The Bitter Kingdom

“And before that?”

She gestures toward the merchant booth full of sparkling glass. The Invierno woman’s back is to us as she arranges baubles on a table. “I was with her for two years. But she had a bad season and had to sell me.”

I glare at the Invierno. “And before that?”

“I don’t remember. I was too little.”

If the girl has six years of memory, she is probably nine or ten.

“Do you have a name besides Mula?”

“Sometimes Orlín calls me Rat,” she says. “He used to catch me nibbling on . . .” Her mouth freezes open. “But I don’t do that anymore! I swear it!”

“A little girl deserves a proper name,” I say.

“Like what?”

I think for a moment, but nothing comes to mind. “How about you name yourself?” I say.

She stares at me agape. “For true?”

“For true.”

“Anything?”

“Anything you want.”

She looks down at the ground and kicks a clump of grass with dirty toes. I resist the urge to pull my bedroll from my pack and wrap it around her n**ed body.

“A name is a grave matter,” Storm says.

She looks back and forth between us, her tiny features screwed into a mask of utter seriousness. “I will think hard about this,” she says.

“Let me know when you’ve decided.” I suppose Mula will do for now.

Belén barrels out of the inn and high-steps down the stairs, swinging his pack over his shoulder. “Where’s Mara?” he asks. “We should leave at once.”

“What happened?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe nothing. But Orlín hardly looked at me as our money changed hands. Everything was too quiet. I have a bad feeling.”

I trust Belén’s instincts more than just about anyone’s. I hand him his reins. “Mara is fetching our laundry. Then we’ll ride hard until we’re well away.” Most of the merchants have finished setting up their booths now, and the courtyard fills with people. They eye us warily as they go about their business.

Belén stares down at Mula, frowning. “And the girl?”

“We’ll figure something out.”

“What happened to your eye?” Mula asks, pointing at his patch.

He is saved having to respond as Mara hurries up, her arms full of neatly folded linens. “She tried to charge me double,” she says. “Word is out that we have coin.”

Quickly we divvy up the linens and shove them inside our packs. Mara shakes out her blouse and hands it to Mula. “Put this on.”

Mula does, and the hem nearly reaches her knees. The neckline threatens to hang off one shoulder, but the girl doesn’t seem to care. She strokes the linen lovingly. Then she lifts the hem to her cheek and caresses her face with it, revealing all the parts we just took such pains to cover.

“Mara, you’re in charge of the girl. She’ll ride with you.”

“Of course.”

Horse lips my braid as I move around her to mount. “Stop that,” I mutter, but I pause to give her muzzle a quick scratch.

Mara scoots back in her new saddle to make room. Storm lifts Mula as if she is no heavier than a fallen leaf, and Mara wraps a steadying arm around the girl’s waist. Mula clutches the pommel like her life depends on it. “I’ve never been on a horse before,” she breathes.

“They’re not so bad,” I say, giving Horse a kick. We ride out of the village at a leisurely walk, not wanting to attract attention, but the horses sense our nervousness and step high, flicking their tails. The moment we’re out of sight, we break into a hard gallop.

10

HECTOR

THE snow fascinates me.

Though its cold leaches into my bones, I can’t help lifting my bound hands to catch the falling flakes. They land, sparkling and light as butterfly wings, only to melt against my skin into something so commonplace as water.

It’s a reminder that transformations happen in a second. That my status as a prisoner is a fleeting, ephemeral state, needing only the right circumstance to dissolve it.

We have descended to where trees grow again. It’s colder on this side of the mountain, cloudier, stormier. Every time the snow begins to fall, the Inviernos mutter to one another in hushed tones. Franco glowers incessantly. He cuts our rest stops short and orders us into a gallop whenever we reach a flat stretch of trail.

They read something worrisome in the weather, the same way I can sniff the ocean air, gauge the color of the sky, and feel in my marrow that a hurricane is coming. I listen hard to their conversation for clues, pay attention to the chilling breeze on my face, note the way the horses paw through the light layer of snow on the ground to get to the grass underneath. Because whatever it is they are sensing, I want to sense it too.

