Flamecaster (Shattered Realms, #1)(32)
“The King of Arden’s Guard,” Ash murmured when they had gone. “They’re in a hurry, aren’t they?”
Bones, Lila thought. Destin Karn, of everyone, might expect me to take this road. I told him I was going to, after all. Is he hunting me after I ditched him on Bridge Street? Or is he hunting Ash? Does he suspect that I helped him escape?
Maybe he’s just hurrying home to report the bad news.
Now they proceeded more cautiously than before, aware that the soldiers they’d seen might double back when the trail grew cold. When they began to see traffic upon the road, Lila led the way back into the woods, penetrating several hundred yards before she chose a camping place, a defensible spot with a low hill at their backs. They built no fire; it wasn’t worth the risk. They left their horses saddled, fed them, and tethered them to a long lead to allow them to browse. Then they threw their blanket rolls on the ground in a grove of trees.
They sat up for a bit, eating cheese and bread, passing one of the wineskins back and forth until it was empty. Lila ached all over, courtesy of the rough and tumble in Stokes and from riding horseback cross-country for the first time that season. Ash sat with his back against the trunk of a tree, one knee bent, the other leg straight. He said little, though she noticed he was favoring his arm.
By the time they’d finished the wine, Lila could scarcely keep her eyes open.
“I’ll take first watch,” Ash offered.
Lila shook her head. “I’ll be fine,” she mumbled, her lips oddly numb. “You’ve got to be exhausted from loss of blood and having the flash sucked out of you and all. Let me just get up and walk around a bit. That’ll wake me up.”
“Hey,” Ash said, putting a hand on her arm. “Go to sleep. You don’t have to be the hero every single time.”
“All right.” Lila yawned. “But wake me up at midday and I’ll take over.” She slid into her bedroll and was immediately asleep.
When Lila awoke, shivering, the sun was low on the horizon, the light nearly gone. It took her two tries to sit up, and then her head spun so that she had to brace herself with her hands. She was stiff and sore from lying too long on the ground, half-covered in leaves, and her mouth tasted like the floor of an unmucked stall.
“Ash?” She looked around the clearing, and the motion nearly put her flat on her back again. “Ash!” she said, a little louder. Brady stood a short distance away, looking at her, ears pricked forward, still chewing. The other horse was gone. A scrap of chamois was pinned to a nearby stump with Lila’s own knife. It bore a single word. Sorry.
That’s when she knew. “Bones,” she muttered. “You two-faced, conniving, sneaky bastard.”
Lila rose shakily to her feet. The empty wineskin lay nearby. She kicked it, and it went sailing into the brush.
Really, Hanson? Did you think I’d fall for the turtled wine trick? I guess so. I am too stupid to live.
He’d probably left as soon as she had fallen asleep, took a chance by traveling in daylight. Nobody would expect to find him riding back toward Oden’s Ford. He could be halfway to Freetown by now. Or on his way to the dungeon in Ardenscourt. Or dead at the hands of the bloodsucking priests.
That was the thing. Lila had secrets, but Ash had proven that he had secrets of his own. Now there was no telling where the princeling was headed or what he really intended to do.
12
IN THE KING’S GARDEN
Destin Karn dressed for his meeting with King Gerard Montaigne of Arden, knowing that he might not survive it. He knew the price of failing to meet the king’s expectations, and he had failed at Oden’s Ford.
It wasn’t for lack of effort. Destin had it on good authority that ten bodies had been found in and around Stokes Hall—but none were students. Five were Darians and five were school officials—provosts and dorm masters. They’d all been killed with conventional means—if throat-cutting could be considered conventional. None had been killed with conjury, so they hadn’t been done by the witch queen’s son. That fit with what Tourant had said—that the boy had been training as a healer, and so would be an easy mark.
According to the academy, two students had gone missing: Lila Barrowhill, a cadet in Wien House, and Ash Hanson, a northern student who was a proficient in Mystwerk. It appeared that a great deal of killing had happened in Hanson’s room—it was awash in blood. But the two bodies in there were both Darian brothers.
Had the Darians and provosts killed each other? Had Lila intervened? Why would she? From what Tourant had said, she and sul’Han weren’t particularly close at school. Nor was she the hero type. Anyway, Destin found it hard to believe that a woman could be responsible for so much bloodshed. The king had ordered him to keep Lila away from the killing field as a precaution. Montaigne had no intention of risking one of his most promising operatives in case a sudden attack of citizenship prompted her to intervene.
The irony was that Destin was the one who had recruited Lila—he’d been her handler for the past two years. But now, more and more, she interacted directly with the king. Destin didn’t like losing control of that relationship.
He never should have allowed her to leave the party—he knew that now. If Lila and sul’Han were both dead, Destin had failed. If they were both alive, Destin had failed.