Tomorrow's Kingdom (19 page)

TWENTY-FOUR

W
HEN PERSEPHONE GUESSED
she was about half a day's hike to the Gypsy camp, she said goodbye to Flight.

“It's nothing personal,” she assured the mare as she lifted off the saddle and panniers and removed the bit and bridle. “You've been a dear and loyal friend, and I truly could not have made it this far without you. However, we cannot be certain that we've not been followed—either by New Men or by Lord Atticus—and I cannot take the chance that your hoofprints might lead them to the secret entrance beneath the falls. Then, too, there is the matter of an old friend whom I left behind at the Gypsy camp some months ago. His name is Fleet and he has a heart as big as the moon, but I'm afraid that he is inordinately fond of me, and I do not think he'd take kindly at all to the sight of you in my company.”

Flight snorted and tossed her head as if to show what she thought of moon-hearted jealous types. Then she nuzzled Persephone one last time, rolled in the dirt to
thoroughly rid herself of the feel of the saddle, whinnied loudly and galloped away.

Relieved that Flight did not appear distraught at their parting, Persephone started walking. As she did so, excitement and anxiety suddenly began to wage a fierce battle for supremacy inside of her. One minute her spirits soared with the certainty that she'd shortly be hurling herself into Azriel's arms; the next, her spirits were crushed beneath the dread conviction that Mordecai's soldiers had gotten to the Gypsy camp first and that Azriel and the others were all dead.

By the time she reached the crumbling dirt path that led to the stone ledge at the base of the falls, Persephone was wrung out by her wild emotional swings. Pausing for just long enough to cut an armful of sugarberry branches so that she'd have a reunion gift for Fleet, she hurried down the path and slipped behind the falls.

It was then that anxiety abruptly triumphed over excitement—and was joined by its bosom companions, terror and despair.

Dropping the sugarberry branches from hands shaking so hard she could barely unsheathe her dagger, Persephone told herself that the deathly quiet from the other end of the tunnel wasn't
necessarily
cause for alarm and that the sickly sweet smell in the air wasn't
necessarily
burning flesh.

Except that she knew the quiet
was
cause for alarm and the smell
was
burning flesh. And knowing these things, she knew she ought to turn and flee while she still had the chance.

But she couldn't do it.

Not without knowing whether or not there were any in the Gypsy camp who might yet be saved—not until she'd seen for herself if Azriel was among the dead.

Persephone made her way through the tunnel swiftly and silently. The sight that greeted her as she neared the far end was even worse than she'd imagined. Except for the hut in which she and Azriel had spent their first night together, every other hut in the camp had been reduced to a charred ruin. The clearing where her beautiful wedding had taken place was a mess of overturned tables, smashed cooking pots, rotting food and discarded personal possessions. Hard and soft surfaces alike were marked with rust-coloured splatters and smears too numerous to count.

After a moment of staring, numb with shock and horror, Persephone realized that she couldn't see a single body, living
or
dead. She took a cautious step forward— and then another, and another, until she was standing a pace away from the threshold of the tunnel. When she
still
couldn't see anybody, she covered her mouth with her sleeve to keep from breathing in the greasy, black smoke, adjusted her grip on her dagger and stepped out of the tunnel.

She was grabbed so fast that she was yanked clear off her feet, spun around and jerked backward before she realized what was happening. Unfortunately, by the time she
did
realize what was happening, her attacker already had one arm clamped across her chest to trap her arms and the other tucked firmly under her chin.

And judging by the way he was squeezing
that
arm, he
clearly meant to choke the life out of her, break her neck or both.

Strangely, Persephone did not feel frightened as she squirmed and struggled for air. Instead, she felt
furious
that she and the baby had survived so much and come so far only to meet their ends at the hands of a brute too cowardly to face her in a fair fight. She was so furious, in fact, that, even as she began to see the black spots that spelled the end, she somehow found the strength to give her attacker a vicious heel stomp.

The startled grunt of pain that issued from her attacker's mouth was followed by a
most
welcome release of the pressure on her throat and a momentary loosening of the arm across her chest.

Gagging and wheezing, Persephone saw her chance. Tucking in her chin so that her attacker could not resume strangling her, she was about to drive her dagger backward into his belly when she heard him inhale sharply.

Something about the sound made Persephone hesitate. Before she could figure out what it was, a familiar voice—a voice that had whispered to her in her darkest moments over these past weeks—gasped, “Sweet mother of the gods, it's
you
!”

Persephone would have collapsed if Azriel's arms had not been around her. But they were around her—they were, they were. Or were they? Squeezing shut her eyes, Persephone shrank back against him, her whole body trembling as she drank in the warm, solid strength of his presence, her heart filled with terror that he was nothing
but a dream that would vanish the instant she turned toward him.

“Persephone,” came Azriel's voice in her ear.

She dared to open her eyes, then, and risk a glance over her shoulder.

His eyes caught hers with a force that took her breath away. Unable to tear her gaze away—even for a moment— she turned to face him with agonizing slowness, her entire being alive with the nearness of him.

“Oh, thank
god
,” he said, almost choking on the words.

