Talia helped Saara stand, and Saara anchored her hands on the railing of the balcony, looking east down the river, in the direction she would go to protect her nation from the Second Age of Blood. While she might believe in her country’s ability to fight off the armies of Diamis if he dared send them, she served not only Tirostaar, but also the god Nerendal, resting in his stone in her throne room. It was he who pressed her forward, who called her to return to the mainland and finish her business with Diamis there.

  When she’d first felt Nerendal’s call, she’d thought that the god was trying to kill her. She still wasn’t sure she’d been entirely wrong.

  Five

  Jaeme took the woltrecht’s share of the burden of carrying Sayvil down the debatably gods-forsaken mountain, given that Nikaenor was smaller and scrawnier than he was, and also because he owed it to them both for having been such an ass all the way up from Grisham. He held Sayvil with one arm around her shoulders and the other under her knees, trying to ignore the way her blood soaked her clothing. Jaeme had thought many times that if he ever came face to face with Kotali, he was going to give him some thoughts about what did and did not qualify as a miracle.

  He hoped he never ran into Arkista, because the things he wanted to do to her right now would probably end in him having his conception reversed or being turned into a moonbeam. They’d managed to slide the stone into Sayvil’s belt pouch with one of Jaeme’s handkerchiefs, and Jaeme was glad it was out of sight. As they walked, Nikaenor kept leaning over Sayvil to check her breathing or to put a hand on her forehead, though if he was measuring for fever or chill, Jaeme didn’t know.

  Arkista had done something awful to her, and Jaeme had enough of an inkling of what that he didn’t want to investigate the matter himself, and he had no hopes that either he or Nikaenor would be of any use if they did. What they needed was a midwife, because while Sayvil hadn’t doubled over and given birth on the mountain—thank the gods—at least a midwife would have some clue what to do about prolific bleeding in that general area.

  It was nearly morning by the time they arrived in Jekti, on the Andronish side. They’d hiked a long way up into the mountains of northern Mortiche to avoid moving through the Jekti pass, but now that they were over the border, they wouldn’t have to face scrutiny from the contingent of soldiers stationed here with General Raske.

  Nerendal’s first light shone a hazy glow behind the mountains. Jaeme’s arms and legs were numb, not from the cold, but from hours and hours of walking. Sayvil’s face was pale, her head lolling back unnaturally on his shoulder, though her mouth was close enough now to his ear that he could hear her breathe.

  Hold on, Sayvil, he thought. Almost there.

  “Run ahead,” Jaeme said to Nikaenor. “I’ll travel up the main road. You find a midwife or a healer and let them know we’re coming. You can come back and guide me there.”

  Nikaenor took off at full speed, which was faster than Jaeme had seen him run since he’d been in full fish form chased by Tirostaari guards.

  Jaeme approached the gates of Jekti well after Nikaenor, and the guard called for him to stop and moved closer to get a look at Sayvil. “Is it a pox?” the guard asked, stopping several feet away.

  “No,” Jaeme said. “An accident on the road. Please, she needs a healer. A midwife, if you have one.”

  The man held his torch up high, illuminating Sayvil’s pants which were soaked to her knees with blood, and his eyes widened. “Gorsil’s place. That’s where I sent your friend. Just before the Old Fort Market.” He pointed to the east side of town and stepped aside, letting Jaeme through.

  Jaeme headed that direction as quickly as he could, moving up the road that wound toward the mountain pass, where scores of Sevairnese troops kept guard over the trade route into northern Mortiche—the main reason they’d taken the mountain route in the first place. Getting into the city from this direction was far easier, even if it hadn’t been expedited by Sayvil’s terrifying condition. Jaeme moved away from the new side of town, with the curved eaves and the steep roofs designed to keep off the snow. The muscles in his back somehow found occasion to ache again, when he hadn’t been able to feel anything for hours. The streets were near-empty, but Jaeme received suspicious looks from those few who passed. Probably suspecting a pox, as the guard had. Jaeme moved swiftly past them up toward the older part of town, where the wall of the first fort at Jekti had crumbled a long time ago.

