enough to ensure her safety and convince her to join him again. That gave her leverage. He wanted something from her. That would make it easier to get what she wanted from him.
“Nettle,” she said, when the singer reemerged with a selection of plants in her hand. “I’ve decided. I want to go to Vanhelm.”
THREE
THEY TRAVELED MOSTLY BY NIGHT, AVOIDING THE roads. Aurora’s feet still throbbed, but Nettle’s bandages kept the blisters at bay. She borrowed some of Nettle’s traveling clothes, shortening them so that she could walk. They talked little, but sometimes Nettle sang under her breath, snatches of melodies that Aurora did not recognize.
Nettle left every couple of days to visit a town and buy supplies, leaving Aurora hidden in a cave or a tree. She would return with fresh food and a carefully neutral expression.
“What’s the news?” Aurora would say. “What’s happened?”
The stories were never good. Guards tearing towns apart looking for her. Merchants hassled on the roads, their stock tossed into the dirt. Rumors of continuing chaos in the capital, of rebels fighting, homes destroyed, executions in the street. And news of one village, then three, then six, that had been burned by the princess in her hatred for the kingdom.
Nettle reported it all in a steady voice, not pausing from preparing dinner or tidying her pack to give the news. Just neutral, just facts, as though the whole kingdom were not in ruins because of Aurora’s actions.
“I finally received Finnegan’s note,” Nettle said, after she returned from one such trip. “He has agreed to send us a boat. I am glad we heard from him—we are only nearing the rendezvous point I suggested, and it would not be safe to linger there or find a boat ourselves.”
“Do you think the king’s men are following us?”
Nettle shook her head. “Their searches have become haphazard. They do not know where you are. But we do not want that to change.”
It took them several more days to reach the coast, but one dawn they climbed over the peak of a hill, and the ocean was there. It rolled ahead of them, the water a churning, fitful gray. A ship bobbed a hundred feet offshore, surprisingly steady in the turmoil.
Aurora paused at the top of the hill to stare at it. The ocean. It was wilder than she had pictured, almost angry, as though challenging onlookers to try and cross. A chilled wind blew in from the water, and Aurora wrapped her cloak over her chest. The air tasted of salt.
It was the end of the kingdom. The end of the world, at least as Aurora had known it. Aurora took a deep breath, savoring the sharpness of the air. And then she set off down the hill, Nettle close behind.
A gruff-looking man waited beside a rowboat on the shore. He nodded at Aurora and Nettle as they approached. Nettle murmured a few words to him, and he nodded again and gestured at the boat without a word. Aurora glanced at the churning water, and then back over her shoulder at the forest.
If she got into the boat, she could not turn back. She would not be able to escape, not even if the sailors betrayed her. But she had to trust them. Finnegan had resources, knowledge about things she could only guess at. He was the best potential ally she had.
She stepped into the boat. It rocked, and she stumbled onto the bench. Nettle stepped in beside her, making the boat lurch again. Once they were both settled, the man began to row.
Aurora stared as the shore grew smaller and smaller, the trees blending into a mass of brown and green.
She let out a breath. She had wanted to travel for as long as she could remember, to see everything. And now the sea rocked beneath her, and the earth was falling away, and it hurt to see it go. She had not wanted to leave like this.
But she would be back. She had to come back.
The boat sailed away, and by the time the sun set, Aurora could no longer make out the Alyssinian shore. She stood on deck, leaning on the side of the ship, watching where the coast had been. Her kingdom had slipped into the mist, and another approached. Vanhelm. Finnegan’s domain.
She needed to know precisely what she wanted before she arrived. She needed to stride up to his castle with her demands laid out, her offer perfectly articulated. Otherwise the sharp-tongued prince would