The Bitter Kingdom

The Joyan with the chipped tooth drags me toward a pine tree, forces me to sit, and ties me up, wrapping my waist three times. He ends with a hasty triple-looped rolling hitch—a knot that is unique to Puerto Verde. Sunny Puerto Verde. I’m not the only one who is a very long way from home.

I say, “It’s wrong that the Inviernos drag us into their icy winter without outfitting us properly. It’s like they want us to suffer.”

“Shut up,” he says.

He yanks on the rope, testing it. Satisfied, he stands and gazes toward the warm, bright campfire. It’s surrounded by laughing Inviernos. He rubs at the thin linen covering his arms.

I have made him notice. That’s all I need to do.

Later, Franco himself brings soup in a bowl. It’s gamey and thick with pine-bark pulp. I peer over the rim while I slurp it down. I’ve gotten better at doing everything with my useless hands. When I get back to Brisadulce, I may institute this as a training exercise; all my men should learn how to eat, ride, and use the latrine with their hands tied. “Where are you taking me?” I ask Franco, not expecting a response.

The Invierno smiles, slick and cruel. I’d love to obliterate that smile with my fist, but I tamp the image down. I won’t let Franco get under my skin.

“To our capital, to face the Deciregi,” he says. “We’ll hold you there until your queen comes for you.”

The Deciregi. I repeat the word silently so it will stick in my memory. “Then you’ll let me go?”

“Don’t be an idiot. Once we have your queen, you’ll never rest until you get her back. We’ll have to kill you.”

“But you said—”

“Did we?”

I narrow my eyes. Come with no thought to returning, Franco said to Elisa, for this is pleasing to God. You may bring a small escort, but no soldiers. Otherwise, he dies.

Only now do I hear what was unspoken. When you come, he still dies.

“You are liars,” I say. “All of you. You don’t lie with words, but your intent is ever to deceive.”

Franco grabs the empty bowl from my hands. “It’s the highest art form, deceiving without lying. A word is the only thing in the world made more powerful by absence than existence.”

The Invierno straightens and peers down a delicate nose, as if sizing me up. When he was a spy in Conde Eduardo’s entourage, he shuffled and carried himself with a slight hunch. Now that there is no longer need for pretense, I see how very tall he is—taller even than Storm.

“What do you want?” I ask wearily. “Tending to the prisoner is surely beneath you.”

“Your queen. When I allowed her to say good-bye to you, she whispered something. What was it?”

“I’ll come for you. Stay alive for me, Hector. And be ready.”

“She said to escape if I could, because she can’t risk a whole kingdom to rescue one man, not even a Quorum lord.”

“You lie.”

“With words or without?”

Franco frowns. “I saw the way she looked at you. You are life and breath to her.”

He’s wrong about that. Elisa loves fiercely, it’s true. But she loves with her heart and mind. If she comes for me, it will be part of a larger plan to rescue all of Joya.

I don’t realize I’m smiling until Franco says, “See? Just thinking about her makes you shine with her fire. Bearers are like that, you know. God always chooses the ones who inspire great loyalty.”

I hate that he presumes anything about her. “How would you know? There is only one, and you know nothing of her.”

“There are two.”

“What?”

Franco gives me that edged grin, then turns his back and ambles toward the campfire.

Two bearers.

I stare after him, shivering in the dark. Maybe I should ask for a blanket, but I don’t want to appear weak. Or maybe appearing weak is the better strategy.

I’m about to call out when something jabs the back of my knee. I shift, and the jabbing disappears. Shift again, and it returns, sharper than before.

It feels like an arrowhead. Or a discarded spear point. All I know for sure is that it might be a way free.

My heartbeat deepens, smooth and slow, as if I’m preparing for battle. I glance around to make sure no one is looking. Then quietly, carefully, I reach down with my tied hands and slide my fingers under my leg. I strain so hard that the ropes around my body cut off my breath, but I’m almost there. I snag a sharp edge with the tip of my left middle finger, slide it from under my leg through the dirt, lift it in my cupped hands to the moonlight.

