Chapter Twenty-Two.
DARZAI.
THE BLACK FLAG OF ROYAL MOURNING DRAPED OVER the blood-red sandstone wall of Darzai, heavy thick cloth weighed down by the oppression of late-summer heat. Everything else faded from Aurelia's view: the high dark cliffs of the Quartian Shelf looming above the southern edge of the desert, the final tract of crimson sand reaching almost to the Shelf, and the eastward flow of the Fallchutes River, the only barrier between the stark contrast in landscapes, its final blue stretch disappearing beneath that towering curved wall. With the flag.
The royal crown against the background of her father's death.
Aurelia felt the veins in her limbs constrict, trapping the blood in her heart. Somehow she had lost her grip on the leather reins. Her fingers reached down for the fallen strands but seemed unable to find purchase.
Robert's hand grazed hers.
No! She pulled away.
If he touched her, there would be no way to restrain the sobs battering her rib cage in search of escape.
She should not cry. Should not. Her father had hurt her. Had rejected her. Had tried to sell her into marriage for his own peace of mind. But that fact did not change the trembling of her hands or her torso.
Robert's arms came around her now, pulling her to his chest and rupturing her own into a million asymmetrical pieces. The tears broke free. "I don't..." She gasped for breath. "I don't know why ..."
"Shh," he whispered. "You don't need a reason."
And that was the truth. The cold, hard reality. That whatever her father had done or not done, she did not need a reason to cry over his death. She did not have to obey his orders or trust his judgment or admire his choices. But she did love him.
And she could not suppress the pain of that loss.
It rocked and jarred and crashed through her until she was as stripped of ornamentation as the desert sands. And then, because there was nowhere else to go and because she could not turn around, she urged Falcon on. Toward the blood-red sandstone wall and the ominous black fabric of her father's death.
Robert felt his throat catch as he approached the royal emblem. He did not know why. He had had no time to consider the meaning of this death for himself. The death of a king-a man who had paid the inevitable consequences for his own weakness, yet still, the only monarch to have served Tyralt throughout Robert's entire life. His throat reacted to that loss.
Though it could not compare to hers.
The unthinkable. A father.
Robert's gaze stretched toward Aurelia, but she had pulled out of reach. He longed to stop her, to warn her of possible danger before she entered Darzai. But she was beyond listening. And he knew he had no right to hold her back. He had known, when she had made the choice to return to the capital, that to support her meant accepting that risk.
Her spine and head were stiff as she urged Falcon nearer the fortifications. The barrier was thick, almost as deep as the legendary Tyralian wall, and rose over three times higher. Red sandstone plastered the black backdrop of the Quartian Shelf, then slung out over the river, past the sole gate, and curved around on Robert's left beyond his vision.
City guards littered the edifice. Frozen like gargoyles upon the upper echelons of the stone surface. Perched in the shadows of deep indented cubicles built straight into the wall. And the same guards, in what appeared to be white tribal robes, clogged the gateway.
"Zat!" The cry came from a voice at the Gate.
And Horizon halted. Falcon took several more steps, but the guards rode toward them and stretched out into a circle, closing in around both horses and riders. Three guards came inward, bearing down upon the filly, with drawn arrows. A fourth man stepped before the stallion with an upraised hand, then began to speak in the language of the desert.
Robert watched Aurelia. He should have urged her to wait and gather herself before- But then a hand reached for his reins, and he had no time to think as his horse launched onto hind legs. Robert looped the leather around his palm and curled against the stallion's neck.
Every weapon in the circle now twisted his way.
"Barak ze Geordian!" Aurelia's voice ripped through the air.
Thrice the Jaheem escort had used those words as their party crossed the paths of other tribesmen. And each time, the words had caused the same reaction. As they did now amid the Darzai. The weapons tilted downward, diffusing the tension, and the circle backed away.
Though it did not open.
Horizon put forth one last display of powerful kicking, then dropped his forelegs to the ground. But the man in front did not lower his hand. Dark eyes met Robert's and held there for a prolonged minute, then the guard spoke again, this time in Tyralian. "There are those who seek the stallion with the heart of the desert."
I'll not go through this again, Robert thought as his grip tightened.
The man continued, "And the mare of the bronze sun."
Why would the tribes of the Geordian hold an interest in Falcon? Unless...
