The Essence (17 page)

But no matter how hard I tried to deny it, I’d seen the map with my own two eyes, and even though no one else had been able to read the scribblings in that unfamiliar language, I had. I knew what it said. I knew that whoever had written the notes had inside information, dates and times of each of my stops. Information that only someone from the palace could have known. Information that had been meant to be secret.

Someone had betrayed me.

Florence sat with his elbows on a table made from unfinished lumber. The candle that flickered in front of him was casting strange shadows over his sharp features and making the thin wisps of his hair look like smog rising from his scalp. “Get Her Majesty some soup,” he snapped at the woman who’d quietly slipped into the room. She kept her head down, her gaze lowered, in the same way we were once required to do when someone of higher status was speaking in our presence. During Sabara’s rule.

I watched the woman for a moment, wondering how she’d come to be here, in this place, with someone like Florence. Was she a criminal, or had she been born out here, in the Scablands, never to leave once she was old enough to make her own decision? I wondered if she could possibly be his wife, although she seemed too young by half.

“It’s okay. Really, I’m fine,” I said, but Florence waved away my refusal.

“Soup!” Spittle sprayed from his lips, but he wasn’t talking to me, his gaze was directed solely on her. “Now!”

She scurried to pull a misshapen bowl from a shelf that hung beside the open hearth, and she wound the stained apron she wore around her hand as she reached for the ladle inside the pot. I didn’t know what kind of soup it was, but as soon as she stirred the simmering liquid, the savory aroma filled the room and my stomach growled in response.

Florence shot me a knowing look. “She’s not much ta look at, but the girl can cook.”

She kept her head bowed as she set the bowl before me. “What’s your name?” I asked her quietly.

Florence bit off a chunk of seeded brown bread. “Doesn’t have one.”

I jerked in response to his words. “What?”

“She doesn’t have a name. Doesn’t need one,” he clarified, as if the explanation made perfect sense. He picked up his own bowl and slurped his soup from the edge of it.

I glanced around, realizing there were no spoons. “Of course she needs a name. Everyone does.”

He glanced at me, over the rim of his bowl, which was still poised at his lips. He looked perplexed, confused by my inability to comprehend. “Out here, it’s just us. Her, me, and my boy.” He flicked his gaze toward Jeremiah, standing silently near the door, just as he’d done in the cottage.

“Jeremiah? Is he . . . is he your
son
?”

Florence nodded, his eyebrows raised. “Little light in the brains department, but he’s strong, and tougher’n most soldiers. And ain’t no one more willing to break a sweat.”

I looked at the woman, at her limp brown hair and her calloused hands, and wondered who she was. She wasn’t old enough to be Jeremiah’s mother. I wondered if she was Florence’s daughter, and the thought made my fingers squeeze into fists beneath the table. How could someone go her entire life without so much as a name? How did a woman, any citizen of the realm of Ludania—Scablander or not—end up here, living with a man who treated her no better than
a pet?

“Avonlea,” I whispered to no one, my teeth clenched.

“What did you say?” Florence asked, holding his bowl halfway to the table, soup dribbling from the corner of his mouth.

“Her name. It’s Avonlea.”

“Are you sure, Your Majesty?” Zafir asked as Florence set his bowl all the way down now and wiped his chin on his sleeve.

“Why not? It’s a good name. It once belonged to a queen of Ludania.” I glanced up at the woman and her eyes lifted to meet mine. They were soft and gray, just a hair away from blue. And for a moment, when I thought she might smile, the skin around them bunched up, crinkling like the gathers of Angelina’s pettiskirts. I said it to her, then, this time with finality. “Avonlea.”

She stood there for a moment, soaking it in. “Avonlea,” she finally repeated, with a voice that sounded unaccustomed to use, ragged and untried.

“Thank you for the soup, Avonlea,” I said, and then directed my attention to Florence. “Now tell us everything you know.”

I was still having a hard time piecing everything together, but I was glad to finally be alone with Zafir.

After dinner, Florence had shown us to a room he called a bedroom. It was barely bigger than a closet, but we could sleep in it nonetheless.

On the floor, there were two worn and musty bedrolls that looked as if they’d seen better days. Tired as I was, it didn’t really matter how they smelled. Besides, I’d slept on worse.

I collapsed wearily, my head falling against the lumpy pillow. Even from all the way in here, I could feel the cold night air seeping in from beneath the door—air that had found its way in from a crack in the base of the front door and was filling the entire house. I pulled the covers closer and rolled onto my side to look at Zafir, who was studying the map.

“I’ve seen that language before, you know?” I thought of the beautiful script work on Zafir’s sword—
Danii, a weapon forged of steel and blood.
It was an exact match to the handwriting on the map.

The corners of Zafir’s eyes crinkled. “I imagined you would recognize it.”

“Can you read it?”

He shrugged. “Some. My father tried to teach it to me when I was a boy. He thought tradition was important.”

“You’ve never told me where your family comes from, Zafir. What’s your heritage?”

There was a long pause, and then, “They fled from the eastern region during the Carbon wars. The language is Gaullish, but it was the prevailing language of at least a dozen countries in that region at the time.”

I eased myself into sitting position. “And now? How many of those countries still speak it?”

“Four. Maybe five. That leaves several million people who could’ve made this map.”

I chewed on that for moment, and then met his gaze. “Well, somehow that person has found an insider in the palace to work with. We have a traitor in our midst.”

Zafir looked at me, his expression grim when he nodded. “I suspected as much,” he answered before turning his attention back to the map.

I wasn’t sure what to make of that. I supposed I’d wanted Zafir to convince me that everything would be all right. To tell me my suspicions were wrong, because I wanted
so badly
to be wrong in this instance.