  There, in the shadow of the new fort wall built over the remains of the old, was a sprawling market full of booths, the merchants arriving now to pull the tarps from their stalls and begin setting their wares in order. Jaeme spotted Nikaenor in the doorway of a shop—one of the few with walls bricked right onto the bulwark of the new fort. Nikaenor waved a hand at him, though Jaeme saw that he’d already been given a wool blanket.

  As he reached the doorway, Nikaenor sprang backward out of the way. “Come on,” he said. “They kept trying to check me for hypothermia, but I told them it was Sayvil who was really in trouble.”

  Two stout women bustled over, and Jaeme took care to remove Sayvil’s belt and pouch—both the one for money and the leather one containing Arkista—before leaving her on the clean sheets of the nearest cot.

  “Will she be all right?” Nikaenor asked. The women ignored him, one of them taking wet cloths and pressing them to Sayvil’s forehead and the back of her neck.

  “We were hiking up the mountain,” Jaeme said. “And then she just collapsed. She’s lost a lot of blood—”

  He stopped when he realized that the women were paying him no mind, focused only on cutting off Sayvil’s clothes with what looked like a sharp fruit knife. Jaeme pulled Nikaenor out of the one-room shop before witnessing the end of that endeavor. The women hadn’t seemed especially concerned about payment upfront, and he and Nikaenor would certainly pay for Sayvil’s care—

  As soon as Jaeme could feel his fingers again to count the coin.

  Nikaenor wrapped the blanket tighter around himself. “I suppose we should wait here to see if she’s all right.”

  Jaeme tried to poke his head back into the room, but one of the women shoved him out again. “Find an inn,” she said. “We’ll fetch you when she’s in a better condition.”

  That sounded like she expected Sayvil to live, and Jaeme didn’t relish the idea of waiting out in the cold for more hours.

  “Come on,” Jaeme said. “Let’s do what she says. We’ll find an inn, a fire to warm up, and breakfast. In that order.”

  Nikaenor trotted after him and didn’t even grumble about how breakfast should come first, which Jaeme feared might actually be a sign of hypothermia. They stumbled into the first inn they came across—the imaginatively named Old Fort Boarding House, wedged right between the decrepit ruins of Old Jekti and the sleek, well-kept edifices between the market and river. Jaeme opened the door with a hand he could hardly feel, hoping to find a clean room with a private fireplace and some food that could be served to them while they huddled around it.

  But instead, sitting at the common room table with a bowl full of snowberries and cream, he found Perchaya.

  Jaeme blinked at her. She and Kenton were supposed to be almost to Peldenar now, chasing after Erich Dektrian to rescue Daniella. He looked around the common room but saw no more familiar faces—and definitely not the one he wanted to see most of all.

  Both Perchaya and Nikaenor let out surprisingly similar squeaks, and Perchaya jumped up, splashing cream across the table. She moved immediately to Nikaenor and embraced him, then threw her arms around Jaeme, who thought he might be standing on her toes for all he could feel his own feet.

  He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Where is Daniella?”

  Worry crossed Perchaya’s face. “Erich didn’t go west to Peldenar like we expected. We spent two weeks chasing our tails in southern Mortiche before we finally found out that he’d headed north instead. We tracked him to a boat here in Jekti. He’s headed west toward Drepaine.”

  “To take Daniella to her father,” Jaeme said.

  Perchaya shrugged. “South would have been the more direct route for that. We suspect Erich has other plans.”

  Jaeme had hated himself every footstep of the way north toward Andronim, and now it turned out Erich had been bringing Daniella in this very direction. If he’d been tracking them, he might have been able to catch Erich before he reached Jekti.

  Not that she wants you to come for her, Jaeme reminded himself. This was why he’d conceded to letting Kenton and Perchaya go after her instead of going himself—aside from the fact that Kenton had threatened to break both his legs if he’d refused. Daniella didn’t want anything to do with him anymore.