"Who?" Robert asked, though he had received no permission to speak. "Who seeks us?"
"Those from the capital," the man replied.
Palace guards. Robert felt the old shot of failure fire through him. He had brought her to Darzai to take her home, to give her one last moment with her father. Instead her father was dead. And the assassins were here.
"Let us bring the horses into the city for you," said the man. "You may retrieve them at the wharf. At the Inn of the Rising Shadow."
The speaker shot a quick glance toward Aurelia. "We make this offer to protect Her Royal Highness, Aurelia Lauzon ..."
Why? Robert's grip lost its hold on the stallion's reins.
"Whom the queen has charged with treason."
Treason! The word snagged on the crags of Aurelia's mind. Did treason mean defiance? Or murder? Or the threat to her sister's claim to the throne? The thought scalded her interior as she dismounted before the city guards. She didn't know whether to trust them. They were not friends or neighbors or tribe members with whom she had shared a life-threatening experience.
But these robed figures had recognized the name of the Oracle. And they had the power and strength of numbers. If these men had wished to kill or arrest her, they could have done so right there. Immediately.
She had been betrayed more than once by those she knew.
But during this journey, she had also been saved as many times by those she did not.
Aurelia handed over the reins, then waited as Robert worked his own way to the same unavoidable choice and gave up his horse's reins as well.
On foot, she and he crossed beneath the thickly guarded barrier.
And entered Darzai.
The brilliance of their new surroundings clashed against Aurelia's inner turmoil. For this place was no struggling outpost, as she had imagined. But a city. Red-stoned streets wound in every direction. Buildings, all composed of the same sandstone, curled their way in long connected strips, arching over roads and canals with no thought of separation. And walkways spread out in wide-open paths abloom with life. Island lilies and speckled tigereyes clustered about rows of Minthonian lemon trees and tropical mandarins. Geordian women hawked jewelry beneath rainbow-colored canvases, and men taller than Drew balanced paint jars along scaffolding, while clusters of children ran below, their heads blond, brown, black, red-some even covered in the inked scarves of the Distant Isles.
She tried to inhale the beauty, but darkness warded her inner gates. Had her expedition held any worth? Or had it only given Melony more power-the chance to plot in safety against their father and now to wait out the mourning period, without challenge, under Elise's temporary rule?
Aurelia knew hate was wrong-that it could suck all the beauty from her heart-but as she and Robert traveled down the city's natural slope, the streets themselves began to fall victim to the shadows. Here the walls were stripped of canvas, and the stone was pitted with old scars. The archways, cracked and unpainted, grew lower and closer together, forming a tunnel that conspired with the saltwater breeze to bombard her with the scent of home.
They spit her out onto a wharf teeming with soldiers. Not a dozen men, or fifty, but an entire company of Tyralian military crawling over the docks. And only then did she truly comprehend that the hunt had changed. Not her main adversary. Her sister remained the ultimate danger. But there would be no more secret assassins. No more covert palace guards.
Her sister was the law.
Robert grabbed Aurelia's wrist, pulling her back into the tunnel and up against the concave wall, then clasped her palm in what she knew was meant to be a gesture of comfort. "Wait here, I'll locate the inn and then find us passage ... somewhere."
Us.
Guilt crashed over her as he slipped away into danger. She should never have let him travel back with her this far. For the past month, she had known she must tell him good-bye. Under her father's rule, Robert would have faced prison if he had returned to the palace. And now ... what could she offer him but a spot beside her at her own execution?
Perhaps, as he said, he would find passage, but passage where? Even if she boarded a ship for escape, what nation would allow her to disembark? Who could afford the ire of the Tyralian government? She edged from the shadows, her eyes immediately picking him out amid the swarm of military uniforms and duckclothed sailors. The departure would be easier if she left now, but she could not do it. She owed him the truth.
Rough pressure brushed against her. "Ye seen this girl?" The wool gray of a man's uniform scratched her arm, and a paper was thrust into her hand.
She looked down.
At a sketch of her own face.
The paper tumbled.
"Hey!" The soldier snatched it back up, then jerked her arm. "I asked ye a question."
"I haven't seen her," Aurelia replied.
His fingers dug into her skin. "Ye'll address me with respect."
She had missed the insignia on the upper corner of his jacket. "Yes, Corporal."
"And ye'll look at me!"
