CHAPTER 9
By sunset, Alaria had stopped pretending the wound did not hurt. She had not stopped walking. The boundary stones disappeared behind them one by one. The seven-star seal of Asehria and the three intersecting Vahran lines gave way to unmarked rock, thick roots and a western path barely wide enough for two people.
Atyas stayed beside her.
He had offered his shoulder twice.
Alaria had refused the first time and ignored him the second. When her wounded leg failed upon a steep rise, he placed her arm across his shoulders without asking.
She allowed it.
“Do not become pleased with yourself,” she said.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
Together, they reached the top of the rise. The forest fell away beyond it. Red cliffs cut across the western horizon, their upper edges catching the final light of the day. A wide river curved beneath them, moving south towards a gap in the stone. Beyond that gap lay the nearest roads controlled by Feenix. Alaria looked at the distance.
“We stop here.”
Atyas studied her face.
“Because it is a good place to camp?”
“Because if we continue, you will eventually have to carry me.”
“I knew it hurt.”
“Everything hurts.”
“That isn’t reassuring.”
“It was not intended to be.”
They moved beneath a shelf of stone overlooking the path. It offered protection from the wind without trapping them inside a cave. Alaria checked the ground for recent tracks before allowing Atyas to gather dry branches. He returned to find her sitting against the rock with her armour loosened. Blood had reached the edge of the clean bandage Seyra had applied that morning.
“You’re bleeding again.”
“A little.”
“Seyra said to stop when that happened.”
“We have stopped.”
“You always obey instructions after they become unavoidable.”
“It is the most efficient time.”
Atyas placed the branches on the ground. Alaria looked at them.
“No fire.”
“It’s getting cold.”
“Smoke carries above the trees. Light carries between them.”
“The Beastmen—Vahran—said the Keh’Dia who ran didn’t get far.”
“Those were eight soldiers. We do not know how many others are moving west.”
Atyas sat beside her.
“Then what were the branches for?”
“You needed something useful to do while I removed the bandage.”
He stared at her.
“You could have told me.”
“Then you would have watched.”
“I’m watching now.”
“Yes. The plan possessed a weakness.”
Alaria unwrapped her side.
Seyra’s stitches held. The skin around them was bruised and swollen, but the wound no longer looked like a second mouth opening beneath her ribs. Atyas poured water onto a clean cloth.
“I can do it,” Alaria said.
“I know.”
He held out the cloth. After a moment, she took it. They worked in silence. Atyas cut a new bandage from the roll Seyra had given them and passed it around Alaria’s back. She tied the knot herself.
“Better?” he asked.
“Contained.”
“That is not the same thing.”
Alaria looked at him. It was what Atyas had told her beside the stream.
“No,” she said. “It is not.”
Atyas rinsed the cloth again.
“Your sword burned blue inside the palace.”
Alaria glanced towards the sheathed weapon beside her.
“Embersteel carries a trained current as heat. Feenix learned to make the edge burn without burning the hand that feeds it.”
“Why blue?”
“Control. Not endless strength.” She retied the bandage. “By the watch post I could no longer produce either.”
Atyas touched the worn guard of the sword Alaria had given him.
“Can this do it?”
“No. It is ordinary steel, and ordinary steel is safer when the person holding it is frightened.”
He thought of the soldier beside the roots and removed his hand.
They ate dried meat, hard bread and the small red fruits supplied by the Vahran. Alaria wrapped a strip of plain leather around the silver clasp at Atyas’s collar, concealing the seven-star crown.
“That symbol saved us,” he said.
“Because the Vahran remembered your father.”
“Then why hide it?”
“Because the next person who recognises it may remember something else.”
“That I’m the prince.”
“That you are valuable.”
Atyas ran one thumb over the leather.
“The Keh’Dia already know what I look like.”
“Some do. Others know only your age, your name and that you escaped with a woman wearing the colours of Feenix.”
Alaria unclasped the red-and-ash cloak from her shoulders. The lower edge was torn from the false trail, and dark blood covered most of one side. She reversed it so the colours faced inward and fastened it again.
“We disappear until disappearing becomes less useful,” she said.
“How long will that be?”
