| |
Amira
Coming home had never felt like such a gamble. Always, Amira had known what to expect when she set foot in her own country. Life in Hylendale had not always been pleasant. There was her stepmother’s disdain, her father’s demands, and the mild distrust of the whole kingdom to deal with, but Amira had always known what to expect.
Yet there was so much she didn’t know now. Had word already reached this far north that she had stolen the imperial archduke from the palace? A part of her still couldn’t believe she’d done it herself. Would her father help the empire hunt her down? Probably, she reasoned. This was the man who had been willing to hand both her sister and then her off to Daindreth, despite believing the archduke was a monster.
This didn’t feel like coming home. This felt like stepping into a hunter’s field, not knowing if she was the fox or the hound. Were they ahead of their pursuers or walking straight into a trap?
“Welcome to Phaed,” Amira said as she marched off the dock and onto cobblestone.
Following her was Daindreth Fanduillion, Grand Archduke and heir to the Erymayan Empire, and his cousin Thadred. It had been a few days since she had stolen Daindreth from within the imperial palace. Empress Vesha had tried to use the cythraul that plagued Daindreth to control him and subject the monster to her own will.
The demon was still inside Daindreth’s head, but he was dormant for now, as he always was when Amira was close. Amira had yet to find a way to make her effect permanent. So she and the two men had come north, seeking the Cursewood where it was rumored the Istovari sorceresses still lived. Those sorceresses had cast Daindreth’s curse in the first place. They seemed the most likely to know how to break it.
“How far from here to Lashera?” Thadred asked.
Amira had to think for a moment. “Seventy leagues or more, depending on your route.”
Neither of the two men spoke, but Amira was sure she knew their thoughts well enough. The farther they had to travel, the more time the empire’s agents would have to catch up to them.
Amira moved away from the docks and into the city. Thadred and Daindreth followed close on her heels. The carrack they’d sailed in on, the Irenmor, lay anchored at their backs with the crew still securing the rigging to the docks.
Amira wondered how long it would be until the sailors were spreading word to every tavern keeper and prostitute in Phaed of the girl passenger and her two young male escorts. With Amira’s red hair and Thadred’s limp, they were a memorable trio.
How long before Vesha’s spies found their trail?
Her side still ached from the stab she’d taken while breaking Daindreth out of the palace. After a few days soaking the wound with ka, she’d healed much faster than she thought she would. Her newly acquired power shuddered through her veins. Ka congealed around her feet and rippled through her fingers, ready for a command.
Since breaking the Kadra’han’s curse that had forced her to obey her master—first her father and then Daindreth—Amira’s power had doubled, perhaps even tripled. Sometimes, Amira caught herself weaving spells without meaning to. They were benign, useless things, just strands of ka threaded or knotted into shapes, invisible to the eye but detectable to a sorceress.
Since freeing Daindreth from the palace, she could see the golden ka everywhere. It filtered on the breeze, rose from the packed bodies in the street, flitted above them, and scurried below them as seagulls, rats, and other vermin wove their way in and around the humans.
Phaed was a young city. It had been a small fishing village until the Erymayan invasion, when Emperor Drystan had appropriated it as a supply station for his troops.
Brothels had been the first permanent establishments, and then tanners, blacksmiths, potters, and other tradesmen had followed. At the end of the war, the steward of the city had been granted a knighthood for his service and now styled himself Baron Phaed.
Once it had become a barony, the small fief had a monastic enclave installed for devotees of the goddess Lumë. Since then, the Phaed crest had been a single eye peering out from a lamp and the township had become a respectable stop along the coast.
Phaed was the last port in safe waters before one crossed the Jaunty Straits, known for their swells and treacherous currents. It was a good place for merchants to deposit their liquid assets before heading across the sea to the western parts of the empire, where gold, silver, alum, copper, and gemstones were mined from the barren landscape and the carcasses of dead volcanoes.
“You seem to know where you’re going,” Thadred remarked.
Daindreth had been silent since leaving the ship.
“I do know where I’m going.” Amira turned left at the third avenue they came to, stepping around a street sweeper with his broom.
They turned into a street blocked off from horses and carts with a narrow row of poles that allowed only pedestrians to pass through. On the other side of the row of poles were buildings lined with cast iron grates that weren’t recognizable as grates at a first glance.
The metal had been shaped into scrollwork, vines, or geometric shapes. Heavy bolts secured the grates to the buildings’ walls and guards with halberds slumped against the outside of most the shops.