  And much as it rended him, Jaeme deserved it. The best he could do for her now was to do his job and take care of the other chosen. If he’d worried more about that to begin with, perhaps Daniella wouldn’t be in this position.

  Perchaya looked down at Jaeme’s arms, and her eyes widened as she took in his blood-soaked sleeves.

  “Gods,” she said. “Are you hurt?” She glanced over at Nikaenor, her eyes widening in fear. “Where’s Sayvil?”

  “At the healer’s,” Nikaenor said. He lowered his voice. “Arkista did something to her.”

  Perchaya’s mouth fell open. “You have Arkista.”

  Jaeme moved the flap of his satchel aside to show Perchaya the pouch.

  “That’s clever,” she said. “But Sayvil—”

  “We don’t know anything,” Jaeme said. “I think—I think Arkista may have healed her.”

  Nikaenor looked confused. “Healed her? Healing doesn’t usually involve a gushing of blood. Why would Arkista—”

  “No,” Perchaya said, clearly catching Jaeme’s meaning. “Sayvil could never have children. And Arkista is the goddess of fertility, so if she healed her, that would certainly count as a miracle.”

  Jaeme snorted. “Some miracle. Looked like she healed her by ripping out her innards and putting them right again.”

  Perchaya looked horrified. “Take me to her. I’d like to be with her.”

  The midwives might allow that, so at least Sayvil wouldn’t be alone. But before that— “Wait,” Jaeme said. “What about Kenton? Why aren’t you with him?”

  “Kenton went after Daniella,” Perchaya said. “But we knew the three of you would be coming through here for supplies, at least, so I’ve been checking all the likely inns and shops. We figured it would be better if I stayed behind to give you word, so we could all head west together.” Perchaya gave Jaeme a sympathetic look that bordered on pity. “And we figured you’d want to hear the news.”

  “The news that Erich still has her.” Jaeme felt the urge to punch something, and he cast around the room for someone who looked drunk enough to get into a brawl. The crowd was thin, though, and the late-night drunks appeared to have all gone home before this hour of the morning.

  “There’s more,” Perchaya said. “I interviewed a chamber maid at one of the inns to find out if Erich was hurting her.”

  Jaeme balled his fists. If the news was what he expected it would be, he was damned well going to start a bar fight, even if he had to hit the barkeep to do it.

  “He’s not,” Perchaya said quickly. “He’s maintained a separate room from hers, and as far as the inn staff saw, she was unmolested.”

  Nikaenor looked sick, and Jaeme supposed it was because he’d only now conjured the image that had haunted Jaeme’s nightmares—of Erich forcing himself on Daniella night after night while she screamed.

  And it was all Jaeme’s fault. So much of their suffering was because of him.

  The words from long ago echoed in his head again, as they’d done so many times since he’d lost her, since he’d betrayed his friends and his people:

  What about the souls of the children of traitors?

  They become traitors too.

  “Good,” he said, though nothing would be truly good until she was out of Erich’s hands completely. “I’m glad.”

  “That’s not the news,” Perchaya said. She looked nervously at Nikaenor, as if, after the content of this conversation, this was the piece she wanted to share with Jaeme in private. But instead she drew a deep breath.

  “The chambermaid said Daniella was hiding something from the men. She was sick, she said. Dizzy. Nauseous.”

  Perchaya fiddled with her skirt, when Jaeme wished she would get to the point. “She’s fallen ill?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so. I think. . .” She paused long enough that Jaeme wanted to shake her, and then the words tumbled out at once. “I think she’s pregnant.”

  Jaeme’s stomach dropped. “What?”

  Perchaya opened her mouth to say it again, but he shook his head.

  “I heard you. Gods. Are you sure?”

  “No,” Perchaya said quickly. “The chambermaid said it was just a hunch. She didn’t confirm it.”

  Nikaenor clapped Jaeme on the back. “Congratulations!”

  Jaeme stared at them, stunned. He wanted to ask how this was possible, but of course he knew. They’d been together in Haidshir, and on the road up to Grisham, where impis leaf had been hard to come by. They’d been so happy then that they’d hardly thought about it.

