Killian knew her personally by virtue of them both being marked but also because his brother Seldrid was married to the Sultan’s niece. Kaira could and would influence her father, but the fact remained that Gamdesh was on a totally different continent and any aid they sent might not arrive in time. Mudaire needed to find a way to fend for itself. To feed itself.
Frowning, Killian bent over the desk and scribbled a few paragraphs describing the woe, the need to evacuate, the lack of vessels to do so. Not a direct request, but Kaira would understand.
“It feels like the walls are tightening in on us,” Malahi said, shivering. “Like Mudaire is a prison. And soon to be a tomb if something doesn’t change.”
A thought that had been niggling in the back of his head came to the fore—an idea he knew that Malahi wouldn’t agree to easily. If at all.
“Then let’s escape for a few hours,” he said. “Trust me?”
Malahi cocked one eyebrow, then shrugged. “With my life.”
Opening the door, he stepped out into the hallway. “Lena, come here for a minute.”
The young guardswoman followed him back in, raising an eyebrow when he shut the door. “I need your clothes.”
“Pardon?” Both Lena and Malahi said the word at the same time.
“You’re the closest in size, so”—he waved his hands back and forth between them—“switch. Malahi needs a disguise so we can sneak out and you will stay in here as our decoy.”
“Have you lost your mind, Killian?” Malahi was eyeing him suspiciously. “What exactly do you have planned?”
“A surprise. Now change clothes.”
Both girls retreated behind a screen. A few moments later Malahi emerged dressed in uniform, Lena following in a silk wrap. She swiftly braided Malahi’s hair, then perched on one of the chairs. “What do you want me to do?”
“Stay in here until we return.” He gestured at the side table, which had a basket of fresh fruit. “Eat. Lounge. Pretend to be a princess. Just don’t open the door. Malahi, put your hood up.”
* * *
The stables were quiet, few horses remaining given the expense of feeding them. Two of them were Killian’s: his black brute of a war-horse, Surly, and his dappled-grey mare, Seahawk.
Surly turned around to face the back of his stall at the sight of Killian, but Seahawk stuck her head over the door and whinnied loudly. “Hello, beautiful,” he said, kissing her on the nose. “Care to go for a ride?”
“Half my court would sell their souls to hear those words from you and you say them to a horse?”
“My horse has no expectations beyond being fed.”
“Unlike your conquests?”
His hand stilled on the animal’s neck. It bothered him more than it should that Malahi believed the rumors about him. Not that he’d done anything to dissuade her from her belief in them.
“Denying a rumor only gives credence to it,” his elder brother Hacken had told him years ago, back when Killian still asked for his advice on anything. “It’s likely only some love-sick milk maid or dowdy courtier making up stories to impress her friends. It will blow over.”
It hadn’t blown over, but Hacken had been right about denying it being fruitless. Not even Killian’s own father had believed that the rumors that his son spent his nights chasing skirts were anything less than the Six-sworn truth.
A groom appeared, sparing Killian from the conversation. “I’ll saddle her myself,” he said to the boy. “If you could ready Her Highness’s mare for Lena, please.”
It was a matter of minutes before both horses were ready and outside. “Remember, Lena is a terrible rider,” he said into Malahi’s ear before giving her a leg up into the saddle.
Malahi dutifully bounced like a sack of potatoes as they trotted through the city, but once they exited the west gate she pulled back her hood. “Race?”
“To Hammon’s Rock?” he asked, naming the landmark.
The Princess only dug in her heels.
Their horses’ hooves thundered against the road as they galloped west, neck and neck, though that wouldn’t last. Hers was the faster mount and Malahi was less than half his weight.
But Killian had been riding before he’d learned to walk.
So he cut left, taking a shortcut. Behind, Malahi laughed as she followed, both of them leaping rickety fences and crumbling walls as they plunged through the farmland, scaring up birds as they went. The land should’ve been lush, crops rising high in the summer heat and livestock dotting green pastures, but instead it was brown. Empty. Nearly barren of life.