Last Stand (The Black Mage #4)(69)

I was breaking with every roll of thunder, every streak of lightning across the pitch-black expanse. But I kept on.

I was a traitor to the Crown.

And this time, there was no turning back.





14





The first two nights I didn’t sleep. I rode as long and hard as I dared, taking what little shelter I could find in barns during the worst bits of the storm. It never ceased. The mare was exhausted, but at least she was able to rest during those brief stops.

I couldn’t sleep. With every shift in the straw, every dance of hooves, and every branch that snapped outside in the winds, I was certain the Crown’s Army soldiers were right outside the stable doors.

I survived on what provisions were stuffed into my pack; it was a week’s supply for two. I tried not to remember why that was. If I started to reflect on my last night in the palace, I wouldn’t be able to shut out the emotions that came with it. I couldn’t escape the pain and loss forever, but if I caved to it now, the regiment would find me and then Paige’s sacrifice would be for nothing.

My heart splintered with every mile I rode, but every so often the pain would fade. I still felt every broken rib and physical torment along my limbs, but the grief and regret were becoming a distant ache.

With every hour that passed, there was a scab growing around my heart. A fire was burning out everything and leaving me with a hardened layer of coal.

After everything I had gone through in the last year, I had no more tears left to cry. I was stone, and everything Blayne and the others had done, everything I had done… It was all becoming ash.

War had a price, and this war hadn’t even begun.

Two days of riding and I hadn’t spotted a patrol once. I knew it was only a matter of time. Mira would have men scouring every inch of the land. As soon as Blayne recovered, he would have bounty hunters competing for my head. I didn’t want to know Darren’s role, and I refused to consider it.

There were too many concerns at hand.

I needed to get to Demsh’aa before regiment soldiers reached my parents. I needed to find my brother at the keep and make sure the Crown didn’t take out my betrayal on those I loved. Once my family was safe, somewhere the king and his Black Mage could never find, then I could concentrate on the rest.

On the fourth morning, I had ridden the palfrey to her point of exhaustion. The little rest she received was not enough to make up for the miles and miles we’d covered in a short span of time.

I risked daylight to sneak into an inn’s stable close to the King’s Road. There, I switched out my mount for one of the occupants’ instead. I could now add theft to my growing list of crimes, but I didn’t have a choice. The mare was drawing too many eyes—not many traders had a thoroughbred that could fetch the price of a year’s worth of rations—and I needed an energized mount, ideally a brown, nonsensical steed that wouldn’t draw bandits and regiment mages to my trail.

The sixth day, I got lucky and came across a small hut off the road, with linens hanging out to dry above a bed bursting with root vegetables. I managed to steal two pairs of men’s breeches and a fresh shirt before a tall, broad-shouldered man came to chase me away, hollering at the top of his lungs, but not before I snagged some carrots and parsnips.

Later that afternoon, I found a stream. It was so cold my teeth chattered, but I scrubbed until every last speck of blood was gone. Every part of me stung as I rubbed until I was raw.

Then I burned the old uniform, taking with it every memory of that night.

Like a phoenix born again, a red-haired boy emerged where a girl had once been.

The land had a familiar call the closer I got to home: crickets and the quiet rustling of clove trees alongside icy plain winds. I passed less and less farmland, and the terrain began to slope with more elevation and rocks. I recognized the boulders I used to climb as a child, just a speck in the distance but as familiar as rain.

I supposed it was only fitting that on my seventh day I came across a listing hammered onto a wooden post with a sketch of my face. There were more further west, lining the King’s Road:

WANTED: RYIAH OF DEMSH’AA, FORMERLY A PRINCESS OF JERAR. HIGH TREASON. ATTEMPTED MURDER OF THE KING. HAS MAGIC AND VERY DANGEROUS. NEW TITLES AND LAND FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO HER ARREST. BRING IN ALIVE.





My knuckles grew white against the reigns. The regiment had beaten me home.

My parents.

Common sense dictated I make a run for the keep. Alex and Ella. It might not be too late for them.

But even as the thought crossed my mind, I was kicking my horse into a gallop, urging him west. I couldn’t leave without checking on my parents first. Maybe they had gotten out in time.

Or maybe the regiment had them, and if they did…

Just beyond the trees lining the main road was an old trail that circled back into the village. It wasn’t used by most; there were too many dead ends and the unstable ground made it the last choice for a traveler on horseback, but I knew it like the back of my hands. My parents had sent Alex, Derrick, and I on countless supply runs for plants that grew along the trail.

I spent the next three hours climbing the hills and carefully edging my horse along a steep pass that wove around to the backside of my town.

I didn’t come across a soldier or villager once. The road was as empty as could be. The ground was still frosted over, and it was growing dim; no one would be venturing to collect anything now when the land still had the last remnants of winter keeping the edibles deep underground.