“I will tell you when we reach Solara.”
Atyas looked through the trees towards the red cliffs.
“Will she help us?”
“Yes.”
“You sound certain.”
“I am.”
“Certainty is a luxury.”
Alaria narrowed her eyes.
“You are becoming irritating.”
“I had a good teacher.”
Despite the pain, the corner of her mouth moved. Atyas pulled his coat more tightly around himself.
“Why are you so sure about Solara?”
“Because I have served her for most of my life.”
“You served my family.”
“I protected your family. I advised your parents. I argued with them with impressive regularity.”
“That sounds like serving.”
“My oath belongs to Feenix.”
Atyas remembered the marks Rhaen had drawn beside the bed. Eridan’s promise had brought them shelter, but it had not opened the messenger road.
“Did Mother know?” he asked.
“That I remained First Blade of Feenix?”
He nodded.
“Your mother knew exactly who I was.”
“And she still trusted you.”
“That is how alliances are meant to work.”
Alaria leaned her head against the stone.
“Solara sent me to Asehria after the border war. I was meant to remain for one year. Eridan asked for two. Isolde asked me to stay until Seraphina stopped trying to arrest me for interfering with her soldiers.”
“Did she?”
“No. I stayed anyway. After that, Solara kept sending me back each spring.”
“For twelve years?”
“Your family was difficult to leave.”
Atyas looked down before Alaria could see what they did to him.
“What happens when we reach Feenix?”
“I report directly to Solara. The eastern crossings are sealed. Patrols search for infiltrators before they reach the inner cities. Feenix prepares for war.”
“And me?”
“You eat. You sleep. A healer examines your head.”
“After that.”
Alaria’s silence lasted too long.
“After that, we learn whether your father escaped.”
“And if he didn’t?”
“We do not decide tonight.”
“Everyone keeps saying that when the answer is terrible.”
“Sometimes waiting is the only honest answer.”
Atyas lay down with his back against the rock. Alaria remained awake beside him. He knew because each time he opened his eyes, her silhouette was still watching the path.
The next nine days turned a direct road into a broken one. Alaria refused every village visible from a maintained path. Smoke rose from farms that might still have been occupied, but neither of them could know whether the people inside would offer food, raise an alarm or already be dead. They moved through drainage channels, abandoned orchards and strips of woodland too narrow to appear upon a military map.
Twice, mounted patrols forced them north. Neither patrol carried a single uniform. The first passed without seeing them. The second found the remains of their fire and searched until darkness, driving Atyas and Alaria into a flooded culvert where they stood with water around their ankles and listened to horses moving above their heads.
They slept in pieces.
One night beneath an overturned grain cart. One inside the remains of a roadside shrine. Another beneath roots exposed by a landslide. Alaria’s new stitches held, but the cut across her thigh reopened whenever the ground became steep. Atyas learned to change the bandage without being told and to wake when her breathing changed.
By the sixth day, only one strip of dried meat remained. On the seventh, they divided the final strip of dried meat exactly in half. Alaria tried to return part of hers.
Atyas refused it.
By then, Feenix no longer felt like a place waiting beyond the next hill. It had become a direction they continued choosing because stopping offered no safer answer. They reached the river shortly after sunrise on the tenth morning. A stone bridge had once crossed beneath the red cliffs. The central span now lay broken in the water. The damage was recent. Pale stone showed where the blocks had split, and sections of rope still hung from iron posts on either bank. Alaria crouched beside several tracks in the mud.
“Keh’Dia?” Atyas asked.
“Possibly.”
“You always say that.”
“Because tracks do not introduce themselves.”
She examined a deep print near the remaining bridge support.
“Heavy cart. At least four horses. Men crossed east before the bridge came down. One or two returned west on foot.”
“Why destroy it?”
“To slow anyone carrying news from Asehria.”
“Us.”
“Among others.”
The river moved too quickly to swim. Pieces of the bridge turned in the current below them. Atyas followed the bank south.
“Rhaen said it bends beyond the cliffs.”
“It widens there.”
“Is that good?”
“It depends upon how deeply you enjoy drowning.”
