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  I moved back over to the bed, sitting down heavily and staring at the floor. “I was thinking of my brother.”

  There was silence for a moment, and then he said, “I wish I’d had the pleasure of knowing him. I’ve heard nothing but praise for the kind of person he was.”

  I nodded, my eyes burning again, not daring to speak for fear the grief I’d had to bury would come pouring out. We didn’t have time for me to dissolve into a complete breakdown. Maybe one day, if we ever succeeded in stopping Armando … if there was ever true peace … maybe then I’d have the luxury of allowing myself to truly mourn.

  But for now I swiped at my cheeks, took a deep breath, and stood, picking up my bow and quiver of arrows off the ground and strapping them on. “We’d better head out. We’ve already lost a whole night that they might have continued on through.”

  “I’ll go see if the horses are here yet.” Eljin quietly moved to the door and slipped out of the room, leaving me alone to compose myself.

  I couldn’t bear to lose anyone else I loved. I wasn’t sure I would be able to survive it. And that was why I couldn’t turn back and leave Rylan to his fate. But as I strapped on my scabbard and sword and walked over to the bucket of water the innkeeper had brought us to quickly wash my face, I had to acknowledge the other fear that pulsed deep within me, which I’d been successful in ignoring until now.

  As Eljin had pointed out, Antion was besieged from all sides. Threats against the king were rampant. I was Damian’s best guard, and Eljin was the only other sorcerer in Antion to help Damian protect his palace. And now we were both gone, chasing Rafe back to Dansii.

  What if I succeeded in saving Rylan but in the process lost Damian?

  After a rushed breakfast of papaya, mango, and some sort of bread made with an assortment of herbs, which the innkeeper’s wife called m’katae, we followed the man and his son out into the lifting gloom to get our horses. Rain still fell, but it was more of a soft, gentle moisture in the air, misty and surprisingly cool on my skin. Our packs were refilled with new provisions, again thanks to the innkeeper’s wife.

  The son tightened the girths on the horses and led a bay mare over to me. He was tall and lanky in the way that boys who have grown into the height of a man but not quite the stature yet can be. “Her name is Mira,” he said quietly as he handed me the reins.

  Mira wasn’t as tall as the dappled gelding Eljin had already mounted, but I still had to quell a rush of nervousness as I gripped the leather in my hands and looked up into her intelligent brown eyes. “You’re a nice girl, right? Yes, you are. You’re going to be nice to me.” I continued to murmur to her as I put my foot in the stirrup and pulled myself up into the saddle with all the grace of a sack of flour being flung over the horse’s back.

  Because there were very few horses in Antion, I’d had very limited contact with them. Towns along the main roads like this one usually had a few, and those who traveled by cart to sell their wares often had one. But no one had owned any in my village growing up. The commanding officer who had drafted us into the army had an enormous roan stallion, but the rest of us had marched behind the horse as we went from town to town, heading toward Tubatse and the palace. That was before Marcel and I distinguished ourselves through our fighting in the test given at Tubatse, allowing us to move to the palace to train and eventually earning our spots on the prince’s guard. Damian also had a horse, and before our “abduction” to Blevon, he’d ridden it quite often, but since being crowned king, he’d had little chance to ride anymore. I wondered if he missed it as I sat awkwardly upon the huge animal, staring down at the ground that was now much too far away from my feet for comfort.

  “Ready?” Eljin sat tall on his gelding, obviously at ease, while I clutched the reins with a death grip that drained the blood from my knuckles. Perhaps I’d finally found something that scared me even more than snakes.

  “Um …”

  “My name is Farid Utsel. You will make sure your king knows?” the innkeeper cut in, looking up at me.

  “Yes, Farid. As soon as we return to the palace, we will make sure King Damian knows of your help and sends recompense for your losses,” I assured him.

  He nodded, his eyes flicking to his son and then up to the heavy gray dawn. The rain had finally stopped, but the air was still thick with a lingering dampness. It swelled up from the dank soil and pressed in from the jungle that surrounded us, the ever-present green fortress.

