The prince gave her a reassuring smile. “Then it is fortunate we travel together now. By the time we reach Koth, surely we will find a solution.”
Aerax had already found a solution—and that was sinking the whole cursed place, which would be easily done. The difficulty was not killing anyone who lived there while doing it. For then he would become not merely a villain, but a monster.
But so would Aerax be, by not doing anything. And Aerax had no wish to kill his uncle. Had no wish to take the king’s place.
Yet more and more, that seemed the only option left.
CHAPTER 16
LIZZAN
You do not look well,” Ardyl said.
Lizzan laughed, slitting open an eye as the Parsathean settled down beside her. They had caught up to the caravan just as that group was beginning their midday meal. Despite an invitation to join them, Kelir and Ardyl had decided only to stop long enough to rest the horses.
After seeing to her gelding, Lizzan hadn’t wasted time finding shade beneath a tree and taking her own rest, for she felt as well as she apparently looked. Throbbing pain had settled between her temples not long after they’d left Oana. She knew what was coming next. Trembling hands. A churning stomach. A racing heart even when nothing threatened her, and feeling as if she couldn’t catch her breath even when she was sitting still. She had experienced it all before when she’d gone for too long without a drink.
She’d hoped the baths would have cured her of it, as they had cured the pain that followed a deep drunk. Yet that seemed not the case, and the next few days would not be the finest ones she’d ever known.
But she had no wish to confess that she had a drunkard’s illness. So she told Ardyl, “I am only tired.”
“As I am. I’ve not had much sleep of late.”
She certainly hadn’t last eve. Without opening her eyes, Lizzan snorted, and Ardyl gave a short laugh.
“The Krimathean was worth the lost sleep.” A heavy sigh followed. “But every other night . . . never have I been anywhere so loud as this jungle. And I thought I would become accustomed to the noise, but I have not.”
Nor did many who traveled this road. “There is a vine that will help you sleep.”
“A vine?”
Nodding, Lizzan glanced over and found Ardyl lying on her back, with one arm pillowed behind her head and chewing a strip of dried meat. “It is called the corpse vine, but it is safe as long as you are not tangled in it.”
“You have used it?”
“Many times.”
“Is it so potent that we cannot be roused? We have sleeping draughts but only use them when we take the half-moon milk.”
So the female warriors could sleep through the stomach cramps that came while shedding their menstrual blood in one night. But on the road, sleeping so soundly was rarely safe. “It can be weak, so that it merely helps you fall asleep, or so strong that nothing will wake you until dawn. I can show you how to find it when we stop for camp.”
“There will be many of us grateful for it.”
If all the Parsatheans were tired, they did not look it. Whereas the Kothans seemed to be wilting in the heat—except for Aerax, who never appeared anything but comfortable in his skin. Even in the prince’s armor he wore now, he seemed at complete ease while watching Degg mince toward a lounging Caeb with the sloth-stuffed bladder in his hands.
As if Degg meant to make friends. She didn’t think Aerax was making the same effort in return—though he had today with Kelir, by riding alongside the warrior and not always letting his grunts and scowls serve as answers.
Just as Lizzan had asked him to. And though she’d called herself foolish, the sweet warmth of Aerax’s effort was the only thing to make the pain in her head bearable this day.
But Degg. Lizzan couldn’t fathom what the councilor was up to. Though perhaps it was an attempt to persuade the southern alliance that Koth’s bastard prince and councilors were not fully at odds, as they tried to repair the damage they believed Lizzan had done.
Though she didn’t think any part of this morning’s ride had persuaded them that Aerax was not at odds with much of Koth.
She looked to Ardyl, who was using one of the claws around her neck to pick at her teeth, as