I tried to count, just as I had instructed Pauline to do, but soon numbers were impossible to keep in my head. I only knew we had gone miles—miles and miles, and the sun was still high in the sky. Pauline and I knew that a count to two hundred was a mile covered, at least on our Ravians. She would know when the barbarians were too far away to catch up with her again. She didn’t have to wait until the sun was setting behind the hills. In another hour, she’d be racing back to Terravin as fast as our slow donkeys would take her. Soon after that, she’d be safe and out of the barbarians’s reach and then the value of my word would expire. But not just yet. It was still too soon to take a chance, if I was even able to find one.

There were no trails here, so I tried to memorize the landscape. We rode in wilderness, along dry streambeds, across hilly scruff, through sparse forest, and across flat meadow. I noted the position of the mountains, their individual shapes, the ridges of high timber, anything that would help me find my way back again. My cheeks stung with the wind and sun, and my fingers ached. How long could we ride at this pace?

“Sende akki!” Kaden finally called, and they all pulled back, slowing their pace.

My heart sped. If they were going to kill me, why would they bring me all the way out here to do it? Maybe this was my last chance. Could I outrun four other horses?

Kaden brought his horse close to mine. “Give me your hands,” he said.

I looked at him uncertainly and then at the others. “I can get jewels,” I said. “And more money than any of you could spend in a lifetime. Let me go and—”

They all started laughing. “All of two kingdoms’ money isn’t worth what the Komizar does to traitors,” Malich said.

“Gold means nothing to us,” Kaden said. “Now give me your hands.”

I held them out, and he wound a length of rope around them. He yanked on the ends to make sure it was tight, and I winced. Finch watched and let out a yap of approval.

“Now lean toward me.”

My heart beat so furious I couldn’t breathe. “Kaden—”

“Lia, lean forward.”

I looked at my bound hands. Could I even ride a horse like this? My feet trembled in the stirrups, ready to kick my horse’s sides and run for the trees in the distance.

“Don’t even consider it,” Kaden said. His eyes were deadly cool, never glancing away from mine, but somehow he knew my feet strained in my stirrups.

I leaned toward him as he instructed. He lifted a black hood toward my head. “No!” I pulled back but felt a hand at my back roughly pushing me forward. The hood went over my head, and the world went black.

“It’s only for a few miles,” Kaden said. “There are trails ahead that it’s better you not see.”

“You expect me to ride like this?” I heard the panic in my voice.

I felt Kaden’s hand touching both of my bound ones. “Breathe, Lia. I’ll guide your horse. Don’t try to move left or right.” He paused for a moment, then pulled his hand away, adding, “The trail’s narrow. One false step, and both you and your horse will die. Do as I tell you.”

My breaths were hot beneath the hood. I thought I’d suffocate long before we met any trail’s end, but I breathed. As we went forward, I didn’t move left or right and I forced in one slow, hot breath after another. I wouldn’t die this way. I heard rocks tumbling down cliff faces, their echoes continuing on forever. It seemed there was no bottom to whatever abyss we bordered, and with each step, I vowed if I ever did meet the trail’s end and was unmasked and untied, I’d never waste a chance again—if I was going to die, it would be when I could plainly see Kaden as I thrust a knife between his deceitful Vendan ribs.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

RAFE

“It would seem she’s done it again. Looks like your little dove has flown without you.”

“No.” I stared at the road, sweat trickling down my back. “She promised she’d come. She’ll be here.”

“She’s made promises before and found them easy enough to break.”

I glared at Sven. “Shut up. Just—shut—up.”

We had been waiting for over an hour. The sun was high overhead. Our plans had been hastily slapped together, but I made sure I got there before mid-morning so I wouldn’t miss her. She couldn’t have gotten past me on the highway already—unless she’d left earlier than she had planned. Or maybe she hadn’t left Terravin yet at all? Maybe something had delayed her? The highway was busy with travelers, even squads of soldiers. It was safe to travel. No bandits would dare ply their trade there. Every time another traveler came over the hill, I sat up higher in my saddle, but none of them was Lia.

“Shut up? That’s the best you can do?”

I turned to look at Sven, sitting cocky and unperturbed in his saddle. “What I’d like to do is crack you in the jaw, but I don’t strike the elderly and infirm.”

Sven cleared his throat. “Now, that’s a low blow. Even for you. You must really care for this girl.”

I looked away, staring at the point where the highway disappeared over the hill.

I whipped my gaze back at him. “Where are the others?” I demanded. “Why aren’t they here yet?” I knew I was being a cocky pain myself, but the waiting was wearing on me.

“Their horses don’t have wings, my prince. They’ll meet us farther up the highway, if and when we get there. Messages only travel so fast, even ones sent with urgency.”

I’d thought I had more time. More time to break the news to her, convince her, more time for an escort to arrive. I had wanted to take her to Dalbreck, where she’d be safe from bounty hunters and her murderous father. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to persuade her to leave Terravin. Impossible more likely. It was going to be hard for me to leave. But then last night all that planning went up in smoke. She was set on returning to Civica—the last place she should go. I was going to try to talk her out of it on the way there, but if I couldn’t, I wanted a substantial enough entourage to protect her when we rode through the gates of Civica.

Of course, I was going to need protection from her once I told her who I was. I’d been afraid to tell her the truth. I had manipulated her. I had lied. I had deceived her. All the things that she said were unforgivable. If she was going back to complete the alliance, I knew it wasn’t to marry me—she was leaving to marry a man she’d never have a morsel of respect for. I was still that man. I couldn’t undo what I had already done. I had allowed my father to arrange a marriage for me. Papa. The complete bitter disdain in her voice was still fresh in my mind. It made my stomach sour.

“I botched this up, Sven.”

He shook his head. “No. Not you, boy. Two kingdoms did. Love’s always a messy affair better left to young hearts. There are no ground rules to follow. That’s why I prefer soldiering. I can understand it better.”

But there were rules. At least, Lia thought so, and I’d broken the most important one with my deception.

If one can’t be trusted in love, one can’t be trusted in anything. Some things can’t be forgiven.

I could argue that she was living a lie too, but I knew it wasn’t the same. She was a tavern maid now. That was all she wanted to be. She was trying to build a new life. I was only using my false identity for a time to get what I needed. I just hadn’t known before I came here that what I needed would be Lia.

Another rider came over the hill. Again, it wasn’t her. “Maybe it’s time to go?” Sven suggested. “She’s probably halfway to Civica by now, and it sounds like she’s more than capable of taking care of herself.”

I shook my head. Something was wrong. She would be here. I pulled my horse to the left. “I’m going to Terravin to find her. If I’m not back by nightfall, come looking for me with the others.” I dug in my heels and headed for the road.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

The landscape was barren and hot. They had hidden my eyes through two more segments of the journey. Each time they pulled the hood from my head, a new world seemed to spread out before me. The one we faced now was dry and unforgiving. Because of the intense heat, they slowed for the first time and were able to converse with each other, though they spoke only in their own tongue.