They continued. The river widened and became shallower after midday, but the current remained strong enough to move stones beneath their feet. Alaria found a line of older posts driven into the riverbed. A rope had once connected them. Only frayed lengths remained.
“A seasonal crossing,” she said.
“Seasonal for which season?”
“A drier one.”
They walked another mile before the cliff forced the path into the water.
There was no second crossing.
Alaria removed her cloak and armour.
“What are you doing?” Atyas asked.
“Preventing the river from using them to pull me under.”
She wrapped the armour inside the cloak and tied the bundle above her shoulders. Atyas did the same with his coat and the few possessions he carried. Alaria cut one of the remaining ropes from the old posts. She tied it around her waist and handed the other end to Atyas.
“You remain upstream of me.”
“You’re injured.”
“Which is why you remain upstream. If I fall, you do not try to hold me against the current. Move towards the far bank and use the rope to pull me sideways.”
“What if I fall?”
“I pull you out.”
“You just said—”
“You weigh less.”
The first steps were easy.
The water reached Atyas’s knees, then his thighs. Cold pressed through his boots and trousers. The riverbed shifted beneath him. Halfway across, the current struck the wound in Alaria’s leg.
She stumbled.
Atyas felt the rope tighten.
He wanted to turn towards her.
He forced himself to move diagonally towards the far bank instead. Alaria disappeared to one knee. The water reached her shoulders.
Atyas kept moving.
The rope cut into his waist.
Alaria regained her footing.
Three steps later, Atyas’s boot slipped between two stones. He fell forward. Water closed over his face. The current twisted him. His trapped foot remained beneath him while the rest of his body moved downstream.
Pain tore through his ankle.
The rope pulled tight from the other direction. Alaria reached him. She forced one arm beneath his shoulders and lifted his face above the water.
“The boot,” he gasped.
She found his leg beneath the surface, pulled it back against the current and freed his foot. They reached the western bank together. Alaria crawled onto the stones and lay upon her back.
Atyas coughed river water beside her.
For several minutes, neither spoke. Then Atyas looked at the red cliffs above them.
“I do not enjoy drowning deeply.”
Alaria closed her eyes.
“Useful information.”
The western side of the river showed the first signs of organised roads. Stone markers stood every mile. Drainage channels kept rain from destroying the packed earth, and old wheel tracks ran towards the south-west.
Alaria knew the route.
“There is a courier station before the road divides,” she said. “If it is still operating, we can reach Feenix by horse before tomorrow night.”
“And if it isn’t?”
“We keep walking.”
They found the station before dusk. Smoke rose from behind its outer wall. Not cooking smoke.
Part of the stable roof had burned away. One gate hung from a single hinge. A dead horse lay in the road with its reins cut. Alaria drew her sword. Her movements were slower than they had been in Asehria, but the blade remained steady.
“Stay behind me.”
“You’re not supposed to fight.”
“The alternative may be worse.”
They approached the gate. The station courtyard contained three bodies. Two wore the red and copper coats of Feenix road wardens. The third wore plain travel clothes, but a black token lay beside his hand.
Keh’Dia.
Atyas recognised its shape from the token Eridan had shown the council before the attack. Alaria crouched beside it without touching it.
“They reached the Feenix road before us.”
A sound came from inside the stable. Alaria rose.
“Come out,” she said.
No one answered.
“First Blade of Feenix. If you are a warden, give the western challenge.”
A woman’s voice answered from behind the damaged door.
“What remains after the flame?”
“The hand that rebuilds,” Alaria replied.
The door opened. A woman wearing a bloodstained warden’s coat emerged with a short spear. She was perhaps fifty, with one side of her head shaved around a bandaged wound. A boy of sixteen followed her. He held a stable fork in both hands. The woman looked at Alaria’s reversed cloak.
“Show the colours.”
Alaria turned the red-and-ash fabric outward. The woman lowered the spear. Then she struck one fist against her chest.
“First Blade Alaria.”
“You recognise me.”
“Every road warden in Feenix knows the officers authorised to speak with Solara’s voice.”
Alaria returned the salute.
“Then the stories remembered something useful.”
The warden looked at Atyas.
Recognition did not enter her face.
