Ever the Hunted (Clash of Kingdoms #1)(10)

I scurry back. “Manacles weren’t part of the deal.”

“Would you rather the noose?” Tomas sidles around me, pulling my wrists into the iron cuffs. I shake my head and bite back an alarmed squeak when his fingers dig into my arm where it’s tender and bruised from the earlier scuffle.

“If you canna find Mackay, the cap’n won’t let you go free.” Tomas’s nasally voice drips with distaste. “Not a daughter of a Shaerdanian.”

“Release her, Tomas,” the captain clips.

The guard obeys by shoving me out of the cell so that I trip forward, stumbling into Leif’s barrier of a body.

Captain Omar tells Leif to escort me out of the dungeon. Just before we reach the door, I hear the captain say, “Tomas, do not overstep your bounds. Next time I’ll withhold your food rations. Today you’ll tend the horses . . .”

I’m unable to catch the remainder of the conversation once the dungeon door closes behind us. But the little I heard is a reminder not to disobey the captain.



Papa taught that a good tracker always knows the lay of the land. East of here, Malam juts up in jagged, monstrous peaks that stay white-capped all year despite the baking summer. The mountain ridge spans into Kolontia, the northern country where snow and ice rule. Papa told me some of their people live in the crystal caves that tunnel under the northern ridge, while others brave the salty frozen bite of the coast that wraps two-thirds of the country.

Running from the north, the Malam Mountains curve in a southwest sickle to border the Southlands. There, the Akaria Desert’s sand dunes ebb and flow like a crawling ocean, and a gorge scars the land as deep as the mountains stand tall.

To the east, the Ever Woods run into the Bloodwood Forest, which carpets the mountains until they crumble into knolls and valleys. With Papa, I traveled along many of the ribboning rivers winding from the mountain glaciers to feed the lowland farmlands. From there, hills of fir, hemlock, and spruce roll into Shaerdan. It’s a lush country of suffocating emerald growth. It’s rumored that in Shaerdan the rain magically falls without a cloud in the sky.

As we ride, I’m shackled and sharing a horse with Leif. He doesn’t wrap a suffocating arm around me like on our last ride together. Still, the uncomfortable lack of space between us is even more apparent when the road rises and falls. Each time I lean forward, Leif pulls me back against his chest. If the captain doesn’t hang me, this ride may be torture enough to kill me.

We leave Brentyn, where the royal city is nestled like an animal burrowed for winter in a blanket of green. After traveling at a thundering pace on the main road, we cut off for the southwest mountains, to a route Papa and I traveled often. Only traitors and criminals trying to flee Malam hazard this pass. The terrain is dangerous, the path steep and sometimes slippery.

We stop when we reach the summit, where the path is narrow and overgrown with creeping ground cover.

“Mackay was sighted here two days ago,” Captain Omar says. He points west. “I need to know if he’s headed toward Lord Devlin’s fief.”

“I need to be closer to the ground,” I tell him. His face darkens and I realize he must think me insolent. “To look for broken branches, prints, any disturbance in the undergrowth,” I explain.

The captain gestures and then Leif’s off the horse, pulling me to the ground. The sweet pine scent slaps me with memories. Papa pointing out edible berries. Sifting through the forest floor in search of prints. Storytelling around a campfire.

Focus, Papa’s voice echoes.

“The manacles?” I lift my wrists.

The captain regards my arms. “Prove yourself helpful. Then I’ll take them off.”

My raw wrists throb, but I bite my cheek to stop from arguing and scan the bushes for any unusual disturbance. A broken branch, crumpled leaves, limbs bent all in the same direction, hoof prints, hairs, swatches of fabric.

Tomas and Leif trail behind while the captain inspects my every move. Eventually I find a damaged bush with branches bent west. Someone came this way recently. Perhaps two or three days at most. I find it odd Cohen hasn’t done a better job of hiding his passage. Still, I’d bet my bow he left these tracks. Hoof prints mark the dirt where the fallen leaves aren’t ankle deep, and two strands of coarse black hair dangle from a shrub. There’s no forgetting Cohen’s black stallion named Siron.

“He’s headed this way,” I say, ignoring the accompanying illogical twinge of guilt.

“Seeds, she’s fast,” Leif mutters as Captain Omar views the evidence.

The captain shoots the bull guard a look of irritation before turning to me with eyes that glint with approval. I should feel pleased, but I don’t.

“Miss Flannery.” Leif clears his throat.

“Britta,” I correct him.

“Britta . . . do you, uh . . .” Leif stammers and looks down, so his auburn head fills my view. His neck and ears stain purplish red, which draws a hoot from Tomas, who has sauntered closer.

“The brute’s trying to ask if ya gotta use the privy.”

My face reddens against my will. Besides Cohen and Papa, I’ve spent little time around men. It takes a second to find my voice. “Seeing as there isn’t a privy in these woods, I cannot say.”

“We’re supposed to keep an eye on ya.” Tomas’s beady-eyed gaze crawls over me. “Even when you’ve got personal business.”