  “You’d better go. This storm isn’t done yet,” Farid warned us, slapping my mare on the rump.

  Mira jumped forward, and I cried out in alarm, instinctively gripping her as tightly as possible with my legs so that I wouldn’t be thrown off.

  “Shorten your reins!” I heard Eljin shout from behind me. I looked down at the leather straps that were slapping uselessly against Mira’s neck. The ground rushed past us as she bounced forward out of the inn yard and onto the weedy road. I heard the sound of hooves approaching, and suddenly Eljin was there, alongside me. He reached over and grabbed my reins in one hand and pulled back. Mira immediately slowed to a walk and then stopped, flinging me forward. I dropped the reins completely to grab onto her mane, desperately clinging to her neck so I wouldn’t fall off. I was barely able to breathe past the wild thudding of my heart.

  “So, you’ve never ridden a horse before,” Eljin commented with his eyebrows lifted.

  “Why would you assume that?” I groused as I pushed myself back into the saddle, keeping my grip on Mira’s mane. That seemed a better place to hold on to than the reins if she was going to take off again.

  Eljin just laughed. “She was only trotting. We’re going to have to go a lot faster than that if we want to catch up to Rafe in time.”

  “She can go faster than that?” I could have sworn we were practically flying, the ground had been moving so quickly beneath Mira’s feet. Horses hadn’t seemed quite so terrifying when I’d watched other people ride them. In fact, it had almost looked fun. I knew better now.

  “All right, let’s start with the basics. Sit deeper in to the saddle, and drop your heels down in the stirrups, so you can sit tall. Like this.”

  I tried to imitate the way Eljin sat, with his heels lower than the stirrups, his back tall and his thighs and calves gripping his horse’s flanks.

  “Now the reins. You need to hold them shorter, like this, so you can feel her mouth. That way you can guide her and slow her down if needed.” He talked me through the basics of riding, from pulling on the bit with one hand or the other to tell her to go right or left, to squeezing my legs for more speed, or sitting deeper and pulling back on the reins to slow her down.

  “We don’t really have time to practice or take this slow. You’re going to have to just do the best you can. If all else fails, just don’t let go.”

  He clucked to his horse, squeezed his legs, and took off, leaving me to follow.

  “Remember our little talk?” I said as I shortened my reins the way Eljin had instructed me to and pressed my heels down in the stirrups. “Be nice to me. I’m kind of important to the king, and I think he’d get pretty upset if I got killed by a horse after everything else we’ve been through.”

  Mira huffed, tossing her head. Eljin was already quite a way down the rutted road, and she was obviously eager to follow.

  “All right.” I took a deep breath. “I can do this.”

  I squeezed my legs and imitated the noise Eljin had made at Mira. She leaped forward again, but this time I was more prepared and was able to keep my seat. She was trotting again, as Eljin had called it, jarring my bones with each impact. Whatever Eljin’s horse was doing, it looked much nicer — and faster — so I squeezed again, and Mira’s gait changed into a rocking motion that finally started closing the distance between us and Eljin. The jarring stopped, and I found I was able to hold on much easier at this speed, even though it was faster than trotting.

  When Mira pulled up alongside Eljin, he glanced over and gave me an approving nod.
Ahead, I could see the main road, a wide, rutted path through the jungle. There was a group of men paid to travel the road and keep it free from weeds, but the jungle was tenacious, and it was impossible to keep it completely clear. As I followed Eljin’s lead, pulling on the left rein to direct Mira north onto the hard-packed dirt that was quickly turning to mud from the morning’s rain, I remembered Felton, Lady Vera’s man, telling Damian that the roads were in tolerable condition — especially for a jungle kingdom. He’d been so condescending, but he wasn’t completely inaccurate. Thick green bushes and weeds choked the edges of the jungle on either side of us and inched forward into the dirt beneath our horses’ pounding hooves. We’d only been riding for a few minutes when Farid’s prediction came true. The clouds opened above us. Sheets of water obscured our vision and turned the road to slop. But we pressed on, rushing toward Dansii and Rylan.

