“They got hold of some our horses is all,” Griz said.
Or someone else had caught up with them.
I stood, my gaze following the tracks that disappeared through the pines ahead. They headed east, which meant they weren’t being taken back to Venda. How did they get Vendan horses?
I shook my head.
Rafts. Stashed horses and supplies.
This was a plan that had been long in the making. Maybe from the moment Lia set foot in Venda. The only conclusion I could draw was that she had used me from the beginning. Every tender word from her lips had served a purpose. I shuffled through them all. Our last night, when she told me her vision was of us together … when she asked me about my mother—
It turned my stomach inside out. Lia was the only person I had ever even whispered my mother’s name to. I see your mother, Kaden. I see her in you every day. But now I knew all she saw when she looked at me was one of them. Another barbarian, and someone she couldn’t trust. Even if she had deceived me, I couldn’t believe that her affections for the people were anything but real. That much wasn’t an act. It churned in me, the memory of Lia standing on a wall, sacrificing precious seconds of her escape so she could speak to the people one last time.
We checked inside the cave and found dark stains in the sandy soil, possibly blood from a slain animal—or maybe from one of their own wounds. And then I saw a scrap of fabric no bigger than my thumbnail. I picked it up. Red brocade. It was a piece of her dress—confirmation that she had made it this far. If she was able to ride, it meant she was still alive. It was a possibility neither Griz nor I had brought up. No one had found a body downstream, but that didn’t mean a rocky crag hadn’t hidden it from view.
“They’re not far ahead,” I said.
“Then what are we waiting for?”
Find her.
There was no time to waste.
I looked at Griz. What real good was he going to do me? He could barely lift a sword, even with his good arm, and I’d be able to move faster without him.
“You can’t hold them off by yourself,” he said as if reading my mind.
It appeared that was exactly what I’d have to do. But Griz was at least still an intimidating figure. He could make a show of force. It might be all the edge I needed.
CHAPTER TEN
I stepped out of the grotto and looked out on the landscape. The beauty of trees dressed in glittering white robes, and a world as quiet and holy as a Sacrista met me—except for a gentle wordless whisper that wove through the tree tops. Shhh.
The last few days had finally given me the time with Rafe I had once prayed for when we were trapped on the other side of the river. Of course, with an escort of four, we were never alone, so our affections were kept in check, but at least we had time to ride beside each other.
We talked of our childhoods and our roles in court. His role was far more purposeful than mine. I told him how I frustrated my aunt Cloris to distraction, never quite meeting her standards in the womanly arts. “What about your mother?” he asked.
My mother. I wasn’t even sure how to answer him. She had become an enigma for me. “She shrugged off Aunt Cloris’s admonishments,” I told him. “She said it was healthy for me to run and play with my brothers. She encouraged it.”
But then something changed. Where she had once sided with me against the Royal Scholar, she began to take his council; where she had never been short with me, she began to lose her temper. Just do as I say, Arabella! And then, almost apologetically, she would draw me into her arms and whisper with tears in her eyes, Please. Just do as I say. After I’d had my first cycle, I had run into her chamber to ask her about the gift that hadn’t yet appeared. She was sitting by the fire with her stitchery. Her eyes had flashed with anger, and she m
issed a stitch, her needle drawing a bead of blood on her thumb and staining the piece she’d been working on for weeks. She stood and threw the whole thing into the fire. It will come when it comes, Arabella. Don’t be in such a hurry. After that I only cautiously brought up the gift. I was ashamed, thinking she’d had a vision of my shortcomings. It hadn’t occurred to me that she was the cause of them. “I think my mother is somehow part of all this, but I’m not sure how.”
“Part of what?”
Other than the kavah on my shoulder, I didn’t know what to say. “She wanted to send me off to Dalbreck.”
“Only after my father proposed it. Remember, it was his idea.”
“She went along easily enough,” I said. “My signature on the contracts hadn’t dried before she was calling for dressmakers.”
A flash of surprise suddenly brightened his face, and he laughed. “I forgot to tell you. I found your wedding gown.”
I stopped my horse. “You what?”
“I plucked it out of the brambles when I was tracking you down. It was torn and dirty, but it didn’t take up much room, so I shoved it in my pack.”
“My dress?” I said in disbelief. “You still have it?”