Amira inclined her head to one of the guards and stepped through the open entry of an establishment with “Beville and Daughter” painted across the top. Thadred and Daindreth stiffened as if in surprise, but followed her.
At the moment, the three companions were poor. It had taken all the money Amira and Thadred had to orchestrate Daindreth’s rescue and secure passage here. Amira had mentioned to the men that she had a solution to their money problem in Phaed, but had left out the details.
The room inside had a mosaic depicting the lamp eye of Lumë coated in a thin layer of street dust. There was a single wooden bench to one side and the walls around them were solid save for a wooden door in one corner and a barred window in front of them, giving a view of stacks and stacks of chests, boxes, barrels, and crates.
“Good morning,” said a cheerful female voice. The voice’s owner took in their odd trio without so much as a blink. She stood behind the grated window with her hands folded neatly before her as if she had been expecting them. “Lucia Beville, at your service.”
Lucia was of perhaps middle years with a face made pleasantly round from years of smiling. She took in the three with a sharp eye, no doubt comparing them to a thousand other patrons and guessing at their backstory and business.
Did she take them for runaways? Young nobles off squandering their parents’ money? Perhaps lost?
Whatever she might have assumed about them, Lucia gave nothing away. She smiled, but there was a sharp look in her eye that warned Amira this woman was used to catching swindlers, liars, and cheats.
“I’m here to make a withdrawal,” Amira said.
Lucia glanced to Thadred and Daindreth as if expecting one of them to speak. When it became clear that Amira was the leader, she cleared her throat and returned her attention to the younger woman.
“Under whose name will you be making a withdrawal?”
“Cromwell,” Amira said. “Terrence Cromwell.”
Lucia’s brows rose almost imperceptibly.
This was the account Amira had always used whenever her father’s business had taken her to the western coast, usually in disguise. Phaed was technically inside Hylendale’s lands.
“Then I shall need the password.” Lucia pushed a piece of parchment and a stub of charcoal under the grated window, the set of her mouth just a little harder.
Amira prayed to every god that might be listening that her father’s lawyer hadn’t changed it. She hastily jotted down Elin and the withdrawal amount, then pushed the parchment back to Lucia.
Lucia took the scrap of paper. “I need to compare this to our ledgers.”
Amira nodded in understanding. She waited, adjusting her left cuff.
Thadred leaned on his hickory cane sword, taking stock of their surroundings with a curious stare. Amira had found this cane to replace the one he’d shattered in rage back in the palace, right before she’d gone to rescue Daindreth. Anyone who saw the knight might take him for a manor fop sneaking out for an adventure.
Daindreth studied the window of the depository, waiting for Lucia to return. He stood close to Amira, only a handbreadth or so away. She had only to lean into him to touch him. He noticed her watching him and met her eye.
She offered him a slight smile. His brow furrowed ever so slightly then he smiled back.
There was still a stiffness and awkwardness between them. The night she had rescued him from the palace, there had been no barriers. To Amira, it had felt like pure connection. They’d both been vulnerable and desperate in their own ways.
They had escaped to the docks and Amira had passed out after boarding the ship. She didn’t remember much after that. The next morning, Amira had woken up alone with her wounds sewn and her head sore. Daindreth and Thadred had been outside the cabin, arguing in hushed voices.
Amira had lain awake, unable to make out their words, but understanding their tones. In the few minutes it had taken for Daindreth to finish their discussion and come into the cabin, something had happened.
Amira had remembered the humiliation of the night of the ball. She had offered Daindreth a place in her bed and he had refused—in front of half the imperial court. She remembered him ordering her to leave him forever.
Daindreth had banished her and Thadred, using their Kadra’han curses to make them flee the capital palace in Mynadra. It had been part of his misguided effort to protect them, but Amira had broken her curse to come and rescue him anyway.
Breaking the curse had almost killed her and rescuing Daindreth had almost killed her several times, but it had been worth it.
She had still returned to the palace for him. She had still fought and nearly died to save him. He had helped her when she was hurt, but maybe...
She remembered him pushing her away the first time they had kissed, fleeing like she was a temptress in an old fable. What if he only cared for her because of what she did to the cythraul? It was irrational for her to think that—Daindreth had been willing to sacrifice himself to keep her and Thadred safe. Yet Amira still found herself doubting. Afraid.
She had become frightened and hidden back behind her walls once again. She was self-protecting, and she knew it, but...
