Crown of One Hundred Kings (Nine Kingdoms Trilogy #1) - Rachel Higginson Page 0,13
spoke again, unable to let the peaceful silence remain. “At least the rebels won’t eat our hearts."
“No, they’ll just use our appendages as kindling so they don’t have to cut down their holy trees to make fires.”
Oliver’s sharp intake of breath was the last sound I heard from him for hours.
“We should stop for the night,” I told him when the dim light of day had faded into the haze of early evening. “Now, before it gets any darker.”
“Do you mean for us to sleep in the open?” As hard as he tried to keep his voice even, I heard the tremor. Sleeping in the open had not bothered us in Heprin. But now that we’d crossed the border into Tenovia it was impossible not to fear the unknown.
“I see lights up ahead.” I pointed toward a bend in the road. “They’re bright enough to be a tavern. Let’s hope they don’t charge too much.”
I dropped my hands and let my fingers curl around the strap of my satchel. I couldn’t decide if it was more dangerous to face people or to try to avoid them. But Oliver’s fear had been well placed. We couldn’t sleep out in the open in these woods. Not if we wanted to wake up with all our appendages attached.
We walked in silence to the door of the inn, slipping inside and finding a small table in the back of the room. I wanted more than anything to grab Oliver’s hand and hold on, but I couldn’t let strangers see these nerves. I had to do whatever it took to protect the crown I carried.
It was odd to be surrounded by people after spending so much of the last fortnight in isolation. The hearth fire warmed my chilled skin. I kept my satchel in place across my torso, where it had become an extension of my body.
I glanced wearily from face to face as I looked about the room. It felt as if every eye turned and recognized me. I resisted the urge to smooth my hair. None of the faces were familiar and I wasn’t entirely sure why I would have expected to meet someone I knew. But my senses were buzzing with paranoia.
I couldn’t help but feel as though there were watchful eyes on me. That they somehow saw me. Saw what I carried. That they were, even now, planning the best way to kill me.
My family had been betrayed and murdered by people we could not yet name. They had escaped without punishment. They roamed the realm free to live as they pleased.
I shook my head. It had been eight years. I’d been a child. Now I was a woman, grown and different.
Nobody would recognize me. It wasn’t possible.
“What do we do?” Oliver whispered a bit frantically.
I looked into his wide brown eyes and shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure. I’ve never been to a tavern before.”
He leaned forward, his fingers gripping the edges of the small table. “Me either!”
“What? How is that possible?”
Exasperation colored his cheeks. “I’ve lived at the monastery since I was a baby. When would I have had the opportunity to visit such a place as this?”
I leaned in and dropped my voice to a murmur. “I grew up in a palace! Why would you think I have experience that you don’t?”
He growled at me, his features transforming from freckled monk to feral ferret. “So what are we going to do?”
“You’re going to have to ask for a room,” I told him.
“Me?”
“Well it can’t be me! I’m a woman.”
His sigh would have made Father Garius proud. “If I die up there,” he gestured toward a long counter where a burly man with small eyes and no neck stood pouring tankards of ale, “Tell my mother I went valiantly, on a quest to save a princess.”
I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling. “I swear on my life, I wouldn’t let her believe anything else.”
He continued to grumble as he made his way through the room, trying to avoid touching anything human in his path.
The patrons of this tavern were boisterous and well into their ale. I watched as a man half the size of one of the trees outside swung his tankard wide, sloshing amber liquid all over poor Oliver.
I was just about to wave him on when another gigantic man stepped in the way, blocking Oliver from view.
Spittle collected in the corners of his mouth when he grunted, “Girl.”