“Who is the boy?”
“Under my protection.”
“That is not a name.”
“Then you understand why I used it.”
The woman glanced towards the road before closing the gate.
“I am Warden Halea. My son is Corren. Six men came before dawn wearing courier colours. We challenged them. They answered correctly.”
“How?” Alaria asked.
“One of our riders disappeared last week.”
“They tortured the response from him.”
Halea’s jaw tightened.
“Or someone gave it to them.”
Atyas thought of Rhaen’s hidden food and marked trees.
“How many escaped?” Alaria asked.
“Two rode west. The others destroyed the bridge and returned to finish us. We killed one. Three left when they realised we had barred the inner room.”
“Which direction?”
“South.”
“They may circle back.”
Halea nodded.
“We have two horses left. Neither is a war mount.”
“They only need to reach the next watch.”
“The eastern watch is a day by ordinary riding.”
“Then we will not ride ordinarily.”
Halea studied the blood beneath Alaria’s armour.
“You won’t survive a hard ride.”
“I have already survived several things today that were less advisable.”
“Your horse may not.”
“The horse may complain when we arrive.”
Corren stared at Alaria with open admiration.
Halea did not.
“Rest for one hour,” she said. “I’ll prepare them.”
“Half.”
“One. I know the animals better than you.”
Alaria inclined her head.
“One.”
It was the first argument Atyas had heard her lose quickly.
He liked Halea immediately.
Corren set down the stable fork and reached for a saddle. The leather slipped from his hands. Halea caught it before it struck the floor, and for a moment neither of them let go.
“Sit with them,” she said.
“You need the bridles.”
“I know where they are.”
He sat upon an overturned bucket near Atyas. His fingers kept opening and closing against his knees. Halea brought him a cup before returning to the horses.
“She has been like that since dawn,” Corren said.
Atyas looked at the bandage around her head.
“Has she sat down?”
Corren shook his head. When she next passed, he stood and pushed the bucket into her path. She looked at him as though preparing to object. Then she sat, pulled the bridle into her lap and let him hold the cup for her while she drank.
The surviving horses were smaller than the royal mounts of Asehria but built for endurance. One was a dark gelding with a white mark above its left eye. The other was a broad grey mare who tried to bite Corren while he tightened the saddle. Alaria gave the grey mare to Atyas.
“Why do I get the one that bites?” he asked.
“She dislikes being controlled.”
“So you believe we have something in common?”
“I believe she will notice if you become careless.”
Atyas placed one foot in the stirrup. Pain from the river twisted through his ankle. He hid it and pulled himself into the saddle. The mare turned her head to inspect him.
“Do not bite me,” Atyas told her.
The mare showed no evidence of respecting royal instruction.
Alaria checked his reins.
“Do you remember the stable field?”
Atyas looked at her.
“You told me not to hold too tightly.”
“And?”
“Move with her instead of fighting every step.”
“And?”
“If I fall, Mother will be angry with you.”
The words silenced both of them.
Halea turned away to adjust the gelding’s saddle, granting them privacy without appearing to do so. Alaria placed one hand upon Atyas’s boot.
Her fingers tightened around the leather.
Her mouth formed the words once without sound.
“She would be,” she said.
Atyas looked towards the road.
“Then I won’t fall.”
“Good.”
Halea gave Alaria a small leather case.
“My seal and written account. Captain Maelin commands the eastern watch. Show him both.”
“You should come with us.”
“Corren cannot move the wounded, repair the station and bury the dead alone.”
“The Keh’Dia may return.”
“Then we will be less surprised.”
Alaria accepted the case.
“Bar the gate after us. Trust no response that has not changed since last week.”
Halea looked at the bodies in the courtyard.
“I learned that.”
Alaria mounted with visible difficulty.
Once she was seated, her posture changed. The wounded soldier disappeared behind the discipline of Feenix’s First Blade.
“Ready?” she asked.
Atyas gathered the reins.
“No.”
“Good. You are paying attention.”
They rode west.