She faced up, desperately hoping he would not see past her desert-burned skin.
A leer edged across his face. "Reckon I can come up with a proper apology." His tongue curled toward her throat. Then he turned behind him to a group of other figures in uniform. "Here boys, lookin' for some flesh to ease your duties?"
She jammed her boot into his shin and tore free, then ran.
The shouts rose behind her.
Dodging a moving wagon, she plunged into the port at full tilt. Three ships-no, four-crowded the docks, their tall masts cluttering the sky, their cargo sprawled across the wharf. She leaped over a rope, sprinted across a ream of fishing nets, and wove in between the crates.
But footsteps followed her. She must not be caught. If the soldiers found her now, they would see. Or ask questions she would not be able to answer. Vaulting over a chicken crate, she ducked behind a tower of grain sacks and plunged into the refuse from the second vessel.
Whistles shrilled from behind. Which meant more eyes. Aurelia craned her head toward the streets, but the blur of soldiers loomed in every exit.
She had to hide. But where? If she stopped in the open, it was only a matter of time.
And then, up ahead, she saw the sign, over an old cracked doorway. The Inn of the Rising Shadow. Dashing behind a row of barrels, she swerved toward the inn, burst across the remaining space, and tugged on the door.
It stuck.
Then she swung inward, yanked it closed behind her, and spun around.
To see cold stone, shuttered windows, and a tall figure, in long robes, blocking the opposite exit.
The figure stepped forward, releasing the daylight from behind him. And revealing the unusual blue and green stripes on his robes and the familiar gleam in his eyes. Drew? "Well, Your Highness," the mocking tone confirmed, "I see you finally managed to deprive yourself of that hangnail of an escort."
How dare he criticize Robert's loyalty!
The door opened again, and Robert burst through, slamming it shut. His gaze sought hers, and she knew he must have chased down the disturbance on the wharf.
"Then again"-Drew grinned-"some things never change."
Except that my father is dead, and I have been charged with treason. "Why are you here, Drew?" She banged her hip on a dusty table.
The horseman rubbed his chin, then reached around the back side of the wall as if to retrieve something. "Arrived three weeks ago. Planned to head to Tyralt City, see if I couldn't persuade His Majesty to put an end to these desert raids, but before I could float a passage, a boatload of soldiers disembarked. Brought their own weapons, a flag of royal mourning, and a warrant for a friend of mine." He tossed Falcon's bridle onto the table. "I wasn't too keen on sailing then. Thought I'd stick around and help out. Heard you'd crossed the Gate. Figured you wouldn't risk it on the way back. Unfortunately, someone in the capital figured the same thing."
"The horses are here?" Robert edged toward Drew.
"In the stable out back."
"You recruited the local guard?" Aurelia asked, incredulous.
"Darzai is a city unto itself," Drew replied. "The locals are none too keen on having Tyralian military in their wharf."
He was right. Obviously. So why did she still feel angry?
The conversation stalled as she struggled to grapple with the chaos that was her life.
Robert finally broke the silence. "You have a plan," he said to the horseman. It was not a question.
"There's a ship in the harbor," Drew replied. "Claims she's a trader from the Distant Isles, but fact is she's a smuggler. Captain's a friend of mine. He'll take Your Highness off Tyralian shores."
"No," she replied.
Drew acted as if she had not spoken. "Hate to say it, Vantauge, but you'd have to leave that stallion of yours behind. There's no way to get those horses shipboard without attracting every musket in the harbor. You and the lass, though-I can make that happen."
You cannot.
"Where would the ship take us?" Robert asked.
Nowhere.
"The Outer Realms." As soon as Drew said it, the answer was obvious. No one in the Outer Realms would care about the good graces of the Tyralian government. Because legally, there was no relationship between the two countries. Which meant it was the one place she could go. Except she couldn't.
She could not abandon her countrymen: the orphans on the frontier, the travelers at the mercy of the Lion, the tribes under attack. And she could not disappoint all the people who had helped her on her journey: the Oracle, the Vantauges, Valerian, the Jaheem. "I have to return to the palace." Her fingers fumbled for the chain around her neck. "I can fight Melony's claim to the throne." Aurelia pulled out the glimmering silver symbol.
The horseman's eyes widened at the sight of the key, then closed, and he took a step back, again cutting off the light. "You don't understand, Your Highness."