Exile (2 page)

Chapter Two

A PUBLIC DISAGREEMENT

ROBERT COULD HAVE KILLED HER. WHAT HAD SHE been thinking, endangering her life by dismounting into that crowd? All day he had to keep his mouth shut as she worked her magic on the stubborn tradesmen, wealthy financiers, and common laborers of the city. He listened to her debate the merit of city tariffs, support the call for improved roads, and decry the practice of child labor without the benefit of an education or skilled apprenticeship.

Anyone would think she had expressly chosen to honor Sterling as her first public stop, instead of simply stating that the expedition should head north, leaving all the arrangements—for lodging, meals, navigating—to him, either to achieve on his own or to delegate. He would have preferred to avoid Sterling altogether, but it was the country’s crossroads. He had had no choice.

When at last the expedition party arrived at the inn serving as their quarters for the duration of their stay, he marched up the stairs, ignoring the smell of roast lamb from the common room, dropped off his pack, and hurried across the hall. There he disregarded all manner of good convention and barged through Aurelia’s open door. “Are you insane?!” he demanded.

She gave him a cool gaze, her eyebrows rising in perfect arcs over her brown eyes, matching cheekbones, and smooth jawline. Then her fingers continued unbuttoning the printed sleeve of her travel jacket. “Not that I am aware,” she replied, “but I am not certain one would be aware of such a thing if one was insane.”

He could have pummeled her. It was such a wretchedly rational answer for the young woman who had ignored all rationality that morning. “You could have died,” he said, wrestling his voice under control.

“Well, there’s something new.” She removed her cotton jacket and placed it on the back of the walnut chair at her side.

Sarcasm.
At least that sounded like her. He tried logic. “Aurelia, that crowd could have swallowed you. One shout, one trace of panic, and there would have been nothing any of us could have done to pull you out. You’ve been trained for royal processions. You know you never dismount.”

She stepped forward and closed the door to the hall—something he should not have let her do, but then he had no influence over her.

“I’m not royal,” she said, again in that strange, calm voice.

“Oh, is that why all those people are swarming outside the courtyard?”

“I’m not inheriting anything, Robert.” She unlatched the brass catch of a trunk. “I gave my father the right to name another heir when I refused to marry the king of Anthone. We both know that.”

“You’re still the crown princess, Aurelia.”

“In public.”

“Which is where we are. And where you were this morning when you climbed off your horse and ... disappeared ... into that crowd.”

She pushed back the rounded lid of the trunk, peering down. “I’m not going to pretend to be anything other than what I am to the people of this country, Robert. I thought you would understand that.”

He could see her point of view. In some odd, self-deprecating way, this was her attempt to strip off the past: her own loss, her sister’s hatred, her father’s betrayal. In the last week, so much of her life had come apart. He understood her reluctance to see beyond the expedition—to plot out any route after the desert or make plans for a return. In fact, he admired her desire to explore. She did not need to plan out her entire future.

But he had no patience for her failure to ensure that she had one. “An assassin could have picked you off in that crowd without lifting a knife,” he said.

She did face him now, her dark eyes glittering. “I thought you were done trying to protect me.”

Trying.
The word plunged into him, taunting his ineptitude. “I obviously didn’t have a chance this morning,” he managed to reply.

She turned and unraveled a long blue ribbon from her trunk. “There’s no motive,” she said.

“What?” He tried to follow her leap in the conversation.

She wound the blue silk around a bedpost. “There’s no reason for Melony”—her voice caught as she said her half-sister’s name—“to have me murdered now.”

He cringed at the denial. If she had risked her life today under a foolish assumption, he had to tell her the truth, no matter how brutal. “Your sister has just as much reason to murder you now as she did a week ago.”

Aurelia’s cinnamon skin paled, and the ribbon cascaded to the floor.

He did not wait for her to speak. “Your father has yet to publicly, or, as far as we know, legally, renounce you as heir to the throne. As long as you remain the public face of the future queen, your sister will see you as a threat. And there is no reason—none—to believe she does not.”

