Chapter 10
Parisar kept me busy while the other members of the group took care of the bodies. I couldn’t watch. No one close to me had ever died, and even though I didn’t know these men, I felt connected to them through circumstance. I didn’t know how to feel or act, and I felt guilt and shame for wanting to just move on and try to forget.
After a solemn moment of reverence at the hastily dug graves, Parisar gave the blessing of Irys, Goddess of the Sky, to watch over their souls as they entered the afterlife and faced judgement.
How would their souls be received? I knew nothing of their lives. I didn’t even know if they were good people caught up in a bad situation or if they were thieves and murderers.
The group was quiet as we ate a simple breakfast. I looked at each member. I didn’t even know their names. I didn’t know who these people were or how they were connected to Parisar. He declared them loyal subjects to the throne, but I had never seen them. Not that I had met everyone in the kingdom. That would be physically impossible. But if they were close to Parisar, then shouldn’t I have seen them around the castle?
‘Let’s move,’ Parisar said, standing to his feet.
The others moved without hesitation. Someone doused the fire, and someone else packed up the supplies.
I frowned. ‘Where are we going?’
‘You didn’t think this was our final destination, did you?’ Parisar asked.
‘Um, yes?’
‘This is just a camp for long journeys. The village is a few hours from here.’
‘Hours?’ I looked down at my dress and the slippers on my feet.
Parisar had carried me the entire way here the night before, but I couldn’t expect him to keep carrying me.
Parisar followed my gaze and smirked.
‘Tain,’ he said, looking over to a female member of the group. ‘Do we have something more suitable for the princess to wear?’
Tain narrowed her eyes at me as she sized me up. She had a long blonde braid that fell over one shoulder and the sides of her head were shaved, revealing inked symbols on her scalp. Her breeches were dark brown and clung to her legs. Her tunic was almost as dark and barely covered her hips. Over the simple homespun fabric, she wore leather straps that wrapped around her hips and crossed over her chest holding a variety of tools and weapons.
‘Zeyr might have something that will fit her,’ Tain replied, turning back to her current task.
‘Zeyr,’ Parisar called, and I was surprised when a young man looked up.
I’d expected Zeyr to be female, after all, I needed female clothes, but then again, it seemed the clothes were neither male nor female.
‘Do you have a spare tunic and breeches?’ Parisar asked, and after looking at my feet he added, ‘and shoes?’
Zeyr nodded without comment and rooted through his pack to find the required items. He tossed them to Parisar who turned and handed them to me.
‘Change into these,’ he said.
I took the clothes gingerly and headed for the door in the hill. I was still fascinated by the little underground room, but I didn’t have much time to marvel at it. The sleeping pallets had all been packed away, and now I could see that the room was predominantly a storage space. I stepped into an alcove behind a shelf to change.
The clothes were soft despite their rough appearance. I supposed it was the result of being worn and washed over and over again. It felt unfamiliar to have fabric clinging to my legs, but there was also a sense of freedom. I’d never realised before just how heavy my dresses were. The yards of fabric and the multitude of petticoats added weight, but because it was my normal, I’d never noticed it. Being without that burden had the uncomfortable feeling of being naked.
I hesitated before stepping back outside. I knew I wasn’t naked and that everyone else was wearing similar clothes to me but…it still felt wrong. No, not wrong, just different. I took a breath and smoothed my hand over the tunic before stepping through the door, my head held high. Confidence was everything, right?
My eyes went right to Parisar who had frozen in the middle of putting things in his pack. His eyes raked over me, and the colour was high on his cheeks. He swallowed and slowly stood, his eyes still on me.
Heat flushed my body, and I prayed my cheeks didn’t glow red. I refused to be embarrassed in front of Parisar. I lifted my chin slightly and straightened my shoulders. With a confident smirk, I crossed the campground to where he stood.
‘What do I do with these?’ I asked, indicating the bundle in my arms. My dress and petticoats felt superfluous next to the garments I was now wearing.
