“Are you worried what they will do when they find out we have a key caster?” Abarrane asks, more somberly.
“I am worried about many things, Mordain and otherwise.” I sigh. “Gesine is adamant this Master Scribe is prudent. But if it should reach the broader guild, we must assume it will travel to Neilina’s ears shortly after.” And then she will know her daughter the princess is dead. What will that mean to her? “In any case, it is only a matter of time before the world knows there is a key caster again. This secret was never going to remain ours forever.” But I’d hoped long enough to allow me a chance to regain my crown and right all that’s wrong in my realm.
Abarrane scowls. “We have Neilina to worry about, and Atticus to worry about, and now this poison. We do not need an army of witches after us too.”
All the more reason for me to leave the safety of Ulysede behind. But for the first time in my life, I’m paralyzed by indecision. Every choice I could make, every direction I could take, feels like the wrong one.
“I am ready when you are, Your Highness.” Abarrane draws her sword as we approach the second gate where three legionaries stand guard, and it prompts Elisaf and I to draw ours. “Any movement tonight, Loth?”
“Nothing yet, Commander.” Loth stands sentry next to the lever, an arrow nocked in his bow, ready to fire. “We sensed something earlier, but it vanished.”
“The same as the previous night.” Horik’s hulking frame is strapped with a dozen weapons. I let his size fool me once in Cirilea’s sparring court and assumed he would not be able to compete. I ended up pinned to the dirt beneath his blade and listened to Abarrane’s mocking laughter for months after. He is one of the fastest of the legionaries. Couple that with his strength, and he is a force to be reckoned with.
Something tells me we will need that before long.
Abarrane’s sharp gaze roves the dusk beyond the wagon, narrowing.
There is nothing from what I can see but the arid, craggy ground, speckled by boulders. A thousand shadows but no hint of threats hiding within them. “One of Telor’s scouts, perhaps?” The sun has barely dropped past the horizon. It’s still too early for the saplings, unless they’ve found adequate cover in a nearby hole, which is unlikely.
“Or one of Ybaris’s,” Elisaf offers.
“Be prepared for all of them. Loth? If you will.”
He pulls the lever, setting invisible mechanisms within the wall in motion. The heavy iron portcullis draws upward smoothly.
I test the flames in the torches that line the tunnel, letting them flare under my affinity’s touch. Each night, Ulysede ignites with light of its own accord, as if sensing our need. If the city didn’t leave me so unsettled, I would appreciate its sentient abilities.
“Brace yourself, Your Highness,” Abarrane warns. “The blood curse returns with a vengeance the first time.”
“I’m prepared.” I haven’t stepped outside of Ulysede’s gate since we arrived, but now I sense a strange tingle along my throat and a sting in my gums where my needlelike incisors drop.
Four steps out, I realize Abarrane wasn’t exaggerating. An overwhelming wave of need hits me, buckling my knees. I stagger, reaching for the wall to balance myself as my vision blurs. My incisors drop of their own accord, so fast they cut into my bottom lip. All I can do is breathe through it until it subsides into nothing more than an irritant.
When I pull myself upright, the legionaries are strolling for the wagon as if unfazed.
Like me, Elisaf struggles, still down on one knee. “Fates, this feeling …” He grimaces.
It is as terrible as when I was six years old and hit with the lust for blood the first time. “How many trips out here before your tolerance grew?” I call out. Abarrane has been through these gates every day since we arrived.
She flashes a smug smile over her shoulder. “Whatever do you mean?”
Elisaf casts a vulgar gesture—a rarity for him—and it earns her wicked laughter.
The air is noticeably cooler, another sign that wherever we go once we step through those gates, it isn’t Islor. I scan the clear, star-filled sky, half expecting the same two moons that cast light in Ulysede each night. But there is only the one.
What will become of Islor after the next Hudem? If my foolish brother goes through with this arranged marriage, he will regret it, there is no doubt about that. Kettling will not honor any alliance when it comes to the crown. They will betray him. My father knew it, I knew it. But the decisions we’ve made have always been a thorn in Atticus’s side. I shouldn’t be shocked he’d do the opposite.