away in favor of granting every case to the crown. We spoke out. And gradually we decided that speaking was not enough. Jeremy was the true leader of it all, but mine was the name that gave it power. He meant to start a rebellion, and he meant to crown me king. Octarion tried to have me killed.” Here he gave Ryan a strange look, something gentle and full of memories, before turning his attention back to his hands. “And I set off with Jeremy to fire up the country. The peasants were on fire for change, but the nobles were leery. They didn’t like the thought of a king not from Goldfinch. There was talk of marrying me to Celia, Octarion’s oldest girl, but I disliked the thought of killing a man and forcing his daughter to wed me. It seemed far too cruel…and then Jeremy heard the rumors that Darren was alive somewhere. So we hunted the rumors down. And they were true. And they saved our rebellion…” David shrugged. “And now I shall not be king.”
“But you still chose to look for him—despite what you would be losing. You helped Jeremy track him down,” Taya said.
“I had to do what was best for Sephria,” he explained simply. “What are one man’s dreams against the desire of a nation?”
They would have liked to stay and rest their wounded soldiers, but they feared that more troops would be sent, so they began their march again late the next morning. Those wounded the worst were sent back the way they had come. It had to be without guards to help them, so everyone prayed that no one would think to watch for rebels retreating, and it was a solemn company that finally began its march through the dangerous mountain pass. Jeremy had made the effort to come and speak with her briefly, but he was harried trying to ensure that all of the wounded had appropriate litters and bearers, and Taya had quickly released him. She had fallen in with David and Ryan yet again, and they seemed glad to have her there.
The trip was different from the first in a way that Taya had not realized would be possible. She had expected spirits to be down after the funeral, people distracted by their loss, but she had forgotten that for them, this was the end of a long campaign. The loss of comrades was nothing new, but an end in sight was. There was much merrymaking and pleasantries on the road, and as soon as they breached the pass and joined the main road, they abandoned their need for stealth, which meant campfires and hot food and songs in the evening. David explained that traffic was common in this area, and no one would be able to tell their group of rebels apart from any sell-swords. It would only be once they approached the capital city and made to join the rest of the revolutionaries waiting there, that they would split into smaller groups again.
They traveled for a full fortnight, and by the fourteenth day even the least religious among them were giving prayers of thanks that they had nothing to write home about. Darren’s shoulder was healing well, to the point where he could move his arm with little pain, and the angry wound had quieted to a sore pink area and a fierce white scar. She spent many hours with him, helping their friendship recover from the shocks it had taken, but more and more she found herself at Jeremy’s side. At first it was only because he was helping her with her swordsmanship, which improved mightily, but they also spoke at great length of philosophy, literature, their lives and dreams, and soon she was by his side more often than Darren’s. She asked him, finally, how he had come to be part of this.
“David’s told me a little about the two of you growing up together, but he never said what fired you for rebellion. He always seemed to say you were the one pushing him forward.”
“Sometimes I wonder if that isn’t just the sort of person I am—that I would always have been the sort to push, to rankle at injustice.”
“It would not surprise me. I think if you lived in Miranov, you would be a member of one of those radical sects that wants to separate church from state.”
He chuckled, but didn’t disagree. “It is personal for me, though. My father is a baron—he