‘They can go in my pack,’ Parisar responded after a moment, his voice scraping against my skin like sandpaper. He cleared his throat and took the bundle, kneeling down again to stuff it into his pack. ‘Do the shoes fit alright?’ he asked without looking up at me.
I looked down at the boots on my feet. They were nothing like the slippers I usually wore. The leather was well-worn and scuffed but the fit was good.
‘Yes,’ I replied, wiggling my toes in the boots.
Parisar nodded and straightened to his feet again. ‘It’s a long march,’ he said. ‘If you start to feel any discomfort, let me know. The last thing we need is for you to get an infection.’
With that, he turned and walked away, shouldering his pack with a grunt.
I stared after him, confused. Was he angry at me? I wasn’t the one who asked to come on this little jaunt in the woods. I was the victim here. How dare he behave as if I was a burden.
My legs ached. My back ached. I was thirsty. I was hot. I was tired and hungry and grumpy. And still we walked.
I was positioned in the middle of the group. Tain was in front of me, and I didn’t know the name of the man behind me. Zeyr led, and Parisar brought up the rear. No one spoke to me. They talked to each other, but no one engaged me in conversation. Not that I tried to talk to them either. I was too busy trying to keep up with their brutal pace.
I was grateful for the new clothes and boots. I couldn’t even imagine what this would be like in a dress and my silk slippers. My slippers would have been destroyed after the first hour, that was for sure.
Tain passed the water canteen to me, and I drank greedily. The man behind me snatched it away before I could have my fill. I didn’t complain, although I whimpered softly. I knew we had to share and that there was nowhere to refill the canteen until we reached the village, but that didn’t make my thirst any less acute. If nothing else, this trek through the woods had taught me to appreciate all the little things I had taken for granted, like water and food and sitting down.
Zeyr held his fist up, and everyone stopped. The mood changed in an instant, not that the group had been relaxed, but now they were on full alert, eyes darting around trying to see where the danger was.
I opened my mouth to ask, but before the words could escape my mouth I was pushed to the ground and the air forced out of me. A whistling sound followed by a dull thud sounded above me…right where my head would have been.
Whoever was on top of me—I assumed it was the guy who’d been directly behind me in our procession—stayed where he was. I struggled under him, but he wouldn’t budge.
‘Be still,’ he hissed in my ear, and I froze.
I could hear the others moving around, but I had no idea what they were doing. There was a soft ping and another whistling sound, then a shout. I heard footsteps running through the underbrush, and the weight on top of me finally relaxed. My protector, if that’s what I could call him, pushed up off me, and I drew in a deep breath. Before I could stand, Parisar was kneeling beside me, his eyes concerned as he checked me over for injuries.
‘Are you hurt?’ he asked in a low urgent voice.
‘No,’ I said. ‘A little stunned and breathless from having that heavy oaf on top of me, but otherwise, I’m fine.’
Parisar searched my face and then ran his eyes over my body before his lips thinned, and he nodded once. He rose to his feet and held out his hand to help me up. I thought about refusing it but didn’t see the point. I actually needed his steadying touch to calm my racing heart, or maybe it was his touch that made my heart race…
No. I was in shock. Someone had tried to kill me. That was why I was unsteady on my feet.
‘This big oaf is Breust,’ the guy who’d been trailing me said. ‘And I saved your life, Princess.’
Parisar shot him a look, but Breust didn’t back down. I had the grace to look chastised.
‘Thank you, Breust,’ I said.
Breust nodded once and then handed an arrow to Parisar. Parisar took it and looked it over carefully.
‘Kairos?’ Parisar said, surprised, looking up at Breust.
‘Looks like it.’
‘What about Kairos?’ I asked, looking between the two men, but neither of them answered me. They seemed to be having a silent conversation with their eyes.
‘He’s gone,’ Tain said as she came tromping back through the woods, her bow hanging from her hand still with a knocked arrow. ‘I winged him, though,’ she said. ‘There was blood, and this.’ Tain held out a scrap of blue fabric with the corner showing just a touch of green. ‘He was a Kairos soldier.’