Color now rushed up Aurelia’s cheeks. “I’m not living in fear.”

Useless. Absolutely useless.
He had hurt her with the truth for nothing. Robert’s patience split. “Then use a little common sense,” he snapped.

“Just go away, Robert!” Her voice rose. “You’ve been avoiding me all week. Why don’t you take advantage of this opportunity?”

“I thought you wanted someone on this expedition you could trust to tell you when you’re being a fool!” He reached for the door latch and backed into the hall.

“I wanted a
friend!”
She slammed the door in his face.

The parting comment cut into his gut. He had thought he could be her friend, had promised himself when he had agreed to guide her expedition that their relationship would be nothing more. He had learned that lesson, in the pool of his own cousin’s blood. If Robert had not allowed his feelings for Aurelia to interfere with his investigation of the assassination plot, Chris, on Melony’s behalf, would never have been able to use Robert to place Aurelia in danger.
I will not make that mistake again.
Her life depended on it.

Half a dozen servants ducked behind doors as he turned around, and Drew’s mocking chuckle greeted him from across the hallway. “You realize,” said the horseman, his long arms crossed over his chest, “that news of this argument is going to be all over the city by nightfall. Across the kingdom by week’s end. Nothing in this country travels faster than rumor.”

“I’m right.” Robert swept past the horseman into their shared room. His pack was already on the floor next to a high table bearing a basin and a pitcher of water. “You know I’m right. She could have killed herself dismounting into that crowd.”

The older man’s face turned serious. “I’d wager you were on the ground about two seconds after she dismounted.” Drew gestured at Robert’s sword.

“A lot of good a sword would have done in the middle of all those people.” Robert avoided looking at his weapon as he unbuckled the scabbard and hung it on the wall. He could not view the sword without also seeing Chris’s chest heaving in pain above the metal shaft. “I ordered the guards to stand down. You think any of us could have protected her in the face of that throng?”

The horseman raised an eyebrow. “
You
ordered the guards?”

Robert brushed aside the comment. It had been more of a silent gesture than an order. He poured water into the basin, then dipped his hands into the icy liquid and shuddered. “She won’t listen to me. Yesterday, I told her to stay close to the wagons, and not twenty minutes later, she took off alone on Bianca.”

Drew grinned. “I recall.”

“It’s
not
funny.”

The grin only widened.

Robert continued, “An assassin could have killed her anywhere along that road.”

“And you think if you keep ignoring her, she’ll live longer.” Drew propped a boot on the rung of a chair. “I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you that she wouldn’t need chasing if you would just talk to her.”

What was that supposed to mean? “I talk to her.”

“My crooked elbow you do. When?”

“Just now.”

“Oh yes, that sounded like a very friendly conversation.”

Well, Robert had a problem with watching her risk her life. He could not help that, or erase the memory of sprinting across the field in the palace arena, knowing he could do nothing to stop the assassin already running her down. He could never forget the crumpled body on the dirt of the racetrack and the knowledge that that body could have been hers, that he could have lost her. He could not accept that, no matter how much distance he tried to place between them.

Drew was studying him. “You know it’s possible,” the horseman said, removing his foot from the chair, “that maybe the reason you’re angry with her is that she was successful today.”

Robert clenched his teeth.

“I may not have been there, lad, but I saw enough of that crowd. Those people weren’t out to greet Her Highness this morning. They were curious, aye, but defensive—hostile even. And that’s not the case tonight. All you have to do is look out to see it.” Drew turned around and pushed open the large hinged window.

A cool gust rushed into the room along with the sharp snapping sound of the royal standard whipping in the wind, not one, but hundreds of flags, their golden crowns on purple backgrounds, clinging to every spire and rooftop in view. “Every buyer and beggar in Sterling is talking about her,” Drew continued. “She’s
their
princess now. In the course of one day.”

Robert moved to shut the window.

But the horseman stopped his arm. “You may have spent the past four years on the frontier, lad, but you were raised at court. You know how rare that ability to win over a crowd is.” Slowly Drew allowed the framed glass to swing shut. “She was born to rule.” He moved toward the doorway, then paused. “And don’t tell me you really want her father to name her sister in her place. If you do, you’re not half the man I thought you were.”

