Finnikin of the Rock

Chapter 1

When it finally appeared in the distance, Finnikin wondered if it was some phantom half-imagined in this soulless kingdom at the end of the world.

There had always been talk that this land had been forsaken by the gods. Yet perched at the top of a rocky outcrop, cloaked in blue-gray mist, was proof to the contrary: the cloister of the goddess Lagrami.

From where they stood, the flat expanse that led to its fortified entrance resembled the softness of sand over a desert. Finnikin could see a trail of pilgrims with their heads bent low, sacks across their shoulders and staffs in their hands. They made a line across the low-lying country like tiny insignificant ants at the mercy of the nothingness surrounding them.

"We must hurry," the king's First Man urged, speaking the Sarnak language. Sir Topher had decided that once they reached this wasteland of Sendecane, they would use the language of the neighboring kingdom to the north. At the inn two nights before, he had made it known that they were pilgrims themselves: holy men who had come to the end of the earth to pay homage at the greatest temple of the blessed goddess Lagrami. To be anything else in this part of the land would raise suspicion and fear, and Finnikin had come to realize that those full of fear were the most dangerous of people.

As they drew closer to the rock, the terrain beneath their feet began to change. What Finnikin had thought was sand turned out to be a thick claylike substance that tested his balance. They were walking on a seabed, and by nightfall the waters would return and there would be no hope of leaving this place until the next low tide.

At the entrance of the rock of Lagrami, they followed the wide stone steps that circled up to the summit, passing the pilgrims kneeling at the shrine of welcome. The leather of Finnikin's boots gave little protection from the cold hard surface, and he found himself looking back to where the pilgrims knelt, knowing that some would make their way up on their knees as a display of devotion to their goddess. He had witnessed the ignorance that came from blind faith time and time again over the years, and he wondered how many of these pilgrims were Lumateran exiles searching for some kind of salvation.

Higher, the steps became stones to climb. Finnikin suspected that sooner or later they would be forced to crawl their way to the top, where the messenger of the High Priestess was surely waiting. Yet not even halfway up, the stones gave way to a smooth cliff face, leaving them nothing to grip except tiny metal bars embedded in the rock. Finnikin stared, confused. He looked down at his oversize feet and wondered how it would be possible to balance them on so narrow a ledge.

"Not for our feet, my boy," Sir Topher said with a sigh. He wiggled his fingers in front of Finnikin's face.

Mercy.

"Do not look down," he warned.

Sir Topher began to climb, and Finnikin felt a shower of grains from the rocks above as they crumbled under his mentor's weight. One caught him in the eye, and he resisted the urge to wipe it free, preferring to be blinded rather than lose his grip.

"I said, do not look down," Sir Topher grunted, as if reading his thoughts.

"If I look up, I'll lose my dinner," Finnikin gasped.

"And what a pity that would be. All those lovely goose gizzards. All that rabbit pie you insisted on wolfing down despite my warning. All gone to waste."

Finnikin paused, his head spinning and his mouth beginning to taste of a sickly substance. The dull stench of pigeon filled his nostrils and turned the contents of his belly. His hands ached from gripping the metal bars, and he longed to be able to place his feet flat against the rock. Yet this journey up the cliff face had to be worth it. Somehow the High Priestess had located him and Sir Topher in the kingdom of Belegonia. Not an easy feat when most of the time they chose not to be found.

For the past ten years, Sir Topher and Finnikin had worked to improve the conditions of Lumaterans living in overcrowded camps rife with fever, fear, and despair. Former dukes of Lumatere, now employed in foreign courts, had often requested their presence, eager to fund their efforts to bring a reprieve to their people. Less welcome were the approaches from foreign kings and queens, who always seemed to have a price for their goodwill. Often it was information about what was taking place in a neighboring kingdom in exchange for palace protection for the exiles camped along their riverbanks and valleys. While protocol ensured that the king's First Man and his apprentice were granted access to any court in the land, Sir Topher had learned to be cautious when it came to accepting invitations.

But this one had been different. It began with a name whispered to Finnikin deep in the night as he lay sleeping among the exiles in Belegonia. Balthazar.

Finnikin had dragged Sir Topher from his sleep in an instant. He could hardly describe the messenger to his mentor. He could only remember the voice in his ear and the disappearing robes of one who spoke of the isolated cloister of Sendecane. The moment Finnikin had finished speaking, Sir Topher rose from his bedroll and packed it without a word.

Finnikin reached the summit of the cliff first and stayed draped over the stone, trying to regain his breath before leaning across to help Sir Topher, who was wheezing and hungering for air. Hearing a sound behind them, they turned to where a wizened old novice stood before an opening in the wall. When she shuffled around and disappeared into the confines of the cloister, they understood that they were to follow.

Finnikin's lanky frame meant he was forced to crouch through the damp tunnel, which led to a set of narrow spiral stairs. When they reached the top, they followed the old woman along a hallway, past rooms where other novices knelt in prayer. They crossed the cloister and entered a large chamber with high windows that let in the light. This room interested Finnikin greatly. There were rows and rows of tables where novices sat, absorbed in their work. Some were poring over bound manuscripts, copying their contents, while others read. Finnikin had seen a room like this before, at the palace of Osteria. The manuscripts there held records of each kingdom of the land: their gods and goddesses, their wars, their origins, their landscape, their language, their art, their food, their lives.

As a child in exile, Finnikin had worried that his kingdom would have no further record of existence, so he began his own work on the Book of Lumatere. He wondered if these scholars felt the same way he did about the scent of parchment and the feel of a quill in their hands. But their faces revealed little, and the old novice's pace began to quicken, leading them into a dimly lit room full of columns. And there, in the middle of the room, stood the High Priestess.

"Blessed Kiria." Sir Topher bowed and kissed her hand.

"You have come a long way, Sir Topher."

Finnikin heard the note of surprise in her voice, almost wonder. Like all priestesses of Lagrami, her hair was worn long, almost to her knees, marking her years of devotion to her goddess. Upon her death, the braid would be cut and offered as a sacrifice, while somewhere else in the land a novice would enter the cloister, her hair shorn and her journey begun.

"The Lumateran pilgrims who have made their way to us over the years have taken courage in the existence of the king's First Man and his young apprentice," she said, looking at them both.

"It is good of you to acknowledge our cursed people, blessed Kiria," Sir Topher said.

She smiled warmly. "We are neighbors, despite the distance. I feel anguish for your beloved priest-king, to have lost his people in such a way, and I am here as a servant to your people as much as to mine. It is the wish of our goddess."

"Do you have the good fortune to know of our priest-king's whereabouts?" Sir Topher asked.

The High Priestess shook her head sadly. Then her expression changed and she walked farther into the room, beckoning them to follow. "You have come for the girl?" she asked.

Girl Finnikin's heart dropped. He had hoped; stupidly he had hoped. The fury he felt for harboring such a dream made him sway on his feet.

"We have little time before the tide rises, so I will speak quickly," she said in a low voice. "Two springs past, a girl came to us. Her name, Evanjalin. Unlike many of our Lumateran novices, she was not orphaned during the five days of the unspeakable but belonged to the exiles in Sarnak."

Finnikin flinched and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he saw that Sir Topher had paled. The High Priestess nodded. "I see that you are well aware of the ill-fated exiles in Sarnak."

"We have petitioned the king of Sarnak to have those responsible for the massacre brought to justice," Sir Topher said.

Finnikin wondered why they had wasted their time. The slaughter of a group of Lumateran exiles, two years past, was of little concern to an apathetic king.

The High Priestess leaned forward to whisper. "The novice Evanjalin has a gift, and I promise you this: in my time I have come across many who claim to have extraordinary gifts, but I know this girl speaks the truth. She professes to have walked through the sleep, not only of your beloved heir, but of your people trapped inside Lumatere."

It was one of the most fanciful stories they had heard to date, and Finnikin bit his tongue to hold back a contemptuous retort.

"It is not that we are surprised by the notion of Prince Balthazar being alive," Sir Topher said carefully, clearing his voice as a warning to Finnikin. "It has always been our hope that there was truth in the tales that the heir survived. But these past ten years, there have been many claims to the Lumateran throne across the land. Each one has proved to be false. You are aware that as a consequence, the ruler of each kingdom of Skuldenore has decreed it treason to make such claims."

"Yet I hear that no Lumateran acknowledges the reign of the king trapped behind those walls," the High Priestess said. "Is he not referred to as the impostor king?"

"Despite our belief that the one ruling inside Lumatere played a role in the deaths of our beloveds, as far as the leaders of Skuldenore are concerned, he was legitimately crowned the king."

A hasty decision made by those controlled by fear, who dared to meddle in the affairs of another kingdom, Finnikin thought bitterly.

"If you are to believe anything, believe this," she said firmly. "The rightful heir to the throne of Lumatere and survivor of that wretched night has spoken to the novice Evanjalin."

"Does the novice have a message from him?" Sir Topher asked.

"Just a name," the High Priestess said, "of a childhood companion of your prince. A trusted friend."

Suddenly every pulse in Finnikin's body pounded. He felt the eyes of both the High Priestess and Sir Topher on him. Then the High Priestess came closer, taking his face between her callused hands.

"Is that what you were to him, Finnikin of the Rock?" she said softly. "For I do believe your king is calling. It has been ten years too long and Balthazar has chosen you, through this girl, to take your people home."

"Who is she to be worthy of the association with our heir?" Finnikin asked stiffly, moving away. "Does she claim to have made his acquaintance?"

"She is a simpleton. She has taken the vow of silence, broken only to tell me of the sleep and that you, Finnikin, would one day come to collect her. I believe she is somehow promised to your heir."

"What makes you believe such a thing, blessed Kiria?" Sir Topher asked.

"At night she whispers his name in her sleep with intimacy and reverence. As if their bond is ordained by the gods."

This time Finnikin failed to hold back the sound of his disbelief.

The High Priestess smiled sadly. "You have lost faith in the gods."

He held her gaze and knew she could read the confirmation in his eyes.

"Do you believe in magic?" she persisted.

"My kingdom has been impenetrable for the past ten years with no logical explanation, so I have no choice but to say I do believe," he admitted ruefully.

"It was indeed a very dark magic used by the matriarch of the Forest Dwellers. Made up mostly of hatred and grief for what Lumaterans had allowed to happen to her people in the days following the deaths of the king and his family. But somehow some kind of good survived, and the novice Evanjalin is the key. You would know by now the meaning of the archaic words spoken by Seranonna that day."

Finnikin had not heard the name Seranonna since his childhood. He did not want her to be known as anything other than the witch who had cursed Lumatere.

"We were in the square that day," Sir Topher said, "and have spent these past ten summers deciphering the curse, but there are words we are still unsure of. Seranonna used more than one of the ancient languages."

"And those words you do understand?" the High Priestess asked. She stared at Finnikin, waiting for him to speak.

" 'Dark will lead the light, and our resurdus will rise.' It's the ancient word for king, is it not? Resurdus?"

The High Priestess nodded. "The curse was to condemn Lumaterans for allowing the slaughter of her people, but it was also to protect the one she claimed to have seen fleeing from the forest that night. The resurdus. The heir. The dark and light will lead you to him."

"But where are we supposed to take this... child? Evanjalin?" Finnikin asked.

The High Priestess gave a small humorless laugh. "Do you consider yourself a child, Finnikin?"

"Of course not."

"The novice Evanjalin is nearly your age and left her childhood behind far too early."

"Where are we to take her, blessed Kiria?" Sir Topher prompted gently.

The High Priestess hesitated. "She claims that the answers lie in the kingdom of Sorel."

Mercy. Finnikin would have preferred to have heard Sarnak or Yutlind. Even Charyn with its barbaric ways. He would have preferred to take her to hell. It would certainly be less dangerous than Sorel.

"And you believe Balthazar will contact us there?" Sir Topher said.

"I do not know what to believe. The goddess has not bestowed the gift of foresight on me. All I can pass on is this girl and the name of the one she claimed would come for her." Once again her eyes were on Finnikin. "Perhaps both chosen by a missing king to be his guide."

There was a sound by the door, and the High Priestess held out her hand as a figure appeared from the shadows.

The girl had the coloring of the Lumateran Mont people, a golden skin tone, much darker than Finnikin's own fair skin. Her hair was shaved, but he imagined that if it were allowed to grow, it would match the darkness of her eyes. Dressed in a gray shift made of coarse fabric, she would easily be passed by without a second glance.

"Sir Topher, Finnikin, I present to you the novice Evanjalin."

She cast her eyes down, and Finnikin watched as her hands shook and then clenched.

"What is it you fear?" he asked in Lumateran.

"Most of her time was spent in Sarnak," the High Priestess explained. "It is the language we have used during the break of silence."

Finnikin could no longer hold back his frustration. He pulled Sir Topher aside. "We know nothing other," he said in Belegonian to ensure the novice and the High Priestess would not understand. "This is all too strange."

"Enough, Finnikin," Sir Topher said firmly. He turned back to the High Priestess. "Has she spoken since?"

She shook her head. "She has taken the vow of silence. She has suffered much, Sir Topher, and her faith is strong. It's the least we can leave her with."

Sir Topher nodded. "If we are to make the tide, we must leave soon."

Finnikin was stunned at how swiftly Sir Topher had made his decision, but the look in the older man's eyes warned him not to protest. Biting his tongue, Finnikin watched as the High Priestess took the girl's head in her hands and pressed her lips tenderly to her forehead. He saw the girl's eyes close and her mouth tremble, but then her face became impassive again and she walked away from the High Priestess without a backward glance.

The descent was as nauseating as the climb up, made worse for Finnikin by the burden he carried in his heart. Taking this girl halfway across the land had not been part of the plan he and Sir Topher had worked out in the early days of winter. The uncertainty of their new path did not sit well with him.

When they reached the base of the cliff, they passed the group of kneeling pilgrims. A hand snaked out to grab the cloth of the novice's cloak.

"Your feet," Finnikin said, noticing for the first time that she was barefoot. "We can't afford to be slowed down because you don't have shoes."

But the girl did not respond and continued walking. It was only when they were a good distance from the cloister that she looked back and he saw the raw emotion of loss on her face. By then the waters reached their knees and Finnikin feared they would not make it to safety without being washed away. Here, the tide was said to return at amazing speed and pilgrims had drowned without any warning. He grabbed her arm and pulled her forward, and suddenly her look of vulnerability disappeared and in its place was a flash of triumph.

As if somehow the novice Evanjalin had gotten her way.

Chapter 2

In the days that followed, cold winds gnawed at their bones and a winter that refused to end kept the days short and darkness a constant companion. Sir Topher decided that the best route to Sorel would be to cross into Sarnak and follow the road through Charyn. Although the quickest route was down through Belegonia, Sir Topher argued that they would not return to Sarnak for at least another year and there was a chance they would encounter survivors from the massacre. On this point Finnikin agreed; it was their destination he could not accept.

"We're making a mistake," he said on the third morning, forced now to dress behind a tree. He pulled on his buckskin trousers and then his boots, tucking a tiny dagger next to his calf.

"As you have now mentioned for the tenth time, Finnikin," Sir Topher called out with maddening patience.

Finnikin had come to appreciate Sir Topher's patience over the years, ever since he had been placed in his care by Perri the Savage, his father's second-in-charge. Today, however, there was more irritation than appreciation.

"Sorel," he muttered as he stepped out from behind the tree. "No one goes to Sorel. No exile would set up camp in Sorel. Not even the people of Sorel want to live in Sorel."

"Let's accept our path, Finnikin, and hold our tongue, as the novice does so beautifully," Sir Topher replied.

The girl did little to lessen Finnikin's frustration. At night he watched her toss in her bedroll as though possessed by demons, crying, gritting her teeth, calling out with such despair. As they trekked across the flat treeless earth, sometimes her body would slump as if what she dreamed was weighing down her spirit. Other times there was a spring in her step and a soft dreamy smile on her lips, as if she was remembering a moment so happy that it effortlessly carried her over the cold barren land.

Deep down, Finnikin knew there was something more to his unease than this strange girl traveling with them. The mention of the heir had awoken memories, and with them came a restlessness, a sense of futility about the future. In the past ten years, the pages of the dead in the Book of Lumatere had grown. There were those who had been slain in Sarnak, those who had died in a plague village in Charyn, those who had drowned when the floods in Belegonia swept over the river camps. Without their own healers, there were no cures for the ailments that others in the land seemed to easily survive.

When they crossed the border into Sarnak, there was little relief from the weather, but a hot meal was more readily available and Finnikin was glad to be able to leave behind the stale bread and moldy cheese that had been their staple diet for over a week. Trees and shrubs began to appear beside the road, and as they continued east, they found themselves in thick woodland, where they decided to camp.

That night, as Sir Topher pored over the map, Finnikin caught the girl staring at the sword that lay by his saddlebag.

"It's my father's," he said gruffly. He pulled it out of its scabbard. The grip was plain, except for a stone—a ruby, rich and bright—embedded in the handle. As a child, Finnikin had imagined it had powers. He believed anything Trevanion touched did. The novice reached out and placed a finger on the stone.

"The ruby is the official stone of Lumatere. Did you know that?" Sir Topher asked, looking up from his map.

In response, the novice dug her hand deep into her pocket and withdrew a ruby ring. She gently traced its contours, then extended her hand as if offering it to Finnikin to take. When he made no attempt to touch it, Sir Topher reached over and examined it instead. Finnikin could see from the warmth in her eyes that the ring held memories much the same as his father's sword did. At the thought of his father, he was suddenly swamped by a wave of grief. Standing abruptly, he grabbed the crossbow and disappeared into the woods.

Later, Finnikin emerged from the forest with two fair-sized hares. With little fuss, the novice took one of the hares and sat by the fire, cutting into the skin and stripping it from the body of the dead animal with ease. As Finnikin watched, she wiped her brow, leaving a streak of blood across her face. Feeling his gaze on her, she looked up, and in the flickering light of the fire, he saw a fierceness in her eyes that no humble dress or pious look could disguise.

Sir Topher was melancholy that night, and the mead they had secured in the border town had loosened his tongue. Finnikin knew that in this state, Sir Topher would drink and talk. Always about the five days of the unspeakable. Finnikin loved this man dearly and knew he would be dead if not for his mentor's kindness, but when Sir Topher spoke of those days, Finnikin wanted to shout at him to stick to facts and plans. Facts and plans had results. The days of the unspeakable were impossible to explain or to solve. Finnikin had learned over the years not to think of anything beyond the practicalities of getting from one point to another. To focus on the achievable. Locating a piece of land for the exiles of Lumatere was achievable. But only if they could find a benevolent host, and he knew in his heart that the kingdom of Belegonia was the place. Most of the time Sir Topher agreed, except when he was drinking mead and succumbing to memory.

The girl showed interest in Sir Topher's story. She put aside the half-skinned hare and kept his words flowing by refilling his cup each time it emptied. Sir Topher relished the opportunity to tell the tale again.

"Does she need to know?" Finnikin asked at one point, not looking up.

"The silence that meets us in every exile camp is a paralysis that has been passed on to the next generation," Sir Topher said reprovingly.

And so Finnikin heard it again. How the enemy had come in the dead of the night. How they were never able to explain how the assassins had managed to get past the guards, for it was only five days later that the kingdom gates became impenetrable, and questions stayed unanswered. Some said the assassins were in Lumatere long before that night, hiding and plotting to sweep through the palace and take the lives of every single inhabitant: the cooks, the guards, the ladies-in-waiting, the pages, the nursemaids, the groundsmen. Sir Topher had been sent to Belegonia with the ambassador on palace business and had lived with the guilt of surviving ever since.

It was Trevanion, captain of the King's Guard and Finnikin's father, who made the gruesome discovery. At the second change of guard, he returned and found the first man dead at the palace entrance. A path of bodies led to the grand hall where the king, queen, and three older princesses were found slain. A desperate search for Balthazar and Isaboe followed. Balthazar alive meant the survival of Lumatere. It meant that no stranger would dare enter the kingdom and claim it as theirs. The King's Guard searched every house in the palace village, every square inch of the Flatlands, crossed the mountains, searched the Rock Village, and scoured the caves. Finally, they left the confines of the kingdom walls and there they saw it, in the cold light of the rising sun. A small bloody handprint on the outside wall of their fortress. As if Balthazar had been hammering all night long to reenter a world that had already ceased to be.

Sir Topher stopped speaking, and Finnikin looked up. As always, there were tears on the face of the king's First Man as he relived the horror of what they found in the Forest of Lumatere that day. Limbs and flesh, clumps of hair, and finally the blood-soaked clothing of the youngest princess, Isaboe.

The novice Evanjalin barely seemed to breathe. Her hands were clasped under her chin as if in prayer, but unlike Finnikin, who could not bear to hear more, her eyes begged Sir Topher to continue.

"In the Forest of Lumatere lived the worshippers of Sagrami, the goddess of night," Sir Topher said, composing himself. "In centuries past they were persecuted and forced to live outside the kingdom walls. Many were healers, mystics, and empaths, with gifts that could not be explained, but over the years, they had begun to work and live among their fellow Lumaterans again.

"The matriarch of the Forest Dwellers was a powerful woman named Seranonna. She was once the wet nurse to the queen, and there was a bond between them that the king honored for the love of his wife.