‘He was probably trying to rescue me,’ I said, crossing my arms. ‘I’m sure there are soldiers everywhere looking for me.’
‘If he was trying to rescue you,’ Breust said, ‘then why did he aim at your head?’
I looked at Breust and then at Parisar. ‘That makes no sense,’ I said, flicking my gaze between the three of them.
‘It does if Kairos is the kingdom trying to kidnap you,’ Tain said.
‘Kairos?’ I snorted. ‘I’d be more inclined to believe it was Thalasso,’ I said. ‘Prince Char was nothing but friendly to me.’
‘A way to get closer to you. To get you to lower your defences,’ Tain said.
‘If that was the case then wouldn’t Elil be just as much of a suspect? More so?’ I’d said it because I thought it ridiculous, but the looks on the three people standing with me told me they didn’t think it was ridiculous at all.
‘You’re all crazy if you think Elil had anything to do with this,’ I said.
Parisar raised an eyebrow. ‘He tried to set me up for attempted murder,’ he said.
‘He did that because of me,’ I snapped. ‘He was trying to help me.’
The raised eyebrow lowered, and Parisar glared at me. ‘You asked him to plant that poison in my rooms?’
‘What? No. Of course not. I just told him I suspected you, and he agreed that you were the likely culprit. He searched your rooms, and I didn’t know he’d faked the evidence until after he told the queen.’
‘And you didn’t think to tell the queen the truth?’
‘It was too late by then. If I told her, it would have caused problems between us and Querencia. My mother was already threatening to send all the nobles home, so telling her that Elil had faked the poison bottle would have gotten him and his kingdom expelled immediately.’
‘And what about me? You didn’t care I was arrested and sent to the dungeons and my father was removed from the castle?’ Parisar’s eyes blazed.
I swallowed. I did feel guilty about that but…I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘You were not sent to the dungeons,’ I accused. ‘My mother knew it was a false report, and I bet your father wasn’t expelled from the castle either.’
Parisar’s expression blanked. ‘We need to keep moving,’ he said. ‘The quicker we reach the village, the safer we will be.’
Everyone moved, and Breust gave me a shove to get me back in line. Parisar took the lead, and Zeyr moved to the back. Our pace was faster now, the urgency to get to safety apparent.
I still couldn’t believe that Kairos or Char had anything to do with my father’s illness. If I was going to guess—and with Parisar removed from the equation, although I still didn’t trust him one hundred percent—I would have to say Thalasso. They had been the most standoffish, and Prince Granger had been the most brusque. I’d gotten the impression they didn’t like us, any of the southern kingdoms for that matter. It probably didn’t help that there were a lot of rumours about them.
I turned to Breust. ‘Why did you say the arrow was from Kairos?’
Breust pulled the arrow out of his belt and showed it to me, coming to walk beside me so I didn’t have to walk backward.
‘The fletching,’ he said, showing me the feathered end of the arrow. ‘The feather is from the bird used on the Kairos insignia. All their soldiers have arrows fletched with this feather.’
‘But couldn’t anyone use that same feather to throw suspicion on Kairos?’
Breust nodded thoughtfully. ‘Sure. But every army has their own way of constructing their arrows. From how the shaft is carved to the fletching and even the material used for the arrowhead. This is definitely a Kairos arrow from their army.’
‘It could have been stolen,’ I said.
‘Shh!’ Tain said, turning around and glaring at us.
Breust nodded to her and dropped back behind me. I nibbled on my thumb nail as I thought over what Breust had told me. It was definitely an arrow from the Kairos army, but that didn’t mean it was Kairos who had tried to kill my father…and me. But what would Thalasso gain by throwing suspicion on Kairos? They were neighbours, sharing an eastern border. Was Thalasso trying to turn the other kingdoms against Kairos in order to take their land?
None of it made sense, and now I wished I’d paid more attention to my tutor.