The Fire Prince (The Cursed Kingdoms Trilogy Book 2) (44 page)

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

T
HEY DISEMBARKED AND
headed northwest, following Nolt’s compass. Jaumé had heard of compasses, but never seen one. It looked like magic—the arrow always knowing where north was—but Bennick said it wasn’t.

There was no trail through this jungle. The trees stood close together, vines creeping up them with splayed, sticky fingers. The vines were feeding, Jaumé thought. He could almost hear them suck. Heavy leaves stroked his legs as he rode by. They would curl around him if he stopped.

In the afternoon, the ground began to steam. The trees took crooked shapes; Jaumé thought they looked like creatures in the tales Mam used to tell—goblins with wide-stretched arms and sharp claws. Here and there were black rocks like clusters of tall stone trees. Pools, yellow at the edges, stood in their way, sending up steam. There was a murmuring deep down, like soft laughter.

Stead’s mare stopped and refused to go on. He dismounted and led her, but soon she baulked again and wouldn’t move.

“Leave her,” Nolt said.

Stead threw his saddlebags on Maati’s horse and rode behind young Kimbel until Kimbel’s horse baulked too. They released it and both walked. The horse, whinnying with fear, followed for a while and fell behind and was lost.

“It’s the stink,” Gant said. “They can’t drink the water, they can’t eat the leaves.”

“Sulfur,” Nolt said. “Loomath said it gets worse.”

They freed the horses and slapped them away, back to places where there were at least ferns to crop. Only Jaumé’s pony was able to go on. They loaded her with their saddlebags and trudged northwest.

“Three days to where the rivers meet,” Nolt said, when they halted for the night. They unloaded the pony. She nuzzled the leaves on the bent trees—refused them, then ate, snorting with distaste.

There was enough dried meat in the saddlebags, but Gant, afraid of nothing, followed a trail of bubbles in a pool where the black water didn’t steam, and hauled out a fish with no eyes. The meat from its tail, charred in the fire, was eatable.

The wet heat and the walking had exhausted Jaumé. The Brothers talked around the fire, but he was too tired to listen. He lay down on his mat, steam curling thickly around him, and slept.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

T
ONIGHT’S MEAL CAME
with a spoon. No knife. They’d never given her a knife yet, but they didn’t seem to think spoons dangerous.

Britta waited until the assassin had locked the door, then scrambled off the pallet. She crossed to the window and set to work prising out another nail. She needed to be gone before they reached Roubos. Here, in an empty cabin, she had a chance of foiling the assassins. On land, surrounded by them, she’d have no chance at all.

Outside the window, the ocean stretched forever, gray and restless. The Gulf of Hallas was a thousand leagues wide and they were somewhere in the middle. But the gulf wasn’t empty. Each day she saw ships sailing towards Lundegaard.

One of them might see her in the water, might rescue her.

When she got the window open, when she jumped, she jumped not to certain death, but perhaps towards escape.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

H
ARKELD PACED BESIDE
the water lily pond, as he had every night for the past week. “I’m sorry,” he said aloud. “Please come back.” But the swathe of lawn remained stubbornly empty.

He paced some more, then sighed and sat on the marble edge of the pond. Dragonflies hovered over the water lilies, and it was all very restful and serene, but...

Harkeld jerked around.

The lawn behind him was empty, but it had
felt
for an instant as if she was here. He climbed to his feet. “Innis?”

Was that the crunch of footsteps on a crushed marble path?

He hurried across the lawn and plunged into cool shade between tall hedges. “Innis?”

The path curved out of sight, empty, but there was a sensation that someone had just walked past. Harkeld strode along it. “Innis?”

The path curved. He saw movement in the distance. Someone in a dark cloak hurrying out of sight.

Harkeld broke into a run. “Innis, wait!”

He chased the person halfway across the garden, finally cornering her where two hedges met. Harkeld halted, panting. The woman had her back turned and her hood up, but he knew—he
knew
—it was Innis.

He caught his breath. “Innis? I apologize for what I said last time.” He stepped closer, touched her shoulder lightly. “Don’t go. Please.”