Anything that worries my captors presents an opportunity for me.

When we stop briefly to graze the horses in a small alpine meadow, I already have my ear turned toward Franco when he says to his men, “Keep to the center of the meadow. Don’t let the horses stray toward the mountain laurel.”

The Joyan who always rides sentry beside me helps me dismount. His knuckles are huge and his fingers are crooked; he’s a brawler who has used his fists too often. “I need to relieve myself,” I say.

A few weeks ago, this exact request was met with a shrug and a “Soil yourself for all I care.” But I’ve given him no trouble. They’ve purposely kept me weak from hunger, and I’ve made sure they see how my hands have stiffened into useless claws. He grabs me by the collar and pushes me toward the edge of the meadow without a word of protest.

But I have full use of my hands now. My bonds remain stuck to my skin, crusted on by blood and sweat. But if I were to separate my wrists, anyone could see the unraveling mess of hemp created by night upon night of sawing with a now-dull rock.

We near the stunted trees, and my captor gives me a shove. I allow myself to stumble. I hope I’m not overdoing it. But a quick glance over my shoulder assures me the Joyan sentry has already lost interest. He gazes back toward the center of the meadow, where the horses cluster together, chomping on frozen grass.

I won’t have much time. I scan the foliage around me, mentally sorting it, eliminating the familiar. Not lupine, not ferns, not paintbrush . . . there! A shrub with long, waxy leaves and dried flowers that might have been pink or red during high summer.

I glance back again. The Joyan is not watching.

I snap off a sprig of mountain laurel, shove it down my shirt. The Joyan still does not look my way, so I grab a huge handful. I pat it down beneath my shirt to even out the lumps.

“What’s taking so long?”

I nearly jump. “Almost done,” I answer in a bored voice, pretending to tie up my pants. I turn around and say, “Thank you.” The laurel scratches the skin of my abdomen. I resist the urge to look down and check for telltale bulges.

He grunts and leads me back toward the horses. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the mountain laurel. I just know that a plant worth avoiding is a plant worth having. Elisa taught me that.

I’ve memorized the rolling hitch knot used to tie me to a tree each night. It’s a variation on a knot my brother Felix taught me, easy to tie and untie if one’s hands are free. Usually, the traitor Joyan who ties it puts the knot off to the side, just out of my reach. But Franco has been pushing so hard, everyone is exhausted, and I am a model prisoner.

Inevitably, tonight, the Joyan gets careless. The knot isn’t quite so tight. Not quite so far off to the side.

My limbs tingle with before-battle anticipation. As everyone stretches out on their bedrolls and the evening fire burns low, I think I might come out of my own skin with readiness.

I consider escaping but reject the notion immediately. Though I’m not as handicapped as I’ve led my captors to believe, I’m weak from hunger and stiff from lack of exercise. I would need to steal one of the horses to get fast and far, but I could never sneak past the perimeter watch on a horse.

And I keep hearing intriguing bits of conversation. Something about a gate, another sendara that leads to a place of power.

So instead of escaping, I’ll do what I can to slow us down and give Elisa a chance to catch up. In the meantime, I’ll learn all that I can.

Tonight, the chip-toothed Joyan sits cross-legged on the ground before me—a little farther away than usual. I close my eyes, letting my head drop to the left, and feign sleep.

Eventually the breathing of my guard becomes deep and nasal. I open my eyes. The Joyan is definitely asleep.

I survey the camp, seeking movement. Everyone slumbers, though I know the perimeter watch patrols just out of sight. A cloud covers the moon, shrouding everything in darkness. Good. It will be easier to sneak around.

The ropes don’t allow much range of motion, and when I bend my elbows, I can barely reach the knot. It’s awkward work, and I’m not sure how I’ll tie myself back up later. But I am committed to my course.

I shake the ropes loose and step out of them. I pause, breath held, listening for movement.

Tree frogs chirrup nearby, and a slight breeze rustles the pine boughs. The air is crisp and dry, with a citrusy tang. It will snow tonight. I smile into the dark, for I am developing my nose for snow.