Robert closed his eyes and heard the door click shut. He leaned back against the wall, the horseman’s words penetrating his mind. Did he want Melony to rule Tyralt? A murderess and a manipulator without the faintest understanding of this country or its people? On some deep, inner level of his conscience, he could not.

But if it meant Aurelia would be free—free to live the rest of her life without danger; free to travel the kingdom, decide her own future, and one day choose whom she would marry...

No.
He slammed the wall with his fist.

Melony could not become queen.

Chapter Three

CONFLAGRATION

A WEEK LATER, FEAR WOKE ROBERT IN THE COLD chill before dawn. His body tensed, leg and arm muscles tightening. His eyes swept the black inside of the tent. A figure moved in the darkness—an unnatural hump looming overhead. Boots shuffled in the dirt. A hand. And from the hand a long snakelike shape, curving left, then right. A rope.

Robert shot to his feet.

The humped figure stumbled back, hit the canvas wall, and tumbled to the ground onto a pile of rough maps. “Horses and hounds, lad, you scared the oats out of me!” Drew’s voice.

Robert squinted at the fallen figure. The horseman grappled with something: the straps of his pack, Robert realized. “What are you doing?” he asked, holding out a hand to his tent-mate.

Taking the offered hand, Drew rose awkwardly to his feet. He hunched over to fit both the pack and his tall frame beneath the six-foot-high ceiling. “Time to head out.”

It was definitely not time. Not even close. Robert lifted the tent flap and peered into the silence. Faint stars still shone over the valley, though the blackness of deep night had shifted to subtle gray. A thin cloud of ash drifted from the doused campfire, but nothing else moved, not even an ill-tied flap on one of the other five canvas shelters. The horses, of course, might be awake, but they had been tethered to the apple trees on the other side of Robert and Drew’s tent. The horseman’s idea.

Robert’s gaze whipped back inside. The entire left half of the tent was barren. Drew had not only shouldered his pack but tied up his bedroll with the rope. “Told Her Highness I’d take her up on her offer to live off royal coin for a week, and I’ve already doubled that,” said the horseman.

Robert dropped to his knees and scrambled for his boots.

“You don’t have to see me off.” Drew chuckled.

“You can’t leave now.”

“Course I can. Had a bit of business to finish up in Sterling—let my contacts know I wouldn’t be in the area for a while—but that’s done, and I’ve no interest in dragging my boot heels through every burg from here to Transcontina. Nay, I’m for the sands of the Geordian. I’ll leave the pleasures of politickin’ to you and Her Highness. You can think of me seeing all that legendary desert horseflesh while you’re negotiating with your twenty-fifth innkeeper.”

Robert knotted his second boot and snagged his jacket. He could not deny his own desire to see the Geordian Desert—to test the story of his stallion’s sire against the knowledge of the tribes, and learn if Horizon was, in fact, descended from those famous northern herds. But the lure of the desert did not validate Drew’s sudden departure. “You can’t leave without telling her good-bye.”

The horseman caught him by the elbow. “Now, lad, you aren’t going to wake her for that.”

“I’d rather not!” Robert had yet to hold a civil conversation with Aurelia since their fight at the inn. He saw no point in wasting his breath if she was just going to ignore him.

Drew lifted his bedroll, bent his knees to duck beneath the low tent flap, then stepped outside and rose to his full height. He tramped toward the corner pole, no doubt heading straight for the horses.

Robert shot a futile glance at Aurelia’s tent on the opposite side of camp. Too late. By the time he managed to warn her, the horseman would be gone. Leaving Robert to explain. At a time of day when Aurelia was
not
at her best.

He followed Drew, protesting, “You can’t leave me to be the one to tell her you’ve gone.”

“Ah, yes.” The horseman spread a saddle blanket over the wide bronze back of his sorrel mount. “With me out of the way, you and Her Highness will have to talk to each other.”

“You know she’s hoping you’ll stay longer.”

