Broken Throne (Red Queen #4.5)(55)

Her expression changes, wiping clean. She sniffs and I get the sense of being dismissed like a courtier or a servant. One of her fingers twitches, as if remembering the urge to wave off a worthless Red.

“Do you dock anywhere along this stretch of the Ohius?” she asks, turning her head to survey the Freeland side of the river, where the Lakelands and a Silver crown hold no sway. The woodlands tangle into darkness, even in the morning sun. Her question and interest puzzle me only for a second.

Princess Lyrisa plans to hunt for her supper.

I survey her again, now that she’s lost the coat. Her clothes are as fine as her boots, a dark blue uniform. No jewelry, no adornment. She has no weapons that I can see either, so her ability must allow her to bring down game. I know noble Silvers are trained to war as much as soldiers are, trained to fight one another for sport and pride. And the thought of one so powerful on my keel unsettles me deeply.

But not enough to turn away her money. Or stop antagonizing her.

I take a step back, grinning sharply. Her eyes narrow. “We don’t dock until the confluence the day after tomorrow,” I say.

One of her hands darts, and the coin sails end over end, a flash of gold in the sun. I catch it deftly, enjoying my own triumph and her poorly disguised disdain.

“A pleasure having you on board, Princess,” I call over my shoulder as I walk away.

The sunset turns the river bloodred, lengthening every shadow until we seem to swim through darkness. At the prow, Gill keeps watch for errant logs or drifting sandbars. Crickets on the bank and frogs in the shallows sing. It’s a quiet night on the Ohius, an easy current drawing us farther southeast. I hope, when it’s my time, I die on a night like this.

When Big Ean doles out supper, I expect the Silver to balk at the quality of our food. It’s not terrible, but our provisions certainly aren’t up to the standards a princess would be used to. Instead she takes what she’s given without a word, then eats quietly by herself on her bench. Salt jerky and hard biscuits seem to go down as easily as the finest desserts in Piedmont.

The rest of us gather on the deck, circled up on crates or the deck itself to eat. The pair of kids, Melly and her older brother, whose name I’ve learned is Simon, are already asleep against their mothers, their bellies full. The parents, named Daria and Jem, split their provisions evenly before offering some to us.

Riette waves them off before anyone else can, her gap-toothed grin wide. In the soft electric light of the keel, she looks worn, her scars of the river more pronounced. She’s ten years my elder, but new to the keel life. Barely a year on my deck. She’s Freeland born, raised without allegiance or obedience to any crown. Same as me, same as Hallow. We have a different way about us, the Freeland Reds.

“Long road?” Riette says kindly to the mothers, pointing with a biscuit at the kids.

The darker woman, Jem, her hair and eyes black as gunpowder, nods. “Yes,” she says. One hand absentmindedly strokes Melly’s curls. “But Melly and Simon have been warriors through it. It’s taken a long while to reach the Disputed Lands.” Disputed. That’s what Crownlanders call us. As if we are something for the Silvers to fight over, and not a country unto ourselves, free of their rule. “We’ve come all the way from Archeon.”

In my mind’s eye, a map unfurls. Archeon is hundreds of miles away. I speak around a bite of jerky. “Servants.”

“We were,” Jem replies. “When the rebels attacked the king’s wedding, it was easy to slip away in the confusion, escape the palace, flee the city.”

News travels well along the river, and we heard about the Nortan king and his ill-fated wedding a month ago. The king lived, but the Silvers certainly felt the sting of the Scarlet Guard and the Montfort troops. Things have only deteriorated since, we hear—civil war in Norta, a Scarlet Guard insurgency, Montfort moving steadily east. And news of it all finds its way downriver eventually, carried on the war current.

From outside our circle, a voice sounds.

“You served Maven?” the princess asks. She stares at Jem, her face inscrutable in the weak light of the keel.

Jem doesn’t quail under her gaze. She tightens her jaw. “Daria worked in the kitchens. I was a lady’s maid. We had little to do with the king.”

The Silver is undeterred, her supper forgotten. “Then his wife. The Lakelander princess.”

“She had her own servants from her country to serve her directly.” Jem shrugs. “I was a queen’s servant, though, and in the absence of a queen, I served the prisoner. Not directly, of course—no Red was allowed near her—but I carried her linens, her food, that sort of thing.”

Big Ean brushes biscuit crumbs from his short beard, dusting his crossed legs. “The prisoner?” he says, eyes narrowed in confusion.

The princess’s voice is stern. “You’re talking about Mare Barrow.”

This only deepens Big Ean’s bewilderment. He glances at Riette for an explanation. “Who’s she?”

She sighs loudly, rolling her eyes at him. “The Scarlet Guard girl.”

“Oh right,” Big Ean replies. “The one who ran off with that prince.”

Another cluck of annoyance escapes Riette. She swats him. “No, idiot, the one with an ability. Lightning. Like a Silver but not. How could you forget her?”

Big Ean just shrugs his massive shoulders. “Dunno. Red running off with a prince sounded more interesting.”