When I awoke, the first tendrils of sunlight already seeped through the cracks in the wood ceiling. I rubbed my eyes and turned to see Niako sitting against the wall watching me.
"How long have you been awake?"
"Only an hour."
"An hour? Why didn't you wake me?"
"You looked peaceful."
"Well, I won't look peaceful if we are caught." I pushed up to sitting, and my foot tangled in the rope I had left at my side. I had a sudden vivid memory of Niako's dilated eyes staring up at me, still lost in some horrific nightmare. "How... how are you feeling?"
"Much better. I usually recover after a little food and sleep."
Cold swept through me. "Usually?"
"I'm more worried about that poor mare. I think we nearly ran her into the ground."
"Niako... what do you mean by 'usually?'"
Then the door swung open, and Epsa tottered into the room with two steaming bowls. "Good morning, my unfortunate princes. I made you some porridge."
She set one bowl in my lap and held the other out toward Niako from several feet away. Niako raised an eyebrow at the bowl, not moving from the ground.
Epsa tsked and propped her free hand on a hip. "Eat, boy. Trust me, it's not poisoned — although I can't say I wasn't tempted."
Niako sighed as he reached forward to accept the bowl. "How thoughtful of you."
I kept my eyes on Niako and Epsa even as I spooned porridge into my mouth. The porridge reminded me of home — hot, thick, and sweet enough even for Aunt Mitzy — but Epsa's piercing gaze on Niako prevented me from relaxing.
After Niako ate a few spoonfuls, Epsa spoke. "I knew your great-grandfather."
"And let me guess," said Niako. "You were not friends."
"Friends, no. I served in his Royal Guard."
Niako's spoon froze on its path toward his mouth, and he made a strangled sound.
Epsa continued.
"King Makapu suspected a woman named Izra was leading a rebellion, so he asked me to attend the Coupling to draw secrets from her. Instead, I fell in love with her." Her eyes fixed on a cobweb in the corner of the stable. "Realizing how heinous the Rakim rule had become, I decided to help Izra plan the rebellion. But just before the insurrection could begin, everything changed."
I dropped the bowl to my lap, and a little porridge slopped over the side onto my trousers. "Why? What happened?"
She pulled her eyes from the cobwebbed corner to flash me a small smile. "Why, dear boy, that was when Chief Taroom of Fooja marched in to kill the king."
When my great-grandfather killed Niako's. I glanced in Niako's direction. He placed his empty bowl on the ground beside him and looked at Epsa for the first time since she had begun her story.
"I knew you looked familiar," he said. "You met with my father before, didn't you? You and Izra... you were the Blessed Pair."
She shrugged. "Not so blessed, but we were certainly a pair. We did what we could for the people of Najila. It was never enough. And a few years ago, Izra grew ill."
Her gaze focused on some distant point beyond the wall behind us, and her hand darted to her thigh, tensed, hovered... dropped to her side again. "I was ready to give up, but Izra... she told me I wasn't done yet. She told me that whatever gods exist still had plans for me before I could join her."
Niako had gone back to eating, attacking the porridge with the same fastidious patience he used to parry during a sword fight, but he now turned his gaze to Epsa.
"And this Legion of the Three-Legged Lion — do they plan to kill my brother?"
"Would that bother you?"
"Only if I am not allowed to help."
She cocked her head and scratched an eyebrow, splaying wispy white brow hairs in all directions. "Our Legion will wait for the Three-Legged Lion to come show us the way. And the Three-Legged Lion will decide whether you are worthy."
Niako snorted a laugh. "Epsa, the Three-Legged Lion is a bedtime story for children."
"Then let's hope there is a child in you yet. Now come, both of you. I've procured another horse and more provisions for your journey."
* * *
The long shadows of our two horses stretched out before us as we rode in silence toward the Paksha Sea. When the ground sloped up to cliffs and the smell of saltwater swept over the land, we turned to follow the shoreline toward the north. But as the sun rose on our right, I began to worry that Niako's posture had slumped, his body bouncing with each movement of the horse.
"We should stop before we wear out the horses," I said.
Niako shook his head. "Not yet. The Barzatuk River is just down this next slope, and on the Busk side of the river, we can take cover in the woods."
A few minutes later, the sound of the river carried on the breeze like chimes tinkling over a low drumroll. Then the endless grassy cliffs of the coastline gave way to a steep slope dappled with green bushes and shrubs. A narrow overgrown path weaved down the hill toward the mouth of the Barzatuk River. Shallow rivulets branched across islands of sediment like veins, all flowing into the neverending teal backdrop of the Paksha Sea. On the other side of the delta, a blanket of green tree tops rippled in the wind.
