The Fire Prince (The Cursed Kingdoms Trilogy Book 2) (36 page)

Harkeld pressed his lips together and scowled at her. He
refused
to feel ashamed of himself.

Cora took his silence as an answer. She turned away.

Harkeld glowered at her back. He shook out his fist and turned back to the horses.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

T
HEY FOLLOWED A
wide road north, busy with mule trains and wagons, then turned off and climbed a dirt trail into the mountains. At least, Jaumé thought they were mountains, but Bennick told him they were only foothills. “The Palisades, now
they’re
mountains, lad,” and he’d waved his hand west, and when the clouds lifted, Jaumé saw sharp white peaks rising high into the sky.

The dirt track was narrow and steep, but Kritsen had said this way was quicker. It would cut more than a week off their journey.

A forest closed around them, tall trees with bark peeling in long, gray strips. “Is this jungle?” Jaumé asked.

“No,” black-skinned Gant said. “This is highland. The jungle’s lowland. You’ll know when we get there.”

“How?”

“It’s wet and it’s hot and it stinks. There’s no mistaking the jungle, boy.”

Encouraged by Gant’s willingness to talk, Jaumé dared to ask why his skin was black.

“Because I was born in Issel,” Gant said. “Everyone has black skin there. Just like everyone in the Dominion looks like Steadfast.”

Stead glanced sideways out of his slanting dark eyes and nodded.

Jaumé had never heard of Issel, or the Dominion. The world was much bigger than he’d thought. Questions crowded on his tongue. What made people’s skin black? Did everyone in the Dominion have names that meant something? But he encountered a look from Bennick and kept his mouth shut. Bennick didn’t like it when he asked too many questions.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

I
NNIS LOOKED AHEAD
to where the prince rode, sitting stiffly in his saddle, radiating rage.
I trusted you!
She touched her jaw, remembering his expression as he’d spoken those words.

“Hurting?” Cora asked, riding alongside her.

“No.” Innis lowered her hand. “He was upset.”

Rand, riding on her other side, grunted a humorless laugh. “We’re all upset, today.”

They passed an ox team laboring westward, wagon piled high with tree trunks. The driver raised his hand in greeting.

The road curved and dipped. They picked their way through a muddy ford. “Cora...” Innis said, once they’d gained the far bank.

“Yes?”

“I broke another Primary Law this morning.”

Both Cora and Rand glanced at her. “Which one?” Cora asked.

“Partial shifts.”

“Don’t look so worried,” Cora said. “Tell me.”

“I woke because I thought I heard an owl screech.” And she had. Gerit’s death cry. “But then I heard nothing, and I thought I should go outside and check, but I also thought that if something
was
wrong, it was best not to blunder around making noise. So... I gave myself a dog’s head, so I could hear and smell better.”

Cora’s eyebrows rose.

“I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway.”

“Did you hear him?” Rand asked.

“Yes. And smell him. And smell blood. So I woke Flin.”

“Innis...” Cora sighed. “I’m not going to tell you that what you did wasn’t wrong. You know it was as well as I do. But you probably saved your own life by doing it. And his. And ours. I can’t censure that. And I can’t even tell you not to do it again. On this mission,
any
means are justified. Even breaking Primary Laws.”

“I know.” Innis twisted the reins around her fingers. She was breaking two Laws right now, being Justen. And two more every time she ate or slept in a shape not her own.

“You made the right decision. If you face a similar choice in the future, I’m sure you’ll make the right decision again.

“I broke Justen’s cover.” And that was almost worse than breaking a Primary Law. She touched her jaw again, remembering the prince’s face, the emotion in his voice.

“You did what Dareus would have expected. The whole purpose of Justen was to have a Sentinel with Flin at all times, someone who could use magic to protect him if necessary.”

“I know.” Innis looked down at her hands, Justen’s hands. “Should I stop being Justen now? He’s no use any more, is he? Flin hates him.”

“By the All-Mother, no!” Cora said.

Startled, Innis glanced at her.

“He’s going to be difficult to handle after this. If he knew you shapeshifters had been taking turns being Justen, he’d be unmanageable.”

Rand uttered a short laugh. “Unmanageable? He’d be murderous.”

“You’d be upset too, if you’d been deceived like that,” Innis said.

“I don’t disagree,” Cora said. “And I’d like this mission to be no more difficult than it already is. Justen stays. In a way, it’ll be easier; if Flin isn’t talking to Justen, then Hew can take a turn being him too.”

“Justen can patrol too,” Innis said. “If he’s no longer an armsman.”

Rand frowned. “That’s a difficult shift, isn’t it? I noticed you did it this morning, but how long can you maintain it?”