"But on the morning after the slaughter, Seranonna was found with her hands and clothes soaked with blood. Grief-stricken Lumaterans said it belonged to the youngest princess, that somehow the Forest Dwellers were involved in a sacrifice using the blood of the royal children. The Forest Dwellers claimed that at least two of their people had seen Balthazar running through the forest that night, and that in her search for him, Seranonna had found the remains of Isaboe and tried to gather up the pieces. It was for this reason, they swore, that Seranonna had the blood of the child stained in the lifelines on the palms of her hands.

"But the villagers would not listen. Their king was dead. A king directly descended from the gods. His beloved queen of the Mont people dead. His beautiful daughters raped, slaughtered. His youngest daughter torn to shreds. His son, the heir, missing. His palace guards and people slain. And so the Lumateran people rounded up all those who worshipped Sagrami within the kingdom walls and burned down their homes, forcing them out into the Forest of Lumatere with the rest of their people. Neighbors fought neighbors. Cattle were slaughtered. Crops were burned. It was a world gone mad."

Finnikin had watched it all from the Rock Village, clutched in the arms of his great-aunt Celestina. "It's the end of the world, Finnikin," she had chanted. "The end of the world."

"On the second day, the king's cousin rode into Lumatere with six hundred men, most of them Charynites," Sir Topher continued. "He had been serving in the Charyn court for almost ten years. With the blessing of the remaining rulers of Skuldenore, who were desperate to keep peace in the region, he was appointed the new king of Lumatere.

"The impostor's first decree? Any worshipper of the goddess Sagrami was to be put to death for treason. Those known for practicing dark magic were to be burned at the stake. The Lumateran people were horrified. There was a difference between running the worshippers of Sagrami out of their homes and killing them. But they stood and watched what they had started. One by one over the next three days, men, women, and children were slaughtered, burned in their homes in the Forest of Lumatere. Until the people of Lumatere dreamed crimson dreams and could not walk out of their own homes for the stench of death that blew over their kingdom."

The novice closed her eyes, even covered her ears for a moment. Finnikin knew there were parts of this story she may never have heard before. No one spoke of those days in any of the exile camps he and Sir Topher visited. Their guilt and despair kept them silent.

"Lumaterans began to leave in droves," Sir Topher went on. "The Monts, the queen's people, had already left, gathering every one of their kin and moving them to the safety of the Valley of Tranquillity, outside the kingdom walls, to wait. The noblemen and women of the Flatlands joined them, fearing they would be next on the impostor's list. Some convinced those in their villages to travel with them. The elders of the Rock Village forbade their people to leave. Strategically, they were the safest, perched high, overlooking the whole kingdom. Many of the River clans followed their Flatland neighbors, while others traveled up the river to Sarnak to seek refuge there until the trouble subsided. By the end of the third day, more than half of Lumatere could be found outside the kingdom walls, either in the Valley of Tranquillity or in Sarnak.

"The next day, the captain of the King's Guard was called forward to swear allegiance to the new king. In Lumatere, tradition dictated that all should kneel in the presence of the king. Except for the King's Guard. Since the time the gods walked the earth, the King's Guard of Lumatere would lie prostrate at the feet of their leader when first in his presence.

"That day, Captain Trevanion refused. It was his belief that the impostor's hands were soaked with the blood of the innocent. And in revenge for the disrespect shown by the captain, the impostor king's men arrested Lady Beatriss, accusing her of treason aided by Trevanion. You see, on the night of the royal murders, the only palace dweller to survive was Beatriss, lady-in-waiting to the princesses. How did she survive such carnage? the impostor king asked. How did the assassins enter a guarded palace if not through the captain of the King's Guard? Of course, deep down, the people of Lumatere did not believe that Beatriss and Trevanion had had anything to do with the murders, but by then everything was in turmoil.

"In front of Trevanion," Sir Topher said, "they tortured her. I heard her screams. They tortured her until Trevanion confessed to treason, confessed to anything, for he knew they would come for his son next."

Finnikin clenched his fist, his fingernails digging into his palms. He watched the novice flinch as if she felt the impact of his nails herself.

"Beatriss was sentenced to death, Trevanion exiled. Some say the king of neighboring Belegonia intervened to save Trevanion's life. But others had a different theory. They thought the impostor king feared an uprising by Trevanion's men. He knew that while their captain was still alive, they would not act."

Finnikin busied himself with cleaning the crossbow. He tried not to think of what took place after his father was taken away. At times it felt like a blur, while other times he remembered it with complete clarity.

"On the fifth day, they dragged Seranonna into the town square. She was the last of the Forest Dwellers to be put to death, and there was talk that Lady Beatriss would be hanged next. Seranonna's clothes and hands were soaked with blood. Some believed it belonged to the dead child she had delivered of Lady Beatriss in the palace dungeon. Others said it was still Isaboe's blood.

"I was there in the crowd," Sir Topher told the girl. "My king always believed we should not turn our backs on our people as they suffered. I don't think anyone understood the rage Seranonna felt for what had been done to her people. Nor did they understand the extent of her grief for the queen and the royal children."

Finnikin remembered how they dragged Seranonna into the square and she screamed with fury. Screamed the words, "Beatriss the Beloved is dead!" And the wails rose around him while Finnikin shook with fear at the sound of her voice. He had heard that voice before. She had spoken to him as he played with Isaboe in the Forest of Lumatere. Spoken words that had haunted him for most of his life.

"And then from her mouth came a curse so fierce that it split the earth," Sir Topher said. "People were screaming, and those not even an arm's length from me disappeared into the crack before it shuddered closed once more. Others ran for the path that led to the main gate. Cottages that were built high over the main road collapsed on top of those fleeing. I saw the blacksmith's entire family disappear beneath the rubble of bricks and mud. Many were trampled trying to reach the gate."

Finnikin shuddered. He remembered the Flatlander who had been holding the rope to keep the gate open, urging his terrified family through. As the gate began to shut, the rope tore at the farmer's hands, and his wife and son were forced to let go. But the man's daughter would not leave him, and Finnikin's last image of Lumatere, as he slid beneath the jaws of the iron gate, was of a family separated. Then nothing. No sounds from the other side. And then a black mist appearing above the kingdom.

Finnikin felt Evanjalin's eyes on him as Sir Topher put his head in his hands.

"Cursed land. Cursed people."

Slowly Evanjalin picked up the hare again and resumed removing the skin, her hands shaking.

Speak, Finnikin wanted to shout at her. Lay blame. Shout. Rage. Rage!

"I think I may have frightened her," Sir Topher murmured in Belegonian.

"You frightened me," said Finnikin.

The fire crackled. Beyond it, the novice Evanjalin continued with her task.

"This year will be our last traveling, Finnikin. If he is alive, Balthazar will have come of age these past two years. If he hasn't appeared by now, he never will."

"You've never believed that he survived," Finnikin said. "She's lying."

"For what reason?"

"A Charyn spy? A vengeful Forest Dweller? Perhaps she believes we will lead her to the heir, so she can kill him out of revenge for her people."

Sir Topher placed a finger to his lips. Their tone was too obvious and they knew little of this girl. "She looks too much like a Mont," he said, switching to Osterian. "The Forest Dwellers were as fair as you, Finnikin. Perhaps she just wants to get home to her people and knows that the only way to survive such a journey is under our protection."

Finnikin felt his agitation rise. "This is a mistake, Sir Topher. We've never trusted anyone to travel with us. Never."

"Yet your eyes stray to her frequently, my boy."

"Out of fury," Finnikin argued. "We could be doing something of worth. We were summoned to the cloister believing there was someone of worth."

Like Balthazar, he wanted to say. Unlike Sir Topher, he had allowed himself to believe that the messenger would lead them to his beloved friend. And now here they were, burdened with this insignificant girl. Finnikin's resentment toward her clawed at him.

"I thought you liked them fragile," Sir Topher said, smiling. "I saw how you flirted with Lord Tascan's daughter, Lady Zarah."

"I prefer them sweet, not simple, and I like to hear their voices," Finnikin corrected. "And a little refinement would be nice."

He looked sideways at the novice. She was removing the entrails of the hare, her tongue resting between her teeth in her deep concentration. A simpleton indeed, Finnikin thought bitterly.

They ate dinner in silence. Later, the girl sat with her arms around her knees, shivering. Perhaps Sir Topher was right and the story she had been told would plague her sleep. In that way they were the same, Finnikin mused, for lately his sleep no longer seemed to belong to him. Usually his dreams were of the river, of traveling down it in a barge with his father. Other times he dreamed of Lady Beatriss and her soft lulling voice and the love he had seen between her and Trevanion. But from the moment the messenger had arrived to summon them to the cloister in Sendecane, Finnikin's dreams had been filled with carnage. And tonight he was consumed with images of the novice Evanjalin, her hands soaked with the blood of the hare, screaming as she was burned alive. Screaming the name that had escaped her lips each night this past week. Balthazar.

Chapter 3

The town of Sprie in Sarnak reeked of rotten berries and boiled cabbage. Filth was embedded between the cobblestones beneath their feet and grime seemed to invade their skin. It was the last town before the Charyn border, and Sir Topher and Finnikin agreed that it was safer to buy provisions here than to stop in any Charyn town. Nevertheless, Finnikin sensed malevolence around him. Apart from Lumatere, Sarnak had suffered the most in the past ten years, and the fury of its people toward Lumateran exiles was boundless. Once, the Skuldenore River had flowed through Lumatere into Belegonia and Yutlind, and each day, the best of Sarnak produce was sent down the busy waterway into the rest of the land. Sarnak's climate was perfect for growing almost anything, from succulent mangoes to sweet plump grapes. Their fresh river trout had graced the tables of kings and queens.

But without a trade route, such produce meant little. After the five days of the unspeakable, the river through Lumatere had disappeared into a whirl of fog, and the only passage now from Sarnak to the rest of the land was west into Sendecane or east into Charyn: one a wasteland, the other an enemy. Outside the exile camps, the poverty in Sarnak was the worst in the land, and two years past, armed Sarnak civilians had unleashed their wrath on Lumaterans camped on their southern border, a slaughter the king of Sarnak refused to acknowledge or condemn. And why would he, Finnikin thought, when there was no one to demand it except the First Man of a slain king and his apprentice from a kingdom that no longer existed?

On their first night in Sarnak, Sir Topher chose a place to set up camp deep in the woods. They would use it merely as a resting point to collect provisions and then move on. There would be no fire to keep them warm. Nothing to draw attention to themselves. Nothing to make them prey to a desperate people who needed someone to blame for their suffering.

Sir Topher and Finnikin made careful plans. They were not like the exiles who huddled in camps, waiting for someone to return them to Lumatere or for the captain of the King's Guard to escape and save the day. Finnikin knew that if they wanted their people to survive, they needed strategies that would push them forward. Despite their detour into Sendecane and the presence of the novice and her extraordinary claim, he and Sir Topher were on a mission to find a piece of land for the exiles. And they always had a plan. Never a dream.

Sir Topher decided that Finnikin would go to the marketplace to purchase enough food to see them through to Sorel.

"Take the girl," Sir Topher said. "They worship Lagrami here. They're less likely to bother a novice and her companion. But don't let her out of your sight."

The town was a labyrinth of stalls and alleyways. More than once the novice seemed to become disoriented and wander in the wrong direction.

"Listen," Finnikin said firmly. "Stay close and do not lose sight of me. Do you understand? Nod if you understand." She nodded, but he wasn't satisfied.

"This whistle, I want you to listen for it in case we do get lost." He whistled a birdlike tune. Twice. Just to be sure she understood. He watched her for a reaction, but there was none.

"I don't expect you to learn it. But listen for it."

She nodded again.

The sun was beginning to disappear, and vendors were packing up their wares. Finnikin walked over to purchase their supplies. A few moments later, he heard a furious cry and turned to see a young boy disappear into one of the alleyways. As he turned back to the vendor, he saw the novice stumble to her feet in a daze, but before he could call out to her, she was off in pursuit of the youth.

Stupid, stupid girl. In a moment's frustration, he hesitated. It was a perfect opportunity to leave her behind so he and Sir Topher could continue on their way as planned. His mentor had promised him they would go searching for Trevanion's men this autumn. This was his chance to go south, where a group of exiles had once reported seeing the Guard. But Lumatere had lost enough of its people to Sarnak, and before he could stop himself, he threw down his coins and raced after her.

Within a short distance, the alleyway branched out into a cluster of five others, each already seeped in darkness, indistinguishable from one another. Using instinct, Finnikin took the middle one, a mistake he realized too late when he found himself turning into yet another, which seemed to fork out into more and then more—never-ending high stone walls that seemed to conquer the light of the moon, forcing him to turn back until he lost track of where he had begun.

"Evanjalin!"

He caught sight of a flicker of her robe as she disappeared around a bend. He had smelled her fear when they arrived, had sensed the memory of her family's death in Sarnak in every tremble of her body.

The light was disappearing fast. He called out her name as he ran after her, but there was desperation in her movements as she disappeared again and again. Finally she was brought to a stop by a dead end. But there was someone in the shadows, and before Finnikin could reach her, she was flung to the ground. Her assailant looked no more than fourteen or fifteen. Finnikin pulled Trevanion's sword from its scabbard in an attempt to scare the boy rather than wound him.

Suddenly he felt the cold sharp tip of steel pressed against his neck. He felt little fear. From the moment he was born, Trevanion had taught him to fight, a skill Sir Topher made sure he continued to develop as they traveled from kingdom to kingdom. But when he turned, he could see four of them. Sensing that Evanjalin was no threat, the thieves had made Finnikin their target.

"Drop it!"

Not likely, he thought. He looked to where Evanjalin lay. When she raised herself onto her hands and knees, the youth shoved her and she fell again, whimpering. The young thief hammered her across the temple while holding her to the ground. Then he straddled her and began to search through the folds of her clothing, as if looking for something else of worth. This was why Sir Topher preferred they travel alone. No one to fear for. No one to protect. The girl would be their weak point until they left her in Sorel.

"Drop it!" The order came again.

Without taking his eyes off the novice, Finnikin reluctantly placed his sword on the ground and kicked it across the cobblestones. It stopped a few meters short of the girl's feet, and he felt impotent rage as he watched the boy continue to fumble under her shift.

"Pockets first!"

"We have nothing...."

The sword at his neck moved to his cheek. He felt it pierce his skin, and a trickle of blood make its way down his face. But he tried to keep his eyes on what was taking place with Evanjalin and saw the boy leap up and disappear into the night.

Evanjalin screamed the moment she saw his bloody face. Finnikin knew the odds were against them. Four men, all armed; his sword out of reach at the feet of a hysterical girl; and three knives tucked securely away. One on his sleeve, one in his boot, the other on his back.

"Tell the girl to stop the screaming!"

Finnikin willed her to stop. He needed to think. Quickly. Sword at her feet. Three knives on his person. Four men with weapons of their own.

"Stop her screaming, boy, or it's her throat first."

"Evanjalin!" he called out. "Stop!"

But the novice was too far gone, and her screams turned into piercing wails.

Think, Finnikin, think. Knife to the throat of the one closest to him. Other knife hurled at the man who was now standing guard at the entrance of the alleyway. Grab the sword of the one closest to him and plunge it into the third man, but that left one more and he knew that he would be dead before the second knife left his hands.

His head rang with her screams. No words, just sounds. Earsplitting.

"Evanjalin!" he called out again. And then he saw the man on watch advancing toward her.

"No!" he yelled, trying to push past the three men surrounding him. "She's simple. She doesn't understand."

He succeeded in shaking free, but he knew it would not be for long. And yet that was all it took. One moment the novice was screaming, and in the next, the moon bathed her face with light and he caught a look in her eye that spoke little of fear and more of rage. Before he knew it, Finnikin's sword was kicked toward him as she grabbed the man's sword at his hip and plunged it into his thigh.

Finnikin was stunned, but the sight of Evanjalin fighting one of the thieves was all he needed to act. One man down. Then two. The daggers silent and deadly accurate. The third he fought with Trevanion's sword, a weapon too quick for a bunch of useless thieves. From the sound made by the singing swords behind him, it was clear that Evanjalin knew how to handle a weapon. Still, when Finnikin's third man went down, he swung around to deal with her assailant, only to find himself face-to-face with her. Eyes blazing, sword held upright in both hands. Steady. Waiting to swing. At her feet the man was writhing in agony from a second wound to his ear. She dropped the sword, and they ran in the only direction open to them.

They found their way out of the maze of alleyways and back toward the main road leading out of the town, only to realize that one of the assailants, with Finnikin's dagger still embedded in his body, had managed to pursue them. The girl shoved Finnikin toward a horse tied to a nearby post. She grabbed Trevanion's sword out of the scabbard at his side and, without hesitating, held it by the blade and swung its ruby-encrusted handle between the legs of their pursuer. He heard a crack and knew it wasn't the handle that had shattered. The howl of agony was enough to wake the dead.

Finnikin mounted the horse. The girl handed him Trevanion's sword, then planted one of her feet on the assailant's chest for balance and yanked out Finnikin's dagger. She held out her arm to Finnikin, and he swung her up until she was seated behind him, clasping his waist, with the dagger in one hand. He looked down at her hands, strong and callused and bloody, as they clung to him. He felt her face against his back, heard her ragged breath close to his ear. A sudden desire to hear her voice flashed through him.

Sir Topher stared at them in shock. Finnikin didn't know whether it was because of the presence of the horse or the half-wild state of the novice. He helped them both dismount, but his eyes were on the girl.

"She was robbed," Finnikin muttered, beckoning him away. "But she knows how to use a sword."

"I warned you to keep her away from harm, Finnikin."

"Sir Topher," Finnikin said, keeping his voice controlled, "she handled a sword and used her wits. I tell you, she's no simpleton. I don't trust her."

"Handled a sword better than you?"

"Obviously not, but she still managed to maim two men, last count. One who, in all probability, will not be fathering anyone's child for quite a while."

They both looked over to where Evanjalin stood, her nose pressed against the horse. Finnikin leaned forward to whisper. "All that silence. It's not right."

"That would be the vow, Finnikin. The novices take it very seriously."

"I saw the novices of Lagrami often as a child. My cousin was one of them. They sang; they weaved; they planted roses. They did not fight like a feral trainee in the King's Guard. They did not know the amount of damage the handle of a sword swung between a man's legs could do."

"Times have changed, and even novices have had to learn to protect themselves," Sir Topher said. "Why can't you just be happy that she used initiative?"

Finnikin was silent. He remembered how she had pushed him toward the horse while she took Trevanion's sword to fight. He realized the truth. He was not irritated that the girl had shown initiative; it was that she had taken charge.

When they woke the next morning, she was gone.

"She left the horse and her pack, which means she plans to return," Sir Topher said, agitation in his voice. "You'll have to fetch her, Finnikin. Now."

"She's gone back for the thief," Finnikin said, shaking his head in disbelief. "He took her ring, no doubt, and she's gone back for it."

One of Sir Topher's rules was to never indulge in sentimentality, never return for what was left behind. Finnikin's eyes strayed toward the road that would lead them to Charyn. From there, with the girl, they would have traveled south to Sorel. On their own, Finnikin knew they would spend time in Osteria, where peace reigned. It was where the Lumateran ambassador now lived, working as the minister for Osterian trade.

Regardless of how annoying Finnikin found their former ambassador, he pictured the extensive palace library with its well-stocked fireplace and never-ending supply of hot tea and sweet breads.

"No, Finnikin," Sir Topher said quietly, as if he had read Finnikin's thoughts. "We will not leave her behind."

So Finnikin returned to Sprie, praying that he would not be the target of four maimed men and a peasant searching for his horse. He knew it would be difficult to go unnoticed. His hair was the ridiculous color of berries and gold, and he was lankier than the Sarnaks, slighter in build. He stood out easily in the daylight. As would the novice with her bare head and ugly gray shift.

He found her almost straight away, sitting huddled on a stone bench beside a stall, watching the activity around her with those strange dark eyes. Next to her, a desperate seller and a choosy buyer haggled over a small decorative dagger. At the far end of the square, Finnikin recognized the slave traders from Sorel. These were men who preyed on the plight of a people forced to sell one child to feed another. He had heard stories about how these children and women were used, and it sickened him to think that men were capable of such evil.

When he approached Evanjalin, she stared up at him, as if questioning the time it had taken him to join her. He squatted beside her, refusing to give in to his anger. Living with Sir Topher had taught him how to harness his feelings.

"Who is in charge here?" he asked quietly.

Without speech, she had only her eyes to communicate, but she used them well.

"This hand," he said, pointing to his left, "if I am. Or this hand," he said, pointing to his right, "if you are." He held them out to her, and she tapped his left hand gently.

He pulled her to her feet. "Good," he said, pleased with her choice.

Suddenly her body tensed. She looked over his shoulder, and then she was pushing past him. He had no choice but to follow. He could see the young thief disappearing into the maze of alleyways beyond the square.

She was fast; that he knew from the night before. Although she was hindered by her shift, Finnikin struggled to keep up with her. The chase was short, for the boy made the same mistake he had the previous night and led them into an alleyway that seemed to go nowhere.