The horses picked their way down the hill painfully slowly, huffing snorts with each loosened rock and tossing their heads each time we guided them over a bush or around a washed-out portion of the path. By the time we reached the first rivulet at the bottom, the sun blazed bright overhead.
Horse hooves splished through water and squelched in wet sand. As the hooves hit solid ground on the other side of the delta, a weight lifted from my chest. Even the briny breeze smelled sweeter.
"We did it, Niako. We escaped Rakim."
"Rakim soldiers can travel into Busk just as easily as we just did. Let's take cover."
We guided the horses into the trees just far enough to escape notice from anyone outside the woods before I swung off of the appaloosa mare. I jogged over to help Niako dismount, but he managed to slide off the bay gelding without assistance. He took several shaky steps before plopping down to sit on a rock. After digging the food and water out of the saddle bag, I lowered myself down to sit against a tree near him, handed Niako the jar of pickled meat, and reached for the bag of nuts.
As I untied the bag, I said, "So, tell me about the journey ahead. How exactly do we get to Trebalda's tribe?"
"Why? Are you planning to leave me behind?"
"Are you planning to be difficult?"
He turned his focus to the trunk of the tree ahead of him. "I've heard it takes almost two days along the Barzatuk River on horseback to reach the Tribe of Trebalda. You should be prepared for wildcats, ruffians, a few spots with difficult terrain, and an arduous trek up the mountainside at the end. But you don't really need a guide... especially not a guide who has never even been there."
I dug out a handful of nuts. "What if I need help fighting off wildcats and ruffians?"
"Guards and bounty hunters are a bigger threat. And they are looking for me, not you."
"With the two of us together, we can trade off keeping watch."
His gaze dropped to the meat jar in his hands, and his fingers tapped the glass sporadically. "Why are you being so stubborn about this?"
"I've always been stubborn."
"Well, I've always been difficult."
"But I'm more stubborn than you are difficult. You're not getting out of this, Niako."
I watched thoughts race across his face, and I waited for some convoluted rebuttal. But after a minute, Niako just plucked a piece of meat from the jar and began to eat.
* * *
We followed the stream east along the Busk-Rakim border until the rivulets converged into a roaring river that carved the land with the smooth precision of Yuri's whittling. I asked Niako to lead the way, mostly because I did not trust him to tell me if he was about to fall off of his horse. Watching the sharp lines of his shoulders and back against the tan and beige rocks, I thought he looked too stiff - a rigid stance to compensate for lingering pain. But each time I asked him if he needed to stop, he refused.
My own horse clopped along the uneven terrain, jostling me. As the sun sank down behind our backs, a deep ache settled into my thighs and lower back.
When the sun slipped behind the horizon, I said, "Let's find somewhere we can hide the horses so we can eat and then sleep."
Without turning around, Niako said, "We need to travel more ground today than any guards who might be coming after us."
"But we also need to rest so we are still able to ride tomorrow."
Niako squared his shoulders. "I'm fine, Toom. I don't need rest."
"Well, I need rest. I'm tired and hungry and sore."
He pulled up on the reins and twisted around to glance at me. When he turned to face forward again, he said, "Alright, we'll find a place to stop."
Finding a good place to stop proved challenging. The lush forest had dwindled to spindly leafless trees poking out of the rocky land like nose hairs and occasional coniferous bushes bubbling up like moles. None of the foliage would hide the horses from someone traveling along the river.
When we finally spotted a spattering of trees and bushes a couple hundred feet from the river, we directed the horses there. My own thighs trembled upon dismount, and I didn't notice Niako's struggle until he very nearly tumbled off of his horse. I lunged a couple steps toward him, but he managed to straighten himself before I reached him, clinging to the saddle horn and the back of the saddle as his feet hit the ground. Then he staggered back two steps before easing himself down.
From where he sat, he raised an eyebrow at me, daring me to say something.
I turned to unsaddle the horses.
This time, I rummaged through the saddlebags of Niako's horse to find out what provisions Epsa had given us. I examined each package briefly before flipping it onto the ground behind me. Pressed out and dried fish. Crusty biscuits. Dried oats. But when I pulled out the next package, I froze, fingers crinkling the canvas sack.
Cinnamon cake crisps.
"Toom? You alright?"
I swallowed. "Yes, I just... my father made cinnamon cake crisps on the Day of Truth."
"Ah."
For a while, we both just stared at the bag of cake crisps without moving or speaking. Finally, Niako said, "Do you miss him?"
I clenched the sack in both hands, snapping a few crisps. "Of course I do." But then I loosened my grip and sighed. "Though I had already been missing him for a long time."
