of water and gave him a sip as a distraction. “What’s done is done. Let’s discuss what comes next.”
“Aye. Yeah. We got a safe house, in Sephria, just a little ways from the border. I been there, folk that keep it are a good sort. Jer says you can stay there for a while, just till things get settled. We go straight from there to the Capital for the last strike. You shouldn’t have to wait more’n a month or so, and it’ll be safe to come back.”
“You want to leave me alone in some safe house in Sephria? Darren, it isn’t even my country!”
“Well, and so? Ya can’t stay here.”
“I don’t want to stay here. I want to stay with you! You’re the reason that I’m involved in all of this.”
Darren gave her a pained look, and instantly she regretted the cheap shot.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I only meant that I care how things turn out for you, and I want to be of help. What will I do alone in the woods?”
“You’ll stay alive, that’s what,” he said sharply.
“And what if I say no?” she demanded.
“Taya. Don’t be like that,” he said impatiently, and she glared, real anger replacing her petulance of moments before.
“Like what?” she asked, steel in her voice. Darren seemed to recognize the mistake he had made, because he sighed and leaned his head back against the pillow.
“Please, Tay. I need ya to be safe. Ya won’t be safe here, and ya sure as Weeping Woman won’t be safe with me. Alahai’s balls! There I go cursin’ again. I’m tryin’ to change it…Jer says it ain’t right for a king to be swearin’ so much. There’s so many things a king’s supposed to do…I ain’t real good at it, Tay. I ain’t much good at any of it.”
“You’ll be a fantastic king,” she said gently, but in her heart she wondered if it was true. He was a good man, and he would do good by his people, it was true, but being a king was about more than that. It was about appeasing people, and smoothing rough feathers. About diplomacy, and ceremony. How would he survive in a world like that?
“D’you know…Labaci has no ocean?” he whispered. “S’landlocked. Got an inner city where the noble folks live, an’ an outer city for the common folks, an’ there’s a big river runs along the outer wall…But the wall’s so tall, ya can’t see the water…”
She didn’t know what to tell him, so she tried an empty lie, but they could both hear it in her voice. “You’ll get used to it.”
“Ashua won’t be able to find me there.”
“Ashua will find you anywhere,” Taya said, gripping his hand tightly in hers. “It may be Yariel who is worshipped in Sephria, but it is his mother who watches over Midvalen. She will not turn her face from you, no matter how far from Her waves you travel.”
“How can you be so sure?” he pleaded, tears in his eyes.
“Because. You taught me so.”
Chapter Eight
THEY WERE TO LEAVE as soon as night fell, which meant that once again Taya would be forced to spend the evening somewhere other than between two sheets on a comfortable mattress. In fact, it would be some time before she slept in a bed again, but by the evening meal Taya would have given her left leg for even a blanket and the main hall’s cold floor. It was her pride that kept her from sleeping. She could have begged exhaustion, and she was sure someone would have found her a cot, or at least a bedroll and a quiet corner. But she couldn’t afford to seem weak in front of these seasoned veterans. There might come a time when their good opinion of her could mean the difference between remaining a part of this adventure and being left behind.
When she had left Darren and returned to the common room she found that the meeting seemed to be have broken up. Jeremy was nowhere to be seen, but David and Ryan where at one of the benches in the back. They invited her to join them, and taught her a complicated game of dice they were playing with a few others. She had wondered at first at the large number of Sephrians to be found in Novosk, but David explained to her that they were exiles, gathered from all the corners of Miranov. The new laws in Sephria had barred many innocent