I felt myself being dragged beneath the water as I searched for something to reach for. But all I could see were the flowers, too delicate and insubstantial to keep me from going under. I kicked as hard as I could with my other leg, but it was too late. I came up once, gasping for air. Already the water choked me, filling my lungs. And already blood replaced water in the river around me.
My sister’s screams must have alerted the others, the guards who’d been standing watch on the hill above us, making sure the queen’s daughters weren’t disturbed. I saw them advancing even as I was pulled down once more, until water was all that surrounded me, and pain sliced through my leg.
I didn’t remember the jaws releasing me, didn’t remember being dragged to the shore, but I remembered hearing my sister’s voice: “Please, take me. Take me instead. . . .” The words were repeated, whispered against my ear, over and over again as she rocked me, clutching me tightly. “Take me instead. . . .”
She hadn’t understood at the time, but her whispered plea had changed everything.
This time I awoke not startled but spent.
A deep-down kind of fatigue kept me from stirring right away. Kept my gaze unfocused and my breathing shallow.
I hated that I couldn’t find peace from Sabara when I closed my eyes.
I reached for my neck, rubbing the cramp in it, surprised that I’d managed to sleep at all. I wondered when I’d finally yielded, when I’d finally leaned my back against the scraggly dead log and let my eyes drift closed.
And then a thought ripped through me like a shot, scalding every crevice, electrifying every fissure and nook of my awareness.
He’s here.
Inconspicuously, I searched for him. I didn’t want to be caught if he saw me there, awake. I watched as soldiers and Scablanders worked together to break down camp: rolling blankets and picking horse’s hooves and tightening saddle straps. The smell of wood and burnt meat filled the crisp air and I pulled the scratchy blanket up to my lips, breathing into it to warm my lips.
Nowhere did I see Niko.
Zafir spotted me then and took two giant strides in my direction before he halted, his gaze focused on someone over my shoulder.
I turned and found him there—Niko, his golden eyes staring back at me. He held a mug out to me, steam drifting upward.
“Sleep well, Your Majesty?”
I accepted the ceramic mug and wrapped my cold fingers around its rough surface. “Charlie,” I answered.
He smiled crookedly as he squatted beside me. My stomach dipped, a reaction I immediately regretted. These weren’t my feelings to feel.
“Charlie, then. Sleep well, Charlie?”
I avoided his gaze by sniffing the coffee in my hands. It wasn’t a smell I normally cared for, but this morning my nose tingled from the sharp scent. “I didn’t sleep much, but I’m ready to get going.” My gaze drifted to his shoulder. “Are you . . . better today?”
“Glad the arrow’s gone.” He rolled his shoulder, as if proving his point, and I grimaced. “Grateful to your man for fixing me up.”
I hated the way my insides quivered whenever he was near, and the way my outsides felt wound too tightly, like I might snap from all the tension. I hated it more that I wanted to touch him.
That a part of me could imagine what it felt like to have his hands on my hips. His lips on mine.
Searching for an excuse to get away from him, I lurched to my feet. “I—I . . . have to—”
Then I froze. From somewhere deep within, Sabara’s panic unfurled. The same type of panic she’d known as a little girl on the river’s edge: gut-wrenching fear.
He rose too, studying me, his eyes finding me as I battled with myself—with her.
No, she begged me. Stay. And I was suddenly filled with a sensation so close to tenderness it was hard to imagine it was Sabara’s at all.
I can’t, I argued back. But I did as she asked, unable to leave.
I glanced back up at him, avoiding his honey-colored eyes. “Did—did you come through the Capitol on your way through Ludania? Did you stop at the palace?” I didn’t ask the questions I really wanted to: How was Max? Does he long for me the way I do for him?
He shook his head. “We stayed on the train line most of the way. It wasn’t until we heard tell of the slaughtered soldiers at one of our stops that we realized there might be trouble. That we realized . . .” His voice trailed off, and he studied me even more closely—too closely—then. His attention was my undoing, and a tremor coursed through my body while Sabara tugged at me, willing me to move closer. “They didn’t hurt you?” he asked, his voice husky and low.
This time I shook my head, slowly. Timidly.
His eyes narrowed, but he nodded and leaned away from me, allowing me to breathe once more.
Allowing me to find my voice again. “Where is the rest of your party? Shouldn’t Queen Vespaire be joining you for the summit?”
“That’s why we’re here. She can’t make it. I’m to deliver the message personally to Queen Neva, sending my queen’s regrets.” Zafir joined us then, and Niko took a step back, smiling wryly. “Mostly,” he said, looking at me, “she’s sorry she won’t get the chance to meet you.”
He nodded at Zafir and left us.
And Sabara, who had been quiet for more than a day before his arrival, raged, her shrieks echoing hollowly inside my head.
PART III
brooklynn
The air on the docks was filled with the smell of fish and body odor and wet dog and dirty snow, none of which Brook cared for. She also didn’t care for the crowds awaiting the incoming ferry or not feeling in control. Mostly, though, she hated being unarmed.