I shook my head, but he said, “She’s with the Coracks and on their side, not her son’s.”
“Are we really in the palace?”
Darrow nodded. “I carried you out of the throne room while Joth was on the balcony, announcing your death. We’re in a storage room, but he did gain some servants after the duel. No doubt they are searching for you.”
“How did you know to use the disk blade?”
“When you gave it to me, you said I should keep it if I ever needed to use it on you. I didn’t understand what you had meant until I found you here.”
Tears fell to my cheeks again, this time for a very different reason. “I’m so sorry, for everything before. What I was, what I did.”
He put a hand to my cheek. “Hush now, that wasn’t you.”
“Thank you … Father,” I whispered.
In the room next to us, we heard something topple over. That could only be Joth’s minions. “We have to leave,” he said, pulling a cloak over my shoulders. “There’s another exit from this room.”
He scooped me into his arms, and I leaned my head against his shoulder, trying to stay conscious but only doing a fair job of it. He was hurrying so fast, I was jostled in his arms, which hurt furiously, but there was nothing he could do.
“Hold on,” he said as he opened the storage room door. “You must hold on.”
I didn’t see how it mattered. Whatever he did here, I couldn’t possibly have long to live, though I couldn’t tell him that because he was my father and I wouldn’t hurt him with the truth. If Loelle was with the Coracks, then after healing me, I would be given to Captain Tenger, who had already passed a judgment of death against me. Maybe I deserved it; I no longer knew.
Darrow carried me through a servant’s passage, and from there we darted from one shadow to another, hoping to be less visible. The next time I opened my eyes, dark skies were overhead. The palace walls still surrounded us, but we had cleared the worst of the obstacles.
Or so I believed, until Darrow said in a low voice, “Someone is behind us.”
“Let me down,” I said. “See, the palace gates are straight ahead. You will go faster without me.”
“You see the gates, then?” Darrow stopped running, gently lowered me to my feet, and pulled the hood of the cloak over my head. “Get yourself there, Kestra.”
I shook my head. “They want me, not you. I won’t make it anyway.”
“They don’t know that you’re alive, and in this darkness, they’ve only seen me. I’ll give you time to escape, but you must go now.”
With a loud cry to draw attention to himself, he began running back the way we had come. When I could see him no longer, I began hobbling toward the exit, one terrible step at a time. Now that Joth had use of Endrick’s magic, he could find me beyond the gates. My only chance was that he truly thought I was dead. And for now, my only goal was to get past that gate.
Behind me, I heard Darrow engage in a fight with someone, and I walked faster, wishing my injured arm would allow me to cover my ears. I could not bear to hear the fight and wonder if my father’s chance of survival was any better than mine.
After what seemed like hours, I
exited the palace walls, then aimed toward the nearest clump of trees, where I hoped I’d be better hidden than if I were on the roads. I made it there, but the effort of walking so fast on the uneven snow had cost me dearly.
My shoulder screamed with pain, and I knew the bandage Darrow had given me had come loose. He wanted to take me to Loelle, certain that she could save me, and maybe she could. But at what price?
I could not return to the Coracks, not with their plans for me.
I wasn’t sure where the Coracks had set up camp, but I had last seen them at Woodcourt, so I needed to avoid that place. If I kept to the woods, I might have a chance of getting past Woodcourt without being noticed. And then … I didn’t know what, or where. Or how I would survive.
I needed Darrow.
I waited in the woods for a long time, hoping he would join me, hoping to see or hear any sign of what had happened to him. When he didn’t come, my hopes dimmed. Maybe he hadn’t come because he couldn’t come.
I rested until my eyes became so heavy that I knew if I shut them, I might not wake. The night was cold, and I felt all of it. I had begun to shiver, and the tips of my fingers were becoming numb.
With no other choice, I put one foot forward and began to walk again. One step after another, I promised myself that I didn’t need to fight, didn’t need to be or do anything greater than myself. I only needed to take the next step.
And I wasn’t sure I could even do that much.