Amira hadn’t spoken to Daindreth in private since leaving Mynadra. Always, Thadred or someone else had been in earshot. She had spent some time thinking of the tongue-lashing she would dole out, but then her anger had faded, and it hadn’t seemed to matter. It helped that she’d overheard Thadred doling out his own tongue-lashing on the archduke—using language to rival a wharfside fishmonger.
Amira tried to focus on the present. She had Daindreth, they were free, and they had a plan.
Even if that plan hinged on the mercy of sorceresses who had left Amira for dead in a pool of her own blood and cursed Daindreth to damnation. It was better than nothing, she supposed.
But Amira had overcome a dozen warrior sorcerers of greater strength than her own, a palace of soldiers, and two angry demons. Surely, she could find a way to make her Istovari mothers listen. Until then, they needed to stay ahead of the empire’s trackers.
Vesha had promised Daindreth—use of his body and his life at least—to the demon that lived inside him. Allegedly, that was to guarantee the continued prosperity of Erymaya.
According to the empress, the empire’s flourishing under her rule had been thanks to her familiar, Saan Thii, and other denizens of the Dread Marches who had struck a bargain with Vesha. Whether that was true or not, Amira didn’t rightly care. If the cost was someone’s soul, it wasn’t worth it, especially if that someone was Daindreth.
Amira glanced to Daindreth. He stood stiff with his shoulders at an odd angle, like someone who expects to flee at any moment. He was uncomfortable here. He had probably never been into a city without a retinue of guards and retainers. She would need to teach him how to blend in.
Daindreth noticed her watching him and inhaled, but the shuffling of Lucia’s return interrupted anything he might have said.
Lucia returned carrying a small wooden box sealed with wax and a signet burned into the top. “Is this the correct one?”
Amira had to clear her throat to hide her relief. “Yes. Thank you.” She stepped forward and took the box, studying it from the sides to confirm it was indeed the correct one.
“It has been untouched since it was left here,” Lucia assured her. “As per the contract.”
“I have no doubt,” Amira said, even as she tested the weight of it and reexamined the wax seal. It was the familiar mark of a polecat twisting in a circle so that it seemed to be running along the inside of the seal, the same mark branded into the top of the box. Cromwell had chosen the polecat as his family crest years and years ago, saying it was a humble creature to remind his heirs of their origins.
In the pause, Lucia glanced to the archduke before she looked back to Amira. “All is in order, I assure you.”
Amira nodded once. “Yes. It appears so. Thank you.” She stepped away from the barred window with the box held in both hands.
Daindreth followed and Thadred trailed after them out the door. In the streets, they passed several bustling merchants on the way out, narrowly avoiding collisions with laden traders just come off their ships.
“What have you got there?” Thadred asked, nodding at the box.
“This should be enough to get us horses and as far as Lashera,” she said.
Thadred arched one eyebrow. “That little box?”
“Yes.” Amira broke the wax seal with a knife from her belt and the box lid swung open on its squeaky hinges.
Inside, packed in peat moss lay five bars of honey-yellow, each one as wide and long as two of Amira’s fingers. Amira examined them a moment, confirming their size and weight.
Thadred and Daindreth had both seen far more wealth than this and didn’t seem too impressed. But in that moment, Amira held enough money in her hands to buy a carriage, coach, and team of the finest rounceys this side of the continent. It was more money than many people would possess in a lifetime.
If she had been alone, Amira could have found a way to travel to Lashera with less than one of these bars. With two companions and Thadred’s bad leg to consider, she couldn’t be quite so thrifty.
Instead of leaving the depository district, Amira led the two men across the street to another establishment full near to bursting. This depository was lined with many barred windows, a clerk behind each one speaking loudly to merchants, sailors, gentry, and farmers in all shapes, sizes, and statures.
Amira slipped out two of the gold bars and passed the box with the remaining three to Thadred. “Put this in your pack. Keep it safe.”
Thadred muttered something sarcastic that was lost in the noise and bustle of the depository, but he did as she asked.
Amira stepped inside and when she returned, she had three leather pouches jangling with smaller, less conspicuous coins. “Each of you take one,” she said. “You’ll be responsible for these.”
Amira paused as she handed off the pouches, eyes locking on a figure across the street. A boy, maybe no more than nine with a woolen cap, watched them with wide eyes. When he realized Amira had spotted him, he took off running.
Amira cursed, impulsively reaching for a knife, then stopped herself. He was a child.
“What?” Daindreth followed her gaze to the fleeing urchin.
“What is it?”
“The town’s agents will know we’re here, if they don’t know already. Let’s go.” Amira spun on her heel and marched swiftly back out of the street.