But it means I must enact my plan before it falls, lest my footprints betray me in the morning. I creep toward the horses, reaching beneath my shirt for the mountain laurel. It has been chafing my skin all day, leaving tiny, itching welts.

The horses nicker a soft greeting, and I crouch low, for someone is surely on watch nearby. I’m counting on the horses’ swishing tails and the way they huddle together for warmth to disguise my movements.

I know exactly which mount goes with which rider. I weave among them until I find the little chestnut with white fetlocks ridden by the brawler who guards me during the day. I offer her a handful of mountain laurel, palm flat to avoid nips. She lips it up eagerly.

I’m sorry. So very sorry. You’re a good horse, and you deserve better. I hope it will be just enough to make her sick and no more. But I’m not sure.

I don’t have enough to poison all the horses, so I make my selections carefully. Only Joyan horses, and I choose mountain ponies over large war chargers, hoping their smaller bodies will be more susceptible.

I am heartsick as I creep back toward my tree. “Treat your mounts as brothers-in-arms,” I always tell my men. “They are soldiers to your cause and your closest companions.”

The Joyan traitor still sleeps, chin to chest, his left hand twitching in the dirt. I could kill him right now, if I chose. My fingertips itch with the need to wrap around his throat.

Keeping a wary eye on him, I step back into the circle of rope, sit against the tree trunk, and work the rope up around my chest and arms. I yank it as tight as I can, which isn’t very tight at all. The triple hitch knot takes me four tries, and I position it too far forward, but I manage it.

I’ve done the best I can. I press my wrists together, but they’ve been unbound for days now, and it’s only a matter of time before a closer inspection reveals my deception. I close my eyes to await the snow.

11

STORM leads us now as we leave the timberline far behind. For a few days, our path winds through grassy meadows filled with wildflowers, crystal brooks, and herds of tiny deer that lift their long necks to regard us as we pass, flicking ears and tails but otherwise paying us no mind.

The meadows thin, and on Storm’s recommendation we dismount and pull grass, stuffing as much as we can into our packs because, as he explains, it might be days before we cross the watershed and find good grazing for the horses again. And sure enough, soon we’ve ascended so high that nothing grows, save for random patches of lichen and a few stubborn stalks of yellow paintbrush.

The air is too thin, the light too bright and close, and we shiver in the shadows only to sweat in the sunshine. The peaks jut around us, sometimes graveled, sometimes jagged, sheltering year-old snow on their leeward sides. Tiny short-tailed mice scuttle from our path, and raptors circle through the peaks. The world is an immense garden of gray and white, and I marvel at how like a desert it is, with its varied hues of color and teeming life—but only if you pay attention.

Though we bought Mula a pair of sturdy boots in the last village, they always end up tied over the pommel of Mara’s horse. Mula runs back and forth down the path before us, plucking paintbrush blooms, chasing darting mice, collecting oddly shaped rocks, until exhaustion suddenly takes her and she climbs up into Mara’s saddle and falls dead asleep to Jasmine’s rocking gait, her tiny, blue-tattooed feet swinging miles above the stirrups.

We interviewed a few families in the free villages, hoping to find someone to care for the girl while we traveled to Invierne. But they always eyed our packs greedily, and they sized up Mula like she was a juicy rabbit. One afternoon, after I watched a group of Joyan children spitting on a mixed-blood boy and poking him with sticks, I decided that Mula would stay with us. I expect I’ll begin regretting the decision any moment.

Between jagged peaks, we catch glimpses of storm clouds that are blue near to black and crackling with lightning. Storm explains that the Sierra Sangre is a cloud trap, and the other side of the continent is wet and cool. He warns that these peaks will be impassable soon, maybe within weeks, that the snow will be so deep that travelers would drown in it. So we travel fast, starting with the rising sun and falling onto our bedrolls exhausted with the day’s last stubborn light.

Now that we are away from the free villages, and near enough to winter that no one but the most desperate and foolhardy walk this trail, I begin to pray again. And when I do, the zafira is like a tidal wave rushing through me, filling me to overflowing with heat and power. I am certain the zafira changed my Godstone somehow. Or maybe it changed me.