“Maybe.” Drew lifted his saddle over the diamond-patterned blanket, then buckled the strap.

“You owe her a departure in person.”

“You’re going to have to talk to her, lad. I’ve been talking too much for the both of you.” Drew tied his belongings to the back of his saddle. “Unhook that tether, would you?”

Robert reluctantly retrieved the stake and handed over the rope.

“Coward,” he said, aware that he was describing himself as much as Drew.

The horseman swung up into his seat and rummaged in his pack, procuring his hat with the eagle feather. He settled it on his head, adjusting the feather’s slant, and pressed his heels to the sides of his mount. Then he turned and winked. “I’ll owe you one.”

Robert watched the other man’s departure without actually seeing the figure fade along the road between the outstretched limbs of competing apple orchards. All he could picture was Aurelia’s face when she found out Drew was gone without a word. The blood that would darken her skin. The lines that would sharpen her forehead and jaw. The flames that would shoot from her eyes. Whatever Drew owed him, it was not enough.

“He’s gone?” Panic rushed to Aurelia’s throat as she repeated the words for the third time. Beneath her, Bianca shuffled her feet, no doubt sensing her rider’s distress.

Robert looked annoyed. He steered his mount away from the mare’s hooves. “You knew he would be leaving.”

She had, but today? On their first full day out of Sterling? With Robert still not speaking to her? Why did Drew have to leave now? And without saying good-bye? No, that wasn’t true. He had said good-bye. To Robert. She took her frustration out on him. “You knew, didn’t you? Why didn’t you wake me?”

He raised his gaze toward the backs of the guards, already heading out along the road. “There wasn’t time.”

“Oh, I’m sure you had more pressing things to do at that hour of the morning.”

He bit his lower lip, slapped his horse’s reins and urged Horizon forward, leaving her with the magnificent view of his stallion’s hind end.

She could have screamed. Throughout the week in Sterling, she had managed to distract herself from Robert’s blatant silence, but on the road it was different.

And now Drew was gone. Drew, who she had been counting on to fill Robert’s place until Robert decided to forgive her. For what, she was not certain. It did not seem fair that he could be mad at her for risking her own life, but apparently he was. More than mad. Though she was starting to think something else lay behind his strained behavior. Something darker. And less easy to forgive.

A fierce pressure built up behind her temples as the day crawled on. The ill-maintained Northern Road seemed bent on testing her patience, and she could not quite allow her mind to wander, though Bianca was doing an admirable job picking her way around jagged stones and crevices.

The sun fought a losing battle with the clouds, and the shadows of isolation spoiled the approach to the Asyan Forest—the largest forest in the kingdom, stretching over an eighth of Tyralt. Aurelia longed to ask about the mysterious blue-green tinge shrouding the horizon. There were folktales about the Asyan, whispered by palace servants and shared in the open by street performers and puppeteers in Tyralt City: about people entering the forest and not coming out for a thousand years, poachers turning into wolves and mountain lions, trees swallowing the souls of outlaws who tried to find shelter under cover of branches.

“What do you think, Bianca?” Aurelia whispered in her mare’s ear. “What lies amidst those trees?”

The magic, of course, was false, but the danger? There must be some reason for generations to repeat such frightening tales to their children. A tingle of forbidden allure rippled through Aurelia’s skin. She wondered what Robert would say—

Stop thinking about him!
She buried her face in Bianca’s mane and tried to push away the memories of all the friends who had drifted, one by one, out of her life, too uncomfortable with the toll of being near the crown princess.

At least she still had Bianca. The mare was more than a friend, the type Aurelia could count on and tell secrets to with absolutely no fear of disclosure. She bent down and wrapped her arms around the horse’s soft gray neck. “You’ll never stop talking to me, will you, Bianca?”

The mare nickered in response.

It did not occur to Aurelia until that evening that there were eight other humans, their presence forced upon her, that she had not considered befriending. It was galling that after her father had failed to prosecute her sister, he still had the authority to assign his eldest daughter a protective guard. Though somewhere in her mind, she knew this was not the guards’ fault.