“That kid?” Thadred asked.
“Urchin on the law’s payroll,” Amira said. “They’re in every major city and port. Local magistrates use them to spot suspicious figures. They get bounties if their tips lead to arrests.”
Street sparrows was the common name for them. Urchins that were common and harmless as the birds but had a way of flying home to the nest and singing.
Amira could sense the skepticism in the two men, but they followed her, watching the streets and alleys as they passed.
“Could word have reached this far already?” Thadred asked. “Surely no messages from the palace could have gotten here before us?”
“This is Vesha we’re talking about,” Amira answered.
The empress and her agents had probably been able to deduce that the trio of fugitives left on a ship, or at least considered the possibility. If that were the case, Vesha would have every port and harbor on alert.
The assassin chewed her lip. Changing their appearance might be a good place to start, but they had neither the time nor the means to do that and keep moving.
Besides, Amira needed to be recognizable once they reached Lashera and then the Cursewood.
Careful to keep her voice down, Amira continued. “I expect the magistrate has a warrant for our arrests,” she said.
Three days was enough time for orders to reach here from Mynadra through the lattice of carrier pigeons, runners, and riders that the empire boasted as their communication network.
Their trio came out the other side of the side street. Amira led them across another street, down a few blocks, and up a sloped hill toward the towering outline of Baron Phaed’s manor.
“You seem to know where you’re going,” Thadred remarked. He kept pace with the other two impressively well, but the hard set of his jaw gave away his pain.
“We’re almost there,” Amira said.
“If I have to walk all the way to Lashera—”
Amira cut him off. “You won’t. Now let me handle this.”
She led them to a massive, converted warehouse. Straw and woodchips packed the floor and spilled into the street.
Amira wrinkled her nose at the stench of urine and manure. During this time of year, there shouldn’t be this much mud or so many standing puddles.
Stepping inside, Amira cast her eye over the rows of horses. Usually, she only needed one.
“Can I be helping you, young miss?” A square man with a slow, almost sluggish way of speaking and hands like bear paws straightened from inside one of the stalls.
“Three horses. Your best. We’ll be needing full harnesses, too.”
“My best?” The stablekeeper scratched at the stubble on his jaw. “That would be a mite costly.”
In Amira’s experience, one generally got what one paid for when it came to horses. “That sounds like my problem.” Amira resisted the urge to glance over her shoulder, but Thadred leaned casually on his good leg, staring back into the street with a bored expression.
Amira’s muscles unclenched a little at that. At least someone was watching their backs.
“Well. Let me show you what I have. Will you be the one buying?”
“Yes.” Amira looked to the two men. “Keep an eye out,” she said. “If you notice anything suspicious...” She gave them both a hard look.
“You expect trouble?” Daindreth asked.
“I’d rather expect it and be disappointed than not expect it and be surprised,” Amira responded. She moved past him to follow the stable keeper.
The man spoke, but she wasn’t listening, eyes flitting over the available horses as he did. She instantly spotted three she would have preferred, but the stable keeper quickly informed her that those belonged to a merchant and his apprentices who were in town.
Amira found three other animals that seemed serviceable. She then managed to talk the stable keeper down from his original asking price enough to cover the horses and their gear with what she had in her coin pouch.
She returned to Thadred and Daindreth close to a half hour later leading two horses and the stable keeper bringing up the rear with a third.
“You can choose between these,” Amira said, “but I think the dappled one will be best for you,” she added, gesturing to Thadred.
The knight looked over the larger horse and nodded his approval. The towering dappled grey gelding was far from a destrier, but had the height and girth to give Thadred a better advantage in the saddle—if they happened to run into trouble.
The other was a chestnut mare with a blaze down her forehead and large eyes that flickered to and fro. She’d be a handful, but Daindreth had a steady enough hand to keep her under control.
Once they agreed on who would be riding which horse, they lashed the animals to hitching posts and Amira began selecting their saddles and bridles. All the saddles showed some damage from the humidity, but several of the girths had warping at the edges. Amira refused all of those, impatience growing with every moment.
Finally, Amira and the stable keeper agreed on the goods, and they set to tacking up the horses.
For herself, Amira had chosen a bay mare. The horse was too small for either of the men to ride comfortably, almost a pony, but her small black hooves were sound and from the way she had stamped in her stall, she had a bit of fire.
Amira paid the stable keeper the agreed amount once they were tacked up, then glanced over to Thadred. “Looks like we’re waiting on you.”
