Chapter Thirty
We quickly fall into a routine: rise at dawn, dust off dirt and leaves, skip breakfast and start walking. Titus keeps his
bow ready at all times. If he snags a grouse or a hare, we eat it at lunchtime. If he doesn’t, we go hungry. After lunch,
we switch places so that the other rides Blackwind. We rest briefly for dinner, then travel for a couple more hours—both of
us on foot now, to give our stallion a break—then, just as it’s getting too dark for safety, we find a place to stop and build
a fire.
Titus insists we don’t neglect our training, that we absolutely must practice our forms. I’m getting better at defensive knifework,
and Titus begins to incorporate some offensive maneuvers. He challenges me to think about the exact moment I’ll use my Gift.
Too much will exhaust me too soon, so I practice sending a bit of chill through the blade of a dagger right when I expect
it to contact flesh—but only if I’m willing to kill.
He has no choice but to touch me, guiding my hand, angling my dagger just so, demonstrating how to throw as much power as
possible into my forward thrust or sideways slash without leaving myself open to a counterattack. His hands are sure and steady,
his voice calm and confident in my ear.
Titus is a patient teacher, generous with praise, firm in his insistence about developing good form and habits. Our practice sessions seem to calm him, and when we finally say good night, he rolls over and is asleep in an instant.
Lucky lump head.
No matter how exhausted I am, I lie awake, staring at the stars, wishing his hands would do more than guide my fingers and
angle my hips, that his lips wouldn’t settle for giving soft commands in my ear.
It’s selfish to yearn for things like this; I know it is. The world needs him more than I do. And even if it didn’t, he’s
so far above my station that I feel like a tiny seedling in a thick forest, with little hope of ever reaching the sun.
Every morning, Titus shakes me awake, and I’m startled to discover I fell asleep after all. Then we do it all over again.
After several days of walking into the desert, sleeping on hard ground, and hardly stopping to eat, much less bathe, my skin
and hair are caked with dust, my mouth is dry and gritty, and I will never, ever get the dirt out from beneath my nails. I
imagine I look like some kind of mud monster—skin and hair the same earthen dun color, my eyes bright and wild by comparison.
I imagine this is how I look, because it’s certainly how Titus does.
To the left of our trail is the eastern fork of the Iolandria, getting thinner and shallower every day. Soon it will be little
more than a happy brook—and then nothing at all.
To our right is the Corthan escarpment. It started off a barely noticeable rise, but every day it gets higher and higher until it becomes a massive cliff too high to scale.
It was created during the Sundering, an unfortunate side effect of Titus the Great’s historic weaving.
Whether the Corthan part of the continent rose, or the Suratian part sank, is a matter of great debate.
All anyone knows for sure is there are now two nations where there used to be one.
“They call it the Great Peacekeeper,” Titus says one afternoon, noting the object of my gaze. I’m riding Blackwind, and Titus
walks beside us, his hand on the stallion’s bridle.
“Who calls it that?”
“All the ruling potentats of the Suratian city-states. It’s the only thing keeping my father from sending an army into the
Surat Confederacy under the guise of reunification.”
“Wouldn’t the potentats be just as keen to claim Corth for themselves?”
“Theoretically,” he says, shrugging. “But I know for a fact that my foster mother is not the warmonger that my father is.
She’d do anything to prevent a war, and she’s been working hard to unify the potentats against the possibility.”
We plod on for a bit, the sun hot against my skin, my sweat mixing with dust to form even more caked mud. Everything itches.
The cottonwoods have ceded to palms, the soft grassy banks of the river to sandy shale. The mornings are cool enough, shaded
by the escarpment, but from afternoon on the sunshine is unbearable, trapped against the cliff face and cycling back to us
in a never-ending morass of revolving heat. I don’t know why the Corthan king would covet this inferno of a country so much.
I gasp as a hellish thought ignites in my mind.
“Titus!” I say. “Your father is preparing for war. He has to be. That’s why Calvus and Ovidia had to flee Villa Bonoth. That’s why King Jaydeth turned it into a military outpost.”
He looks up at me and nods.
“You knew?”
“I’ve suspected.”
“And that’s why grain shipments didn’t make it into Suratia this year,” I add. “Corth bought them all up. To feed its army
and starve their enemy.”
Something flashes in his eyes.
I say, “I bet he made a deal with the Iolan king to blockade the delta and keep any shipments from making it upriver.”
“I . . . actually hadn’t put that part together yet. Good thinking.”
“I would have thought of it earlier if you’d shared your suspicions with me. You know, one of these days you’re going to realize
that your thoughts are not precious jewels to be hoarded.”
He opens his mouth. Closes it. “You’re right.”
“Why?”
“Why are you right?”
“No, why is King Jaydeth preparing for war? Why now?”
“I have no idea.”
“Surely you’ve considered it? Don’t be shy, Titus. Share your precious thought jewels.”
He sighs. “I truly have no idea. It makes no sense. How would he wage a successful war? March his army up the Iolandria into Cathira? That would take months. Sail his navy around the continent to assault the western coast? That would take the better part of a year and force them to sail through Grimsvold’s sovereign waters.