He's not from here, Finnikin thought.

Evanjalin backed the boy into a corner and held out her hand. She received a backhand to her face for her effort; and she staggered from the impact. Finnikin gripped the thief by the coarse cloth of his jerkin and threw him against the stone wall, pinning him there with a hand to his throat. He went through the thief's pockets and found four pieces of silver. When he showed the girl the coins, she grabbed them, flinging them with the same rage he had glimpsed the night before.

"What did you do with the ring?" Finnikin asked the thief, shaking him.

The boy spat in Finnikin's face.

"Not the response I'm after," Finnikin said, hurling the thief away from the wall. "Now we play it this way. Back there by the spring are slave traders from Sorel. I'd recognize them anywhere. They stink of shit because that's all their victims do around them, from the fear of knowing where they are going to be taken."

The thief mocked a whimper. He spat in Finnikin's face again, this time straight in his eye. Wiping it slowly, Finnikin stared at him furiously, then dragged him out of the alleyway, with the novice trailing behind. "Get the silver, Evanjalin," he ordered.

The boy tried to escape by pulling out of his clothing.

"What you doing?"

Finnikin could hear a trace of alarm in the thief's voice. He'd used Sarnak words, clumsily spoken.

"Trading you for a horse." Finnikin took a long deliberate look at the boy. "Oh, and they do like them young."

The thief continued to struggle, but Finnikin held on tightly, almost choking him. "Peddler from Osteria," the boy wheezed. "Said it fake anyway."

The novice slapped him. Her eyes were glinting with tears. Finnikin tried not to imagine what he would do if the thief had sold Trevanion's sword.

"He's not worth it. Let's go."

But the novice would not move. She stared at the youth, eyes blazing.

The thief repeated his favorite gesture by spitting in her face. He wore a black felt cap that came down to his eyes. They were a nondescript color, strawlike perhaps, and Finnikin could see his features were beginning to display a blunt cruelty, a mouth forever in a sneer. He had the build of one who would thicken with age, evident by the size of his fists. But he was young, at least five years their junior. Finnikin wondered how many more of his kind were roaming these streets.

"They come hunting," the thief said. "Hunt you people down."

He spoke like a foreigner, and it was in that moment Finnikin realized where the boy came from. There was a glassy look in his eyes that Finnikin had not seen since he was separated briefly from Sir Topher at the age of twelve and placed in a prison in the Osterian capital. There had been Lumateran exiles with him, children whose parents had either been killed during the five days of the unspeakable or died of the fever. Some of the children did not know their own names and couldn't speak a word of any language. A shared origin meant nothing in that prison, and he could tell it meant nothing to this boy, who would have been no more than three or four when his family escaped from Lumatere.

Finnikin didn't need to ask who would be hunting them. In Sarnak there was always someone. Perhaps a pack of youths. Or bitter men, no longer able to put food on the table for their families. Finnikin was certain the thief would betray them to the first person who would listen, for any price. When the novice caught his eye, he knew what they had to do.

Sir Topher stared at the three of them with his usual aplomb. "So now our little party has a horse and a thief?"

Finnikin secured the rope around the boy's hands. "It's either him or a pack of Sarnaks he will send in our direction."

Sir Topher looked at the thief. "What's your name, boy?"

The thief spat.

"It's his favorite response," Finnikin said dryly. "We can dump him in Charyn."

"Not if we find exiles there, and I suspect we will. Perhaps Sorel."

"I think he'd like Sorel," Finnikin said. He turned to the thief. "Heard of the prison mines there?"

The boy paled, and Finnikin looked at Sir Topher, pleased. "Good. He seems familiar with them." He glanced over to where the novice was huddled under the tree, her hands covering her head. "He sold her ring."

Sir Topher sighed. "As soon as we're in Sorel, we won't have to worry anymore."

A fortnight, Finnikin calculated as Sir Topher began loading up the horse. That was all they needed before the thief from Sarnak and the novice Evanjalin were out of their lives forever.

Chapter 4

It was always their eyes that gave away their Lumateran heritage, and this time was no different. As they entered the gates of Charyn, the two guards snickered and Finnikin heard one of them mutter, "Dogs." Whether from the Rock or the River or the Flatlands, whether dark or fair, Lumaterans all had eyes that were set deep in their sockets. Finnikin had heard that the king of Charyn had once ordered his guards to measure the distance of a Lumateran prisoner's eyes from his nose, deeming them too close and therefore not human. He hated this kingdom. The one time he and Sir Topher had visited the Charyn court in the early years of their exile, he had feared for their lives. There were strange and sinister occurrences in the palace that week, bloodcurdling screams in the night and shouts of rage. Many claimed that the royal blood was tainted and that the king and his offspring were all half-mad.

The path that led to the capital was lined with stone houses. They were bare except for their doorways, which were crowned with rosebushes that had not yet bloomed. Although it would take them at least ten days, they planned to travel along one of the three rivers in Charyn that ran into Sorel. If there were exiles to be found, the river was the place to find them. Lumaterans were nothing if not sentimental, drawn to any place that resembled the physical landscape of their lost world.

Four days later, they found a camp. From where they stood at the top of a ridge, they could see a small settlement of about fifty exiles. Finnikin led the way down, clutching onto branches as he slid toward the flat narrow bank where the tents were pitched.

Two of the exiles, a man and a woman, came forward to meet them. As usual, there was a moment's distrust in their eyes. Despite the distance between camps, the exiles had heard stories of what had taken place in other kingdoms and were aware of their own vulnerability. In their travels, Finnikin and Sir Topher had often come across the same exiles year after year, but these people were unfamiliar. They had obviously kept themselves well hidden.

Sir Topher made his introductions, and the man stared at Finnikin. Then he nodded and extended his arm, bent at the elbow, fist clenched. The greeting of Lumateran River people.

"Son of Trevanion," the man acknowledged.

Finnikin raised his arm in a similar way and clasped the other man's hand.

"We lived on the river as children, when Trevanion returned to defend it," the woman explained. "My name is Emmian, and this is my husband, Cibrian."

It did not surprise Finnikin that the Lumateran River people had taken charge of the exiles here, as they had in many of the other camps. Along with the Monts, they had been the toughest of their people.

"Your mother's kin were from the Rock, Finnikin," Cibrian said.

Finnikin nodded. "I spent most of my childhood there, with my great-aunt, except when my father was on leave."

"Have you crossed their paths on your travels? I have a sister wed to the shoemaker of the Rock."

"I remember him well," Finnikin said with a smile. "But we have encountered few from the Rock Village. We think that most stayed when the elders gave the order. I doubt that any of them left the kingdom unless they were in the square that day."

"It is hard to say whether that is a blessing or a curse," Emmian said quietly.

Cibrian led them to the rest of his people, and Finnikin exchanged nods of acknowledgment with a group of exiles his own age. Seeing them made him think of Balthazar and Lucian, imagining the lads they would have grown up to be.

A sprinkle of rain began to fall, and they followed Cibrian to his dwelling. The exiles were well equipped. Their tents were made of tough horse hide; there were plenty of provisions and even a few goats. Finnikin suspected that some of the exiles had found work in the nearest village. The children seemed healthier than most camp children, and he wondered if there was a healer among them.

"We have been lucky this spring to have received the benevolence of Lord August of the Flatlands, an acquaintance of yours, I hear," Cibrian said to Sir Topher. "He requested that we look out for the son of Trevanion and the king's First Man."

Sir Topher exchanged a glance with Finnikin. "Why is it that Lord August finds himself in Charyn when he belongs to the Belegonian court?" he asked.

"Palace business. He was on his way home when he paid us a visit. He asked that you pass through the Belegonian capital if you were in these parts."

"It is our intention to travel south into Sorel," Sir Topher said.

"He was very definite in his request, sir."

Emmian and Cibrian's tent was large. Two children, no more than eight or ten, lay in the corner. They soon scampered across the space to join their parents. Finnikin watched Emmian gather them against her, her fingers lingering on their arms. These children were loved. He looked over to where the thief of Sarnak sat in a huddle of hate alongside the novice and could not help but make a comparison.

The little girl was looking at him with wide eyes. "Can you tell us the story of Lady Beatriss and Captain Trevanion?" she asked.

The adults stiffened, their expressions a mixture of alarm and guilt. Finnikin remembered how much Lumaterans enjoyed a romance. He had grown up hearing over and over again the story of the young king who went riding through the mountains and encountered a wild Mont girl who captured his heart. He had not realized that Beatriss and Trevanion's story had ignited the same interest.

"They are tired, Jenna. They don't have time for telling stories," her father said abruptly.

Finnikin watched as every adult in the tent looked away or busied themselves with the nothingness of their lives. It was as if the child's request had never been made. Even Sir Topher was focusing on the river outside, and suddenly Finnikin felt lonely for his father, a luxury he rarely allowed himself.

But Evanjalin was staring at him, refusing to look away. There was something in her expression, a question in her eyes, that made him clear his throat.

"It was a fierce love," he said gruffly. "Very fierce."

The little girl's cheeks flushed with pleasure, while the shoulders of the boy slumped with disappointment. The same way Finnikin's would whenever he had to sit through his great-aunt Celestina's ramblings about the wedding vows spoken by the king to his Mont girl. Finnikin would have much preferred to hear about the jousting and fencing entertainment provided by the King's Guard as a part of the celebrations.

"But I need to go back further, if you will let me," he said to the boy. "To the time when Trevanion of the River defended his people with just one mighty sword and forty dedicated men!"

Evanjalin bit her lip as if holding back a laugh, and he found himself grinning. The young boy sat up, a look of excitement on his face. He nodded, willing Finnikin to continue.

"My father was once a lowly foot soldier. As a young man, he watched each year as the barbarians, who lived far beyond the borders of Skuldenore, came down his beloved river with dragonships that seemed to appear from out of the sky. First they would raid Sarnak to our north, and then Lumatere. They were brutal, these foreigners, plunderers of the worst kind."

"Did they take their tents and food?" the boy asked eagerly, and for a moment Finnikin saw a glimpse of Balthazar's face in his expression. It made him numb with sadness and he failed to find the words to continue.

He heard a small sound, like the clearing of a throat, and glanced up to see Evanjalin. She had a look in her eye as if she somehow understood, and he found his voice once more.

"They took gold, of course," he said, swallowing the lump in his throat. "And silver. Lumatere had the best mines in the land and became the barbarian invaders' dream. Unfortunately the king had inherited a lazy, cowardly Guard headed by his cousin, who made it easy for the foreigners to do what they liked."

"Where was Trevanion?" the little girl asked.

"He was protecting a worthless duke on the Flatlands. But things changed in his twentieth year. The barbarians returned and decided that gold and silver were not enough. They would take the young people of the river to work as slaves in their land. The older ones who tried to stop them died in battle. That's how Trevanion lost his parents and sisters. During the same time, my mother died in childbirth, so you can imagine his fury and sadness.

"One day when the king was visiting the worthless duke, Trevanion pushed past the Guard and stood face-to-face with the leader of the kingdom. He demanded to know what the king was going to do about protecting his people. Little did he know, the king would toss and turn each night, feeling helpless in his palace while his river was plundered and his people were taken. But what could a king with a weak Guard do? He had Trevanion arrested, of course."

"Did they torture him?" the boy asked in a hushed tone.

"No. The king had a plan. Each night, while pretending to demand an apology, he would speak to Trevanion about the barbarian invaders and his lazy Guard. Trevanion made him a promise. If the king released him, he would choose forty of the best fighters in Lumatere and put an end to the annual plundering, and the king agreed.

"Trevanion was ruthless in training his men, but it was worth it. One year later, when the barbarians returned, they failed to conquer Trevanion's river. By the time he was twenty-one, he was made captain of the Guard. His men were fearless warriors, and the country stayed safe. No one dared to challenge Trevanion's Guard. Even the Monts kept quiet and out of trouble, and everyone knows how hard it is to keep the Monts under control."

"But what happened to the other captain of the Guard? The king's cousin?" the boy asked.

Finnikin heard an intake of breath, and he knew it was not right to mention the impostor king to these children. But the adults knew the rest of the story. The cousin of the king had been offered a place in the Charyn royal court, where he waited for the next ten years for a chance to take the throne of Lumatere.

"Don't you want to hear about Trevanion and Lady Beatriss?"

"Oh, yes, please," the little girl begged.

"Are you sure? Because perhaps the story about Trevanion working at the palace as the new captain will bore you." He directed his remark to the young boy, who shook his head solemnly. "This is where Lady Beatriss comes into it. From the outside, she seemed fragile. She was a novice of Lagrami, as most of the privileged girls were. They were taught to be good wives. To be accomplished. I've heard some say it was a weakness for the captain to fall in love with such an indulged child of Lumatere. But Trevanion saw more in her than most."

"She was almost as beautiful as the princesses," Emmian murmured.

"No one was as beautiful as the princesses." The voice came from one of the exiles standing outside. Finnikin saw that, despite the drizzle of rain, he had acquired an audience.

"Trevanion would disagree. But that wasn't always the case. You see, Lady Beatriss was the nursemaid of Balthazar and Isaboe, as well as being a loyal friend to the three older princesses. Now, I will be the first to admit that the royal children, and me included, did not make Beatriss's task easy. Balthazar and Isaboe were very... shall we say, high-spirited at times? They had little fear of anything and spent many a day hanging out of the tower of the palace, calling out, 'You, there!' to the children of the villagers, while poor Beatriss would hold them back, begging them to behave.

"But Balthazar loved the villagers. He used to call them 'the neighbors,' and as he'd make his way down to the palace village, he would call out to them one by one. 'Your rose beds are a vision, Esmine. I will have to take one for my mother.' Or 'I hope you will be sharing that wine with my father once your grapes are ripened, Mr Ward.' The queen raised her children to see no difference between themselves and the poorest villagers. Although there was many a time she boxed our ears for teaching the village boys how to shoot arrows from the roofs of their cottages.

"One day, Balthazar was hanging precariously out of the tower when the captain of the King's Guard happened to be walking across the moat, into the palace grounds. I can remember an almighty roar and Trevanion ordering us down from the tower. 'Including you!' he shouted, pointing a finger at Lady Beatriss."

The younger ones in the tent laughed, and even Sir Topher chuckled. "I remember that bellow well," Cibrian said, nodding.

"A trembling Lady Beatriss made her way down to the moat, trailed by the rest of us, to receive the biggest blasting of our lives. Poor Beatriss was sobbing, but Trevanion shouted, 'Stop your blubbering! They are the royal children! They need to be kept safe. Be functional, woman. Are you nothing but a doll with a pretty face and a powerful father?'"

There were gasps from both inside and outside the tent.

"Well, of course, he was ordered to apologize, but he refused. It was his job to protect the royal family, he told the king, and he should be able to do and say whatever it took to ensure their safety. Meanwhile Beatriss was sent back home to her father's manor until the fuss died down. The three older princesses refused to speak to the king until Trevanion apologized, and Balthazar and Isaboe were full of woe because their new nursemaid was the meanest woman in the whole of Lumatere. And that's how things stayed."

Finnikin paused, almost hypnotized by the look of anticipation in the eyes of the children and adults around him. Some from outside the tent had squeezed their way in to sit beside Cibrian and his family. Evanjalin's hands were wrapped around her knees, and she rested her head against them. There was a faraway look on her face, but her smile remained and it stirred something within him.

"Everything changed one day when my father was returning me to my mother's people in the Rock Village. Balthazar and Isaboe begged to come along, and who better to look after the royal children but the captain of the King's Guard? Even the meanest woman in the whole of Lumatere agreed.

"On the way, we stopped in the Flatlands to deliver some documents to the duke of Sennington, who was Beatriss's father. Trevanion told us to stay with our horses while he walked down the path to the manor house. We became restless after a while and wandered into a nearby paddock, not realizing that it contained one very angry bull. A huge one, glaring straight at us. As Trevanion approached and saw the danger, his first reaction was to race down the path toward the paddock. That day was one of the only times I have seen fear in my father's eyes. He was the captain of the King's Guard, the best swordsmen in the land, but what did a river boy know about bulls?"

"What do you river people know about anything?" one of the Flatlanders teased.

"More than a yokel farmer," a river exile tossed back, and there was more laughter. Finnikin could tell that teasing and laughter were new to these people.

"Then who happened to be walking by at that moment but Lady Beatriss, who was a farm girl at heart and understood animals. Before we knew it, she was waving her arms, yelling for us to run as soon as the bull turned toward her. We ran for our lives, leaping over a fence that to this day I have no idea how we got over. But we were safe. She wasn't, of course. I swear that she went flying in the air when the bull charged her. My father had no choice but to maim the animal. Then he carried her out of the paddock and laid her under a tree. Princess Isaboe was sobbing over Beatriss's body, begging her to open her eyes. Which she did after a moment or two. Seeing us safe, she breathed a sigh of relief and then looked at Trevanion and said, 'Was that functional enough for you, Captain?' Then she slapped his face, because his hand was on her thigh, and promptly fainted."

There was applause from the women and groans from the men, but the children stared at Finnikin, awestruck.

"And from that day on, my father wooed her."

Finnikin glanced up as he finished. The tent was overflowing with people, young girls with wistful smiles on their faces and young men who looked as if they were imagining themselves as Trevanion. But it was the expressions on the faces of the older ones that caught Finnikin's attention most, a mixture of joy and sadness as they remembered the world they had lost.

"Ah, Trevanion," Cibrian murmured later as they sat outside the tent where the children slept. "He should have prostrated himself at the feet of the impostor king." Cibrian had gutted five large trout and was cooking them over the fire.

"No," Finnikin said firmly. "The King's Guard lies prostrate only at the feet of their rightful leader. The impostor king had a hand in the slaughter of the royal family, and my father knew it. He was not to know they would take Lady Beatriss as they did."

"I pray to the goddess Lagrami for your father's safe return to guide us home, Finnikin," Cibrian said.

"If we convince Belegonia to give us a piece of land, will you join us with your people?" Finnikin asked.

Cibrian shook his head sadly. "If we accept a new homeland, it will mean that Lumatere is lost to us for eternity."

"Maybe it always has been."

Finnikin regretted his words instantly, but wasn't that what he had always believed? That if they accepted their loss, they could stay long enough in a place as one people and discover who they were once again?

"I will not betray these people to anyone," Cibrian said in a low voice, "but we have Lumaterans among us who have... abilities that weren't just limited to the Forest Dwellers. There is talk of Balthazar returning."

Beside him, Finnikin felt Evanjalin stiffen.

"Dreams and premonitions," the man continued. "Could it be that the witch Seranonna is trying to reverse the curse from beyond the grave?"

With a look, Sir Topher warned Finnikin not to react, and instead they turned their attention to eating.

After dinner, Finnikin sat in the tent he shared with his three companions and recorded the names of Cibrian's people in the Book of Lumatere. So far in their travels, they had located one thousand seven hundred and thirty exiles. In the census taken in Lumatere in the spring before the days of the unspeakable, the population had been six thousand and twelve.

"Can we trust Lord August?" he asked Sir Topher quietly in Belegonian, finishing his entry. "I say we go straight to Sorel."

"He is our only link to the Belegonian court. He may be ready to make an offer on the king's behalf, Finnikin."

"Then why was he in Charyn? We have never trusted the Charynites."

"And you have never trusted the Lumateran dukes who chose to work for foreign kings," Sir Topher responded.

"You chose not to rely on the comfort of a foreign court."

Finnikin moved closer. He could hear the murmur of voices of those in the tents surrounding them. The footsteps of one too restless to sleep.

"It's different for a king's First Man. But I understand the Duke's decision and even the ambassador in Osteria. Have they not worked through us many times to better conditions of the exiles?" Sir Topher sighed, settling back onto his bedroll. "You will visit him."

"Why me?"

"You're Trevanion's son. Your father worked for his."

"My father hated his father."

"You will go, Finnikin," Sir Topher said firmly. "It could be our biggest step toward obtaining land for our people." He looked over to where the novice and the thief lay. "We'll take one each. Evanjalin can accompany you. We don't want the thief causing a disruption in Lord August's home. There was talk tonight that the priest-king has been seen around these parts, and it is just as important I make contact with him."

Finnikin closed his book. "All this talk about the return of Balthazar and the need for Trevanion. It will only mean that the exiles will continue to live in the past and sit waiting for a miracle."

"It is approaching ten years," Sir Topher said with a sigh. "It is not surprising that people are thinking about it. Leave them to their dreams and superstitions while we make the progress."

Chapter 5

They entered Belegonia through neighboring Osteria to reach the crossroads of the north. The palaces of Osteria and Lumatere and the border of Sendecane were all a day's ride from the crossroads. As they prepared to follow the arrow south to the Belegonian capital, Finnikin stared at the arrow pointing north. The name Lumatere had been scratched out.

