The Beauty of Darkness - Mary E. Pearson Page 0,85

out for a spring ride.

“Oh, for the love of gods! Tell her she has to go back! Make her listen.”

He smiled. “The way you listen?”

I looked back at Natiya, a bitter gall climbing up my throat. She met my stare, unblinking, her decision shining in her eyes. Moisture sprang to my face and I was afraid I might lose my morning meal. She was so young. Almost as young as Aster and far more naïve. What if—

I wiped the sweat from my upper lip.

“Come along!” I snapped. “And keep up! We aren’t going to coddle you!”

Journey’s end. The promise. The hope.

Is this the place of staying Ama?

A vale. A meadow. A home.

A scrabble of ruins we can piece together.

A place far from the scavengers.

The child looks at me, her eyes full of hope. Waiting.

For now, I tell her.

The children scatter. There is laughter. Chatter.

There is hope.

But there is still no promise.

Some things will never be as Before.

Some things you cannot bring back.

Some things are gone forever.

And other things last just as long.

Like the scavengers.

One day, they will come for us again.

—The Last Testaments of Gaudrel

CHAPTER FORTY

RAFE

The sun.

Had I mentioned the sun?

Maneuver your opponent so the sun is in his eyes, not yours.

Dodge and undercut. I hadn’t gone over that. But it wasn’t as if she didn’t already have good sword fighting skills. Maybe I should have given her a lighter sword.

There were so many things I could have said—and not just about swords.

I knew I was second-guessing myself. I had been for most of the journey.

“Your Majesty, we’re almost there. I’ve been talking for twenty minutes, and you haven’t heard a word I said.”

“I heard you say it yesterday, Sven. And the day before. Kings do this, they don’t say that. They listen, they weigh, they act. They take, but they give. They push but aren’t pushed. Does that sum it up? You’re acting as if I didn’t grow up in court.”

“You didn’t,” he reminded me.

I frowned. For the most part, he was right. Yes, I’d had weekly meals with my parents, and I was included as a matter of protocol in most official functions, but for the many years I was under Sven’s tutelage, I had lived with cadets, pledges, and most recently, with other soldiers. Dalbreck’s kings were soldiers first, and I had been raised no differently from how my own father had been raised, but in the last year, he had been pulling me closer into the fold. He had me sit in on high-level meetings and counseled me on them afterward. I wondered if he had seen his reign coming to an end.

“We’re still a good ten miles out,” I said. “I’m ready, I promise you.”

“Maybe,” he begrudged me. “But your mind is elsewhere.”

My hands tightened on my reins. I knew he wouldn’t let this go.

“You did what you had to do,” he went on. “Letting her go was an act of courage.”

Or stupidity.

“She’s on her way to a kingdom riddled with traitors who want her dead,” I finally blurted out.

“Then why did you let her go?”

I didn’t answer. He knew. He’d already said it. Because I had no choice. And that was the biting irony. If I had forced her back to Dalbreck, I’d have lost Lia just the same. But as long as Sven had opened the door to what occupied my mind, I ventured further, asking a question that had circled in my head like a mad crow pecking at my flesh.

“I know the Assassin loves her.” I swallowed, then added more quietly, “Do you think she loves him?”

Sven coughed and shifted in his saddle. He grimaced. “That’s not my area of expertise. I can’t advise you on—”

“I am not asking for advice, Sven! Just your opinion! You seem to have one on everything else!”

If he had knocked me off my saddle it would have been within his rights. And it wouldn’t have been the first time. Instead, he cleared his throat. “Very well. From what I observed at the Sanctum, and the way she interceded on his behalf when we captured him, I would say … yes, she does care for him. But love? Of that, I’m not so sure. The way she looked at you was—”

A trumpet sounded. “Troops!” the flag bearer called.

We were too far out to be greeted by a squad yet, but when Sven and I pushed our horses forward for a better view, there it was. Not just a squad but what looked like a whole Dalbretch