Persephone knew that the moment probably called for her to say something memorable but she could think of nothing she wanted more than to feel Azriel's lips against hers. And so she twined her arms around his neck, drew his face toward hers and kissed him. Not with the tender sweetness of a loving wife, but ferociously, hungrily, as though she'd never be able to get enough of him. Indeed, she
felt
as though she'd never be able to get enough of him. She was as close to him as she could be, and yet she ached with the need to feel closer to him still. And judging from the heat of his hands upon her, he needed the same thing from her. Persephone did not wonder where their passion was taking them. She knew, and she longed for it. It was the beach on the Island of Ru all over again, only this time—

“Wait!” gasped Azriel, wrenching himself away from her.

“What?” asked Persephone, feeling dizzier and more breathless than she'd felt when he'd been strangling her.

Azriel said nothing, only stared down at her with a stricken expression that she did not understand.

“What?” she asked with rising panic. “
What
?”

“Rachel said … Rachel told me …,” he stammered, whispering as though he was afraid to say the words.

“Rachel told you
what
?” asked Persephone. And then, just like that, she knew. Gathering Azriel's hands in hers, she pressed them against her beating heart and said, “Rachel told you about the baby, didn't she?”

Azriel nodded, his whole body rigid with tension, waiting to hear what she'd say next.

Without taking her eyes from his face, Persephone guided one of his hands down to the small swell of her belly and said, “Nothing has changed on that account. The baby lives, Azriel, and though I've yet to feel him move, I am as certain that he thrives as I am that he is a boy.”

Azriel exhaled in a shuddering rush. Keeping one arm around her, he slowly crouched, pushed up the hem of her doublet and ran his fingertips back and forth across her bare belly. Laying her hand atop his auburn curls, Persephone closed her eyes and shivered at his touch.

After what seemed like an eternity, Azriel planted a lingering kiss on her belly and stood up again. As he did so, Persephone opened her eyes to the sight of several tendrils of greasy smoke lurching forward on a puff of breeze. They reminded her that she and Azriel were not standing in their own little world but in the midst of devastation—and that she had yet to see any sign that anyone but Azriel had survived it.

Her happiness all but extinguished by the thought, Persephone reluctantly pulled herself out of his embrace and said, “Tell me, Azriel. What happened here?”

Azriel led Persephone over to one of the few tables that hadn't been overturned.

“When Rachel, Zdeno and I arrived two days past,” he began as they settled onto the bench beside the table, “everyone was gone.”

An icy chill took hold of Persephone. “Gone?” she said, her eyes flicking to the large pile of charred bodies on the other side of the clearing. “What do you mean gone?”

“I mean escaped,” clarified Azriel.

Persephone gaped at him. “Escaped? Escaped
how
? Escaped to
where
? Are you trying to tell me that everyone in the tribe survived
this
?” she spluttered, flinging her arm outward in a sweeping arc.

“No,” said Azriel quietly. “Everyone in the tribe did
not
survive this. We found Tiny at the entrance of the tunnel. Judging by the giant pair of crutches we found nearby, he'd not yet recovered from the broken legs he suffered during the avalanche.” Azriel paused before continuing in a gruff voice. “Lame as he was, though, the big man still managed to slice open half a dozen New Men before they finally took him down.”

Persephone did not hesitate but immediately clambered onto her grieving husband's lap and wrapped her arms around him. “I'm so sorry,” she murmured.

“I'm sorry too,” he said. “For the death of your brother, I mean.”

Persephone nodded, her throat tightening up as it always did when she thought of poor Finn. Then, not wanting to dwell upon this most painful subject—and feeling this was not the time to tell Azriel that she'd promised her twin that she'd fight for the throne—she deftly steered the conversation back to its earlier course. “Was Tiny the only one lost in the attack, then?”

“No.” Azriel shook his head. “There were five others— three men, one woman and a child.”

“A child?” said Persephone faintly, thinking of the two Gypsy children she'd known best—one, a jolly, lisping toddler and the other, a brave and stoic little orphan. “It … it wasn't Sabian or Mateo, was it?”

Azriel shook his head.

Persephone nodded, relieved and not relieved, for who could take comfort in the death of any child?

“Six dead is six too many, and yet it seems extraordinarily lucky that more were not lost, given the number of New Men who took part in the attack,” she offered, gesturing toward the pile of bodies, which she now understood must belong to dead soldiers.

“Luck had nothing to do with it,” said Azriel. “Tangled 'round the legs of two of the butchered New Men we found pieces of string with small weights at each end.”

Persephone stared at him, puzzled, before brightening with sudden understanding. “That sounds like the device Big Ben used to take you down during our quest for the healing pool!” she exclaimed.

Looking a little miffed that she'd recalled with such enthusiasm the memory of him being soundly bested by a surly dwarf, Azriel said, “It was, indeed, the same device. That evidence, along with the discovery of a familiar trinket and the fact that several of the dead soldiers had pitchfork holes in their backs convinced me that the lowborn bandit Robert and his men somehow took part in the fight.”

“What trinket did you discover?” asked Persephone, intrigued.

Azriel reached into his pocket and withdrew the charm bracelet that—along with the silver necklace and ruby ring—Finn had given to Persephone on the day she'd set out in search of the healing pool. She'd later given the bracelet to Robert to seal her promise to him that she'd do what she could to set to rights the wrongs done to the lowborns of the realm.