For a moment he allowed his memory to take him down a road lined with vineyards and olive trees. It was one he had traveled often with his father. Each time, he would climb the ridge overlooking the Valley of Tranquillity and see the kingdom of Lumatere spread out before him. Villages of cobblestoned roads that rang with the sound of hooves, meadows lush with flowers, huts lined up along a river that snaked through the kingdom and pulsed with life. In his mind he followed the river to its port, where barges loaded with crates would depart, taking the richness of the kingdom's produce as far south as Yutlind and to the farthest reaches of Sarnak. He could see his village in the Rock, his uncle's smokehouse, where meat and fish hung from the ceiling, and the quarry where he would take Balthazar and Isaboe, who would thrill the villagers with their eagerness to join in with the digging and extracting. Lucian of the Monts had said it was unnatural to live in caves. Trogs, he called them, and although at times Finnikin felt the limits of the Rock Village, nothing could take away the view over the rest of the land, where he would see a farmer knock acorns out of an oak tree for his pigs, or families working together, cutting wheat with sickles and bringing in the harvest. And there in the distance, the king's palace, perched up high, overlooking their beloved people inside the kingdom walls and those outside in the Forest of Lumatere.

The only time Finnikin and Sir Topher had returned to the Valley of Tranquillity was in their fifth year of exile. By then the dark mist that had once stopped at the walls of the kingdom had spread to consume a third of the valley, including the Forest of Lumatere. But just as Finnikin despaired that there was nothing of their homeland to see or feel, without warning, the scar on his thigh from his pledge with Balthazar and Lucian had begun to flow with blood, leaving him with a heady sense of euphoria and his body a boneless heap. He had lost all sense of the normal world that day, but in his delirium he dreamed of a moment so perfect that to put it into words seemed futile. When he woke, Sir Topher was there, his face white with worry and fear, and Finnikin had sobbed with a joy that he knew Sir Topher could not understand. He had experienced a phenomenon beyond their world, where he felt the beat not just of his own heart but of another as well, as if some great spirit had crawled into him and planted a seed of hope. As if perhaps Balthazar was alive and one day soon the curse would lift and Lumatere would be free again.

Yet when they had descended from the ridge and tried to push through the dark mist, a great force had driven them back. Still, Finnikin would not give up. He had felt something on that ridge, and despite Sir Topher's gentle urging to walk away, he tried again and again, forcing himself against the whirlpool of malevolence spinning across the valley, needing to push through as if there was someone on the other side waiting to grasp his hand. Sometimes he swore he felt fingertips against his but always beyond his grasp, and his sobs of frustration turned into grunts of fatigue. Until day became dusk. The sun disappeared. Then darkness.

"We will not return here, Finnikin," Sir Topher had said sadly. "There is nothing left for us. For our people."

Overcome with fatigue, Finnikin had known that his mentor was right. It was foolish to think that Balthazar had lived. From that day, Finnikin had not dared to entertain the hope of a return to Lumatere, and he cursed anyone who allowed themselves to think otherwise.

Three days after their arrival in Charyn, Finnikin and Evanjalin set up camp on the outskirts of the Belegonian capital. As they had traveled toward the city, Finnikin felt his mood lift. There was a magic to this kingdom. Belegonia was a center for learning, and over the years, Sir Topher had made sure that Finnikin experienced everything it had to offer. He liked the way that just when he thought he knew every part of the city, he would find another snakelike alley. He liked how they argued in these alleys. What they argued about. Not just taxes and death, but the quality of a building, the theory of the latest philosopher, the histories according to Will the baker as opposed to Jark the butcher. Throughout the rest of the land, people worked and slept and existed. In Belegonia, as they once did in Lumatere, the people truly lived.

As they approached the city center, Finnikin heard music. A girl with pipes, a man with a drum, counting the beat one, two, three, four in a way that had Finnikin's blood pumping a rhythm of mayhem to his heart. For a moment he lost sight of Evanjalin as those around them began to dance. But then she was there before him, her eyes blazing. As drum beats rang through the street, she slowly raised her arms and clapped her hands above her left shoulder. Eyes fixed on hers, Finnikin instinctively clapped his hands above his right shoulder. Then, just as slowly, Evanjalin tapped her feet and he mirrored the movement. It was the beginning of their kingdom's Harvest Moon dance, and as the rhythm quickened and those around them stamped and twirled, every part of him belonged to this hypnotic dance with Evanjalin. But then the rhythm changed, and Finnikin came to his senses. He took her hand and gently led her away.

As they made their way toward the houses overlooking the main square, Finnikin's frustration returned. He was still annoyed that they had responded to Lord August's request. August of the Flatlands was the son of the duke Trevanion had been assigned to protect as a young foot soldier. When Trevanion left to fight the invaders, Lord August followed, wanting to prove that he was more than just a privileged man's son. Finnikin knew that what had developed over the years was a fierce friendship between his father and the nobleman. Yet he could not forget that since the five days of the unspeakable, he and Sir Topher had not encountered any of Lord August's people from the village of Sayles. He knew that most of them escaped to the Valley, but he suspected that somewhere in their journey they had been abandoned by the duke and were most likely suffering in the fever camps. Or worse.

Lord August's residence was tall and narrow, with no doors on the ground level. Finnikin assumed the family entered through one of the buildings alongside, though he had no idea why Lord August felt the need for such protection. Nobility were protected by foreign courts, despite their Lumateran heritage.

A carriage pulled up outside the house, and Finnikin watched a woman and four children step out. He recognized Lady Abian, looking every bit the duchess in her silks and jewels. She was followed by Lady Celie and her three younger brothers. He had not seen Lady Celie since they were children, and she had changed little. Always fragile, she had been a strange, quiet child who was bullied by Lucian of the Monts but much loved by the royal children.

The family paid no attention to Finnikin and Evanjalin until Lady Celie dropped a bundle of cloth. Evanjalin bent to retrieve it, and the other girl stifled a scream that made Finnikin dislike her instantly. The two girls faced each other, one dainty and refined in her dress, the other plain and coarse. He saw an emotion flash through Evanjalin's eyes before the family disappeared into the building next door.

When Lord August finally appeared through the same entrance, his face was impassive but he gripped Finnikin's shoulder tightly. He was dressed in the wealthy silks of a king's court and Finnikin dismissed him, as he did most dukes in exile, as one with a meaningless title. He led them to the courtyard of the building alongside his residence. It wasn't until they were standing in a small room, bare except for the frescoes on the walls, that Lord August stopped to look at Finnikin closely.

"You're not a boy anymore."

"How does one tell, my lord?"

"By the ache in the heart of a father who understands how Trevanion would feel if he were to see how much has been taken from him."

Finnikin looked away, then mumbled an introduction to the novice. "And Sir Topher sends his apologies. There has been talk that the priest-king is in these parts, and he is keen to see if it's true."

"I have heard such talk. But I doubt he is here. The priest-king has developed a death wish over the past ten years and spends much of his time in the fever camps."

"You promised us a meeting with the king, Lord August," Finnikin reminded him.

"No," the man said firmly. "There was never a promise. Just an invitation to discuss Lumatere."

"And what is it that you'd like to discuss, my lord? As we have mentioned each time we return here, the only hope for Lumatere is land for our exiles."

"And as I have said to Sir Topher year after year, why would the king of Belegonia be interested in carving up his land?"

"You contacted us," Finnikin said, not hiding the anger in his voice. "We came here because you invited us. Why waste our time, my lord? Our people are dying, and you make us travel all the way here to see you."

"Give me information I don't already have, Finnikin. Tell me that you're attempting to return home and I will ask for the king's assistance."

"We don't have a home," Finnikin snapped. "Push for land, Lord August. That is all we want. A piece of Belegonian land by the river. We will settle there and fend for ourselves, and the Belegonians need not worry."

"If we have our Guard, I will bet my life that Balthazar comes out of hiding," Lord August said in a low tone.

"The Lumateran Guard no longer exists."

"As long as Trevanion lives, it exists."

Finnikin pushed back his hair in frustration. "Are you trying to trap me, my lord? Has my father escaped from one of the land's prisons and are you trying to locate him?"

Lord August laughed with little humor. "Escape? Not for want of his Guard trying. I've told you before, I have no idea where he is. They transferred him in secrecy one night seven years ago. All I know is that they took him to Yutlind Nord, but he no longer seems to be there. I suspect the ambassador knows, but he refuses to speak of Trevanion. He says he honors the wishes of the captain."

Finnikin dug his fingernails into his palms.

"I remember the times I would visit him in the prison here," Lord August continued. "He would only ever ask one question: 'Is my boy safe?' As long as the answer was yes, he did not care what happened to him. But he could be persuaded by you, Finnikin. If Trevanion was found and freed, his Guard would come out of hiding, and then we would have the most powerful men of Lumatere to lead us home."

"Even if we had my father and the Guard and the heir, have you forgotten that we're actually missing a kingdom?" Finnikin said sharply.

"The truth lies with the heir, Finnikin. Balthazar will know how to get us inside. The gifted ones among us are speaking. They sense something. Someone."

"Let me talk to the king," Finnikin repeated.

The duke shook his head, a look of angry disappointment on his face, and suddenly Finnikin felt as if he were facing his father.

"The king will want a favor in return," Lord August said dismissively.

"They can afford to have us here, my lord. It is why we have chosen Belegonia and not Osteria. Look at all the open space in this kingdom. We traveled five days to arrive here, through the most lush and fertile land. All empty. Wasted. While our people live in overcrowded camps."

"They will say it is not their responsibility, Finnikin."

"Then whose responsibility are we?"

"They will say that they have done enough! That our people need to help themselves. To integrate. They claim they have no control over the outlaws who harrass some of the camps. No control over their own people, while ours are at the mercy of the oppressed of each land who relish the opportunity to be an oppressor."

"Is that what you believe?"

Lord August stared at him. "Do you think I don't continually ask myself if I could have done more? Do you think I don't visit the people in those camps and want to take every one of them into my home? But whom do I choose, Finnikin? The motherless child? The pregnant woman? The man who has lost his entire family?" He shook his head, and Finnikin knew he was being dismissed. "Tell the king something he might find useful, and he may come to your aid."

Finnikin stood, hopelessness rendering him speechless.

"Then tell him this."

The voice came from behind him. A strong voice, yet hoarse as if it were new to speech. She spoke in the Lumateran language, and it sent a shiver through Finnikin's body.

"Tell him the impostor king did not work alone," Evanjalin said, making her way across the room toward them. "Tell him that Lumatere was never the objective, just the means." She stood by Finnikin's side. With a voice, she looked different. Words put fire in her eyes in the same way music had.

"What better way for cunning Charyn to take control of Belegonia, its most powerful rival, than to place a puppet ruler in the kingdom between them. And when Charyn decides to plunder Belegonia, the bloodshed in Lumatere will pale in comparison."

Lord August walked toward them until he was eye to eye with Evanjalin. Finnikin could hardly breathe. She brushed up against his arm, and he felt her tremble.

"Who are you to know such things?" the duke whispered in their mother tongue.

"When one is silent, those around speak even more, my lord."

"And what do you hope to achieve with this information?" He looked at Finnikin. "What's going on here, Finnikin?"

"You asked for something the king of Belegonia did not already know," Finnikin said, as if rehearsed. "We have given it. So what can we take away with us in return? An audience with your king, perhaps?"

Lord August's face was white with fury. He grabbed hold of Finnikin roughly. "My king," he spat, "is dead. The king of Belegonia is my employer. Never mistake one for the other."

The girl reached over and released Lord August's hands from Finnikin. "So if we are to return to Lumatere, you would leave all this?" she asked. "Security. Privilege. In exchange for a kingdom that could be razed to the ground at any moment? Just say your lands are no longer there, my lord? Maybe worked by another who believes that he is entitled to them over you. Would you be so eager to return to Lumatere if you had nothing to go back to?"

He stared at the two standing before him. "Led by Balthazar and his First Man?" he asked. "Protected by the King's Guard? Blessed by the priest-king? Say the words, and I will be on my knees with my hands in the soil, planting the first seed."

Neither Finnikin nor Evanjalin spoke until they were outside the duke's residence. Finnikin grabbed her arm. "Explain to me your vow of silence!" he demanded in Lumateran.

She placed a finger across his lips. "Sir Topher would be furious to know that you're speaking our mother tongue in public," she said quietly, surprising him even more by speaking Belegonian.

When they returned to the camp, the thief from Sarnak was tied to a tree. The boy let out a string of expletives, spittle flying, hatred in his eyes. Still filled with his own anger, Finnikin walked over and grabbed him by the hair.

"My mother, unlike yours, never exchanged sexual favors for a piece of silver," he said, addressing the first insult by banging the boy's head against the trunk of the tree. "And," he said with another resounding thump, "although I'm very familiar with that part of the female body, I take offense at being labeled one."

"I'm presuming by your mood that things did not go well with the duke," Sir Topher called from where he sat by the fire.

Finnikin joined him. "She spoke."

"Evanjalin?" Sir Topher was on his feet in an instant. "What did she say to you?"

"She spoke Lumateran in the presence of the Duke. And later she spoke to me in Belegonian."

Sir Topher glanced over to where Evanjalin was preparing their supper. "Finnikin, what did she tell you?" he asked urgently.

"What you have always suspected about the impostor king and the attack on Lumatere."

Sir Topher paled. "Puppet king to the Charynites?"

Finnikin nodded.

"And Lord August?"

"He will take it to the king of Belegonia, but only if we return to Lumatere with my father's Guard. More talk about Balthazar as well."

"Empaths," Sir Topher said, his eyes still on the novice as she busied herself plucking a pheasant. "It's the empaths who are sensing something."

"I thought they were all put to death."

"No, only those who belonged to the Forest Dwellers. There seem to have been others with the gift, especially among the Flatlanders and the Monts. I believe it's why Saro of the Monts keeps his people well hidden."

Sir Topher walked over to where the girl was sitting. Feathers were stuck to her fingers and parts of her shift.

"Pick a language," Finnikin said stiffly. "She seems to know a few."

The novice stood, her eyes moving from Finnikin to Sir Topher. "I only know the language of my parents and Belegonian," she said quietly in Belegonian. "And I can speak a little Sarnak."

Sir Topher's breath caught. "Is there anything else you need to tell us, Evanjalin?"

She shook her head, and her bottom lip began to quiver.

"There's no need to be afraid," Sir Topher continued gently. "Where did you hear about Charyn's plan for Belegonia?"

She leaned close, whispering into his ear, "Balthazar."

Finnikin saw confusion on Sir Topher's face.

"Please don't be angry, Sir Topher," she said. "Please take me to the Monts. They will know what to do, I promise you. On my life, I promise you."

"And you believe them to be in Sorel?"

She hesitated for a moment and then nodded.

The thief was cackling with laughter. "Crying," he mimicked. "So sad. Want someone to cut my froat open and feed it to the dogs."

The girl did not respond, and after a moment Sir Topher walked away. "Come, Finnikin. Practice."

But Finnikin stayed. "Why is it that you choose silence, Evanjalin?" he said. "Something to hide?"

Her eyes met his. "Why speak when I can respond to your whistle like a dog?"

He gave a humorless laugh. There was nothing simple about this one.

"And anyway, I was so enjoying the discussions about fragile Lady Zarah."

He and Sir Topher had discussed Lord Tascan's daughter in Osterian. Finnikin's eyes narrowed as he tried to bite back his anger. What they didn't know about this girl could fill the Book of Lumatere.

"Is that jealousy I hear in your voice?" he asked.

"Jealousy? Of a vacuous member of the nobility who trills like a bird, according to Sir Topher?"

"Your voice could do with a bit more of a trill," he said.

"Really? Because yours could do with a bit more refinement. For someone who's supposed to be the future king's First Man, you sound like a fishmonger."

"First," he seethed, "I belong to the future King's Guard and second, my father was the son of a fishmonger, so I would choose my insults more carefully if I were you."

"Finnikin! Practice," Sir Topher called out again.

Evanjalin returned to the task with the pheasant as if Finnikin were no longer there.

"You have a very dark heart," he accused.

"It's good of you to recognize, Finnikin," she said without looking up. "There's hope for you yet."

Chapter 6

The road to Sorel from Belegonia ran through ancient caverns said to be the dwelling place of the darkest gods in the land. Travelers preferred the ocean route between the two kingdoms despite the piracy on the open seas, and Finnikin could understand why. The journey through the caverns took most of the day. He was forced to stoop for the entire time and felt hounded by the carvings of grotesque forms, half-human, half-animal, on the walls around them. Yellow painted eyes tracked him, while outstretched clawlike fingers traced an icy line along his arm whenever he brushed against the jagged rock.

There was little reprieve when they reached the capital. Sorel was a kingdom of stone and rubble, its terrain as unrelenting as Sendecane. The dryness in the air caused them to choke each time they tried to speak, and rough pieces of stone cut into Finnikin's thin leather boots. He could not help but notice the bloodied feet of the novice, and he cursed her for whatever it was that drove her on. Lately she had taken the lead, though when he thought back, he realized that she had done so since Sendecane.

Sorel had a darkness to its core, much like Charyn. But if Charyn was a knife that could slice its victim with quick and deadly precision, justice in Sorel was a blunt blade that dug and tunneled into the flesh, leaving its victim to die a long and painful death. Sorel had been Lumatere's only competitor in the export of ore from its mines and had reveled in the catastrophe of the unspeakable, tripling export fees and bleeding the surrounding kingdoms dry. The king used the mines as a prison, and it was rumored that some inmates had not seen light of day for as long as Finnikin had been alive. Worse still were the stories of the slave children, forced to work in the mines during the day and locked up underground at night. For once Finnikin was grateful that he and Sir Topher and the thief were fair in coloring and even more grateful that the novice's hair was shorn.

"Keep your head down," he warned her at the heavily guarded border town. "They distrust those with dark eyes, and this is one place we do not want attention drawn to us."

Finnikin passed through safely; not even the quiver of arrows he wore on his back and the bow that hung from his side drew the attention of the guards. But the novice did. They grabbed her by the coarse cloth of her shift, almost choking her. Finnikin lunged toward them, but she held out her hand to stop him. He watched as one soldier forced her to her knees, checking behind her ears for any marks of the phlux, which the people of Sorel believed the exiles of Lumatere carried in their bodies and spread across the land.

The soldier showed no emotion. Unlike in Sarnak, there was no hatred caused by hunger and poverty. There was nothing but a sense of superiority taught from an early age and a strong aversion to foreigners. When the same soldier forced Evanjalin's mouth open and shoved his fingers inside, Finnikin's fury returned and he made a grab for Trevanion's sword, only to be pinned back by Sir Topher.

"You will make things worse!" his mentor hissed in his ear. "You're putting her life at risk."

The thief of Sarnak snickered with glee.

In the village, Evanjalin was sick at his feet. Finnikin suspected it came from the memory of the soldier's filthy fingers inside her mouth. Without thinking, he held her up and wiped her face with the hem of his shirt. Their eyes met, and he saw a bleakness there that made him choke. Suddenly he wanted the power to wipe such hopelessness away. That moment in front of the guards, he had allowed emotion to cloud his reason. Yet he felt no regret. He understood, with a clarity that confused him, that if anyone dared touch her again, his sword would not stay in its scabbard.

She pulled away and gestured to an inn at the edge of the main square. "I want to wash my face," she mumbled, walking toward it.

He went to follow, but Sir Topher's voice stopped him. "Finnikin. Give her a moment."

Later, they set up camp at the base of an escarpment. While Sir Topher dozed and the thief from Sarnak swore from his shackles, Evanjalin began to climb the rock face.

"Stay here," Finnikin ordered, but if he had learned anything about the novice, it was that she did as she pleased, and so he found himself climbing after her. Though cursing her inwardly, he could not help marveling at her fearlessness and the ease with which she ascended the rock in her bare feet.

When he reached the top, she was standing on a narrow ledge of granite that protruded over the camp below. But it was the view to the west that took his breath away, a last glimpse of Belegonia in the evening light.

"It's beautiful," she said, speaking in their mother tongue.

He stood silently, struggling with the pleasure he felt as she spoke their language.

"Say something," she said as the sun began to disappear and the air chilled. "Tell me what you're thinking."

With Sir Topher he spoke of strategies and dividing land between exiles and the best crops to grow and the politics of the country they found themselves in. They trained with practice swords, dealt with disappointing dukes, and quarreled with an ambassador obsessed with protocol. But in ten years, no one had ever asked what he was thinking. And he knew that the novice Evanjalin was asking for more than just his thoughts. She wanted the part of him he fought to keep hidden. The part that held his foolish hopes and aching memories.

"I miss hearing our mother tongue," he found himself saying. "Speaking it. Sir Topher has always been strict about using only the language of the country we are in, but when I dream, it's in Lumateran. Don't you love it? The way it comes from the throat, guttural and forced. Speaks to me of hard work. So different from the romance of the Belegonian and Osterian tongues."

There was a soft smile on her face and for a moment he forgot they were on this cliff, staring across at the stone and rubble of Sorel. "I miss the music of the voices in the crowded marketplace in my Rock Village, or in the king's court, where everyone talked over the top of one another. I can't tell you how many times I heard the king bellow, 'Quiet! Too much talking!' And that was just at the dinner table with his wife and children."

She laughed, and the sound soothed him.

"I swear it's true. The queen, she was the loudest. 'Is it my curse to have the worst behaved children in the land? Vestie, you are to apologize to Nurse, or I will have you cleaning the privy for the rest of the week! Balthazar, you are not the ruler of this kingdom yet, and even when you are, you will eat at the table like a human being.'"