The words sounded nonsensical even to my own ears, so I was not sure Niako would understand.
Then he said, "It must have been hard to lose both of your parents at the same time."
When I shot a glance in his direction, his eyes were on his hands in his lap. I tossed the sack of crisps to him, and he looked up just in time to catch it. Then I leaned over to scoop up the bag of biscuits, took a few steps toward him, and sat down cross-legged.
"Yes, it was hard." I tore open the bag of biscuits. "Luckily, Aunt Mitzy moved in with us at that time, and she played with me and Finny whenever she wasn't busy deflowering some maiden or stripling."
Niako dragged his eyes up to meet mine. "Maiden or stripling?"
"Either, neither, both... she took anyone old enough and eager enough, but only for one night. The rest of the time, she was my aunt, my friend, and my entertainment."
"Entertainment?"
I popped a biscuit in my mouth and munched it down before continuing. "Aunt Mitzy loved stealing from the market as a child, and she had this worry I was missing out on the best parts of childhood because I was too rich. So instead of giving me sweets after dinner, she would hide them in all the servants' bedchambers and challenge me to find them without getting caught."
Niako swallowed a crisp and wiped the crumbs from his face with the back of his hand. "Well, she sounds... a little crazy."
I smiled, still wrapped up in memories. "Oh, more than a little."
"But I can tell she cares about you."
Perhaps it was just the melancholy burble of the nearby river, but I thought he sounded wistful. And I wondered — who cared about Niako?
Then I remembered the way he said my name after his nightmare as if grasping for a branch as he fell from a cliff, and I answered my own question with startling clarity.
I care about you.
I said, "Ruck cares about you."
Niako tilted his head back and closed his eyes. "Oh, Goddess. You had to bring up Ruck."
I set down a half-eaten biscuit. "Niako, he chose exile over betraying you."
"Ruck has too much integrity to serve Makash. But he has hated me for fifteen years."
I slid one leg up and pressed an elbow against it to twist toward him. "Why would he hate a ten-year-old?"
"Remember how I was at fourteen? I was worse at ten."
"And not much better at twenty-five."
"Fair."
"But if he hated you, why would he have remained your guard for fifteen years?"
Niako dug another crisp from the sack and examined it in his long fingers. "All my guards kept quitting, and no one wanted to take the job, so my parents had to hire a guard from outside Rakim to watch me. They even offered a week off every month as compensation for having to put up with me."
"Ruck is not from Rakim? Where is he from?"
"I don't actually know. Back when he used to speak more, I never cared enough to ask."
"He used to speak more?"
He flipped the crisp to study the other side. "When he first started as my guard, he was quite friendly. He kept offering to show me his sailboat, but I didn't want to go near water. Then one day, I was sitting on the palace steps, and he just sat down by me and started reading out loud. Some book about a woman teaching her grandson how to sail. I pretended I wasn't listening, but he didn't stop.
"For a few weeks, he read to me on those steps every morning. But one morning, he stopped reading in the middle of a pirate attack, and I was desperate to know what happened next. So I stole his book and took it up to that ledge by the lagoon. And when Ruck found me there, he was furious."
"And then?"
"And then he started hating me."
"Niako... you really think Ruck hates you just because you couldn't wait to hear the next part of a story when you were ten?"
He shrugged one shoulder. "I suppose it was just the drop of prak that made the chalice overflow. But after that, he stopped reading to me. And I... missed it more than I thought I would. One day, I even gathered up the courage to ask him to see his boat. He rebuked me so harshly I never asked again."
"Huh." The story still didn't make sense to me, but then, Ruck was almost as hard to understand as Niako. And perhaps not understanding a guard was better than trusting one blindly. So I said next, "Did Stro really betray my family?"
Niako pressed his lips together for a moment before speaking. "He was an informant for Rakim, yes... but my father had promised him you and Finny would not be harmed if he complied. The men who attacked your carriage on the way to Rakim had orders to kill only your father. After you derailed that attack, plans apparently changed."
"Changed to include killing me and Finny?"
He passed a crisp back and forth between his hands as he shook his head. "In my mother's version of the plan, yes. In my father's version, I don't know. He readily accepted my offer to kill Finny, and I think he expected I had other plans."
"Did he expect you to Claim me, too?"
He passed a crisp back and forth between his hands as he shook his head. "To be honest, Toom, even I didn't expect that. It was a bit of a last-minute decision."
I remembered his unhurried swagger and impassive eyes lit up by the fire around the colosseum. Now he sat very still, gaze distant.
"Do you regret it?"
He glanced at me and away again, chewing on the inside of his cheek. "Well, that is a —"
He cut off as feet crunched rocks nearby.