Chapter 3
The cart rumbled along the rutted mountain road, its wheels groaning with each rotation. Cassandra did her best to keep her teeth from rattling from her perch in the back, gripping the rough sides of the cart for dear life.
Her bow rested on her lap, and her pack and a quiver of arrows sat beside her. She ran her fingers over the smooth wood of her bow, as familiar as if it were an extension of her body. The symbol of the queen’s shadow, and a gift from her sister.
She had been eight years old when the queen had first come to see her. It was hardly a month after the queen’s coronation, and Cassandra had been awed by the tall, terrifying woman dressed in the regal black of mourning. The queen had come quietly into the house where Cassandra lived with her grandmother on the outskirts of the Rendran capital. There had been no fanfare, no pageantry, no great carriage pulled by eight white horses. No one beyond the queen and a tall, familiar-looking man with graying hair, twinkling eyes, and a curved bow of rowan slung across his back.
“Your Highness,” Cassandra’s grandmother had gasped, immediately dropping into a deep curtsy and elbowing Cassandra to do the same. Cassandra had done so reluctantly and awkwardly, and only because there had been so much urgency in her grandmother’s tone.
“To what do we owe the pleasure of the sovereign’s visit?” her grandmother had continued with more deference than Cassandra had ever heard from the old woman.
“I have come to see...to see Cassandra,” the queen had said.
Cassandra’s head had snapped up then, and she’d met the queen’s gaze before she’d realized what she was doing. The queen’s brown eyes had twinkled, chasing away some of the sadness that lingered there.
“But why?” she’d said before she could stop herself.
“Because” the queen said, “I want to meet my sister.”
Cassandra had learned many things that day. She’d learned that her mother had worked at the palace for a time, and when Cassandra was born, the king had set them up in the house in which Cassandra now lived with her grandmother. When her mother had died of a wasting illness a few years later, Cassandra’s grandmother had moved from the small village a three days’ journey from the capital to take care of her.
And she had a sister. A sister who’d had no knowledge of Cassandra’s existence until their father’s death. No knowledge that she wasn’t the only child of the king until Andre—the tall, familiar-looking man—had told her. As the king’s shadow, he’d known all the king’s secrets. And as the king’s shadow, he’d been watching Cassandra for a long time. The new queen needed a shadow of her own. So, Andre had taken Cassandra on as his apprentice, and she had excelled. The queen had intended for the position to be ceremonial, but Andre never had.
Cassandra’s heart twisted at the thought of the man who had become a father figure to her. But he was gone now too, taken a few years earlier by an illness that had turned him into a shell of his former self.
“Road ends here,” the driver called from the front of the cart. He pulled on the reins and the cart rumbled to a stop.
Cassandra grabbed her pack, her quiver, and her bow before hopping out and tossing the man a small bag that clinked with coin. He gave her a nod before tugging his donkey’s reins and turning the cart back around. She waited until the cart disappeared into the trees before starting up the slope and toward the pass.
The high summer sun beamed over the mountains, bathing the forest in shades of green and gold. Far above, she could see birds hopping between branches in the thick canopy of pines. She pulled her gray cloak closer around her shoulders. Even in summer, the air here was cool and crisp—so different from the arid warmth she was used to in the Rendran capital.
The road narrowed ahead, turning into a single-lane footpath that sloped sharply upward and disappeared into the trees. A stream trickled somewhere in the distance, likely fed by the snowmelt of the higher peaks beyond the pass.
The queen had been right. It was a long journey to Malathi pass. But she had made it in little more than a week—in time, she hoped, to intercept the Inetian caravan.
But that was the strange thing. Cassandra had reached out to her contacts to see what the whispers were about the pass—but there had been very little in the way of information. There had been no mention of a caravan leaving Ineti and traveling toward Medira—not anywhere. Surely a group of Inetians traveling through the peninsula couldn’t remain undetected for long. Could it?
The path turned rockier as Cassandra climbed, and she was thankful when she finally topped the rise and peered down into the Malathi pass.
Deep greens and sharp grays blended in the valley, pierced by the shadows cast by the midday sun. Cassandra knew from discrete meetings with her contacts that the enclave lay about a mile along the valley from this road, nestled against the mountain. She checked her direction with the sun before setting off westward along the ridge, stray branches from the undergrowth nipping at her clothes.
It wasn’t long before she smelled the smoke of cookfires. The enclave.
A dozen timber-hewn cottages with thatched roofs dotted the floor of the valley, their parchment windows glowing faintly with the orange light of enchanted orb fire. A few humanoid shapes moved around the makeshift village, dressed in the nondescript gray robes Cassandra knew the chanters favored, hanging up washing, cooking, and corralling the gaggle of children who dashed barefoot between the houses. Pens holding pigs, goats, and chickens adjoined some of the cabins, and there were a few donkeys and oxen for pulling carts.
A wide, flat cookfire glowing with embers lay in the center of the village, where a few figures lingered, and Cassandra thought she could detect the peaty smell of pipe smoke wafting through the air.
There was no sign of an Inetian caravan.
A worn path ran back from the village toward the mountain, where Cassandra could see a jagged opening gashed into the rock. Two orbs of enchanted fire marked the entrance. A cave. The first sign that this wasn’t an ordinary settlement.