Evanjalin's laughter was infectious, and he continued with the mimicry. He had loved his life in the Rock Village, but not as much as life in the king's court. In the palace, there were Balthazar and the beautiful spirited princesses, and most of all Trevanion. His heart would burst with pride whenever he witnessed his father's importance. Sometimes, deep in the night when on watch, Trevanion would take him from his bed and they would sit on the keep and stare out at the world below. Often Lady Beatriss would join them, shivering in the night air, and Trevanion would gather them both in his embrace to keep them warm.

He could feel Evanjalin's eyes on him as the sun before them disappeared at a speed beyond reckoning. "Then I will demand that you speak Lumateran when we are alone," Evanjalin said, interrupting his thoughts.

"Will you?" he mocked. "And why is that?"

"Because without our language, we have lost ourselves. Who are we without our words?"

"Scum of the earth," he said bitterly. "In some kingdoms, they have removed all traces of Lumatere from the exiles. We are in their land now and will speak their tongue or none at all. Our punishment for the pathetic course of our lives."

"So men cease to speak," she said softly.

Men who in Lumatere had voices loud and passionate, who provided for their families and were respected in their villages. Now they sat in silence and relied on their children to translate for them as if they were helpless babes. Finnikin wondered what it did to a man who once stood proud. How could he pass on his stories without a language?

"And how Lumaterans loved to speak," Finnikin said. "Shout from hilltops, bellow in the marketplace, sing from the barges on the river. I had a favorite place, the rock of three wonders at the crest of my village. I would climb it with Balthazar and Lucian of the Monts. You would have known him, of course, being a Mont."

She nodded. "Son of Saro."

"We had a healthy dislike for each other. He would call me 'trog boy' Repeatedly."

"And how would you respond?" she asked with a laugh.

"By calling him 'son of an inbred.' Repeatedly. Balthazar would judge who could come up with the worst insult. I would win, of course. Monts are such easy targets."

"They are my people you're speaking of," she said, trying to sound cross.

"How was it that your family became separated from them?" Finnikin asked. "You are the first Mont we have ever met on our travels."

Evanjalin was silent for a moment, and he wondered if she knew where the Monts were hiding. "Saro moved the Monts just days after they killed his sister, the queen, and my mother and siblings and I were among them. But my father was in Sarnak, and my mother refused to leave the day Saro took our people away from the Valley. She insisted that we wait. She believed there was still hope, and that if we stayed in the Valley, my father would travel from Sarnak to find us." She looked up at him. "Do you remember those days?"

"Only too well," he said quietly. "We all waited for at least a week. After the curse, Saro sent two of his men out to access the kingdom from the other borders, but days later only one returned." Finnikin fell silent. He remembered the Mont's words to Saro. That at each border, an unseen force had held them back, until the Charyn border when his companion pushed his way into the tempest. The Mont had watched in horror as the tempest spat his kinsman back. Splintered bone by splintered bone.

"And then everyone began to leave," Finnikin continued, "needing to feed their children and to survive, arguing whether it was better to go to Charyn or Belegonia or Sarnak. I stayed close to my father's men until I was placed in the care of Sir Topher. We were the last to go."

The wind was strong on the cliff, and it whipped his hair across his face. Suddenly her hand reached out to hold it back. When he felt her fingers, he flinched; he had not been touched with such gentleness since his childhood. He was no stranger to women and had felt their hands on all parts of his body, but her touch made him feel like he belonged someplace.

"I remember the abandoned children wailing by the side of the road," she said. "Some as young as two or three. People were forced to put their own survival and their family's above anything else and left other people's children to die. It's the only reason I can feel any sympathy for the thief from Sarnak."

He nodded. "Part of me believes there is little hope for those like him, who have become as base as the men they associate with. But there's another part of me that will search this land high and low once we are settled in our second homeland and bring them back to us, where they belong."

He felt her stare but did not turn and look. Did not want those eyes reaching into him.

"So you are destined to spend the rest of your life scouring this land? Who are you, to deserve such a curse?" she asked.

One who has an evil lurking inside of me, he wanted to say. An evil that Seranonna of the Forest Dwellers recognized that day in the forest as he played alongside Isaboe.

Her blood will be shed for you to be king.

"What is it you want, Finnikin?" Evanjalin persisted.

"I want to be left alone to do what we've always done," he said vehemently. I want to go searching for my father, he longed to shout.

"And what is that? Wandering the empire? Collecting names of the dead? Where would you like me to leave you, Finnikin?"

In the numb peace we lived with before you came into our lives.

He stared at her, and she held his gaze. "I took great comfort in your vow of silence," he said at last.

After a moment her mouth twitched. "Really? I do believe you're lying."

"It's true. I miss it terribly."

"I think you're dying to tell me what you shouted from your rock. With the inbred and the heir."

He laughed in spite of himself. "We were convinced of the existence of the silver wolf. Legend had it that only a true warrior could kill it, and we'd build traps in the forest and play out its capture. Balthazar was the warrior, and I was his guard; Lucian the wolf, Isaboe the bait. Then we would travel to the rock and practice our sacrifice of it to the gods, shouting our intentions and faith. We'd pledge our honor to each other. We even vowed to save Lumatere." He shook his head, thinking of the last pledge they had made together, mixed with the blood of all three.

"I would love such a rock," she said. "It would loosen my tongue and give me the courage to say all the things I've never dared say."

"And what would you say, Evanjalin? Would you damn the impostor, curse those who placed him on the throne?"

She shook her head. "I would speak my name out loud. Evanjalin of the Monts!" Her voice echoed and its volume took him by surprise. He walked to the rock's edge, wanting to listen to it until the last echo disappeared, wanting to capture it in his hands.

"Finnikin of the Rock!" he roared, and then turned back to where she stood, her eyes blazing with excitement. "Son of Trevanion of the Lumateran River people and Bartolina of the Rock!" He beat his chest dramatically.

She laughed and stepped closer to him. "Mortal enemy of the bastard impostor!" she yelled.

He thought for a moment, then gave a nod of approval. "Trusted servant of the king's First Man, Sir Topher of the royal court of Lumatere!"

"Follower of our beloved Balthazar!"

"Son of a man who once loved Lady Beatriss of the Lumateran Flatlands!"

"Daughter of those slaughtered in innocence!"

"Brother of one taken away before she drew her first breath!"

"Sister to those who loved her with all their heart!"

She had moved too close to the edge of the rock, and with a sharp intake of breath, he grabbed her around the waist, the strong band of his arm pressing her back into his chest. "Foolish girl," he said almost gently, his lips close to her ear. "You could have gone over the side."

A shudder passed through her, and then she pulled away. "We should go," she murmured.

"Trust me, Evanjalin," he said, holding out his hand. Trembling, she took it, and they made their way down the rock face in silence. But already he missed her voice, and when he helped her over the last of the stones, he found his finger tracing the bruise around her mouth.

"Finnikin!"

Within the hollow rock he could see the anxious figure of Sir Topher.

"We're here, sir."

"Don't wander too far. You know how strange a place this is."

At supper, Finnikin and Evanjalin ate their bread and cheese in silence while Sir Topher watched them carefully. Even the thief seemed subdued. Later, as Finnikin wrote in the Book of Lumatere, he glanced over to where she stood, distanced from them, her hands clenched at her sides. He tucked the book under his arm and walked toward her, suddenly feeling awkward, his pulse beating at an erratic speed.

"Join us," he said quietly. "Sir Topher is telling stories of his journeys with the king."

There was a hint of a smile on her face.

"What?" he asked defensively.

"When you speak Lumateran, your accent sings like those of the River."

"It was either that, or rrrumbling like those from the Rock."

She laughed, but it turned into a sob and she covered her mouth. He stepped forward and lifted her chin with his finger.

"Bend to their will, Finnikin," she whispered. "And keep yourself alive."

"Whose will?" he murmured, leaning his head toward her.

"Finnikin!"

The anxiousness in Sir Topher's voice snapped him out of his trance at the same time as he heard the horses' hooves. He turned toward the camp and saw five Sorelian soldiers riding toward them, flame sticks in their hands.

"Where is the traitor who claims to be the dead prince of Lumatere?" the one in the lead asked, dismounting.

Finnikin was stunned. Sir Topher turned to him in confusion, and in the dancing firelight Finnikin saw a trace of fear on the older man's face. The thief from Sarnak had paled. Thieves across the land knew to keep out of the mines of Sorel.

Finnikin's first inclination was to protect the girl, and he was relieved that the soldiers were looking for an impostor of Balthazar rather than someone who knew where the heir was.

"There is no impostor among us," Sir Topher said pleasantly. "We are Belegonian merchants eager to trade in a kingdom so rich in bounty."

"Why accuse us of such a thing?" Finnikin asked, but the soldiers looked straight past him to where Evanjalin stood.

"Is this the one?" the soldier asked.

"She is no one," Finnikin said firmly, blocking his path.

Then the soldier nodded and Finnikin turned, bewildered, his blood running cold.

For the novice Evanjalin had lifted her hand and was pointing a finger.

Straight in his direction.

Chapter 7

Deep in the bowels of the mines of Sorel, the prisoner lay facing the rusted steel bars of the cave he crawled into each night. His bulky frame curled to fit the confines of the space, his body almost folded in half. He despised this witching hour, when he was at the mercy of his thoughts. Sometimes they stirred him into a madness of grief. Most times they made him want to beat his head to a pulp against the stone and end his life once and for all.

At his eye level, he watched feet being dragged along the narrow corridor outside his cage. There were fifty other cages spanning both sides of this stretch of cave. One was the holding cell for newly arrested prisoners, where they spent a week while the Sorelian authorities decided to which prison they would be sent. Most of the time, if they were young, they did not live beyond the third day.

He tried to ignore the fervor that accompanied the arrival of a new prisoner. He could tell this one was young by the heightened excitement of both prisoners and guards. New prisoners broke the monotony and delivered opportunities for the most base of men. If he allowed himself to, he would feel a sick kind of sorrow for the boy. But the prisoner had made a point to do anything but feel.

"They say he's a fighter. Are you going to join in the play?"

The ugly face of the night guard filled his vision as the man peered into his cage. There was a tradition in the mines, where new prisoners were fought over and conquered, owned like some kind of prize, by men who had ceased to be men. Despite his massive bulk, the prisoner had not escaped the degradation of the prison mines' traditions when he first arrived.

Another guard appeared. "You have a visitor."

He responded with silence. It was well known among the other inmates that this prisoner did not speak. He ate. He worked. He emptied his bowels. He fought like a demon if anyone chose to make him an enemy, but he never spoke.

"Did you hear, scum from the bottom of a pit of shit? You have a visitor."

He heard the clatter of keys, and then he was dragged out of his cage by the wild knot of hair that half-shrouded his face. At the end of the tunnel, he was thrown into a larger cell and shoved up against its damp stone wall. But still he refused to react. If there was one weapon he had against these savages, it was not acknowledging their existence.

He heard the clatter of keys again and was hauled around to see a figure enter. The lad was young, that was evident. Hair shorn to the scalp, large dark eyes. And then he realized he was not looking at a boy, but a girl dressed in the dull gray shift worn by the Lagrami novices.

The guard looked at both of them, an ugly smile plastered on his face. The girl waited for him to leave before she spoke.

"I did the minister a favor, and he offered me one in return," she said quietly. "I told him I had a perverse interest in infamous traitors."

It was not her words that made him flinch, but the sound of his mother tongue. It had been some years since he had heard it spoken. Not since the ambassador of Lumatere had visited him during his early days in this prison.

"They say you are the most unguarded inmate in the mines, sir. That there is no more ideal a prisoner than one who is locked up in his own prison."

He had heard it said about him before and had marveled with bitterness at how little they knew this place. Within the caves, the thick rock and endless tunnels made it impossible to escape. If he worked outside, he was chained to at least six other inmates, usually hostile foreigners who barely understood each other.

"When they next place you on work outside the mines, you will escape and travel east until you reach the shrine to Sagrami past the last cave before the mountains. In the ravine below, you will see horses tethered."

More silence.

"From there you take the road toward Osteria, where there are two paths, one to the town of Lannon and one to Hopetoun. Take neither. You will see a tiny lane through the woods that will lead you to a stable beside an abandoned cottage. This is where you will find us. Then we move north."

He knew what north meant. So now they were sending the young. Was it a group of exiles? Why didn't they tell their children that there was nothing north but the promise of death, even after all these years?

He walked over to where she stood leaning against the cage and raised his arm. She flinched. He stared down at her, then grabbed the bars above her head and rattled them to summon the guard.

"Humor me," she said, ducking under his arms. "From here I can see the prisoner they just dragged in." She crouched on the ground, straining to see to the end of the dark, stench-filled corridor.

The prisoner stayed where he was.

"I've heard a rumor," she said quietly. "Actually, I lie. Not a rumor." She beckoned him closer, and when he refused, she stood on her toes to whisper in his ear. "They say he's the son of Trevanion, captain of the Lumateran Guard."

He slammed her against the bars before either of them could take their next breath, holding her by the throat with a hand that had frequently snuffed out life. He heard a growl, low and primeval, and realized it was coming from him. Tightening his hold, he watched as her face began to change color and both her hands snaked up, trying to free herself. She shoved a knee against him, and when he stumbled back for a moment, she kicked him away from her, falling to her knees, gasping for air.

"Just the reaction I was hoping for, Captain," she whispered fiercely, looking up. "If you fail to protect him, if you fail to set him free, I will return and cut out your tongue and then you will have a reason for silence." She struggled to her feet. "Guard! Guard!"

"What have you done?" he asked hoarsely.

The look she gave him was pure anguish.

"What needs to be done!"

He woke the next morning having dreamed of peppermint and the wiry arms of a child wrapped around him like a monkey, refusing to let go. They would have to peel the boy off him at times, and how he would cry, this sensitive child who had not come from a line of sensitive people. "I want to fight the boy."

The two guards stared at him in surprise. Fighting for a new inmate was a tradition the dark-eyed Trevanion had never engaged in.

"You?"

The guards exchanged sneers, their expressions ugly. "Heard you had a visitor last night."

The shorter of the guards leaned forward, a look of sick hunger on his face. "Did she awake in you a taste for young flesh?"

He avoided their eyes so they would misinterpret his rage for shame.

"Will you share, Trevanion?" the other asked. "The boy seems feisty enough for seconds." The guards laughed, and for the first time since his exile from Lumatere, Trevanion's rage pounded a rush of blood to his head.

What needs to be done, the girl had said.

This he knew. The piece of filth standing before him would be the first to die.

Then it would be her turn.

He watched the boy closely throughout the day. He was all arms and legs like his mother's people and seemed unaccustomed to a body that had grown too fast. Although skittish, he was coiled for action, not once buckling under the weight of the coal. But Trevanion read despair in the boy's eyes, and it chilled him to the marrow.

Later, in one of the larger caves, the inmates lined walls trickling with water that soon would be mixed with blood. Trevanion's only satisfaction was that he would pound senseless those who dared to want this boy. And he would do it easily. The Lumaterans of the River were the largest men in the land, and he towered over the rest of the inmates. In his early days they would come for him in packs until they realized the danger of encountering him alone.

There was an air of nervousness in the cave, and he watched an exchange between a guard and one of the Sorelian prisoners.

"They fear that your intention is to maim, Trevanion."

"Not interested in maiming." He spoke quietly, and the stare he directed at his potential opponents was enough to change the minds of half of those who had stepped forward.

The boy looked frightened, and Trevanion would have given anything to be able to send him some silent message of reassurance. But first he had this scum to fight, and then it would be the boy.

He fought five men that night. Blood was shed, and the sound of bones cracking and fists thumping bounced off the cave walls. The bets were low, the outcome too predictable. And then it was time for the boy. Trevanion allowed himself a moment to work out how to use his fists in a way that would not damage one so young and inexperienced. But they let the boy off the leash and he lunged for Trevanion, his fists flying. Trevanion felt the bones in his nose shatter, but before he could recover, there was another blow to his face and another to the stomach. He let himself fall, hoping to reveal himself to the boy, but then something hard connected with his chin. The kick sent him flying, and he knew that whether he wanted to or not, he was going to have to beat this pup into submission.

He returned to his feet, his fist connecting with the boy's cheekbone. He heard the goading of those surrounding them, both prisoners and guards. He knew he could not lose, for to do so meant that someone else would fight the boy for the right to own him in a way that made Trevanion feel sick to his stomach. And so he pounded into the boy's flesh, fighting for both their lives with an intensity that had the crowd roaring with approval. They had waited a long time to see what Trevanion of Lumatere was capable of, and they saw it this night. Yet the boy refused to yield, and Trevanion prayed to his goddess that he could hold him for a moment and let him understand.

What needs to be done.

He felt an elbow to his face and heard the crunch of bone, and the fires of hell danced a death march inside his head. He reached for the boy's neck and pulled him toward him, both heads colliding, blood spraying from his mouth. He tasted it on his tongue mingled with the boy's, and the taste made him roar.

But the boy would not give up. What he lacked in strength he made up for in skill and endurance. Finally Trevanion had him on the ground, a hand to his throat, his face an inch away so he could see the white fear in the boy's eyes. So he could whisper a word he had trained himself never to say again, for the sound of it brought hope and an ache so intense it could kill a man. And every lowlife who had ever entered this godsforsaken prison knew that hope had no place in the mines of Sorel.

"Finnikin."

The boy stared in shock. He was half blinded by sweat and grime and blood, but for a moment he caught a good look at his enemy. Hair knotted, the stench of the rot that lived within it, potent. A face blackened by the dirt of the earth beneath them.

"Trust me."

And with that Trevanion's fist came down on his son.

When Finnikin woke, a foul odor filled his nose and he gagged, his body heaving. He started in shock when he saw the bear of a man standing over him, and suddenly everything from the night before flooded back.

The last time he had seen his father, Trevanion had been standing on a makeshift judging post in the main square of Lumatere. He had watched as the impostor's Guard forced his father to his knees. He remembered how Trevanion's men bit their fists with rage and how it took ten of them to hold back Perri the Savage.

Then they cried out the punishment for Beatriss and Trevanion: "Death for the traitor! Banishment for the accomplice!"

In that moment, his father looked up and found him in the crowd, the bleakness in his expression so great that it became the blanket Finnikin placed over his face for years to come. Even as he knelt, Trevanion of the River had looked like a giant. His hair, black and cropped to his skull, his skin the color of bronzed oil, every bone in his face perfectly placed.

The man before him now was a total stranger. Hair covered his face, dark and tangled in knots, spliced with gray. Trevanion's eyes had no light or warmth. Finnikin had to remind himself that this was the same man who had carried him as a child, high and safe, on his broad shoulders. The same man who had lain beside Lady Beatriss, gently kneading her tired fingers, whispering words in her ear that softened her face.

"Father?" It felt strange to speak the word.

Trevanion nodded. "Can you stand?"

Their prison cell was a cave, cold and damp. There was little room for one body, let alone two.

"Tell me about the girl," Trevanion said.

"The girl?"

"Spawn of the devil."

The cell was dark and the flickering torch outside gave only minimal light. Finnikin moved closer to Trevanion. "How do you know about her?"

"Visited the night you arrived." There was urgency in the way Trevanion spoke, as if wary of the sudden appearance of a guard.

"Here?" Finnikin said. "In the prison?"

"Is she friend or foe?" Trevanion asked.

"Who can tell? We inherited her from the cloister of Lagrami in Sendecane."

"You went to the end of the earth," his father muttered.

"She claims to walk through the sleep of those inside."

"Lumatere?"

Finnikin nodded. "And that she has made contact with the heir. With Balthazar."

"Sweet goddess," Trevanion said. "What wickedness is she planning with such a lie?"

"And you say she visited?"

"She has horses waiting for us in a ravine beyond the shrine of Sagrami."

"Horses!" Finnikin snorted, and Trevanion quickly covered Finnikin's mouth with his hand.

"Quiet!"

"We have one horse," Finnikin hissed. "What does she think we will do? Walk out of here with the blessing of the prison guards?"

"I need to get you out of here. I can't look after us both."

Finnikin was already shaking his head as his father spoke. "We both need to get out of here, and I don't need looking after."

"In here you do!" Trevanion snapped.

"Don't expect me to go without you."

Trevanion did not respond.

"It's either both of us, or I stay here and you—"

Trevanion grabbed him by the cloth of his prison garb, his expression furious. "You do what I tell you to do. You never question me again, do you hear?"

Finnikin pulled away, shaking his head emphatically. "I go nowhere without you, sir."

Trevanion sucked in air. "I've seen them drag out the dead bodies of boys your age, and you do not want to hear what they've done to them."

Finnikin wanted something more from his father than this.

More for the ten years of longing. He stared at this stranger, his father, straight in the eye. "I. Go. Nowhere. Without. You."

Then he turned and curled up as far away as possible, understanding with bitterness that he had walked straight into Evanjalin's plan.

From the window of the stable loft, Sir Topher watched. The novice stood at the gate outside the dilapidated cottage. He knew she would stay there until the moon rose, as she had done each day since Finnikin's imprisonment.

"They will come," she said firmly when he joined her.

"And if they don't?" he asked. "I understand what you are trying to do, but your methods could get him killed."