“I tried to change my shape, but it won’t stick. I can only look like me.” Innis sounded close to tears.

“It doesn’t matter.” Harkeld gathered her gently in his arms. By the All-Mother, it felt good to hold her again. “I like how you look.”

She shook her head.

“I was angry, Innis. I took it out on you.” Harkeld pushed back her hood and laid his cheek against her curling black hair. He felt the familiar rush of tenderness, the familiar sense of deep connection. “How can I care whether you’re a witch or not when I’m one myself?”

This was what his dreams had been trying to teach him all week.
I am a witch. I accept it
. There was no satisfaction in the admission, just a sense of defeat.

“I’m a bad-tempered whoreson. It’s past time that I mastered my temper.” And that was the second lesson in all this. To be more like King Magnas and less like his father.

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

A
SH SHOOK
J
AUMÉ
roughly awake at dawn. “He’s all right,” he called out.

“What?” Jaumé said.

Bennick sat slumped alongside him, gasping hoarsely.

“Watch him,” Ash said. He ran to Nolt, who knelt by Kimbel, thumping his chest. “Bennick, Odil, Stead, Gant, all sick. Maati’s dead. The boy’s all right.”

Nolt turned back Kimbel’s eyelids, put his ear to his mouth. “Dead.” He showed no grief. “Two. We’ve lost two.”

“What’s doing it?” Ash said. Behind him, Odil was on his hands and knees, Gant upright but staggering, Stead on his mat, wheezing.

“That fish Gant caught. It’s poisoned us.”

“The boy ate it too.”

“The steam, then. It’s poisoned. Boy.” Nolt jerked his thumb. “Give them water.”

Jaumé scrambled for a waterskin.

T
HEY ATE BREAD
and dried meat. The pony nibbled leaves, snorting with disgust, and the dead men lay on the ground. The food and water revived Bennick. He sat straighter, breathed more easily.

Ash circled the clearing, keeping watch. He seemed stronger than the others, more alert, and after him, Nolt, even though they’d been watchman for half the night each.
The jungle is the enemy,
Jaumé thought. He couldn’t understand why it hadn’t attacked him too.

They laid the bodies side by side on the ground with their heads pointing north, and Jaumé didn’t need to ask: facing home. Fith was north. Nolt laid each man’s bared dagger on his chest, under his hands, and took their Stars to send back to Fith.

Kimbel had been young, but his face was old with the life gone from it. Kimbel, who had no dagger tattoos yet. Maati—Jaumé couldn’t remember how many tattoos he’d had. A lot.

Nolt went through the dead men’s packs and saddlebags, taking what was useful. Then, without any farewell or looking back, he led his men into the jungle.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

T
HE FORESTED HIGHLANDS
they’d ridden across for the last month ended. It wasn’t an abrupt boundary, like Lundegaard’s mile-high escarpment. This was a gentle sagging, a falling away from plateau to marshland. They rode downhill for half a day, picking their way along animal trails, while the tall trees with their long streamers of bark yielded to scrub. The slope flattened. The scrub dwindled and became boggy marshland. The air was thick, warm, stinking. Insects swarmed and long-legged birds stalked among the grasses. Harkeld wiped sweat from his face, slapped at gnats.

Rand pulled a bundle from one of the packsaddles. “Rub this on your skin. It’ll keep the gnats away.”

The oil stank even worse than the marsh, but it worked. Gnats gathered in clouds around Harkeld’s face while he rode, but few bit.

As dusk turned to darkness, Justen led them to the Szal. The river had descended from plateau to marshland in turbulent falls, the shapeshifters said, but here it had widened again, branching into channels and long shingle islands.

They set up camp on the riverbank, pitching the tents by firelight. Cora materialized out of the darkness at Harkeld’s side. “Let’s have a short lesson.”

He straightened wearily, mallet in one hand, tent stakes in the other.
Now? Must we?

He followed Cora down to the stony riverbed. She’d lit a small fire, and illuminated by its flames...