  And now Daniella was probably pregnant. They were going to have a baby together . . . and he’d lost them both.

  More importantly, they were both in terrible danger.

  “I’ll take you to Sayvil,” Jaeme said. “And we’ll ask how long before she can move. If she can’t travel, I’ll go ahead alone to find Kenton.”

  “No, you won’t,” Nikaenor said. “I’m coming with you.”

  Of course he was. Jaeme might have been annoyed, but after everything he’d said on the mountain, Jaeme was simply glad Nikaenor still cared enough to follow him.

  Jaeme turned and led Perchaya back to the midwives’ hut, forgetting all about breakfast and his exhaustion and his aching limbs, numb for an entirely new reason.

  Daniella was pregnant. And even if she never spoke to him again, he was going to make sure both she and their child were safe.

  Six

  Daniella sat toward the back of the small riverboat, her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. Several crates containing furs were stacked against the boat’s short sidewall, covered by a canvas made water-proof with a waxy substance that left her hair greasy and stained the back of her dress as she leaned against it.

  Still, this position provided the best view. Not of their destination, which was still several days off, thankfully. But of the Trace river stretching out behind them, the mountains growing smaller in the distance.

  She found herself staring back toward Mortiche—which she’d long since left behind, even before boarding this most recent boat—like doing so could give her any real connection to the friends she’d left there.

  She tightened her grip on her knees. She couldn’t trust that they would be able to find her. Not since it seemed that Erich was taking her, not to Peldenar, as she had long ago surmised, but to Drepaine.

  Which was no better. Daniella couldn’t allow herself to be taken back to her father, or his people. She wouldn’t.

  Glass clinked and she looked up to see Erich watching her, a smug smile on his face. He held two short drinking glasses in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. “Geir said you mentioned that you could use a drink. The captain didn’t have a large selection in his cabin, but I was able to talk him into relinquishing this.”

  “Interesting,” Daniella said, looking back toward the mountains. “I wasn’t aware Geir could speak. Or maybe he’s under orders not to talk to the prisoner?”

  Erich sat next to her, close enough she could smell cardamom and leather. She used to love the combination. Now it made her feel ill.

  Of course, lots of things made her stomach upset lately, though she’d blamed it on all the ship traveling. So far, he seemed to believe her.

  That wouldn’t last forever.

  “Maybe he’s just intimidated by your beauty.” Erich set the glasses and wine bottle down on the deck with a heavy thunk.

  She gave him a look, and he chuckled. “Okay, I know you were never one for flattery. I see that hasn’t changed.”

  “I’m not one for being taken hostage, either, in case I never made that clear.”

  Until now he’d ignored her pointed comments about being his captive, but this time his mouth tightened. “I know you don’t see it, but I did this to keep you safe.”

  “Keep me safe? From my friends?”

  Erich’s eyes narrowed. “Friends? You mean the Drim who wanted you dead?” He paused, his voice deliberately casual. “Or the knight who used and betrayed you?”

  Daniella tensed. Erich rarely mentioned Jaeme, and Daniella of course never did, though she thought of little else. She had been a mission to him, a tool to be bartered. Jaeme had lied to her deliberately and repeatedly, despite many opportunities to own up to the truth. But even knowing that didn’t mean she didn’t miss him, that she wasn’t terribly worried about him. Or that, foolish though it may be, she didn’t still love him with everything she had.

  “Funny you should judge him so harshly for using me.”

  His cheek twitched, the precursor to the fury that would follow. “I never used y—” He cut off, swallowing down the rest of that argument, seeming to remember that his men and the ship’s crew were all nearby on the small deck.

  “I’m keeping you safe,” he said again, firmly. “From anyone who would do you harm. One day you’ll thank me.”

  Clearly he didn’t consider her father’s plans to be harmful enough to not bring her back into his clutches. If he truly wanted to keep her away from her father, he would have kept her in Mortiche or even fled east toward the Wastes.

 

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