Shadow Queen - By Deborah Kalin Page 0,72

me down.’

A retort rose to Sepp’s lips but then he dropped his gaze, acknowledging my point. Roshi took longer, staring at me with thinned lips.

‘How does heading southwest keep you safe?’

It was Sepp who answered. ‘Even Dieter can’t reach her in the depths of an army.’

‘The Iltheans will kill her before he can,’ said Roshi.

‘Not if I tell them who I am,’ I said.

Sepp’s head snapped up. Roshi was slower to understand. ‘The southern snakes invade and conquer,’ she said. ‘They’ll put this Sidonius on the throne, not restore you.’

‘As Dieter’s wife, I’m a bargaining chip. They can offer to ransom me back, and win without bloodshed.’

Suspicion hardened Roshi’s face. ‘You’d march us to our deaths to get back to him.’

I fought to slow my breathing. If there was one thing living with Dieter had taught me, it was how to bury a lie among the truth so it went unchallenged. ‘None of us will die. The ransom is the bait I’ll give the Iltheans, that’s all.’

‘If they agree and march you back to him, Dieter will kill us for helping you escape,’ she pointed out. ‘If they don’t, the Iltheans will kill us on the spot. Doesn’t sound like a great idea to me.’

She was a heartbeat away from a flat refusal, I could see it forming on her lips. So I sat down. ‘I walk southwest, or I don’t walk at all.’

Roshi crossed her arms, her mouth set and eyes narrowed. ‘We can carry you.’

‘For how long?’ I countered.

She hitched her shoulders in a shrug.

Sepp didn’t have her talent for a straight face. He stood, chewing his lower lip, watching Roshi for her decision.

‘Don’t you understand?’ I said. ‘If I can sway the Iltheans, it might not come to fighting, and lives lost – the lives of those in the Turholm. They’re my friends, Roshi, my only family now. I don’t want to see them slaughtered. And the Iltheans are treacherous – they won’t honour the ransom.’ A truth if ever I’d spoken one. I’d have to watch for their deceit. ‘It’s our best chance to walk out of all this alive,’ I finished.

Roshi shifted her weight from one foot to the other and looked at Sepp, who shook his head and, casting an apologetic glance at me, said, ‘It’s a bad idea. Sidonius is Dieter’s brother –’

‘Dieter said he doesn’t have a brother,’ I interrupted.

‘Forgive me if I don’t believe every word that comes out of Dieter’s mouth,’ Sepp snapped, then, turning back to Roshi, he went on, ‘Brother or not, Sidonius has a reputation for brutality which wasn’t earned lightly. He can’t be trusted. He claimed an alliance with Dieter already, and if he spoke true then seeking his aid is no different to turning around and walking straight back to the Turholm. And if he spoke false …’ He trailed off with a shudder, his gaze dark with memory.

‘We can’t take the risk,’ Roshi decided, cutting me off before I could protest. ‘I’ll think about your idea, but no more. In the meantime, we continue on towards the Ayrholm.’

I didn’t fight any further, not yet. The idea was planted, and time would see it bear fruit. Besides which, the shattered mountains known as the Dragonstail stood directly between us and the Ayrholm – and west was the quickest way around.

Getting to my feet was an awkward procedure, and neither of them helped. I had to lean forward until I rested on my hands and knees, then lever my feet under me and wobble upright. I held my wrists out, but refused to actually voice the request.

‘Not until you’ve proved you can behave,’ Roshi said, starting off again. ‘You’d better convince me before we reach the Falkere lands, otherwise you’ll meet the Falkere lordling bound and gagged.’

TWENTY-NINE

WITH MY OBJECT in sight I was a model prisoner, meek and uncomplaining. After two days Roshi relented and unbound my hands. We dallied by a streamlet that morning, scrubbing the odours of travel and hardship from our clothes.

Conscious of the inevitable pursuit, Roshi had us moving again within an hour. I nudged and drifted west every chance I found. Roshi was too sharp-eyed a navigator to let us drift too much off her course, however, and by the third night I had achieved little.

That night, the dream took me.

After a dinner of pork jerky and water warm and musty from too long in a bladder, I slumped by the fire, staring into its depths, wondering how I’d ever get