“I’m sure we’re safe for tonight. You should probably get some rest,” I tried, but I knew it was pointless.

“I don’t trust him. Not entirely. I’ll feel better once we’re on our way again.”

He was right, of course. Not that I didn’t trust Florence, necessarily. Of that, I still couldn’t be certain. Yet I didn’t care for him, really. He was vulgar, which made no difference to me one way or the other. I could handle vulgar. It was the way he treated the girl, Avonlea, and his son that made my skin itch with resentment.

But he’d made arrangements for us to leave at dawn, providing us with horses and men that he assured us we could trust to take us north, to continue on our way to the summit.

I’d assumed we’d be heading back to the palace, but after hearing Florence out, after the information he’d revealed about a potential assassination attempt, both he and Zafir had come to the conclusion that it made sense for us to keep going, to keep me away until Max cleared things up at home.

And I desperately hoped that would be soon, because I missed my family. And, most of all, I missed Max.

“How long will it take us to get there?” I asked.

“Assuming the other riders don’t slow us down and we ride hard enough, we should make it to the ferry in about two days’ time.”

I grimaced. “And assuming
I’m
one of the riders?”

Zafir smiled, a small, knowing look. “Three days. You can do this; I have faith in you.”

I did my best to smile back at him, but the idea of three days on horseback made my stomach knot. “At least one of us does.”

There was a soft knock at the door and Zafir stiffened, his hand moving involuntarily to his sword, which he’d insisted be returned to him. Florence had stopped arguing when he realized the guard wasn’t messing around, that his very life was at risk.

I raised my hand as I crept closer to investigate. “Who is it?” I called out.

The pause was prolonged, and I thought that maybe whoever had been there had changed their mind and gone. But then I heard a voice, slight and hesitant. “A-Avonlea, Your Majesty,” she said at last.

I reached for the door handle and opened it before Zafir could stop me. Avonlea stood there, looking much younger than she had before, and I realized she was probably closer to my age than I’d realized. A timid smile found her lips as she lifted the tray in her hands. “I thought you might want to clean up.” I could hear nuances of the same lazy-sounding version of Englaise that Florence had spoken in. Balanced on her tray were a mismatched ceramic bowl and pitcher, along with some washrags that looked as if they’d once been some sort of delicate lace, but were now frayed and threadbare.

“Come inside.” I stepped out of her way, watching her tiny frame move deftly, her footing so sure that the tray never even wobbled. “You didn’t have to do that.”

She nodded, and this time her almost-blue eyes met mine. “I know,” she answered, and her smile grew as she set the tray on a battered chest of drawers. “Florence’d kill me if he knew I was wasting water this way.”

“Florence?” I asked, wondering at her use of his name. “So he’s not your father?” I was even more curious about her than I’d been before.

She shook her head abruptly, limp strands of hair falling against her hollow cheeks. “No.”

She poured water from the pitcher to the bowl, and dipped one of the tattered cloths into it, wringing it gently. I took it when she passed it to me.

Avonlea waited eagerly, and I knew she meant for me to use it, so I wiped my face, which was still covered in grime from the wagon’s floor, and then my neck and my hands. While I worked, she picked up my cloak and shook it out, oblivious to the way hay and dust swirled in the air around us. When she was finished, her hands brushed over the fabric, and I knew that she was feeling the same thing I had the first time I’d touched it, that the fine wool that was so creamy it felt more like soft velvet.

“Thank you for the water.” I said at last, setting the rag aside and staring at the murky water that remained in the bowl. “And thank you for dinner, it was delicious.”

Her smile was back, earnest. “Thank
you
, Your Majesty,” she whispered, her voice subdued. “For giving me a name.”

the assassin

He waited until everyone around him had gone still. There were still two soldiers on lookout, but it was easy to steal past them unnoticed. The sentries weren’t expecting one of their own to break ranks. Their concern was simply to keep strangers away.

And he was no stranger.

Behind him, the campfire crackled, covering any sound his feet might make against the compacted rock and grit. But it was cold out here, away from the warmth of the flames, and he shivered, steeling himself against the bitter cold of the night.

His eyes were quick to adjust, and soon he could see the path in front of him despite the fact that the moon was virtually nonexistent behind the thick black bank of clouds. He was like a nocturnal predator, he thought slyly, his lips parting into a shrewd grin.

He made his way up to the top of the ridge, so he could look at the encampment below. He wondered if they even realized how exposed they were down there. How obvious and vulnerable they were. He’d have to talk to Brooklynn about that when they stopped again the next night.

Maybe it would earn him some respect in her eyes.

Maybe she’d stop looking at him like some sort of lackey.

The high-pitched whistle that came from behind him, from within a crag in the mountainside, was a dead giveaway. That was sort of the point.

“Keep it down. All that squawking sounds like someone shot a bird or something. Do you not understand subtlety?”
It was easy to slip into the cadence of his birth tongue, and he found the rhythm of the familiar speech comforting after speaking Englaise for too long.

The silhouette of a girl emerged, and even without the benefit of light, he knew, from memory, that her cheeks were dirty and that her eyes were hard.
“I wasn’t sure you heard me.”

“Everyone heard you. But I had to wait for the right time.”
He took a step closer, lowering his voice even more and narrowing his eyes curiously.
“You didn’t have any trouble finding us?”

Her shoulders straightened, just as he’d expected they would. She was proud of her skills.
“Don’t be stupid. No one can track like me. You might as well have set the forest on fire for as ‘subtle’ as you are.”

He’d definitely have to warn Brooklynn. His people weren’t the only ones looking to find such an easy target, and the last thing he wanted was to end up on the wrong end of a marauder’s blade.