White Horse Black Nights (The Godkissed Bride, #1)(17)

For centuries, that’s been it. Ancient history. No one has seen or heard anything from the Kingdom of Volkany besides a few tidbits that sailors traveling from our coast to theirs gleaned. Apparently, a new king named Rachillon managed to reunify the fractured regions and now rules under one Volkish crown, but little is known about him.

Everything else is just rumors:

Rachillon is mad with power.

A deadly monoceros woke from its thousand-year slumber and slaughtered a village.

A woodcutter found Immortal Vale’s resting place in the Volkish side of the Blackened Forest.

To the innkeeper, I say with an edge in my voice, “The shepherd must be mistaken.”

The old woman presses a hand to her throat. “Perhaps, sir. But also—also, the boy was godkissed.”

A stitch pulls in my side. The great war was fought in part because Volkany tried to bring all godkissed into their borders. But that was five hundred years ago. “What was his power?”

“He could rot tree roots. It was useful for falling trees. He could clear an entire forest in a day if he wanted to. His father planned to take him to a logging camp in Mag Na Tir, where his services would be highly compensated. He isn’t the first godkissed to go missing around here, either. There was a godkissed soldier stationed in Marblenz who vanished two weeks ago. He could scry.”

I let this information find fallow ground in my mind. It could be more baseless gossip, but if it’s true, what would Volkany want with a godkissed boy who can fall trees and a scrying soldier? And how the fuck did their soldiers get over the wall?

“I’m just saying, take care on the road, sir.” The innkeeper entreats me as her eyes slide behind me to where Sabine is holding court with the chicken and cat. “That’s her, isn’t it? The noblewoman everyone’s been talking about, who was sold to one of the Valvere sons?” She pauses before saying meaningfully, “She’s godkissed, too, isn’t she?”

I tighten my jaw. I don’t like what the innkeeper is implying about Sabine being a target for raiders. “Thank you for your warning. We’ll be fine.”

Mulling over our options, I pull Sabine to her feet by her upper arm, interrupting whatever silent conversation she was having with livestock. This news has me on edge. We’re headed north, in the same direction as these supposed Volkish riders.

“Wolf?” She skitters as I drag her backward toward the door. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Something happened.”

“Nope.”

I shoulder open the door, thrusting us into bright sunlight. My eyes case the road in both directions. I can see about three times farther than the average person and in much greater detail. There’s no sign of any other travelers.

I pitch my head up to judge the position of the sun. “I’ve decided that we’ll bypass Middleford and take the road west through Mag Na Tir Forest instead.”

She frowns. “Lord Rian ordered us to pass through Middleford.”

By the gods, does she want to be kidnapped by Volkish raiders? I remind myself that she knows nothing about them or the missing godkissed people, and I intend for it to stay that way.

“You’d prefer to pass through cities? More jeering men? More women spiteful that you’ve stolen their husbands’ attention?”

Sabine holds both hands up. “You know what? You’re right. The forest road sounds lovely.”

The rest of the afternoon, we get no more trouble other than some farmhands who sprint to the edge of a wheat field to watch us pass, and a crow who perches on Sabine’s shoulder and refuses to leave until I throw a rock at it.

That earns me one of her scowls.

As the afternoon drags on, my thoughts cycle back to the innkeeper’s warning about the missing godkissed. It isn’t unusual for godkissed to go missing more often than regular people. By our nature, we’re coveted. Men want godkissed wives as a sign of status, and they aren’t above stealing them.

But a young boy? The Marblenz soldier? And what about the godkissed girl the bear supposedly dragged off in the northern border villages? Something still feels particularly off about that last one.

The mental map of Astagnon’s northern border forms in my head. I’m intimately familiar with the border’s contours, since it cuts through the Blackened Forest, where I do much of my hunting. The wall, built thirty feet high, divides not only the forest but also the two kingdoms. There have never been stairs or openings in the wall. I’ve only seen it once with my own eyes, and even then, it was from a distance. To reach the border means traversing through a nearly impenetrable section of the Blackened Forest.

Suddenly, my feet go still.

If my mental map is correct, the area where I tracked that odd bear was less than a mile from the border wall. It’s been five hundred years, for fuck’s sake. What if the wall’s protective wards broke?

A dark certainty fills me, though I know nothing for sure. If raiders did come from Volkany, they would have had to tear down part of the supposedly-impenetrable wall. A bear—a goldenclaw, who hasn’t been seen in our lands for nearly a thousand years, but might have awoken north of the border—could have entered after they opened it.

Rian dismissed my previous warning about the goldenclaw, but with this new information, he’ll have no choice but to take the possibility more seriously. It’s strange to think the Valveres, with their network of spies, haven’t heard of any strange border activity.