Thadred shot her a glare as he finished cinching his horse’s girth. “Must be fun,” he cursed. “Being able to walk.”
Amira rolled her eyes. “Just—”
Her mare’s ears flicked, and motion caught Amira’s eye from the entrance of the stable. The next moment, she spotted dark figures with the lamp and eye stitched on their sleeves—the city watch.
Muttering every curse she knew, Amira did a quick head count. Eight of them. Damn it.
The assassin checked the dagger hidden under her cloak, mind whirring. Ka roiled in her hands, floating around her in golden streamers.
“Boys,” she said.
Thadred and Daindreth’s heads jerked up just as the entrance was blocked off.
“You three,” the leader said, pointing to Amira, Thadred, and Daindreth. “You are to surrender to the city guard immediately.”
“On what charge?” Daindreth asked, voice calm and untroubled as a summer breeze.
“Suspicion of treason,” the man answered, his thick leather glove closing around the glaive at his side.
Thadred carried on readying his horse as if nothing was wrong.
Amira loosened her dagger in its sheath, thinking. Ka wafted off the soldiers, steaming in the air around them. She wracked her brain for a useful spell, but in that moment, none came to mind.
There was so much ka in the air, but she didn’t even know how to begin making use of it.
“Leave,” Amira snarled at the stable keeper.
The man backed away, then turned and ran, in no hurry to get between the guards and their quarry.
Daindreth faced the soldiers, calm and collected. “We have committed no crimes,” he said. “We are law abiding travelers.”
For someone not used to bluffing away the law, Daindreth wasn’t doing half bad. “Our great-aunt recently passed away and we are traveling to settle her estate in Cadrene.”
There were too many of the soldiers for her to take them straight on, even with Daindreth and Thadred. Even if she thought she could drop all eight, it would cause a commotion and the entire city garrison would be crashing down on them before they knew it.
But there was the ka, drifting up and around the men in golden clouds. Amira focused and the ka collected into ribbons at her silent urging.
Brow furrowing with concentration, she began wrapping that ka around their heads in spools. She drew little circles in the air with one finger, mimicking the shape she wanted the ka to take. The motion didn’t command the ka, but it helped her focus.
Unable to see Amira’s spellwork, the leader was unimpressed. He didn’t even ask the usual questions to verify a story—where did you come from? How long will you stay? He didn’t even ask their names.
“I have orders to apprehend all three of you. Now you can come peacefully or—”
Amira chose or.
She yanked the strands of ka tight around the soldiers’ heads with a silent command. She hadn’t been sure what would happen, but the men seized in unison.
Several grabbed their heads, crying out. Two of them went down screaming, but the others remained on their feet.
“Sorcerer!” the leader yelled, stumbling back, glaive in hand. He jabbed for Daindreth.
The archduke dodged, jerking back out of reach. He was unarmed and the best he could hope to do was evade.
Amira made a fist of ka, coiling the latent energies in the air around her free hand like a length of rope. She locked the rest of the world out of her mind and focused. She was aware that she was losing awareness of her surroundings, making herself vulnerable, but she was committed now.
Amira spun the ball of ka tighter and tighter until it was a gigantic swirling ball to her eyes and let fly with a mental command.
The ball flew into the face of Daindreth’s attacker, blasting the man backward into the wall of the barn with a sickening snap. He fell to the ground without so much as a scream.
Amira gasped, suddenly feeling like the wind had been knocked out of her. She’d put too much into that spell.
Daindreth shot the briefest glance back to her, but she was already yelling for him to get on his horse.
Three of the men came for Thadred. The knight clenched his large horse’s reins and smacked his cane sword against the animal’s flank. The gelding swung his haunches sideways, knocking the guards out of the way. Thadred slapped the ends of the reins against the gelding’s chest and the horse jerked backwards, snorting and whinnying his annoyance.
The guards clenched their spears, eyeing Thadred testily, seeking an opening, but the knight kept his horse solidly between them.
In front of the gelding was a solid fence. The only way for the animal to go was backward. If any of them wanted to try spearing the horse, they’d risk getting a face full of hooves.
Amira dragged herself aboard her little bay mare, eyes on Daindreth at the front of the stable.
The man she’d hit with the ball of ka lay unmoving on the ground and another knelt beside him.
Two others including the leader still sprawled on the floor, groaning and clutching at their heads from Amira’s first attack. “Mount up!” Amira yelled, her breath coming in gasps.
