The Girl King (The Girl King #1)(79)

He looked up then and something in his gaze shifted. His eyes were bright and curious, and being held by them was like falling into deep water on a moonless night. She stared back, feeling as though she were floundering, swimming against the current. For the first time, she noticed a little freckle of red-brown in his left eye, an island in all that blackness, just below the pupil.

She caught his mouth against hers. It wasn’t much, just the barest brush of their lips. Then they broke apart and it was nothing at all.

He didn’t move, though. He was so close she could feel his breath quiver through the loose strands of her hair. Blood moved in her belly like the ocean.

The caravan slammed to a halt, sending them tumbling toward the front in a tangled somersault. The chains of Lu’s manacles flew up and slapped hard across her bruised face.

In the still that followed, she heard shouts from without, blunted by the caravan’s wooden walls. All at once, a volley of thuds hit the wood. Lu jumped up, her heart leaping.

She’d recognize that sound anywhere.

“Crossbow bolts,” she hissed.

“Did we arrive?” Nokhai asked uncertainly. “We weren’t on the road for long enough, were we?”

There was more shouting now, and Lu was surprised to hear higher voices, replacing those of the guards.

“Something’s not right,” Lu said needlessly. “We’re under attack.”

“By who?” Nok demanded.

There was no time to respond, though. Lu heard shuffling at the rear of the caravan. She looked sharply at Nokhai. His eyes no longer held their dead, haunted look. He was alert, calculating.

Good, she thought. He was here with her. She made up her mind.

“We charge them,” she told him quickly. “Whatever happens, if you get out, run. I’ll catch up.”

“You’re crazy,” he whispered. “Between the guards and whoever—whatever—else is out there? We’re not getting out alive.”

Lu flashed a smile that she didn’t feel. “You have to stop thinking that.”

The door creaked open.





CHAPTER 25


Pact

Nok blinked owl-like in the sudden light. A figure stood in the doorway, hazy and indistinct to his unfocused eyes.

A blur at his side. Lu charged at them, absurdly clutching her bedroll between her raised hands.

The sword, he remembered. That would give the bedroll some weight, at least.

It was enough. That, and the element of surprise. Lu hit the figure at a full run, catching them against the head with the bedroll. They both tumbled from the doorway, out into the light of day.

Nok leaped after them.

The caravan was tall. He miscalculated the drop, stumbling as he landed, pain lancing through his buckling calves. Casting a wild glance around, he registered that they were on a narrow dirt road, fringed on either side by pines and dry bracken.

“Come on!” he yelled, perhaps at Lu, perhaps at himself. He could see the princess atop the figure from the doorway—another girl of age with them, small and compact. Lu had the bedroll still clutched in her chained hands, bashing the other girl’s face as best she could. Another figure staggered around the far end of the caravan, this one tall and clad in orange. A guard.

Lu glanced the man’s way. The girl beneath her used the distraction to curl her legs up and kick the princess off. They both scrambled to their feet, looked at one another, then to the guard, who looked back. For a moment, no one moved.

“Help!” the guard shouted. “There’s another over here—”

The girls looked at one another for a moment. Then, in apparent wordless agreement, they both flew at him. Lu bashed him across the face with her bedroll. The other girl scooped a carved staff as tall as a man from the ground—she must have dropped it in the fall—and joined in. The guard went down with a crash.

Sunlight caught something metallic at his waist as he fell.

The keys!

Lu must have had the same thought. While the other girl was busy choking the man with her staff, pressing it across his throat so hard he sputtered and quickly commenced to turning purple, the princess snaked her bound hands down to his belt.

“Here!” she hollered, flinging the keys as best she could toward Nok. They fell in the grass yards away from him. He darted forward.

He fumbled with the keys, pushing one into the lock on his chains. The first didn’t work—nearly snapped off, his hands were shaking so badly—but the second clicked, and the manacles fell away from his wrists.

When he looked up, the girl from the doorway had stood and was binding the guard’s hands behind his back with a torn piece of his own tunic. He was conscious, but choking and wheezing into the dirt.

Lu dove for her fallen bedroll, but the other girl was faster, and unencumbered by chains. “Oh, no you don’t!” she shouted. She grabbed the princess about the waist and flung her back to the ground.

Lu pulled her legs in tight and launched them into the other girl’s knees, toppling her.

“Lu!” Nok shouted, running toward her as she scrambled to her feet.

She turned to meet his eyes.

“Go!” she roared. “I’m right behind you. Go!”

He stopped, pivoted, making for the forest. He dove into the bracken, throwing his arms up against the low branches flinging at his eyes. Stumbling over stones and fallen logs.