It’s a flake of stone, as hard as flint. No, more like glass, shimmering and black. Obsidian. With an edge sharp enough to cut rope.

I wedge it between my thumb and forefinger, and I begin to saw at my bonds.

It’s slow going, and the movement cinches the rope, making me breathless with pain. It will take many nights’ work. I’ll have to hide the stone during the day and hope they don’t search me.

When my hands cramp, when blood drips into my palm, when I’m shivering so badly from the cold that the pain is a dull ache, I maneuver the rock into the pocket of my pants.

I lean my head back against the tree trunk and close my eyes to review my conversation with Franco. The Deciregi, he said. Two bearers.

Which would be wiser? Escape as soon as possible so Elisa doesn’t have to pursue too far into the mountains? Or wait and learn more?

I flex my hands, trying to force warmth into them. But they are cramped from sawing and dangerously numb. If it gets any colder, frostbite will render me useless to her, no matter what. I’m running out of time.

7

ONCE again we are too near the trail for a fire. But we are surrounded by plenty; Belén scrapes the spines from the fleshly leaf of a prickly pear cactus while I dig through piñon pinecones. We dine on fresh greens and nuts, and there are enough nuts left over that I put a handful in Mara’s spice satchel, thinking they’ll make a nice addition to a soup or stew.

Mara vomits up her dinner.

But her dizziness passes soon after, and finally Belén lets her sleep. I insist he sleep too, as Storm and I take watch.

The sun dips below the horizon. I work through Hector’s training exercises. Some of the poses require so much balance and focus that I forget how frustrated I am at being delayed here while he drifts farther away from me.

I’m sheened with sweat by the time I finish, and breathing hard. But I can’t sit still. Storm watches, bemused, as I pace our campsite. Maybe I’ll pace all night, or practice with my daggers. Belén and Mara could certainly use the sleep.

Clouds pass over the moon. The temperature drops suddenly, and I shiver. My cloak is folded up on my bedroll, but I can hardly see where to go. I step in its general direction, tripping over detritus as I go.

“Storm?” I whisper.

“Yes. A big one,” he whispers back.

Lightning cracks the sky to the east, leaving a flash memory to guide me. The toe of my boots finds the bedroll, and I bend over, feeling around for my cloak. There! I swing it around my shoulders and tie it at the neck.

I try to remember: Did we camp in a dry wash? Would a flash flood drown us all? Which direction was the trail, exactly, and could I find it in the utter dark if I needed to?

With Mara injured, and with the temperature dropping so quickly, maybe it’s worth the risk to have a fire.

I feel around for my pack, reach inside for the tinderbox. I’m searching for a branch or a dry cone, something to give me a little bit of light so I can find decent firewood, when the first fat drops splat on my cheeks.

Lightning spears the sky again, followed by a crack of thunder. The horses snort and shuffle their hooves.

“We need to find shelter,” Storm says. “Immediately.”

“A little rain won’t hurt us,” I say.

“Have you ever seen hail? Sometimes in these mountains, the chunks of ice falling from the sky are as big as my fist.”

I gasp. No, never have I seen such a thing. “Belén!” I yell. “Mara! Wake up.”

I hear scrambling, a muffled grunt, and a curse.

“Is someone coming?” Belén says. “You shouldn’t yell so l—”

“Thunderstorm. There may be hail. We need to find shelter.” The drops are falling faster now, in a symphony of varying drum taps as they land on leaf and dirt and rock. A horse whinnies.

“The cottonwood,” Mara says. “I sheltered my sheep under a cottonwood when storms came up too quickly to lead them home.”

“I’ll see to the horses,” Belén says. “Get under the tree. Spread out the bedrolls in the branches above you.”

The bedrolls won’t keep out the rain, not the way it’s coming down now. But maybe they’ll help protect us from falling ice.

We scramble to follow Belén’s suggestion, bumping into one another in the dark. The branches of the tree are low, and we are able—through much swearing and scraping of knuckles against branches—to get the bedrolls spread out above our heads. Belén guides the horses to the other side of the tree and ties them down. No bedrolls for them, but it will have to be enough.