"The captain will not let any harm come to his son."

"Sometimes fathers can't protect their children, Evanjalin. Did yours save you from harm?" Sir Topher asked, knowing the question was cruel.

"No," she responded fiercely. "But my father would warn, 'Be prepared for the worst, my love, for it lives next door to the best.' And for that I thank him each day of my life."

Finnikin spent his first days in prison adjusting to his surroundings. He knew that to survive, he had to think rather than just react. The inmates stared in the same way they had the day he arrived, but they kept their distance and he understood why. Trevanion was like an unleashed animal, and those around him, including the guards, feared the consequences of coming too close.

"You work outside this week," the guard told Trevanion as they were taken back to their cage. Trevanion grabbed Finnikin and pushed him in front of the guard's nose.

"He stays behind," the guard said flatly. He was the least sadistic of the guards, which made him one-quarter human.

But Trevanion refused to move or to relax his grip on his son. He shook him in front of the guard again, and Finnikin felt like a rag doll, like some kind of toy at the mercy of everyone around him.

"Not taking the chance," the guard spat. "The Osterian prisoner cut out the throat of the Belegonian translator. No interpreter. Can't afford surprises."

"I speak five tongues," Finnikin said calmly in Sorelian, though he felt anything but calm. "I can be your translator." Trevanion pulled him away, but Finnikin broke free, his face an inch away from the guard. "I speak five tongues," he said, and then repeated the statement. Five times in five different languages.

The guard stared from him to Trevanion and then pushed them along. "Make sure you keep him on a leash," he warned through gritted teeth.

When they were alone in their cell, Trevanion looked at him questioningly. "Five languages?"

Finnikin shrugged, cracking his knuckles. "I lied. It's seven. If you count the grunting of the common Yut and those ridiculous sounds made by the Sendecanese."

"Who taught you?" Trevanion asked.

"Sir Topher insisted I learn about the culture of each kingdom we visited. He said it was the only way they would begin to accept us and offer us assistance."

"What else did he teach you?"

Finnikin was confused by the force of the question. "You have nothing to fear," he assured his father. "Sir Topher made sure he always honored your profession. I have trained with the royal Guard of almost every kingdom in the land."

"No one in my Guard speaks seven languages."

Finnikin did not respond.

"Do you know where the priest-king is?" Trevanion asked after a moment.

Finnikin shook his head. "He does not want to be found, but rumor has it that he's on this side of the land."

"The dukes?"

"Five are in exile. Two we believe were left behind. Three are dead."

Trevanion stiffened. "Is Lord Augie ..."

"Alive. Still works for Belegonia. Has some ridiculous obsession with breaking you out of prison so you can lead us back to Lumatere. Why didn't Ambassador Corden tell him you were here?"

"Probably because he knew that Augie had some ridiculous obsession with breaking me out," Trevanion said dryly. "And if anything frightens Corden, it's not following correct protocol."

"Sir Topher calls him the monster of propriety," Finnikin said. "I call him a painful boil on the arse. But he does fund our journeys sometimes. Convinces the king of Osteria we can be of use if we are traveling around the land unnoticed. I trained with their Guard in exchange for information."

"You are spies?"

"We collect information." Finnikin propped himself on his elbow, facing his father. "Do you get much news from outside? From your Guard or the ambassador?"

Trevanion shook his head. "Not in the past seven years. My decision, not theirs."

"What is your theory about the impostor king?" Finnikin asked.

"Puppet to Charyn," Trevanion replied.

"Good."

He caught a hint of a smile on Trevanion's face.

"I'm glad I have your approval."

"It's just that we've always suspected it," Finnikin said, all of a sudden wanting to talk. "But it's only been lately that we've heard it spoken aloud."

He went on to explain to Trevanion their plans for the second Lumatere. He tried to convey the extent of the suffering experienced by the exiles, but could not quite find the words. The slaughter in Sarnak was the hardest to explain. It had been the biggest of the river camps. They suspected that two hundred of their people had died.

"Do you ever wonder if they're better off inside Lumatere?" Finnikin asked.

Trevanion shook his head. "When I first chose to challenge the king about his Guard and the dragonships, it wasn't only because of the former captain's weakness, Finnikin. It was because of his baseness. I'd heard stories of what he allowed to happen in the palace prison. What he instigated himself."

And then there was silence. Finnikin studied the hard outlines of his father's face.

"What of the Monts?" Trevanion asked.

"We've seen no trace, but we have a strong suspicion Evanjalin knows where they are."

"Evanjalin?" his father asked.

"Spawn of the devil," Finnikin reminded him.

Trevanion grunted. "When did you last see the Monts?"

"In the Valley of Tranquillity," Finnikin said quietly. "Saro moved his people out there in the days before the curse. Almost the moment they heard the queen was dead."

He thought of the horror of that day. Of the grief of the queen's mother, the yata of the Mont people, wailing, "My pretty babies. Where are my pretty babies?" Many had walked away or pressed their hands against their ears to block out the sound of her anguish, but Lucian had not left his grandmother's side. And from a distance, Finnikin had kept his vigil with the Mont.

Trevanion spoke only once more that night.

"The girl," he said.

"Evanjalin?"

"She has my mother's name."

Chapter 8

A week after his arrest, Finnikin spent his first day in the outside world. It was a relief to be able to breathe, despite the fact that he was shackled to five of the most vicious humans he had ever encountered. The guards saw to it that every inmate who worked outside the mines was a foreigner. If escape became a reality, the guards knew the prisoners would be at the mercy of a kingdom that despised outsiders and would soon find themselves back in the mines. Or, worse still, hanging from a tree.

When the head guard gave Finnikin an instruction to pass on to the others, he was instantly confronted with snarls and bared teeth.

"They despise with a passion those who interpret," Trevanion murmured. "They consider them spies for the guards."

And so Finnikin endured one of the longest days of his life. The menacing prisoners attached to him took every opportunity to tug the chain around his neck, causing it to chafe his skin. Or to drop rocks of considerable weight on his feet. Or yank his foot shackles so he found himself flat on his face on cold hard stone. When he picked himself up for the tenth time, he was shaking with rage.

The moment they reached the caves and his shackles were removed, Finnikin launched himself at the Osterian prisoner until both had blood pouring from their noses. The three hundred pounds of pure ugliness and fury held Finnikin's head under his arm, while the guards stood by and watched. If there was one thing they enjoyed, it was the sight of the inmates trying to tear each other apart. Then Trevanion become involved and suddenly blood flew in every direction.

"I can handle this," Finnikin hissed, jumping onto the Osterian and pressing the side of the man's face into the wall as hard as he could. When the Osterian looked like he was ready to pound a fist into Finnikin's temple, Finnikin remembered how Trevanion had bitterly recounted Evanjalin's words. What needs to be done.

"We're going to break out," he whispered into the man's ear in Osterian, before he bit part of it off and spat it out. "Interested in joining us?"

By the time the guards dragged the inmates off each other, Finnikin had also recruited the Yut, the Sarnak, the Belegonian, and the Charynite. Although there was no honor among these men, there was a hierarchy of hate, and they despised the Sorelians first and foremost.

"You're making my hair turn white," Trevanion muttered later, when they were alone in their cage.

"That would be your old age," Finnikin replied, trying to stretch out the aches and pains in every joint in his body.

"You fight well. Like the Yuts."

"We lived in the grasslands for a year when I was fourteen."

"And you needed to fight?"

"They mocked my accent. And of course you can't have hair my color and not learn how to fight in any kingdom."

"Your mother had that hair. Would take my breath away every time I saw her."

Finnikin was surprised to hear Trevanion speak of a memory so painful. He wondered about a man having lost not just one but two women in his life. Both having died giving birth to his children.

"You'd be best to tie a kerchief around your head and keep your hair hidden. It draws attention."

Finnikin's hair had not been cut for months and was beginning to snag and knot in wild tangles around his shoulders.

Later, as they lay in the dark, he could feel his father's eyes on him and he wondered if he was just as much a stranger to his father as Trevanion was to him.

"So are your new friends all in?" Trevanion asked dryly.

"They seem to be. But I can't promise they won't snap our necks the moment they're free."

"Tell them this. You will pick a fight with me to bring the guards as close as possible. If we are lucky, there will be five, like most days. Then I go for the guard with the keys, and at the same time you take on the second guard. The first few moments are crucial, so we need to be quick. Two swords, five seconds. The Yut at the end uses his hand chains—grabs hold of his guard's sword and makes himself useful. Do not trust the Charynite or the Sarnak with the keys or a sword. If worse comes to worst, use them as a shield."

"The Charynite and the Sarnak? Human shields?"

"They would do the same to us in the blink of an eye."

"But you never use your own side as human shields."

"This won't be a war, Finnikin," his father said coldly. "It will be an execution."

Sir Topher woke with a start. A muffled sound came from the corner of the loft. He listened for a moment, and when he was satisfied it was only Evanjalin tossing restlessly in her sleep, he closed his eyes with the same heaviness of heart he had felt these past four nights. Until he heard a scream, hoarse, as if the girl was fighting for air. He twisted out of his bedroll, and in the half dark he saw the thief from Sarnak astride the novice as she struggled under his weight. Stumbling toward them, he heard the sickening sound of a blow, but before a second could land, he had the thief by the neck and hurled him across the loft.

"Sweet goddess," he muttered when he saw the girl's face.

Clutching what was left of her shift, she gasped for breath as he placed a blanket around her shoulders. When he made an attempt to hold her, she crawled away, shuddering against the timber beams of their shelter.

He heard a noise behind him and turned to where the thief was, on his feet, pulling up his trousers, a look of hatred in his eyes.

"What are you?"

"I just wanted a poke," the thief spat.

Sir Topher pushed the thief hard, and the boy staggered again. It had been his decision to have the thief untied these past two nights, and for that he would not forgive himself.

He grabbed the thief and tied him tightly with the ropes attached to the beams, catching a blow to his temple that almost sent him reeling. When he returned to the girl, he crouched at her feet and slowly reached over to lift her chin, startling her. She pressed herself farther into the wall, covering her head with shaking hands. He looked from one corner of the loft to the other. The thief was hurling abuse, spitting with fury and tugging madly at his ropes. Here was Lumatere's future, Sir Topher thought despairingly. Two wild animals with nothing but rage and hate.

"Did he..." He could not bring himself to say the words, and after a moment she shook her head and looked up, her face stained with tears.

"My shift is torn," she whispered. "I cannot wear it."

Across her cheek was a purple bruise where the thief's fist had connected, and her lips were swollen and bleeding.

"He knows no other way but ugliness," Sir Topher said quietly. "He was taught no other lessons but those of force. His teachers have been scum who live by their own rules. No one has ever taught him otherwise."

"Am I to forgive him?" she said, her voice shaking with anger.

"No," he said sadly. "Pity him. Or give him new rules. Or put him down like a wild animal before he becomes a monster who destroys everything he encounters."

When he went to move away, she grabbed his sleeve.

"I think they are all dead."

A chill went through him. "Finnikin?"

"No. All the young girls," she said in a small broken voice. "Inside Lumatere."

"What are you saying, Evanjalin?"

"Tonight I walked through the sleep of one who mourned the death of a neighbor's daughter, cursing an ailment that seems to be taking the young girls of his village these past five years. I remember another sleep six months back when a young tanner grieved for a girl who could have one day been his sweetheart."

"You are not yourself, and your sleep was troubled."

She shook her head. "No, Sir Topher. We need to return to Lumatere. Our lifeblood is dying, and we need to set them free."

The next day, they traveled on foot to the closest village, hoping to secure a second horse. They took the thief from Sarnak with them, his hands bound by a rope attached to Sir Topher's waist. The moment they stepped into the crowded marketplace, Sir Topher heard the novice gasp in anger and then she was pointing to where their horse stood among four others. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"Of course, I'm sure. They must have come across it in the ravine where we left it for Finnikin and the captain."

"Evanjalin, they are the slave traders," Sir Topher warned as she hurried toward them.

But Evanjalin could not be stopped, and Sir Topher followed, dragging the thief with him.

"That's our horse!" she shouted to one of the men. When he ignored her, she poked him and repeated, "That's our horse."

"Do you have papers?" he asked pleasantly.

"We need that horse," she said, her voice shaking with emotion.

"Then you may have it," the man said, twisting his lips into a sneer. "For ten pieces of silver."

Evanjalin swung around to stare at Sir Topher, gripping her head in anguish. They both knew that without the horse, Finnikin and Trevanion would be caught as quickly as they escaped.

"We have five pieces," Sir Topher said.

"Then I would suggest you find yourself a peddler and buy this girl a pretty dress," he said, looking down at Evanjalin, who was dressed in Finnikin's trousers and jerkin.

Then the man's expression changed. He stepped closer to Evanjalin and grabbed her face. "She would make a fair exchange. Even with the bruises. The traders of Sorel have a great need for sturdy young things."

"She's not for sale," Sir Topher said quickly.

Evanjalin shook free, a shudder passing through her body. She pushed the thief from Sarnak in front of the trader. "But how much would you give us for him?" she asked.

With each day of his imprisonment, Finnikin's frustration grew. Fearing that their work outside the mines would come to an end and all hope would be lost, he challenged his father constantly. But it rained for days, and Trevanion argued that to escape in such conditions would hinder them the moment they were free.

"Why not now?" Finnikin whispered to his father on their first day without rain for a week. "Today's guards are a lazy lot."

"Keep silent and do not question me," Trevanion said sharply.

So yet another day passed, and that night in their cell when Trevanion transferred his rations to Finnikin's bowl, Finnikin felt his rage and frustration boil over.

"Do not treat me like a child to be fed and kept alive," he hissed, shoving the food back into Trevanion's bowl.

"Then do not act like one. Eat!" Trevanion ordered. "We will have only one attempt at this, Finnikin. If it fails, you will grow old alongside me in this cell, and at this moment I have two desires. One is to see my son free, and the other is to choke the life out of the witch who put him here. But we are at the mercy of patience, luck, and timing, and today is not the day for all three."

"And what if you are wrong?" The moment the words escaped Finnikin's mouth, he regretted them.

"On the third day of the first week of each month," Trevanion continued as if Finnikin had not spoken, "the Sorelian palace guards make their journey to the mine. If we had escaped, they would have passed us on the road to land's end."

Finnikin could not meet Trevanion's eyes. "I will never question you again, sir."

When he looked up, he saw the slightest twitch play on his father's lips.

"I'm sure you will," Trevanion said. "I'm counting on it."

The more time Finnikin spent with his father, the more he became accustomed to the long periods of silence between them. Sometimes they lasted for hours, and then he would hear Trevanion's voice deep in the night.

"I will ask you this once and then I never want it spoken of again," his father said quietly at one such time.

Finnikin knew what his father was going to ask and waited for the question. When it didn't come, Finnikin turned to face him. "It was a girl child. Tiny, they said, no bigger than my palm. Seranonna delivered the child and went to the stake with your child's blood on her hands, mingled with Isaboe's. They said it was a blessing that Lady Beatriss and the babe died together."

But Finnikin did not speak about the post where they had tied up the midwife and the healer and the young girl with smiling eyes who had once given him a tonic. Nor did he say that he would never forget their deaths for as long as he lived. The smell of burning flesh, the screams of agony that seemed to go on forever. Then the silence. He could not tell his father the truth about that day. How in the village square at the age of nine he had his first kill. He had used a dagger, its point heavy for a quick, clean, long-distance lunge. The type of dagger that would fly better, sink deeper. Kill with precision.

By the time Sir Topher and Evanjalin returned the horse to the ravine, it was late in the day. They continued down the path to the ruined cottage, where Evanjalin immediately took up her post at the gate, her body slumping with exhaustion. Nothing Sir Topher said could convince her to move. Sometimes her faith disarmed him and he truly believed that Finnikin and his father would come walking down the path toward them. Other times, he would lose his temper with her.

"The captain of the King's Guard was the mightiest warrior in our kingdom," he told her sharply when she would not return to the loft for sleep that night. "If he could not escape from the mines of Sorel, what makes you think he will be able to set both of them free?"

"Because the mightiest warrior of our kingdom has been missing one major incentive to escape, sir. Necessity," she said firmly. "It is a powerful motivator, and no one in this land will be more desperate than Trevanion to have his son free. But most important, he has a weapon now, more powerful than these," she said, clenching her fists. "A sharp mind, full of knowledge and skill. Do not underestimate the value of what Finnikin has learned from you, Sir Topher. He is not merely the son of the captain of the King's Guard. He is the ward of the king's First Man, who many say is the smartest man in Lumatere."

That night, Sir Topher prayed to his goddess for a sign, but in the morning there was still no Finnikin and Trevanion. But there was the novice Evanjalin. Waiting at the broken gate in the same place Sir Topher had left her the night before.

And this time when he reached her side, he stayed and waited.

In the middle of the second week, they took their chance. The sun was high overhead when Trevanion gave the signal.

"Why now?" Finnikin asked. "They'll have the daylight to track us down. Should we not wait until later?"

"We won't be leaving anyone behind to search for us," Trevanion said in a low voice. "And by the time the party fails to return at the end of the day, we will hopefully be on horseback."

Finnikin threw the first punch, taking Trevanion by surprise.

"You enjoyed doing that, didn't you?" Trevanion muttered from the ground, rubbing his jaw as the rest of the men chained to them joined the tussle. "Squeamish?" he asked Finnikin as the guards approached.

"No. Why?" Finnikin asked.

The first guard was dead before he hit the ground. Trevanion grabbed the guard's sword and threw it to Finnikin before tossing the keys over the heads of the others to the Yut. The Yut was vicious in his attack, and the guard standing closest to him did not stand a chance. Finnikin understood why they were considered the savages of the land.

Finnikin felt weighed down fighting with one hand while chained, but thankfully the guards were not soldiers and knew little of swordplay. He watched Trevanion work the sword in his hand as if it had been a part of his body all his life. Trevanion's speed and endurance had always put him a class above everyone else, and ten years in prison had not changed that.

"Lead with the point of your sword, Finn," his father shouted above the clashing of swords and the bellows and grunts. "And you bend your elbow at an awkward angle."

"Because it's half-broken," Finnikin shouted back, irritated, ducking as the blade of the guard's sword swung across his head.

"You're throwing your whole body in," Trevanion said critically as he plunged the sword into the third guard's gut.

"Stop watching me!" Finnikin yelled.

"You're fighting like a Charynite!"

Finnikin hissed in reaction to the insult. Charynites fought with no skill and pure adrenaline, and Trevanion had always been scathing about their methods when he taught Finnikin as a child. Finnikin thrust the sword to the hilt into his guard, muttering furiously. It wasn't his fault that his education in swordsmanship had been conducted in at least five different royal courts.

"Why aren't these chains unlocked?" Trevanion shouted, pummeling the last guard in the head.

"Yut!" Finnikin yelled, looking over to the man whose chains were wrapped around a guard's head. "Dead is when their heads are half off and their eyes are wide open, so let go, you halfwit. He's dead!"

The Yut let go of the mangled body and unlocked the leg shackles of the six men before leaping over the dead guards and disappearing beyond the quarry. One by one the others followed him. There would be no bond among the prisoners, and Finnikin wondered how they would fare without horses or language, but the moment his father was free, the fate of the foreigners was swiftly forgotten.

"Take the chain," Trevanion instructed as he dislodged a pickax from the ground.

"Won't swords be enough?" Finnikin protested.

"Not for what we want to do."

Finnikin stared at the bodies of the guards that littered the road. Hardly recognizable. Despite everything he'd witnessed, he felt sick to know that so much damage could be done with swords and a chain.

"Let's go."

There were two paths open to them, one that led to Bateaux and the other west to the coast. Trevanion took neither, but instead pointed back toward the mine caves. Finnikin bit his tongue to stop himself from asking what in the goddess's name Trevanion was thinking. Surely his father knew that all the caves were connected and they'd end up back in the prison mines.

"The road to Bateaux will be the obvious route taken by the others," Trevanion said as they raced toward the caves. "The soldiers and prison guards will search there first."

"But to go through the mines?"

"Not through." Trevanion pointed up. "Over. We climb, and then walk over the caves. The shrine to Sagrami is past the last cave before the mountains. We climb back down again into the ravine and there we find the horse."

The rock face before them looked almost impossible to climb. Its surface was smooth, with no jagged ruts to provide footholds. Trevanion took a step back, then grabbed the chain from Finnikin. He secured the pickax to the chain, once, twice, three times, and then swung the pickax over his head and launched it toward the top of the cave with a grunt. It missed, and they both jumped back as it landed with a clunk at their feet. Trevanion tried again, but his throw had less power this time and he yanked the pickax back before it became lodged too low. Finnikin tried, but each time, the pickax would flatten against the rock and come clanking down.

Suddenly they heard a sound from the direction of the town of Bateaux, one that chilled them. Dogs barking. Someone had raised the alarm.

"So soon," Finnikin cursed.

"Probably the brainless Charynite," Trevanion muttered.

"We can take one of the river caves," Finnikin said. "Our scent will end where the water begins."

But Trevanion was shaking his head. "I would be leading you to your tomb, Finn. It's too soon after the rains."