Night overtook them on the road. They did not stop. The moons rose behind thin clouds and gave enough light to distinguish pale stones from the darkness between them. Alaria kept the gelding at a ground-eating pace that avoided exhausting either animal. Atyas’s ankle throbbed. His shoulders ached. Every time the grey mare landed hard, pain moved through the bruises across his ribs. He remained in the saddle.
The road climbed. At the top of the final rise, lights appeared across the western plain. They did not belong to one city. Signal towers, watch stations, farms and settlements covered the land as far as Atyas could see. Roads converged in bright lines towards a vast wall built between two mountain ridges. Behind it rose the eastern cities of Feenix. Even at night, traffic filled the approaches. Freight carts waited in organised rows. Mounted patrols moved between them. Thousands of people crossed beneath the outer towers while countless more lights continued beyond the horizon. Here, beyond the ruined courier station, the lamps still marked open roads. Alaria urged the gelding forward.
The eastern watch barred the road before they reached the first gate. Twelve soldiers lowered long spears in two disciplined lines. Crossbow crews watched from protected platforms above them. Their armour was dark steel edged with copper, and a stylised phoenix had been engraved upon each breastplate.
“Dismount,” an officer ordered.
Alaria stopped beyond the spear points.
“Captain Maelin.”
The officer stepped into the light. He was broad-shouldered, grey-haired and old enough to have acquired several reasons for distrusting arrivals after dark. His gaze moved from the reversed cloak to the blood beneath Alaria’s armour.
“Show your face.”
Alaria lowered her hood.
Maelin forgot his prepared command.
“Alaria?”
Recognition moved through the soldiers behind him. Spears lifted away from the road, and fists struck breastplates in salute.
“What remains after the flame?” she asked.
His surprise disappeared.
“The hand that rebuilds.”
“The challenge has been compromised,” Alaria said. “Six Keh’Dia infiltrators used it at the Serevan courier station before dawn. Two escaped west wearing courier colours.”
Maelin turned to the soldiers behind him.
“Close both gates. No one enters under courier authority. Detain every rider who has passed the eastern watch since sunrise.”
The soldiers moved immediately. Heavy mechanisms began turning within the towers. Maelin looked at Alaria again.
“What happened?”
“The palace and central command fell. Asehria is still fighting.”
The captain became very still.
Noise continued around them: orders, chains, horses and the first gate descending across the road.
“When?” he asked.
“The palace fell twelve nights ago. The invasion began five days before that. Keh’Dia agents inside the water service and Silvercrest transport command opened the northern aqueduct approaches. They held real positions and carried genuine authority. False commands redirected the legion, but the inner river still held for days before the army crossed it.”
“Eridan?”
“Unknown.”
“Isolde?”
Alaria’s jaw tightened.
“Dead.”
Maelin lowered his eyes.
Only for a moment.
“And the heir?”
Alaria looked towards Atyas. The captain followed her gaze. He saw a tired boy in a torn coat, sitting upon a grey horse with one hand near a borrowed sword and his royal clasp hidden beneath leather.
“No,” Maelin whispered.
“Speak his name here and I will remove you from your own command,” Alaria said.
Maelin recovered quickly.
“Understood.”
He looked towards the towers.
“I’ll send riders to the palace.”
“No written names. Tell Solara that the western promise has been kept and that her lost blade has returned.”
“She will understand?”
“Immediately.”
Maelin called for his fastest riders.
Alaria dismounted.
Her wounded leg nearly failed when it touched the ground. Maelin reached for her. She caught his wrist before he made contact.
“I can walk.”
“You look as though walking has made several attempts upon your life.”
“It was unsuccessful.”
“There is a healer inside the watch.”
“After Solara.”
“Alaria.”
“The Keh’Dia reached Asehria’s heart because its commanders believed they had time to verify each impossible report. I am not losing another hour.”
Maelin held her gaze. Then he released her.
“Bring two fresh horses,” he ordered. “Open the inner road.”
Atyas dismounted carefully.
He looked through the descending gates towards the lights of Feenix. A groom brought the fresh horses. Alaria put her foot in the stirrup and stopped. This time, when Maelin offered his hand, she took it.
Across the eastern watch, horns began to sound. Another tower answered beyond the lights. The gates of Feenix opened.
End of chapter