They had selected the campsite, probably with Robert’s advice, though she had not witnessed the conversation. Dusk had settled its cold fingers over the swath of blue-green trees surrounding the tent-lined clearing, and everyone had gathered close to the crackling flames of the fire. Robert, seated on the opposite side of the drifting smoke, was crouched forward, his hands loosely linked, eyes cast down, avoiding hers.

Painfully conscious of that restricted gaze, Aurelia tried to focus elsewhere. The smell of roast venison permeated the sharp smoke, and several of the men were inching closer to a burly, well-muscled guard turning the roast on a spit. “Back off,” he growled at them. “T’aint no royal banquet.”

“’Fraid not,” replied a thin blond wagon driver with bony arms and shoulders. “We’d need the wine.” He raised an invisible glass. “Only question is what kind.”

The burly man pulled the stick off the fire and tested the meat with his knife. “Heard Valshone is the best,” he said grudgingly. “Those farmers in the mountains don’t have anything better to do than grow their grapes.” He propped up the spit, then began carving away the roast.

Eager trenchers stretched at once in his direction, but he pushed them away and deposited the first slice onto Aurelia’s plate, then gave her a wink.

She glanced at Robert, who was still studiously avoiding her gaze.

Determined not to let him spoil her evening, she joined the conversation. “Valshone grapes aren’t grown in the mountains, just the foothills. They would freeze higher up.”

A sharp
crack!
from the campfire echoed into the night as silence engulfed the party. Too late she realized she had subjugated the other speakers. “Not that I’ve ever tried Valshone wine.”

The guard flipped his knife through the air. “Why not, Your Highness? Rumor has it there’s a whole crate of fancy wine back there on the wagons.”

There
was
a crate, she remembered, stowed away for improving national relations, packed up by palace staff who had assumed she would be meeting with various aristocrats along her journey. She had not known the guards were aware of the wine’s existence. But come to think of it, improving relations was just what she needed. “Maybe we should open it for a tasting?” she suggested.

Robert’s linked hands tightened.

And cheers sounded around the campfire.

She stood up. Robert rose at the same moment. For an instant, their eyes met over the crackling flames. Intense disapproval flared at her from his deep blue gaze, and a flicker of triumph pulsed through her veins. But he flinched, setting down his empty plate and vanishing into the shadows of his tent. Fine then, she did not need his silent presence dampening her spirits anyway.

“Can’t hold his liquor,” the burly guard joked, and the other men’s laughter rippled a bit too loudly into the dimming light. Two guards rose beside Aurelia, offering to help with the crate. She raised her chin, spared one last glance toward Robert’s tent, and led the way to the stash of expensive spirits.

Her return to the campfire was greeted by raucous applause.

The two men deposited the crate on the ground, and the burly guard hefted a large log over to the fire beside the crate. “Your throne, Highness,” he said, motioning toward the log.

“Aurelia,” she said, shoving the log back and seating herself on the ground. “I would prefer it if you would all call me Aurelia.”

She retrieved the first unopened bottle and held it out, just beyond the burly man’s reach, as she waited for him to say her name.

“That’s a bargain, Aurelia.” He stretched for the bottle, popped the cork with his knife, and then motioned for her to take the first drink. She wrapped her fingers around the smooth stem, then tipped it back. The sticky sweet taste did nothing for her, but the roar of approval from around the flames warmed her soul. She handed back the bottle, and he took a large swig.

As the wine began to flow, the fire caught the rough bark of the larger logs and licked into the higher echelons of the gathered pile. Light glowed a seductive orange, its warmth pulsing amid the night’s embrace, and the men glided closer, ignoring the sultry threat of smoke as they coaxed her to open one bottle after another, always insisting she be the first to savor the contents and not sully her lips. She did not care for the flavors, sweet or bitter, but after several tries, a tingly feeling ran into her head, and the taste no longer bothered her.

She let herself drift amid the conversation. Meandering tales and cavalier jokes slid along the outskirts of her mind like water over glass, and the laughter enveloped her in its undulating current. Providing her with what she needed. Distraction. And sanctuary from isolation.