” He’s gesticulating with his free hand now, warming to the topic.
“There’s no cover to be had, no secrecy.
There’s no way to amass troops except openly.
My foster mother’s spy network is vast and competent.
I’m sure she knows all about Villa Bonoth.
There’s no surprising her, and the potentats would have plenty of time to prepare. ”
I try to contain my glare. He has a rich and detailed inner life that so rarely makes it to the surface. “Now, that’s what
I’m talking about. Those are good thoughts best shared.”
“But I just told you I don’t have any answers!”
“By sharing with me, we now have a theory. Or at least the beginning of one.”
“We do?”
“You say there’s no surprising the high potentat. All his moves must be made openly.”
“Yes . . . ?”
“So maybe he wants her to know.”
Titus’s mouth makes an O shape.
I add, “I guess the real question is, what does he have to gain by making Suratia think he’s going to attack? By making them afraid?”
His eyes narrow as his mind spins, spins, spins. After a moment he says, “Are you sure you’re not a politician? Or a secret
princess?”
I roll my eyes. “I’m a big sister. And an innkeeper’s daughter who has served hundreds of customers from all over the Sunderland.
I know a manipulation when I see one.”
Titus’s pace has quickened, though I’m not sure he’s aware. Blackwind picks up his stride to match. “You’re right,” he mutters,
half to himself.
“I like the way you’re getting used to saying that.”
The corner of his mouth quirks the tiniest amount. “I’m going to give this some thought.” At my arch look, he quickly adds,
“And I will share those thoughts with you. I promise.”
The east fork of the Iolandria disappears. We’ve passed the headwaters, and I didn’t even notice.
Thankfully, the escarpment provides water in the form of tiny rivulets that make their way down the cliff. Several days after
leaving the refugees, the aches in my muscles change, and I realize we’ve begun traveling downhill. All the rivulets and brooks
tumbling over the escarpment from Corth now head north, toward Cathira.
And with the lower elevation, the days grow hotter, and the nights grow colder. The desert, it turns out, is a place of vast
extremes. When the sun is high, sweat pours from my body and turns to salt in my eyes. I’ve taken to carrying the saddlebag
containing the cold stone around my neck, just to have something cool at my breast.
Then the sun goes down, and everything turns cold, as though I’ve somehow magicked the whole world. My sweat turns icy against
my skin, and by the time Titus calls a halt, I’m shivering too hard to strike steel and flint to start our campfire. Not that
it matters much; the desert is running out of burnable wood.
And Blackwind is running out of things to eat. Titus’s face becomes so lined with worry that I’d wager he’s aging himself
prematurely.
By this time, we’ve passed several fellow travelers on the road, but so far, no one has had anything to spare for trade, not even in exchange for a cold stone. We’ve no tent, no bedroll, not even the smallest blanket. All we can do is bank our tiny fire and sleep as near to it as we dare.
One morning, we rise to find the palm fronds we’re lying on hoary with frost. They thaw quickly, but it’s a warning well heeded.
“We need to find shelter tonight,” Titus says. “We can’t survive out in the open like this.”
“I’ll be fine,” I assure him, even though my bones ache and I can’t feel my fingertips. “I have a cold solace, remember?”
He frowns. “No one can survive sleeping in frost.”
“What do you suggest?”
“We’re close enough to the city that we ought to encounter a farmhouse or fishing cabin soon.”
“We’ll keep an eye out.”
But there is nothing. The desert is too harsh for anyone to risk making a home here. When night falls, we’re forced to make
camp out in the open.
Both of us are visibly shivering when we lie down in our bed of cold sand. I consider digging a hole and scooping sand all
over my body for insulation. I’ve reached peak filthiness. It can’t get worse.
I move to scrape at the ground with my hands, but Titus says, “Bria.”
I look over. He’s lying on his side.
He says, “I can keep you warm.”
I’m glad for the moongloam because my face flushes hotter than a desert. There’s no way in all the Sunderland I would get any sleep while pressed up against him.
But then the air shimmers, blurring the sight of him. Something zings in the air, like the taste of a coming storm.
Titus the boy has become Titus the ice cat, enormous and deadly, but with the thickest, most luxurious fur I’ve ever seen.
“Oh,” I say. “Good idea.”
Blackwind has found a dry, thorny bush to chomp on, and seeing his master become a giant predator does not bother him in the
least. He just keeps chomping. So I decide I’m not bothered either.
I stretch out before him, my back curved into his abdomen. His fur is long and thick enough to sink into. He smells musky,
but it’s a good, healthy kind of musk, and I take a deep breath through my nose.
A giant paw settles over my torso, and whiskers poke at my ear as a massive, furry muzzle relaxes against my temple.
Maybe I should feel strange about this, but I don’t. It feels natural, comfortable, warm.
But my last thought before sleep is that Winfry is catching up to Alwin, and sure enough, when we wake, well rested for the
first time in days, Titus pushes us harder than ever.