  For days, we rode from sunrise until well after dark, only stopping to water our horses and allow them to graze and then tying them to the trees we slept under. We took turns sitting up and stoking the fire, hoping the flames would frighten off any predators that thought to make us — or our transportation — dinner. Exhaustion wore me down, and on the fifth day, I could feel Mira struggling to maintain her pace as well.

  “We’re running them into the ground.” We’d stopped to eat a hurried lunch of the mangoes Eljin had spotted just off the road. There was also a stream where the horses were greedily drinking, and where we’d refilled our water flagons. Our food supplies were long since gone, and we’d had to resort to living on whatever we could find in our rushed flight to Dansii. Hunger clawed at my belly constantly. Certain muscles itched from nonuse and fatigue, while other new ones I’d never used before ached from all the riding. I’d never gone so long without training — except when Eljin had kidnapped us and taken us to his father’s castle in Blevon.

  The horses’ mouths and necks were flecked with white, and their bellies were soaked with sweat beneath the girths I’d learned to put on and take off each morning and night.

  “They can’t keep up this pace anymore,” I continued as I took my last bite of mango and tossed the pit away, far from satiated.

  “I know.” Eljin stared at his hands, where he held his own half-eaten mango. We’d put a few more in our packs just in case we couldn’t find anything to eat later. I longed for the time to catch some fish from the stream and broil them over a fire. The thought of warm, flaky fish made my mouth water.

  “What are we going to do?” I pressed, forcing away the thoughts of any food besides fruit.

  “We keep going. We’re going to have to let up on our pace, at least for some of the time, so the horses don’t get hurt or worse. And we hope they’re having the same trouble.” Eljin took another bite of his mango, but instead of swallowing it, he spat it back out and stood up, walking over to his gelding — whose name was Gusto, I’d found out — and held his hand out. Gusto lifted his head and lipped the mango into his mouth. Mira lifted her head as well, and Eljin repeated the process for her, making me feel bad that I’d eaten my entire mango myself.

  “Let’s get moving. Looks like another storm is coming.” Eljin took Gusto’s reins and swung himself up onto the saddle.

  I stood up and hurried over to Mira, following suit, leaving the stream and the dream of fish behind us.

  The next afternoon, the foliage began to thin out around us. The sun was hot and oppressive as the trees, vines, and bushes became more and more sparse, until suddenly, the jungle ended. The world opened up around us, stealing my breath with its majesty — and with the fact that we were suddenly very exposed. To the east and west of us, I could see the curve of the jungle, stretching on and on out of sight. At the edge of the horizon to the west, a massive mountain range split the sky with jagged, snowcapped peaks.

  “Striking, aren’t they?” Eljin said from beside me, following my gaze to the mountains. “Those are the Naswais Mountains I told you about. You’re lucky to see the tops of them — they are so tall, they’re usually encased in clouds. No man has ever made it over them alive.”

  I stared at the mountains in awe, unable to imagine even trying to travel over them. The highest peak was so far up in the sky, it almost seemed as though it would touch the sun.

  Finally, I looked forward to see the road wind down into a fairly large city sprawling across the gently rolling grasslands. And just beyond the city was a massive gray wall with spikes along the top of it. It stretched as far as I could see to the right or left, all the way to the mountains to the west and whatever lay to the east. Papa had told us once of a “wasteland” — with miles and miles of black rock, a mountain that breathed fire, and that beyond that stretch of lifelessness was water. Endless water. I wondered if the wall reached all the way to the water or if they’d quit building it when they’d reached the rivers of fire.

  “And that” — Eljin cut into my thoughts — “is the wall I told you about.”

  “So that means …”

  “Yes.”

  I stared at the wall, and the tiny figures of men walking back and forth across the spiked top. They almost looked like toys from here. Harmless. But I knew better.

  “We didn’t catch them in time.” Deflated, I forced myself to look away from the wall before I started to cry. I was beyond exhausted and practically starving. I’d left Damian behind to make this wild dash through the jungle in hopes of saving Rylan before he was taken out of our reach, and I’d failed.

  “What now?” Eljin asked, his voice surprisingly gentle.