The hounds were closer, their barks growing louder and more ferocious. Trevanion turned toward the sound and then back to Finnikin. There was sorrow and resolution in his eyes.

"No. Absolutely not," Finnikin said.

"Listen to me—"

"No!" Finnikin shouted. "If you use yourself as bait, I will follow you and both of us will end up torn to pieces or back in that cesspit."

"Finn, listen!" Trevanion said, his voice raw. "I prayed to see you one more time. It's all I prayed for. Nothing more. And my prayers were answered. Go east, I'll lead them west."

"We have a dilemma, then," Finnikin said fiercely. "Because I prayed that you would grow old and hold my children in your arms as you held me. My prayers have not been answered yet, Trevanion. So whose prayer is more worthy? Yours or mine?"

Trevanion stared at him with frustration and then grabbed the pickax and swung again. It took three more attempts, but finally its sharp tip lodged in the stone. With a tug on the chain to check it was secure, he pushed Finnikin forward to begin the climb. Finnikin scrambled up the cave wall, his eyes on the pickax above him, willing it to stay in place. He felt the moment Trevanion began to climb behind him, the chain becoming taut and painful to hold.

At the top, he extended a hand to Trevanion and pulled with all his might. He felt pain shoot up from his elbow, but he gritted his teeth and ignored it. They grabbed at the chain and hauled it up to hide it from their pursuers.

"Stay down!" Trevanion said, struggling for air.

For a long while they did not move, pressing themselves flat against the rock as the dogs barked and the guards called out to one another below. Finnikin watched his father, waiting for a sign. It wasn't until the air was silent and Trevanion seemed satisfied they would not be seen from afar that he pointed out a path to the east over the caves.

"But to get to the shrine—" Finnikin began.

Trevanion silenced him.

"All you do is follow," he said.

Later, when Finnikin felt there was no more strength in his body, when the sun caused the world to double in his eyes and Trevanion half carried him down the rock face toward the ravine, he thought he heard the sound of rain. Suddenly Trevanion stopped and Finnikin stumbled to his knees. Before them, from the mountain above, a stream of water showered from the rocks in sprays of silver. And behind the waterfall, like an apparition, was the shrine of the goddess Sagrami.

Without thinking, Finnikin staggered to his feet and pulled off his shirt and trousers to stand naked under the coolness. When he looked back at Trevanion, his father was staring at the water with an expression of wonder. Then he removed his clothing and stood alongside Finnikin, lifting his face to the sky and extending his arms. Slowly he turned and placed his hands on either side of Finnikin's head, before pressing his lips to his son's forehead like a man giving thanks to his goddess for all things blessed. And for the first time since Trevanion's arrest in Lumatere, Finnikin allowed the tears to fall under the shower from the rocks, mingling them with the blood and grime and rot that he knew would never be truly washed from his father's memory.

In the ravine below was the horse from Sarnak. Trevanion leaped on and grabbed Finnikin's injured arm, almost pulling it out of its socket. Sharp threads of pain shot through him, but he held on as his father turned the horse toward the east. When they reached the fork in the road, following the novice's instructions, they found the path of stones that took them into the woods.

Trevanion rode the horse hard, and it took all of Finnikin's strength not to lose his grip. As he stared into the distance, he began to doubt that the cottage in the woods even existed. Until there it was, and standing at the gate that marked its entrance was Sir Topher ... and Evanjalin.

Trevanion was off the horse in an instant and went straight for the girl's throat, lifting her from the ground. It took Sir Topher and Finnikin's combined strength to pull him away.

"Let her go, Trevanion," Sir Topher said. "She's more good to us alive than dead."

After a moment Trevanion released her and she stumbled. She looked to Finnikin, but he would not meet her gaze.

Trevanion took Sir Topher's hand and gripped it hard. "I am your servant until my last day on this earth," he said quietly as the two men embraced.

Finnikin winced as Sir Topher put a hand on his shoulder.

"You are in pain?"

"I'm fine." He watched as Evanjalin disappeared into the trees beyond the cottage.

"You were lucky she only sent you to prison. She sold the thief to the traders of Sorel."

"Mercy," Finnikin said, amazed that her actions still had the power to surprise him. But he had seen the bruises on her face, and he looked at the older man closely. "What did he do to her?"

"Enough to deserve what he got."

That night, as Finnikin lay in the loft nursing his arm, Evanjalin crouched beside him. He smelled leaves of rosemary and eucalyptus and watched as she stirred a substance into a paste and then administered the balm to his bruised and swollen face.

"Did I not tell you to bend to their will?" she reprimanded him.

"Have I ever given you reason to believe that I would bend to another's will?" he replied sharply. When the balm stung his face, he gripped her wrist with a firmness he knew caused pain.

"Why are you so angry?" she asked, pulling away.

"You betrayed me! Am I supposed to be grateful? Am I supposed to thank you?"

"You have your father. Lumatere has the captain of its Guard."

"Lumatere doesn't exist!"

"That is your belief, Finnikin!" she said. "I can tell by reading your Book of Lumatere."

"You have no right to touch that book," he said angrily.

"You dropped it when the soldiers took you away."

"Don't you mean I dropped it when you betrayed me?"

She studied his face for a moment. "You list the dead. You tell the stories of the past. You write about the catastrophes and the massacres. What about the living, Finnikin? Who honors them?"

"You think you're worthy of the task?" he asked bitterly. "After what you've done? Go to bed, Evanjalin. Lumaterans sleep easier without your help."

He heard her sigh as she leaned toward him. "Only someone who has the comfort of two fathers sleeping close by could make such a statement."

She lifted his arm and he winced. "I'm going to have to dislocate your shoulder," she said. "I know exactly what to do, so you need not fear anything. Do you want a signal, or would you like to signal me?"

"What kind of a signal?" he said, alarmed. "Can I trust you?"

She looked hurt. "Of course you can. Maybe a count."

"As in one, two—"

His cry of pain echoed across the stable, and within seconds Trevanion was in the loft with Sir Topher at his heels.

"What have you done?" Trevanion bellowed, grabbing her by the arm and shaking her.

Finnikin was spluttering, his eyes rolling and watering from the waves of pain that paralyzed his arm.

"I know how to administer to cuts and injuries," she said in a small voice.

"Is that what you do? Administer suffering?" Trevanion snarled.

"Let her go, Trevanion," Sir Topher said. "She has suffered herself. She was with the exiles in Sarnak."

"And you believe her?" Trevanion asked coldly.

Evanjalin looked down, unable to meet his stare.

"Tell us who they were. What part of Lumatere did they come from?" Trevanion asked.

"Go on, Evanjalin," Sir Topher said gently.

But she would not respond, and despite the pain, Finnikin clenched his fist with fury.

"You lied to the High Priestess about Sarnak?" he accused.

"No, I didn't." Eyes still downcast, she handed Sir Topher the herbs. "On the arm, just below the joint," she said as she climbed out of the loft.

Trevanion's expression was hard. "We rid ourselves of her the first moment we get."

Chapter 9

Leaving Sorel became their only priority, and despite Trevanion's objections to anything Evanjalin suggested, they agreed with her that the lawless town at land's end was their best bet for survival. Speranza was a place that had been conquered, reconquered, and relinquished so many times that no one seemed to remember who governed it. In such a place, the presence of two escaped prisoners, even one who looked as if he had stepped out of the depths of hell, would go largely unnoticed.

At midday they entered the courtyard of the tavern in town. From the balconies, women beckoned to them with gestures that needed no interpreting. As they pointed and purred, Finnikin heard Evanjalin give a snort beside him before going off to tether their horse.

Inside, the women had descended into the main room. Finnikin watched as Trevanion quickly became the center of attention. He remembered how the ladies of Lumatere would fawn over the captain of the King's Guard. The brutal years in the mines of Sorel had not altered the striking features of his face. With his knotted hair tied back and his dark beard cropped, he still had a presence that attracted the opposite sex, despite the unhealthy pallor of his skin.

Sir Topher returned, holding a key. "Come, Evanjalin, I have booked us a room. Perhaps a rest?" he suggested, all too aware of what was on offer for the others.

Finnikin stole a glance at her, but then the women with wicked laughter in their eyes were upon them and he allowed one to take his hand.

Later, he stepped onto the tiny balcony beside the bed and watched the vendors pack away their stalls. The tavern girl playfully pulled him back toward her. He had enjoyed their time together. She had required nothing from him but pleasure. No intelligent banter, no request to save a kingdom or sacrifice a part of himself. But he resisted the temptation to stay and pulled on his clothes before grabbing his pack.

In the courtyard, he sat at a table and retrieved the Book of Lumatere. He thought of Evanjalin lying in the room above and remembered their conversation from the night of his arrest. He had trusted her, and she had deceived him. He flicked through the book, his fingers running over all the names he had recorded over the years. But then he turned to a page of unfamiliar handwriting, and his breath caught. There, in a small neat hand, was page after page of names, some written with self-assurance, others with a tremble.

He stood, about to make his way into the tavern to find her when he realized the horse post was empty.

"The horse?" he called out to the stable boy. "Who took our horse?"

"You brought no horse," the boy said.

"The novice did."

"Who?"

"Girl. Blue woolen cap. Dressed like a boy."

Recognition registered on the boy's face. "She came back for it."

"Where did she go?" Finnikin asked uneasily. The boy ignored him, and Finnikin walked away, trying to decide whether to call Trevanion and Sir Topher. Instead, he turned back to the boy. "If I were to continue down the road to the south, what would I see?"

"Not another village for at least a day."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing," he repeated.

"And how far to the closest village going east?"

"I tell you there is nothing," the boy said as Finnikin began to walk away again. "Except for the camp."

Finnikin's heart slammed in his chest. "Camp?"

"Of the filthy exiles. Should round them up and —"

Finnikin did not stay to hear the boy's suggestion. He took the road out of town and headed east.

He smelled the camp before he saw it. But nothing had prepared him for the sight. It was spread over more land than the town he had left behind, but never in his travels with Sir Topher had he seen a camp more damned. Those standing at the edges watched him with empty eyes. This is not life, Finnikin thought, just day-to-day survival. He heard the heart-wrenching wails of babies crying from hunger.

When he saw no sign of the horse, he was torn between relief that Evanjalin might not be there and a fear of where else she could be.

"I'm looking for a girl. Bare head, dark eyes," he said to anyone who looked in his direction.

When no one responded, he began to make his way through the rows of makeshift tents. Children with bloated stomachs stared at him with the vacant expressions they had inherited from their parents. Flies hovered over their faces and fed from their open sores.

A hand reached out and gripped his arm. It was a man, little older than Finnikin, his skin stretched taut over prominent cheekbones. "You are heading toward the fever camp," the man said. "You had best be on your way, for it catches you fast."

Finnikin looked past him. Excrement lined the path to the next camp, and he could hardly breathe from the stench of vomit and shit and death and sickness. He stumbled to the side and emptied his stomach of the mutton soup and ale he had consumed at the tavern. As he stayed bent, he stared with horror at the body of a woman in front of him, eyes wide open, flies feeding.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was the man again, compassion on his face. Somehow compassion survives, Finnikin thought in wonder. He stood up, ashamed, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

"Are you looking for the priest-king?" the man asked.

Finnikin was stunned. "The priest-king? Our blessed Barakah is here?"

The man nodded. "In the fever camp." Finnikin walked away, covering his mouth with his hand. "Come back for us," the man begged. "Whoever you are, do not forget us."

Beyond the tents, Finnikin saw a stretch of land that marked where the exile camp ended and the fever camp began. The fever camp was an assortment of the most basic living quarters, made up of sheets and blankets tied to posts. Bodies littered the space beneath them. Those who were bent over the sick looked like living dead themselves.

But worse was beyond the sick huts. A lad with a corpse slung over his shoulder walked by, and Finnikin followed him to a pit dug deep into the earth. Men. Women. Children. Those his age who would never lie with a woman as he had that afternoon. He saw girls, their hair the color of spun gold, or waves dark and thick. The beautiful girls of Lumatere. Dead. Piled on top of one another. Layers of wasted skin and bones. The lad passed him twice, each time carrying a dead body that he proceeded to throw into the pit of the dead. Finnikin noticed the boy's strong hands. Craftsman's hands. Made for rebuilding.

But there was no place for rebuilding here. Just burying.

He sensed her before he saw her. She was walking toward him from one of the blanket hovels, holding a baby in her arms. A baby so still, Finnikin knew it no longer breathed. Evanjalin looked up and their eyes met across the pit of the dead.

Look away, he told himself. Do not let yourself get lost in those eyes.

When she reached him, he watched her search for something, desperation in her movements.

"What are you looking for, Evanjalin?" he asked.

"His mother," she said in a broken voice. "She died earlier with the baby still attached to her breast."

He wanted to walk away. Go back to the sleepy girl in the tavern who asked nothing of him but three copper coins. Who made him forget for a moment, when he was deep inside of her, this girl with large pools of night-sky for eyes.

Evanjalin continued to search among the bodies, and then he saw where her gaze ended. At a woman sprawled in a pit, arms outstretched. Evanjalin looked at the babe she held and crouched down. He could see that she planned to slip into the grave. And before he knew what he was doing, Finnikin climbed into the pit and she handed him the baby. Stepping around the bodies, he made his way to where the mother lay and placed the child on her breast, wrapping the dead woman's arms around her boy.

He felt dry sobs rising inside him, carving up his throat, and when Evanjalin held out her hand and pulled him out of the pit, he knew she could read it all on his face.

"Do not cry," she said fiercely, but her own tears flowed. "Do not cry, Finnikin. For if we begin, our tears will never end."

He held her face in his hands, her tears catching in his fingers, his forehead against hers. Cursed land, Sir Topher had said. Cursed people.

The priest-king had altered so much since the old days of Lumatere that Finnikin hardly recognized him. Finnikin had been in awe of the holy man as a child. Even Lucian believed he was some kind of god in his elaborate robe trimmed with gold, each finger adorned with rings. Today he wore a grubby brown mantle and hood; his beard was long, his feet sandaled. A toe or two seemed to be missing, and the marks of age stained his hands. The only reminders of the man he used to be were the deep laugh lines around his eyes. The priest-king had always loved to laugh.

"You're still here," the holy man muttered when he saw Evanjalin. "I told you. This is no place for one so young and healthy."

"This is no place for anyone," she corrected softly. "You are the priest-king. You need to lead these people home."

The man shook his head. "A title that means nothing outside the kingdom."

"When we return to Lumatere—"

"If you want her to live, take her away," the priest-king said. Finnikin knew they were being dismissed. He turned to Evanjalin. "There will be no return," he said quietly.

She glared at him. "Look at them. Do you believe that a strip of land in someone else's kingdom will be any better than this?"

"How can you even ask that, Evanjalin?"

"What did they do to a newborn in your rock village, Finnikin?" she said, taking his hand and clenching it into a fist. "Wrapped their little hands around stone from the village, binding it tightly for days. As they did with those from the Flatlands. Earth from the fields clenched in their fists. Silt from the river clenched in their fists. Grass from the mountains. Leaves from the forest. Joining them to the land." She blinked back tears. "We don't want a second Lumatere. We want to go home. Take us home, Finnikin."

She turned to the priest-king. "Blessed Barakah, if you return with us, people will follow. Those who are well. We will return to Lumatere where healers—"

"The healers are all dead, Evanjalin," Finnikin said, his anger rising. "The Forest Dwellers, the novices of Sagrami, any of them who had the skill and gift to heal are all dead. I was there. I heard their screams as they burnt at the stake. Even if we were able to get inside Lumatere, there is nothing to go back to. Can you not understand that? The only hope for our people is a second homeland in Belegonia."

"Why do you fear returning, Finnikin? Were you not the one who swore an oath with Balthazar to save Lumatere?"

"Prince Balthazar?" the priest-king asked.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "For if he lives, he is now King Balthazar."

"And does he live?"

"Evanjalin dreams he does," Finnikin mocked. "Do you have a plan, Evanjalin?" he demanded. "Do you believe you will belong to him? A commoner to marry a king?"

Fury flashed in her eyes. "Remember this," she seethed. "Our queen was a commoner. From the Mountains of Lumatere. Do not dare scorn such a match."

"Quiet!" the priest-king said. He waited for their silence. "So you dream of King Balthazar and believe that this is enough to convince me to follow you across this godsforsaken land in search of a country cursed?"

"No, blessed Barakah. I believe you've been told many times that Balthazar lives, and each time has proved to be false. But I can give you another name," she said, staring at Finnikin.

"I have work to do," the older man said, getting to his feet. "Names mean nothing to me."

"Not even Captain Trevanion?"

He stopped and turned, stunned. Then he looked at Finnikin as the truth dawned on him. "Finnikin of the Rock? Son of Trevanion of the River?"

"The very same," she said.

"I can answer for myself," Finnikin snapped.

"He has escaped?" the priest-king asked.

Evanjalin nodded.

"Is he with his Guard?"

"No. With a whore," she explained.

"Evanjalin!"

She looked at Finnikin with disbelief. "Oh, so now we are bashful?" But then she turned her attention back to the priest-king. "If we bring him here with the king's First Man, will you be willing to convince these people to go north, blessed Barakah?"

"Bring them to me and we will speak."

Despite everything they had seen, Evanjalin looked pleased with herself as they set off back to town. Instead of taking the main road, she crossed into the woods. "A much more pleasant track for walking," she said. "The river runs by here."

Finnikin stopped suddenly. "The horse? Where's the horse?"

She shrugged. "I don't have my horse anymore."

"Your horse? The horse was mine."

"Don't be ridiculous." Evanjalin continued walking up the track. "You would never have stolen the horse in Sarnak if I didn't encourage you. So I consider it mine."

"But I officially stole it," he argued.

"Fine. But the horse you officially stole was actually re-stolen and we had to trade the thief from Sarnak for it, so really the horse could be considered his," she said over her shoulder.

Finnikin tried to control his anger as he caught up to her. "So why don't you have his horse anymore?"

"Well, a wonderful thing happened while you were off whoring. I discovered that the thief spoke the truth and had sold the ring to a peddler from Osteria who happened to be traveling in these parts." Evanjalin dug into the pockets of her trousers and held out the the ruby ring. "Isn't it beautiful?" she asked, a smile of pure delight on her face.

"Dazzling," he muttered, bristling at the way she'd said "whoring."

"You'll like this route. The river will look lovely at this time of day," she said.

But there was nothing lovely about the river as far as Finnikin could see. Just the ugliness of the slave traders of Sorel, their young prey, male and female, trapped in cages set upon barges. The females looked no more than children and made up most of the cargo.

There was little room along the bank, yet greedy buyers were pressed against one another, bidding for humans as if they were livestock. Sorel was the only kingdom with no laws against slavery, and Finnikin had heard rumors that children were branded like animals. As always, he willed the voice inside of him to take over. The one that told him he did not know these people and could easily forget them the moment they were out of his sight. And then he saw, between the shoulders of the two buyers in front of him, the thief from Sarnak. Tied to a timber horse post, naked and shivering.

Finnikin knew the thief had seen him. He saw surprise in the boy's face, then something else. A pleading. The boy began to mouth something, his lips moving desperately.

Finnikin pushed his way through the crowd of buyers. The thief kept his gaze on him, his mouth moving even as they untied him. When one of the traders noticed him speaking, the back of his fist caught the boy across the face and the thief staggered to his knees. But still he lifted his head and his mouth continued to move.

And then Finnikin realized with horror what the boy was saying.

"Kill me," Evanjalin said beside him. "That's what he's asking you to do." Kill me. Kill me.

Finnikin found himself reaching for the dagger in the scabbard on his back. He dared not look at Evanjalin. "We didn't take this route because it was a pleasant walk, did we?" he said angrily.

"I thought you loved the river," she said.

"You meant for this to happen. You knew he was here, and you want to save him."

"Don't be ridiculous, Finnikin," she snapped. "Why would I want to save a worthless thief who tried to rape me while I slept?"

When Finnikin didn't respond, she shrugged. "But then I thought of your pledge. The one from the rock in Sorel where you said you'd search the land for the orphans of Lumatere and bring them back, and I believe you'll want to save him. If you get the boy now, you won't have to come back for him when you're nice and settled with some lord's sweet, fragile daughter."

"You are evil," he seethed.

"Oh, the way that word is thrown around!" she said. "Everything is evil that humans can't control or conquer."

"What do you expect me to do?" he argued. "Fight the traders for the thief? You're the one who sold him."

"Because I needed a horse for your escape," she replied calmly.

"Which I would not have needed if you hadn't betrayed me. Then you go and sell the horse for the ring. So now we have no horse," he continued, "and a ruby ring that I'm presuming you're going to trade for a useless thief."

"What a ridiculous suggestion," she said. "He stole the ring in the first place!"

Finnikin held the dagger tightly, a splinter from the wooden handle digging into his palm. He looked up at the thief and saw bleak relief pass over the boy's face.

"I will do the right thing and put him out of his misery." He wondered when the horror of the day would end.

"And if you miss?"

"I never miss." There was no boasting in his tone, just sadness. Finnikin turned the dagger and held the blade between his thumb and finger. He stared at his target, bile rising in his throat. But before he could take aim, Evanjalin placed a hand on his arm and took the dagger from him.

