It took me a minute to answer. I could ride, I just didn’t want to. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to keep pushing for a happy ending that would clearly never happen. But maybe at least I could find an ending I could live with. Which wasn’t Kestra and Gabe being tortured in a Dominion camp.
I dropped the shovel. “My satchel is inside. I’ll go get it.”
I walked back indoors, but froze in the entrance, wondering if this was the last time I’d ever see this place. I should have come here more often. I should have returned here after Woodcourt rather than living with Gareth. While it was true that the money I made sustained my mother and my sister for all those years, what did that matter now? Tenger wanted me to be king of the Halderians. I couldn’t even be a son to my mother.
I left a note for my sister, hoping I would find her first to explain in person, then wrapped up what remained of the bread my mother had baked earlier that day, and gathered a few mementos of her, then left my family’s home. I had very few memories of my own here.
But at least I had memories.
I imagined how Kestra must be feeling now, being led into a camp where she’d be questioned about what had happened to her over the past several days. They’d figure out that she was not the same girl who Lord Endrick had emptied of her memories. She was in terrible trouble, and I’d been a selfish fool to forget that.
Someone had saddled my horse while I was inside, and I mumbled a general thank-you in the direction of the Coracks, though I didn’t care who had done it. I swung into the saddle and felt Tenger’s eyes on me.
“You sure you’re all right?” he asked.
“Positive.”
“What were you doing with a shovel in the middle of the night?”
I closed my eyes and forced myself to breathe. “We’re wasting time, Captain.”
He clicked his tongue, mumbled something about how we’d discuss this later—I’d make sure we didn’t—and rode off. I followed, realizing only after several minutes that Trina and Wynnow were on either side of me.
“That’s your mother’s house,” Trina said.
I glanced over at her. She had confirmed my suspicions that at least she knew about Rutherhouse.
Something sharp must have been in my look, because she drew back, then asked, “What happened there? When the Dominion came … the shovel—” She drew in a breath. “Oh, Simon, I’m terribly sorry.”
Sorry for sending them there? I wanted to ask, but instead I tightened the grip on my reins.
“I don’t wish to be insensitive,” Wynnow said, “but surely you can see now why Kestra must go to the Blue Caves. She will need her memories back to have any chance of succeeding against such evil as this.”
“Her memories are returning!”
“It’s not just the memories,” Trina said. “We can’t have an Ironheart for an Infidante. And she needs magic to compete with Endrick on his own terms.”
I eyed Trina. “What if the chosen Infidante wasn’t Endrean and could not acquire magic? What if she were only Halderian, like you? Would you be useless too?”
Trina cocked her head. “Maybe that’s why the Blade chose Kestra and not me. Wynnow is correct. Kestra needs to go to the caves.”
“No!” I wasn’t negotiating this with them.
“That’s not your decision to make!” Trina said.
“Nor is it yours. If Kestra possesses magic, it will change who she is.”
“If she doesn’t go to the caves, she will remain useless as an Infidante. And it doesn’t matter anyway: You don’t get to decide who she is.”
Her words hit me harder than I let on, particularly on this horrible, unending night. As much as I wanted to defend myself, that I was only trying to help Kestra, maybe it was true, that I was forcing her in the direction I wanted. Never once had I asked her what she wanted.
I fell behind the group, absorbed in my thoughts, in my grief, my selfishness. I was completely empty of anything else. Trina rode up to Tenger, probably to give him a report on what I’d said. Since they were left to ride beside each other, Basil struck up a conversation with Wynnow. If Kestra had broken off their wedding, maybe he was already seeking a new bride to bring back to Reddengrad.
I became increasingly tired as we traveled, though my exhaustion was immediately forgotten the instant the Dominion camp came into view. This was a temporary camp in a valley east of the Drybelt,
beneath scattered homes on the surrounding hillside that had probably been evacuated the moment the first black-and-green flag flew. Its position made it easy to evaluate but hard to attack, especially with our few numbers.
We rode to a home high on the ridge with a decent vantage point and were hardly surprised to find it hastily abandoned. A half-eaten supper was laid out on the table, which a few of our group gulped down while I sulked in a corner.