“It was hard,” Innis admitted. It had taken a surprising amount of effort to be a large, male lion and Justen-colored owl. Her magic had fought her, wanting her to be a lioness, wanting her owl feathers to be black, not light brown. “I could probably only do it for three or four hours. I don’t think the others could do it for that long. Not that they’re incompetent or anything, it’s just... it requires a lot of magic and I’m... um, stronger than them.” She felt herself flush.

“So you are,” Cora said, with a smile. “Very well, Justen can patrol at night—which the four of you can do in your own owl shapes. And if he’s ever required to shapeshift during the day, we’ll keep it short. And delegate that task to you. Agreed?”

Innis nodded.

“And when we receive reinforcements for Sault, we’ll send Justen home, and all these problems will go away. Thank the All-Mother.” Cora glanced ahead to where the prince rode. “He’ll have to have a shapeshifter share his tent until then. That will be a battle in itself.”

“A shapeshifter?” Innis said dubiously. “I don’t think he’ll agree.”

“He won’t have a choice.”

A ghost of a smile crossed Rand’s face. “Good luck with that.”

I
T WAS A
day like Harkeld had in his dreams. Warm sunshine, blue sky. Birdsong. A gentle breeze.

He scowled at a patch of daisies growing alongside the road. Anger gnawed in his chest, burrowing deep, twisting his innards into knots. And beneath the anger was humiliation. It was in his blood, just as the fire magic was in his blood.
How could I have been so gullible?

And beneath the anger and humiliation, in the pit of his belly, was a cold eddy of shame. He hadn’t behaved well. He’d hit Justen instead of thanking him for saving his life.

I behaved like a child.

But he
felt
like a child, curse it. A five-year-old who’d just lost his best friend. Betrayed and bewildered. And angry.

I liked him. I trusted him.

And the rage surged again and he was glad—
glad
—he’d punched Justen.

H
ARKELD UNSADDLED HIS
horse, watered it, fed it, checked its hooves—not speaking to the witches—then took one of the damp, muddy tents and unrolled it between two tree stumps and set to work hammering the stakes into the ground.

“Flin.”

He glanced up. Cora stood there.

Harkeld got to his feet, gripping the mallet. His eyes narrowed.
No lesson tonight
. His mouth opened to say the words.

Cora held up a throwing star. The sight of it arrested the words on his tongue.

“Shall we?”

Harkeld closed his mouth. He dropped the mallet and followed Cora away from the campsite.

They walked for nearly a hundred yards before Cora halted. She held the throwing star by one razor-sharp blade. “Do you know how to throw these?”

He shook his head. It took Fithians years to master that skill, or so he’d heard.

“None of us do either. I’ll put it here.” She jammed the tip of one blade into a crack on top of a tree stump.

“How many are there?”

“Five.”

Good. He didn’t have to master this the first time. He walked half a dozen yards back from the stump.

Cora came to stand beside him. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Harkeld summoned his magic. Fire crackled inside him. He stared at the star. Not iron like the arrowheads, but steel. Were the witches sniggering at him while they set up camp, thinking him even more of fool for believing himself able to burn steel?

Harkeld gritted his teeth. He’d prove them wrong. He willed his magic to become even hotter. Scorchingly hot, searingly hot, as hot as it had been in the catacombs. He raised his hand and concentrated on the throwing star.
Burn
.

There was a blinding flash of white light and a thunderous crack of sound. Scalding air buffeted him.

Harkeld stepped back a pace. He rubbed his eyebrows. They still seemed to be there. He blinked, trying to see past the bright imprint of flames on his vision. Gradually the tree stump came into focus. The top was charred, smoking slightly. The throwing star was gone.

Had the blast blown it off?

Harkeld walked around the stump, examining the ground. No blackened star, no blobs of molten metal steaming in the mud.

He glanced at the camp.
Laugh at me, will you?

“Gone?” Cora asked.

Harkeld nodded.

“I thought you could do it.”

Cora stuck a throwing star into another stump. Harkeld stared at it. There was little use being able to destroy a throwing star if he incinerated everyone nearby. If he’d used that much magic in the tent this morning, he and Justen would be dead, as well as the assassin.

So I need to keep my magic as hot, but focus it tightly
. Not an explosive blast, but a tiny, controlled spurt.

Harkeld flexed his fingers and called up his magic again. He narrowed his eyes, staring at the throwing star, visualizing what he wanted his magic to do. Fire roared inside him, so hot his skin should be smoking.

Burn
.

There was flash of bright white light, a crack of sound, but no roaring blast of heat coming back at him. Harkeld blinked, squinted. Was the throwing star gone?

The stump was black and smoking and bare.

“Excellent,” Cora said.

By the fourth throwing star, he’d got his magic to an intense burst of fire that completely vaporized the weapon and left only a small scorch mark on the tree stump.