  I stared at the Naswais Mountains, willing myself to regain control. I breathed in deeply through my nose and out through my mouth, pushing my trembling hands into Mira’s mane. She craned her neck to look back at me with one wise eye, and then gave a little toss of her head, whinnying softly. Almost as if she knew what I was feeling and was trying to make me feel better. I rubbed one fist along her neck, shocked to realize how connected to each other we had become. My fear of riding was definitely gone, replaced by a surprisingly strong attachment to Mira. Despite the horrible circumstances, riding her had become a comfort to me. My fingers tangled in her mane, and I lifted my head to the surprisingly fresh breeze that drifted in from the northeast, and I closed my eyes.

  “Alexa?”

  Finally, I turned to Eljin.

  “I’m going after him. I’m going to Dansii.”

  It was afternoon when we’d emerged from the jungle, but we waited until the sun had set, dropping below the edge of the horizon where the massive mountains and the jungle met and then faded away into the darkness. The night was stifling as we drew closer to the city that butted up against the Dansiian wall. It was called Bikoro, according to the weather-ravaged carved sign I’d spotted near the road just before we guided our horses off the well-worn path and out into the brush of the plains leading to the wall. The earlier breeze had disappeared. Nothing moved the air, so that the heat swelled, a fetid, oppressive weight as we urged Mira and Gusto forward slowly. Their hooves squelched on the moist soil beneath us, still damp from the earlier storms.

  We’d debated for a short time about whether we should try to sneak through the city undetected or make our presence as King Damian’s personal guard and advisor known. Finally, we’d agreed to wait until the cover of night and skirt the city, heading straight for the wall. Surely, everyone in Antion had heard the story of Damian’s scarred female guard defeating Iker and helping place him on the throne by now. If anyone did recognize me, and tried to help — or stop — us, it could end badly for them. Especially if things didn’t go well once we made it to Dansii. Better to leave the people of this city alone and hurry on our way.

  I looked toward Bikoro. It was even bigger than Tubatse, the capital city that had been carved out from the bowels of the jungle in the small valley below where the palace stood, surrounded by its protective walls. In Tubatse the houses and buildings were crammed together, using every available inch of space stolen from the fores
t. Vines and the creeping, relentless tentacles of the jungle were constantly pressing forward, reaching up the edges of the structures, choking the roads and paths if those responsible for maintaining them got behind on their work by even a few days. People struggled just to keep their existence out of the jungle’s grasp.

  In comparison, Bikoro’s buildings were taller, and built from stone and wood. The homes closest to us were bigger than any I’d seen in my own village or in Tubatse. Large, overflowing gardens stretched out into the fields surrounding the city. The flickering glow of firelight warmed the windows of nearly every structure. We were too far away for me to spot any of the people, but I wondered about them. About their lives. Were they all Antionese? Or had this once been a Dansiian city that Antion had claimed?

  It was frustrating to know so little of my own kingdom’s history, but other than teaching us the basics of how to read and write, Papa hadn’t made our education a priority. Our ability to defend our lives had been much more vital.

  And there’d certainly been no time for a member of Prince Damian’s guard to dally in the library — even if Hector had given us access to it, which he’d refused to do.

  As we continued our slow, silent trek around Bikoro, the shadow of the wall loomed larger and larger before us, and I let my mind wander. I let myself dream. Perhaps … if I made it back alive, if we somehow managed to survive this, and I was able to return to my king … once I was married to Damian and made queen, and once we’d somehow ensured peace for our people, maybe then I’d be able to indulge in reading and learning more of the history of our world.

  Until that time, I supposed, it would be up to me to make history, not learn it.

  I turned away from the city, forcing my thoughts to what lay ahead. Letting myself dream of being back with Damian was dangerous ground. It shook my resolve, shredding me inside as I thought of him alone at the palace, fearing the worst. I was doing the right thing, wasn’t I? As the massive wall loomed closer and closer, I wasn’t so sure. It was my fault Rylan was injured — my fault his life was in danger. But now it was also my fault that Damian was alone. Abandoned by the one person who truly loved him. Again.