"We are not going to buy the thief, Evanjalin," he said wearily.

"Of course not," she said, leaning to whisper in his ear. "We'll just steal him."

"And what are we supposed to do? Storm the barge? I don't have my father's sword, and I can't see myself succeeding against ten traders and these feral buyers whose type I recognize from the mines. Remember the mines where you put me? For which I will never forgive you."

"And I will never forgive you for the whore!" There was anger in her eyes. "We wait until someone buys the thief and then we ambush the buyer. Which means, Sir No Sword and Three Knives, our chances of success are high, because I'm presuming there will only be one buyer to fight."

"And what makes you think I carry three knives?"

She clutched his forearm where the smallest knife was hidden, then placed her arms around him and embraced him, patting his back to feel the second scabbard of the dagger she held in her hand.

"And the third?" he asked.

There was another flash of anger in her eyes. "Do you expect me to get on my knees before you? Like your whore? The third is at your ankle."

Fury rose inside him. "I curse the day I climbed that rock in Sendecane," he spat.

She looked at him sadly. "That's where we differ, Finnikin. For I believe that was when it all began."

They watched in silence as the traders unlocked the boy's shackles and bound his hands. Finnikin suspected that the buyer would take the thief along the river and wait for morning to travel down the waterway to the mines.

"If we do this..." he said, turning to Evanjalin.

But she was gone. He pushed through the crowd, searching, calling her name. He leaped onto the back of a man close by to get a clear view of the area and was thrown aside. There were grunts of hostility and elbows thrust into his face as he pushed his way to the river's edge, where the barges floated. Evanjalin had taken to wearing his brown woolen trousers and blue cap, but the colors were too dull to stand out in the waning light. He hoped she had enough sense to find her way back to the tavern. The thought of her being lost to them as he had once wished suddenly sent a shiver through him.

Farther down the bank, he caught sight of the thief being dragged away. Had the owner clothed the boy, Finnikin might have left things as they were. But in the fever camp, he had stumbled over the naked body of a boy the same age as the thief. In Lumatere, boys that age had been robust and full of mischief, teasing the girls they had grown up with, not knowing whether they wanted to follow their fathers or cling to their mothers. There was something unnatural about a boy of fourteen lying dead, and Finnikin had seen it too often. Enough, he thought. Enough.

Finnikin followed the thief and his owner down a trail deep into the woods. He knew if he did not succeed in setting the thief free that night, he would at least put him out of his misery. It would be simple, he told himself. He would race farther ahead and cut them off, taking the slave owner by surprise. But then he lost sight of them through the thick foliage and decided to scale the pine tree closest to him. When he reached a height that gave him a better view of his surroundings, his heart sank. From where he was balanced, he could see the thief and his owner walking toward a clearing. And in the clearing was another man setting up camp. Evanjalin had been wrong. The buyer was not alone.

He knew he had to move quickly. But just as he was about to climb down, he saw her. She leaped out of the trees at the edge of the trail and threw herself on the back of the thief's owner with Finnikin's dagger in her hand.

Finnikin hit the ground running. Between the trees he could see she had the advantage, slicing the man across the chest, her arm around his neck, her legs wrapped around his waist. But it was too late. The buyer's companion had reached them. He pulled Evanjalin by the jerkin and threw her face forward against a tree, twisting her arm to make her let go of the dagger.

Finnikin ran harder. Don't let him find out she's a girl. Please, don't let him find out she's a girl.

But the man's hands prodded and poked, crawling up her torso.

"Evanjalin!"

One dagger caught the first man in the back, and the second knife landed an inch above Evanjalin's fingers on the tree. In a split second she had yanked it out and thrust it backward, catching her attacker unaware. When the man stumbled away, she plunged the knife twice more into his thigh, crippling him for a moment.

"Run!" Finnikin yelled as he tossed his cloak to the boy. He fought off the second man as Evanjalin grabbed the thief and they bolted into the woods. With a punch that left the man reeling, Finnikin raced after them.

"Keep running," he yelled. Ahead he could see the thief, whose leaps and lunges warned him of the unevenness of the ground. And then he was beside Evanjalin, realizing, as the blood pumped into his heart and the pulse at his neck threatened to burst, that his need to distance himself from their pursuers was less important than his need to take the lead from her.

They reached the end of the trail and burst into the open valley, where the sun was just beginning to disappear. As he inched closer, he could tell by her sideways glance and the glint in her eye that she was not going to let him pass. But she was tiring, and when she pointed up ahead to the road that led to Speranza, she held her hand in front of him, barring him, keeping him back. He shoved her hand aside, pushing her in the process, and when she stumbled, he took the lead, following the thief as he leaped over the timber fence that boarded a meadow. By then there were no sounds of heavy feet behind them, just his breathing and Evanjalin's.

When the thief stopped and fell to his knees to catch his breath, Finnikin collapsed onto the grass and Evanjalin fell down beside him. He rolled onto his back, holding his side in an attempt to reduce the pain, and when he looked across at her, he thought he caught a glimpse of a smile on her face.

The thief stared at them. There was no humility or gratitude in his expression. And little else either.

"I own you," Evanjalin said bluntly as she sat up. "Never forget that, boy."

Trevanion and Sir Topher were waiting for them outside the tavern. Sir Topher's eyes widened with disbelief when he recognized the thief, but before he could say a word, Evanjalin rushed up to him.

"Sir Topher," she said breathlessly, "I got it back!" She clutched the ruby ring in her hand. Finnikin watched Sir Topher look down at her with tender affection before reaching over and folding the ring into her palm.

"It's best you keep it hidden, Evanjalin."

"We need to move. Quickly," Finnikin said.

"The horse?" Sir Topher asked.

"No horse."

"Who—"

"Later," Finnikin stressed, pushing them toward the tavern entrance.

Trevanion was staring at the thief, who looked like he was about to spit at him.

"You won't survive the consequences," Finnikin warned.

"His name is Froi," Evanjalin said. The thief grunted.

"It's boy," Finnikin argued. "It's just that his lip is split and it sounded like Froi."

"Everyone has a name, Finnikin. You can't just be called boy. His name is Froi." The thief from Sarnak opened his mouth to speak, but Evanjalin raised a finger to silence him. "I can sell you as easily as I bought you," she said icily.

"You didn't buy him. You stole him," Finnikin pointed out.

"I've worked out his bond rules," she said to Sir Topher, ignoring the others. "Like you said once. A new set of them."

Whatever Sir Topher had suggested, Finnikin could tell he was already regretting it.

"There's something else," Finnikin said, looking at Trevanion, who had not said a word.

"Of course there is," Sir Topher muttered. "Can we take another surprise?"

"I think you can take this one. Evanjalin has found the priest-king."

Chapter 10

As they entered the exile camp the following day, Sir Topher was speechless. But it was the look on his father's face that stayed in Finnikin's mind for days to come. He knew Trevanion had never seen a camp before, had never imagined the way their people lived these past years, so nothing could prepare him for such desolation. His father understood punishment, imprisonment, and retribution. But this? What crime against the gods had these people committed to condemn them to this life?

"It is worse farther on," Finnikin warned. The cramped conditions, pools of mud, and stinking puddles made movement through the camp slow. Yet unlike the previous day, there was a slight buzz around them as whispers began to fill the air. And then Finnikin saw it for the first time in the eyes of the man closest to them: a glimmer of hope.

"It's Trevanion of the River," he heard a woman say. "And the king's First Man."

As they went deeper into the camp, more and more exiles emerged from their makeshift homes. By the time they reached the divide between the tent city and the fever camp, they were squeezing their way through crowds of people, children watching hopefully from the shoulders of their fathers, the hunger in their eyes haunting.

A man, his hair white and his eyes the color of milk and sky, pushed his way to the front, searching Sir Topher's face for recognition.

"Kristopher of the Flatlands?"

Sir Topher's body shook as he embraced his kinsman. It now seemed as if every man, woman, and child had left their shelter to jostle around them.

"This is Micah, a farmer from the village of Sennington," Sir Topher said.

Finnikin looked at his father. Sennington was Lady Beatriss's village.

"Who is in charge here?" Trevanion said.

"We have no one in charge," the old man replied.

"Then appoint someone and bring them to us."

In the stretch of land between the tent city and the fever camp was the priest-king's shanty. As they approached, a woman clutching her child came from the direction of the fever camp and pushed the boy into Evanjalin's arms. Finnikin pulled Evanjalin toward him and away from the woman, who looked riddled with fever.

"There's nothing you can do," he said firmly.

Evanjalin shook free of him. "It's against the rules of humanity to believe there is nothing we can do, Finnikin," she said, walking away with the mother and child.

Inside the priest-king's tent, Finnikin watched as Trevanion and Sir Topher solemnly bent and kissed the holy man's hand, an action that seemed to embarrass him. The old farmer from the Flatlands entered hesitantly with two men and a woman, their eyes moving between the priest-king and Finnikin's party.

"You need to separate these people from the fever camp," Trevanion told them firmly, "and I do not mean a tiny strip of earth in between. You take the healthy away from here. Now."

"Take them where?" the woman asked. "There are too many of us, and each time we have attempted to move, we have been threatened with swords. At least in this corner of hell they do not bother us."

"To cross the land, we need the protection of the King's Guard," the older man said boldly.

"Can you provide that?" the youngest asked.

Finnikin looked at his father. He had not spoken of his men, but Finnikin knew that finding them was never far from Trevanion's mind.

Trevanion shook his head. "Not for the moment. But you leave all the same. You keep to the river along the Charyn and then the Osterian border until you reach Belegonia. There, we will call on the patronage of Lord August of the Flatlands."

"We can't—"

"There is no hope for you here!" Trevanion said. "You travel to Belegonia and you will be provided for. That is my pledge."

He and Sir Topher stepped outside with the four exiles, and Finnikin found himself alone with the priest-king.

"Do not underestimate the girl," the priest-king said quietly.

Finnikin gave a humorless laugh. "I am with the king's First Man, the captain of the King's Guard, and the priest-king of Lumatere. The most powerful men in our kingdom, apart from the king himself. All brought together by her. At what point have I led you to believe that I have underestimated her?"

"You contemplate a different path from hers," the priest-king pointed out.

"And you?" Finnikin asked.

"That is not important."

"You are the priest-king," Finnikin said. "Chosen to guide."

"You have expectations of me?" the holy man said bitterly. "When I gave a blessing to that impostor as he walked through our gates, knowing that his hands were soaked with the blood of our beloveds? Do you know where I was when they burned the five Forest Dwellers at the stake? Safe in the Valley of Tranquillity, knowing that I could have given them protection in my home. I had the power of sanction, but I was ruled by my fear."

"Lord August said you had a death wish and it was for this reason that you travel from fever camp to fever camp," Finnikin said. "But the goddess has cursed you, blessed Barakah, and refuses to allow you to die."

"So the answer to your earlier question is that I take these people north to Lumatere," the priest-king responded. "With the girl. While you go west, to Belegonia. In search of a second homeland. Or has your course altered, Finnikin?"

Finnikin did not respond.

"What is it you fear?" the priest-king asked.

"What makes you think I fear anything?"

The old man sighed. "When I was a young man, I was chosen to be the spiritual advisor of our kingdom. They do not choose you to be Barakah, Finnikin, just because you can sing the Song of Lumatere at the right pitch."

"Then you have the power to sense things? Is it Balthazar?" Finnikin asked.

"I do not know, but whoever I sense is powerful. 'Dark will lead the light, and our resurdus will rise.' Are they not the words of the prophecy?"

"Most would call it a curse, blessed Barakah."

"Most would not have deciphered the words," the priest-king replied.

Finnikin's breath caught in his throat. "Do you know the rest?" he asked.

" 'And he will hold two hands of the one he pledged to save.'"

" 'And then the gate will fall, but his pain shall never cease,'" Finnikin continued.

" 'His seed will issue kings, but he will never reign,'" they ended together.

After a moment the priest-king smiled. "It has taken me ten years to translate it. Please do not tell me it took you less."

Finnikin smiled ruefully. "I spent my fifteenth year in the palace library of Osteria," he confessed. "Not much else to do but listen to excruciating lectures from our ambassador and train with the Osterian Guard." He felt a strange mixture of emotions under the priest-king's gaze.

"What is it you fear, Finnikin?" the holy man repeated.

"I was the childhood companion of Prince Balthazar," he found himself saying. "And many times he said to me, 'Finnikin, when I am king, you'll be captain of my Guard. Just as your father is captain of my father's Guard. But then some days we will swap so you can be king and I can be Captain Trevanion.'"

"Child's talk."

Finnikin shook his head. "Each time Balthazar spoke those words, a fire would burn inside of me. I wanted to be king, and I began to envy Balthazar for it."

"Then your desires were small, Finnikin."

Finnikin made a sound of disbelief.

"When I was eight years old," the priest-king confessed, "I wanted to be a god." The holy man looked around the ragged tent. "Perhaps this is my punishment, but between you and me, I do not believe that the desires of young boys cause catastrophic events. The actions of humans do."

But Finnikin knew there was more. Her blood will be shed for you to be king.

"Take Evanjalin north to our king, Finnikin," the priest-king said. "But know that if we follow her, we take a path to salvation paved with blood."

"There is nothing for us north," Trevanion said firmly from the entrance. He was standing alongside Sir Topher. "Isn't that right, Finnikin?"

Finnikin could not reply. He could feel his father's fierce stare, but his eyes were on Sir Topher. His mentor had been respectfully distant since Trevanion's return, but Finnikin needed his guidance now.

"She bewitches you," Trevanion said. "And she is yours for the taking. Any fool can see that. So take her and get whatever needs to be gotten out of your system."

Still Sir Topher would not meet his eyes, and Finnikin knew he would have to make this decision on his own. That perhaps he already had.

"I stood in a pit of corpses yesterday. Stepped over the body of one just my age. Do you know what went through my mind? Rebuilding Lumatere. And as I watched the lad carrying the dead, I thought the same. I imagined he would be a carpenter. I could see it in these," he said, his hands outstretched. "In a pit of death I imagined a Lumatere of years to come, rather than of years past." He was staring at his mentor. "We have never done that, Sir Topher. We collect the names of our dead, we plan our second homeland, and we construct our government, but with nothing more than parchment and ink and sighs of resignation."

Sir Topher finally looked up. "Because any hope beyond that, my boy, would be too much. I feared we would drown in it."

"Then I choose to drown," Finnikin said. "In hope. Rather than float into nothing. Maybe you are right, Trevanion," he said, turning back to his father. "But it is her hope that bewitches me, and that hope I may never get out of my system, no matter how many times she's to be gotten. Can you not see it burning in her eyes? Does it not make you want to look away when you have none to give in return? Her hope fills me with... something other than this dull weight I wake with each morning."

Trevanion's eyes bored into him. Had he found his father only to walk away from him?

"She says the young girls inside Lumatere are dying," Sir Topher said quietly.

"Why do we hear so little about these walks she takes in her sleep?" Trevanion demanded. "If she has the power, why do we know so little about Lumatere? Because she lies."

"She has a gift—" the priest-king began.

"A gift for deception, unable to bear my presence for she knows I understand the nature of her vice," Trevanion snapped. "What of her lies about Sarnak?"

"There was no lie," Finnikin said.

Trevanion made a sound of frustration. "Finnikin, she could not even tell us where those people came from, let alone what happened."

Finnikin swallowed hard, remembering the perfect handwriting in the Book of Lumatere. "Most were from the river village of Tressor," he said quietly.

He watched his father falter. The people of Tressor were Trevanion's people, the people he had grown up among. He had visited them each time he was on leave from the palace, sat with them at their tables, and listened to their stories with his son on his knees.

"The girl is an empath," the priest-king said. "She cannot bear your presence, Captain Trevanion, because you feel too much. Hate too much. Love too much. Suffer too much. It is why she was happiest in the cloister. The novices of the goddess Lagrami are trained to keep emotions and feelings to a minimum. There she found peace."

But Trevanion would not listen. "I travel south," he said, his voice heavy. "And I will do all I can, Finnikin, to convince you to travel with me rather than take a path that may destroy you."

"If you travel south, I am already destroyed," Finnikin said.

Sir Topher's eyes met his. "Froi!" he called out. The boy came to the entrance. "Make yourself useful and fetch Evanjalin."

"I am here," she said softly from the flap of the tent. She looked past Sir Topher to Trevanion. "What would you like to know about walking the sleep, Captain Trevanion? That I journey with a child of no more than five? We are as real to each other as you are to me. No illusion or ghosts. Flesh and blood. This child belongs to the living and she has always been the guide, but we have never been able to hear each other or converse. We do not pick and choose who we visit. We hold each other's hand through our walks; hers is soft and tiny and trusting and strong. Sometimes I sense another who walks with us. I believe they are there not for me but for the child. We see only what our sleepers see and think. They are unaware of us, and most of the time we stumble through a gray mist. Last night I dreamed of the chandler who finds it strange that it's his work to provide light, yet all he can see is darkness. The armorer despises himself, for he makes weapons for the impostor king and his men, knowing they will be used against his own people. I have walked through the sleep of the plowman and the blacksmith and the tanner and the weaver and the merchant and the nursemaid. But my favorite sleep is that of the young, for they still know how to dream and they dream of the return of their king, believing that the captain of the Guard will guide him home to Lumatere."

Trevanion shook his head and turned to go.

"Her strength, it comes from you," she said quietly.

"What?" The question was like a bark, but she did not shrink back.

"Beatriss."

There was a sharp hiss of breath, and Finnikin found himself in his father's path as Trevanion advanced toward her furiously. "Beatriss is—"

"Do not speak her name! Do not dare taint her memory," he raged.

Evanjalin did not move. "Sometimes when people sleep they agonize about decisions made. Other times they think back on the past. She spends much time doing both. I do believe it is Beatriss who has worked through the dark magic to find me."

"You lie to taunt me!"

"Enough, Evanjalin," Sir Topher ordered. "Beatriss is dead."

Finnikin felt his father flinch at the words, but Evanjalin held Trevanion's gaze.

"Most nights she is restless. There are too many people to worry about, and she wonders how she will be able to make things right. How can she be someone other than Beatriss the Beautiful or Beatriss the Beloved? But then, just when she's about to lose hope, she remembers what you would whisper to her, Captain Trevanion. That she was Beatriss the Bold. Beatriss the Brave. To all others she was a fragile flower, but you would not let her be."

Finnikin's hand was still against Trevanion's chest; his father's heart was beating out of control.

"She remembers the nights you lay with her when she worried about something happening to you. 'What would I do without you?' she would cry. Do you remember your response, Captain Trevanion? 'What needs to be done, Beatriss."

Trevanion shook his head with disbelief.

"You ask why I do not talk of the sleep," Evanjalin said. "Because most days it is dark. Their souls are sad, and our goddess is weeping with despair for her people. However, Beatriss the Beautiful has become a sower, this despite the fact that each time her crops grow, the impostor's men destroy them. But Beatriss the Bold refuses to stop planting."

No one dared break the silence until Trevanion pushed Finnikin's hand away. "You know things that only I could know."

"No, Captain. You are wrong. I know things beyond what you know. Things that even I cannot understand. But my heart tells me to go north. Every waking hour and every sleeping moment tells me that there is life within Lumatere and that they wait. For us."

Trevanion took a ragged breath and walked to the entrance of the tent. Finnikin watched, wanting to go to his father and plead with him to join them. Offer him comfort. But he had no idea how.

"There is a village of rocks in Yutlind where I've been told my Guard has settled. South," Trevanion said.

Finnikin's shoulders slumped. "Father, please ..."

"I will not return to Lumatere without my men."

A sob of excitement escaped Evanjalin's lips. She flew into Trevanion's arms and then remembered herself and jumped back. She fell to her knees at his feet, but Sir Topher pulled her up.

"You will have no regrets," she said to them all. "I promise you. On my life."

Four days later, they began their journey alongside the priest-king and the exiles. A handful of the exiles stayed behind to tend to the fever camp, but Sir Topher and Trevanion had been firm that the priest-king would not be one of them. Their groups would separate when the road diverged. The priest-king would take his people west to Belegonia, and Finnikin and his party would travel south in search of Trevanion's men. But for a day they walked side by side.

Finnikin found himself looking at his father again and again. When Trevanion caught the look, he frowned. "What?" he asked gruffly.

Finnikin shrugged. "Nothing. Just that I heard Evanjalin say a family of sparrows has petitioned the king of Sorel to be freed from your hair."

The priest-king gave a snort of laughter, and after a moment Trevanion joined in and Finnikin's heart warmed at the sound of it. Trevanion wrapped his arm around his son's neck like a shepherd's hook and dragged him along playfully. When he let go, Finnikin thought he would have liked his father to hold on a moment longer.

When the road split in two, Finnikin watched the exiles go, a mixture of fear and hope on their faces.

"Until we meet again in Belegonia," the priest-king said.

"In the town of Lastaria on the coastal road," Finnikin reminded him as they embraced. He stood with Sir Topher, watching as Evanjalin led the way south with Froi and Trevanion.

"Salvation paved with blood, you say?" Sir Topher asked the holy man with a sigh.

The priest-king nodded. "But salvation all the same, Sir Topher."