Daindreth backtracked toward his chestnut, wisely keeping his face toward the guards. His chestnut mare pawed and whinnied. A mule in one of the stalls gave off a shrill cry and that sent them all into fits of squeals and squalls.
The stable keeper grabbed at the reins of Amira’s horse, trying to stop her, and got a boot to the face for that. The assassin swerved her horse toward the three guards holding off Thadred, still stonewalled by the large rump of his dappled grey.
“Mount up!” Amira repeated to Thadred.
The knight had no protests. He clambered aboard his horse with impressive agility, mostly using his arms to haul himself into the saddle. It was a bit awkward, but he quickly righted himself in the saddle.
Daindreth swung aboard his horse next, and Amira didn’t wait any longer. She dug her heels into her mare’s sides and quickly took the lead. Flattening herself against the horse’s neck, she burst onto the streets and steered her horse straight for the edge of Phaed.
The city watch was already scrambling after them, sounding the alarm. Phaed never had any real threats from the outside so there was no city gate or wall. Amira and the two men could flee in any direction except seaward.
Amira cast a glance backward to see most of the men upright, but the one she had lanced with a bolt of ka through his eye still lay on the ground. He wasn’t moving.
“This way!” Amira shouted, leading them off the main road and toward the thick forest that hedged in the city for miles around.
Thadred and Daindreth sped their horses after her and she quickly found an old wood trail she’d used once or twice before. The cushion of pine needles and the shadows provided by the trees would make for difficult tracking at best.
All the same, Amira kept them pressing on as fast as she dared. She continued until even the scent of Phaed’s chimneys faded on the breeze and all sign of the city was miles behind them.
They checked their horses into a trot. After a bit longer, Amira eased her horse into a halt and turned the mare partway to face Daindreth and Thadred.
“Are you two alright?” she asked, casting a cursory glance over Thadred and a longer one over Daindreth.
Forcing herself to breathe deep and slow, she fought to stop her spinning head. Though she wanted to learn what she could do with her magic now, it was something she needed to explore with caution. They’d been lucky, but she knew better than to drain herself of power like that. She needed to be controlled.
“Fine,” Thadred panted. He spared a moment to pat the neck of his gelding. “That’s a good boy,” he crooned.
“You killed that man,” Daindreth said. When she looked back at him, his face was pained, drawn. He held eye contact for a long heartbeat, then looked away.
“Probably,” was all Amira said, adding a shrug. She felt his disapproval like a claw raking down her back. “But he probably would have killed you.”
“They were just doing their jobs, Amira.” Daindreth’s voice was thick, heavy. “They had nothing to do with the empress for all we know.”
Amira’s bay mare chomped at the bit and jerked her head down. Amira had to adjust her grip on the mare’s reins to keep from being yanked out of the saddle. “You were fine with me killing men to break you out of the palace.”
“That was different. These people had nothing to do with Vesha or the cythraul.”
“And you mean to tell me every man I killed in Mynadra did?” Amira countered.
Daindreth bristled. “We can’t go taking the lives of people who are blameless.”
“Would you have preferred I let him stab you?”
“There has to be a better way!”
“There isn’t!” Amira’s voice rose to a shrill pitch and the horses shifted uneasily. “It’s either them or us and if you’re too stupid to have some common sense of self-preservation—”
“Innocent people don’t have to die.”
“People die every day,” Amira snorted. “Innocence has nothing to do with it.”
“This is war, Dain,” Thadred said, his voice a calm contrast to the bickering of the couple. “Innocent people will die. That’s the way of it.”
Both Amira and Daindreth shot a look to him.
The knight didn’t look directly at either of them, just studied his horse as it panted and shifted the bit in its mouth. “Amira did what she had to do to protect you. She’s no more guilty of murder than those fellows would’ve been if they’d killed us.”
“I never said murder,” Daindreth interjected.
“I know.” Thadred finally looked up. He inhaled a long breath. “So which way are we headed? Still that way?” He pointed up ahead.
“This way.” Amira nudged her mare with her heels and they continued on at a walk.
“Will those guards follow us?” Thadred asked.
“No,” Amira said. “They’re assigned to the city only. They’ll send word to the regional magistrates to be watching for strangers, though.”
So much for getting out of the city unnoticed. Best they put this fiefdom behind them as quickly as possible.
Daindreth didn’t berate her again, but didn’t apologize, either. Thadred remained silent and they rode on.
Amira held her tongue, but inside, annoyance knotted her thoughts. Daindreth needed to accept that saving his soul would come with a body count.