“Times like this,” Storm grumbles, “it would be useful for one of us to be able to call fire with a Godstone.”

“Nothing would light anyway,” I say. “Not in this deluge.”

But I can’t stop thinking about his words. We shiver together as the rain slaps our bedroll canopy. I pray hard for wisdom and warmth, and as the Godstone sends tendrils of heat through my body, I wonder about calling fire, about what I would have to do.

The animagi almost always use blood to wake the zafira and pull it from the ground. And the animagi send fire from stones that are caged in amulets or embedded into staffs. Neither is an option for me. How am I supposed to shoot fire from my belly? Would my clothes burn? What about my skin?

One of the greatest frustrations about being the only chosen one in four generations is that there is no one to tell me what to do. I’ve only centuries-old scripture to guide me, pored over by learned priests and eager revolutionaries who decide what those scriptures mean based on their own desperate hopes. None of them have felt God’s own power rippling through their bodies; none of them really know.

It seems to me that when God decided he wanted to communicate with humankind, he could have come up with a much better plan.

The sound of the rain changes from drum taps to shattering glass; the hail has come.

Our bedrolls sag with the weight of water. It drips from my nose, soaks my cloak, and I feel I’ll never be dry again. Hail bounces and cracks all around us. One huge chunk rolls up to the toe of my boot, and I pick it up. It’s solid ice, half the size of my fist, crusted in dirt.

A horse screams, and I lurch up, hitting my head on a branch.

“Nothing we can do for it now,” Belén shouts above the noise.

I bring my knees to my chest and huddle against the tree trunk, pressed in on either side by the shoulders of my friends. I pray in a furious bid for warmth and comfort. God, we can’t afford to lose a mount. Please keep our horses safe. Keep Hector safe. Make this storm pass soon. Is it your will that I learn to use the stone’s destructive power? If so, I could use some guidance. Storm could use your help too. I don’t know if you answer the prayers of Inviernos. Actually, I’m not sure you answer mine either, but if you do . . .

Eventually my head drops onto Mara’s shoulder, and I fall asleep praying.

I wake to sunshine flashing on puddled water, to dirty clumps of hail melting in the shadowed lees of boulders, to rock wrens singing like it’s the best day of their lives.

Aside from the crick in my neck, I feel refreshed and restored. I’m suddenly grateful for that horrid storm. It forced a rest that I didn’t have the wisdom or patience to allow.

Mara’s mare has a bloody gash on her neck, but she seems fine. Mara cleans the gash and smothers it with salve—the same salve she uses every day on her burn scars. The mare accepts these ministrations like an attention-starved puppy.

Until recently, I believed all horses were alike. They’ve been giant, four-footed animals with ugly dispositions and alarmingly large teeth for so long that it’s a bit startling to notice how different their personalities are. Mara’s mare, for instance, is a blood bay, except for a wide white blaze down her nose that suits her perpetually excited demeanor. My huge, plodding mare has a dark-brown coat that seems black at night, with the most unruly mane I’ve ever seen. Her shaggy forelock covers her right eye and reaches almost to her mouth. Maybe the reason she moves so slowly is that she can hardly see where to go.

Mara’s mare head-butts my lady-in-waiting in the chest. Grinning, Mara plants a kiss between her wide, dumb eyes, then murmurs something.

“Have you named her?” I ask.

“Yes! Her name is Jasmine.”

I grimace. “But jasmine is such a sweet, pretty flower.”

Mara laughs. “Have you named yours?”

“Her name is Horse.”

She rolls her eyes. “If you want to get along with your mount, you have to learn each other’s language. That means starting with a good name.”

“All right.” I pretend to consider. “What about Imbecile? Or Poops A Lot?”

Mara shakes her head.

We lay out our bedrolls in the sun while we down a quick breakfast of pine nuts, jerky, and flatbread. The bedrolls are still wet when we roll them up and attach them to our packs. I should call an early halt and give them time to air out again. Or maybe we’ll just sleep directly on the ground tonight. It can’t be worse than sleeping hunched beneath a cottonwood during a thunder burst.