Lacuna - N.R. Walker Page 0,23

. indeed, new.”

Crow closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He shook his head when he exhaled, opened his eyes, and hoped he had a better frame of mind. “I don’t know what this is. And I like it less than I understand it.” He fixed the bag at his shoulder. “Can we move on?”

“Yes,” Tancho agreed. “Our horses should be ready.”

Crow gave a nod. “Did you encounter many guards when you went to our quarters?” he asked Soko.

“No, none,” he replied.

Kohaku agreed with a nod but then cocked his head. “Not any, actually. And that’s not good, is it?”

Crow, Tancho, Samiel, and Elmwood all shared a look. “Probably not,” Crow said. “If there’s been one consistent thing in Aequi Kentron, it’s a yellow cloak at every turn.”

Kohaku and Karasu opened the door, and after giving the corridor the all-clear, everyone filed out. The halls were empty, the passing courtyard was empty, every room they went past. There was not a guard or elder to be found.

“Something is not right here,” Tancho whispered.

Crow agreed. The silence was . . . eerie.

They went past the grand hall; the doors were open and it was silent and bare. A ray of sunlight beamed through the stained-glass dome, casting a lonely spotlight on the marble floor.

“Why do I get the feeling this is a trap?” Elmwood murmured.

“They lured us here so our lands would be without their leader,” Crow said. He didn’t bother to keep his voice down. There was no one about to hear it. “To the horses.”

“West is this way,” Tancho said.

They followed the halls to the outside where they had each crossed the bridges from their homelands. The white flags flew above the railings on the westside as the black had flown at the north. The moat looked like it had before, and Crow searched the lands to the west as far as he could see, and he restrained himself from turning north, tempting as it was.

How far could he and Soko get from Tancho before the pain at his wrist consumed him? Would the pain kill him?

Or would leaving Tancho be his end? Would going with him see the same fate?

Crow had no idea. He was so conflicted.

“They took the horses this way,” Karasu said, leading the way along the stone path. She kept close to the wall, walking in a smooth crouch, her katana in her hand.

Crow made himself follow. Not that his birthmark gave him much choice, and even though walking away from the north felt wrong in every bone in his body, the idea of leaving Tancho felt the same. So he stayed close to the wall, one step behind Tancho, and followed.

Chapter Eight

As they crept along the sandstone wall in search of the stables, Tancho felt off-balance. Everything to do with the mark on his wrist, the lacuna—whatever that was—and his irresistible draw to Crow was at odds with Tancho’s ingrained need of self-control.

He’d mastered his discipline and restraint. He prided himself on it.

And now it was in ribbons at the feet of the Northlands’ king.

Yet his urgency to get home drove him forward. Everything was a distraction, and he needed to stay focused. For his people, for his kingdom.

What Crow had suggested, that their invitation had been a ruse, felt truer with every step.

But just who exactly was deceiving them? Had it been a plan twenty-five years in the making? Or did the opportunity present itself with the coming Golden Eclipse?

Tancho was determined to uncover the truth.

Elmwood sniffed the air. “I can smell horses.”

Karasu stopped walking, holding her fist up to warn everyone to freeze. She craned her neck. “I can hear them. This way.”

She jogged ahead and turned at a breezeway, rounded another corner, and stopped at two huge wooden doors, wide open, revealing stable stalls down both sides of a long centre walkway. The smell of horse sweat, hay, and shit hung damp in the air. Horses brayed and kicked at their walls, unsettled and agitated.

Tancho knew the feeling well.

“Spooked horses is never a good sign,” Crow said, walking down between the stalls. He barely got ten paces before he turned back to Tancho, irritated he hadn’t followed him. Ten paces wasn’t enough distance between them to hurt, but it was enough to twinge. Reluctantly, Tancho obliged.

Crow found his horse, giving it a rub on the nose, and murmured soothing words to calm it, but then he told Soko to swap their horses with the two riders who would be going north. Soko