and embraced him, patting his back to feel the second scabbard of the dagger she held in her hand.
“And the third?” he asked.
There was another flash of anger in her eyes. “Do you expect me to get on my knees before you? Like your whore? The third is at your ankle.”
Fury rose inside him. “I curse the day I climbed that rock in Sendecane,” he spat.
She looked at him sadly. “That’s where we differ, Finnikin. For I believe that was when it all began.”
They watched in silence as the traders unlocked the boy’s shackles and bound his hands. Finnikin suspected that the buyer would take the thief along the river and wait for morning to travel down the waterway to the mines.
“If we do this …” he said, turning to Evanjalin.
But she was gone. He pushed through the crowd, searching, calling her name. He leaped onto the back of a man close by to get a clear view of the area and was thrown aside. There were grunts of hostility and elbows thrust into his face as he pushed his way to the river’s edge, where the barges floated. Evanjalin had taken to wearing his brown woolen trousers and blue cap, but the colors were too dull to stand out in the waning light. He hoped she had enough sense to find her way back to the tavern. The thought of her being lost to them as he had once wished suddenly sent a shiver through him.
Farther down the bank, he caught sight of the thief being dragged away. Had the owner clothed the boy, Finnikin might have left things as they were. But in the fever camp, he had stumbled over the naked body of a boy the same age as the thief. In Lumatere, boys that age had been robust and full of mischief, teasing the girls they had grown up with, not knowing whether they wanted to follow their fathers or cling to their mothers. There was something unnatural about a boy of fourteen lying dead, and Finnikin had seen it too often. Enough, he thought. Enough.
Finnikin followed the thief and his owner down a trail deep into the woods. He knew if he did not succeed in setting the thief free that night, he would at least put him out of his misery. It would be simple, he told himself. He would race farther ahead and cut them off, taking the slave owner by surprise. But then he lost sight of them through the thick foliage and decided to scale the pine tree closest to him. When he reached a height that gave him a better view of his surroundings, his heart sank. From where he was balanced, he could see the thief and his owner walking toward a clearing. And in the clearing was another man setting up camp. Evanjalin had been wrong. The buyer was not alone.
He knew he had to move quickly. But just as he was about to climb down, he saw her. She leaped out of the trees at the edge of the trail and threw herself on the back of the thief’s owner with Finnikin’s dagger in her hand.
Finnikin hit the ground running. Between the trees he could see she had the advantage, slicing the man across the chest, her arm around his neck, her legs wrapped around his waist. But it was too late. The buyer’s companion had reached them. He pulled Evanjalin by the jerkin and threw her face forward against a tree, twisting her arm to make her let go of the dagger.
Finnikin ran harder. Don’t let him find out she’s a girl. Please, don’t let him find out she’s a girl.
But the man’s hands prodded and poked, crawling up her torso.
“Evanjalin!”
One dagger caught the first man in the back, and the second knife landed an inch above Evanjalin’s fingers on the tree. In a split second she had yanked it out and thrust it backward, catching her attacker unaware. When the man stumbled away, she plunged the knife twice more into his thigh, crippling him for a moment.
“Run!” Finnikin yelled as he tossed his cloak to the boy. He fought off the second man as Evanjalin grabbed the thief and they bolted into the woods. With a punch that left the man reeling, Finnikin raced after them.
“Keep running,” he yelled. Ahead he could see the thief, whose leaps and lunges warned him of the unevenness of the ground. And then he was beside Evanjalin, realizing, as the blood pumped into his heart and the pulse at his neck threatened to burst, that his need to distance himself from their pursuers was less important than his need to take the lead from her.
They reached the end of the trail and burst into the open valley, where the sun was just beginning to disappear. As he inched closer, he could tell by her sideways glance and the glint in her eye that she was not going to let him pass. But she was tiring, and when she pointed up ahead to the road that led to Speranza, she held her hand in front of him, barring him, keeping him back. He shoved her hand aside, pushing her in the process, and when she stumbled, he took the lead, following the thief as he leaped over the timber fence that boarded a meadow. By then there were no sounds of heavy feet behind them, just his breathing and Evanjalin’s.
When the thief stopped and fell to his knees to catch his breath, Finnikin collapsed onto the grass and Evanjalin fell down beside him. He rolled onto his back, holding his side in an attempt to reduce the pain, and when he looked across at her, he thought he caught a glimpse of a smile on her face.
The thief stared at them. There was no humility or gratitude in his expression. And little else either.
“I own you,” Evanjalin said bluntly as she sat up. “Never forget that, boy.”
Trevanion and Sir Topher were waiting for them outside the tavern. Sir Topher’s eyes widened with disbelief when he recognized the thief, but before he could say a word, Evanjalin rushed up to him.
“Sir Topher,” she said breathlessly, “I got it back!” She clutched the ruby ring in her hand. Finnikin watched Sir Topher look down at her with tender affection before reaching over and folding the ring into her palm.
“It’s best you keep it hidden, Evanjalin.”
“We need to move. Quickly,” Finnikin said.
“The horse?” Sir Topher asked.
“No horse.”
“Who —”
“Later,” Finnikin stressed, pushing them toward the tavern entrance.
Trevanion was staring at the thief, who looked like he was about to spit at him.
“You won’t survive the consequences,” Finnikin warned.
“His name is Froi,” Evanjalin said.
The thief grunted.
“It’s boy,” Finnikin argued. “It’s just that his lip is split and it sounded like Froi.”
“Everyone has a name, Finnikin. You can’t just be called boy. His name is Froi.” The thief from Sarnak opened his mouth to speak, but Evanjalin raised a finger to silence him. “I can sell you as easily as I bought you,” she said icily.
“You didn’t buy him. You stole him,” Finnikin pointed out.
“I’ve worked out his bond rules,” she said to Sir Topher, ignoring the others. “Like you said once. A new set of them.”
Whatever Sir Topher had suggested, Finnikin could tell he was already regretting it.
“There’s something else,” Finnikin said, looking at Trevanion, who had not said a word.
“Of course there is,” Sir Topher muttered. “Can we take another surprise?”
“I think you can take this one. Evanjalin has found the priest-king.”