The Girl King (The Girl King #1)(60)

“He’s still alive.” The princess’s voice was close enough to startle; she stood over Soldier Wailun’s body, toeing coolly at his ribs with her booted foot. Nok saw it was true. The soldier’s mouth opened and closed wordlessly, filling with dark lifeblood.

“I had to get him in the throat,” she said. “If I aimed for the head but didn’t kill him straight off he might’ve screamed.”

She pulled a knife from her boot and without ceremony, plunged its sharp blade through the man’s temple.

It took some effort to pry the knife back out; the princess’s face screwed up in disgust as blood slickened her fingers. When the blade was finally free, she wiped it clean against the dead man’s tunic. Nok could see her hands were trembling. Perhaps she felt his stare, because she looked up to meet it. “I would do it again,” she said ferociously. “He wasn’t a true soldier.”

“I think he was,” Nok choked out.

“You must go.” Omair was beside them now, shoving a full rucksack and small, densely weighted purse into Nok’s hands. “Go. There is an old map of the known gates to Yunis in the purse. Guard it with your life. Now, before the others return—go!”

He felt like he was fighting to emerge from a dream. “What of you?” he managed to say, grabbing Omair’s hand. Omair just shook his head. Nok’s stomach dropped. “You have to come with us.”

“I’m an old man with ruined knees, I’ll only slow you down,” Omair said. “Listen to me . . . take one of the soldiers’ horses and ride for the North. Find Yunis. Don’t trust anyone. Protect her. Protect one another.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Nok hissed, clutching at Omair’s robes. A handful of pulped mint fell from his hands as he did so; he’d been holding it this whole time. The scent filled the room and his stomach lurched.

“You must. For the good of all.” The old man kissed him fiercely on the forehead. “Go.”

Nok felt oddly calm as Lu took the rucksack from him and led him out the back door. It was only when they crouched behind a scraggly bush to observe the soldiers’ positions that he realized she was clutching his hand in her own.

“They’re lounging below, eating,” she whispered. “Horses are loose, grazing.”

Nok nodded numbly. We’re leaving Omair behind, he thought. This is wrong. This is all wrong.

“It’s been awhile since I’ve ridden a horse, but as I recall it’s not all that different from an elk,” the princess muttered. How could she be thinking about that when they were leaving Omair behind? Oh gods, and with a dead soldier.

“They’ll kill him,” Nok whispered. “They’ll think he murdered that . . . that soldier and they’ll arrest him and—”

The princess’s hand clapped over his mouth, sudden and warm. “Shh!” He opened his mouth against her palm to object, but then he heard it, too: the low mumble of approaching voices.

“. . . taking a long time . . . ,” one of them grumbled as the other knocked at Omair’s door. Then knocked again.

The princess removed her hand from Nok’s mouth. “If you go back now, we die. Don’t waste Omair’s sacrifice. This is our only chance.”

You have a chance to do something with that life. To help change the course of the empire.

Omair’s words came back to him like a command.

The princess stared at him with wide, solemn eyes. Nok nodded, just once.

A chance.

It should have been funny, how easily they were able to steal over the far edge of the hill and lure one of the Hana warhorses toward them with a few well-chosen apples from the tree they were hiding against. Nok thought he might never laugh again.

“We just need another . . .”

“Another what?” Nok asked. “Another horse,” she said as though he were quite stupid. “One for me and one for you.”

“I can’t ride!”

The horse they had recruited huffed against the princess’s palm as she reached out to stroke it. Then it nosed at the rucksack on her back, as though prying for more apples. It reminded Nok of . . .

“Bo,” he whispered. “We’re leaving Bo behind.”

The princess looked at him in disbelief. “You want to try to outrun a dozen warhorses on an old mule?”

“No, of course not! I just—”

A shout rang out from atop the hill.

“Now,” Lu said. “Come on. Best to go before they see us.” She slung herself over the horse and held out her hand.

A neighbor would surely take care of Bo until he returned. If he returned.

He took the princess’s hand.

The horse bristled and stamped as Nok arranged himself in the saddle. Perhaps the creature smelled something on him that it didn’t like; Nok thought briefly back to yesterday, his cauling. It seemed like that had been a hundred years ago. It seemed like it had been a dream.

“Ya!” the princess whispered into the horse’s ear. Nok reflexively tightened his grip around the princess’s waist and clenched his thighs into the horse’s sides as the creature took off down the slope, bound for Yunis, leaving behind everything he’d ever known for the second time in his life.





CHAPTER 19