She slunk farther along the ridge line, careful to keep enough distance that even if someone happened to look up, they wouldn’t be able to see her. A woman in a gray robe made her way into the cave entrance. A small child came out and scampered into one of the thatch-roof huts.
Cassandra was deciding whether to move closer or wait until nightfall to gain access to the cave when three men emerged. One was dressed in the gray of the chanter enclave, his hair a shock of white, his skin almost translucently pale, like the people of the Alliance in the south. But the other two were not, their skin and hair showing a deep brown beside the much paler chanter. Cassandra took a quick breath and moved closer to listen.
“We were told we would see results sooner than this,” one of the men was saying to the chanter. He was tall and broad with bronze skin and thick black hair, and Cassandra could make out a scar that ran from his jaw down beneath his tunic. His accent was unmistakably Inetian.
The chanter shook his head. “You were not promised anything beyond access to our knowledge. The rate at which your men learn is beyond my power to control. And besides, we haven’t seen anything of which we were promised in—”
“His eminence does not break his promises!” the Inetian cut in.
His eminence? Cassandra’s brows drew together. The Inetian emperor was always addressed as His Majesty.
“He better not,” the chanter said, and Cassandra could feel a pulse of power crackle in the air. The Inetian took a wary step back. “I don’t allow people who don’t keep their promises to live.”
Cassandra’s brows drew together. What promises? Were the chanters teaching the Inetians their magic? That was a wholly terrifying thought on its own, but what could the Inetians have possibly promised in return to reach that kind of agreement?
A twig snapped in the bracken to her right, and she froze. The tread had been too heavy, too broad, to be a hare or a mountain goat. She reached for the knife at her belt, her heart thundering in her throat, and waited for the sound to come again.
There was another snap, and this time, Cassandra could make out a figure in the trees draped in a nondescript black cloak. The figure was hardly three meters from her. He peered over the ridge for a moment, just as Cassandra had, then stepped back, turned his head, and looked directly at her.
Cassandra moved before the figure could. In one swift motion, she kicked for his knees and dropped him. The figure grunted as he crashed to the ground—a clearly masculine sound—and Cassandra was on him in an instant. He grunted again as she shoved her knee in his kidney and pressed her knife roughly against his throat.
The figure stilled, and for a moment, all Cassandra could hear was the sound of their breathing in the stillness of the afternoon.
A beat passed as her eyes struggled to focus on his face, and then the figure chuckled—a low, melodious sound—and an all too familiar voice breathed against her cheek, “Why, Cass. I missed you too.”
Heat flooded her body in a tidal wave. Arphaxad Ilin Serra lay on the forest floor beneath her, his dark eyes twinkling up at her with maddening amusement. And her knife was pressed to his throat.
“You!” she sputtered before she could stop herself. “What are you doing here?”
His grin widened. “I have you to thank for my presence here. If you hadn’t found that letter for me—”
She pressed the knife more sharply against his throat, and he hissed. She leaned in and gave him her sweetest smile. “It might be prudent for you to remember that I’m the one with the knife to your throat.”
Arphaxad grunted, and she thought she could feel him tense, as if ready to spring. She shoved her knee into his kidney again, and he grunted but lay back.
“You’re in rare form today,” he wheezed. That damn glint of arrogance was still in his eyes. As if he knew something she didn’t.
“I’ll ask you again,” she said softly. “What are you doing here?”
His mouth curved in that all-too-familiar grin. “I wager it’s the same thing you are.” He paused, as if shoring himself for what he was about to say. “And if you let me up, I’ll tell you about it.”
She almost laughed out loud. Let him up? He had to be kidding. “Oh, sure. I’m just supposed to trust you.” He was the one she could never get the best of. The one who always managed to slip through her fingers. She was not about to allow that to happen again. Not when she had him here, beneath her, at knife point.
Even if they were in his territory, miles from the Rendran capital. It would take an impossible act of will for her to get him back to the queen in one piece, without allowing him to escape. She supposed she could subdue him long enough to slip his grasp. But then there was the Inetian presence in the chanter enclave to worry about. And she needed more information. Frustration rose in her gut. This was starting to feel all too familiar—they had been here too many times before, and every time, he’d taken something from her.
He didn’t break her gaze. “Look at it as a trade of sorts, Cass. I’m as in the dark as you are about this. And if Ineti wants something to do with the Sorothi chanters and their earth magic—well, it’s not a good sign for either Rendra or Medira.” He paused and shifted beneath her again. He was warm where their bodies made contact, and suddenly she was sharply aware of everywhere his body pressed against hers. A strange shiver zipped through her.
It had been a long time since he’d been stupid enough to let her knock him down like this. Not since five years ago, when she’d stumbled on the elusive Mediran agent Andre hadn’t been able to pin down for the last few years of his career. He’d been slipping along the roof of the Rendran palace, dressed, not as innocuously as he seemed to think, as a footman. She’d gotten close enough to get a good look at his face, to take in his annoyingly handsome jaw and aquiline nose, his olive skin tanned from time spent in the sparring yard, and then he had promptly slipped her grasp.
Annoyance at the memory, at him, at herself, flared through her now, and she kneed him in the kidney again, then got to her feet, careful to keep the knife at his throat. She was not going to allow him to slip away again.
Arphaxad grunted, then scrambled into a sitting position. His hair was longer than when she had last seen him, curling around his ears, and there was a dark line of stubble at his jaw. His tunic was black and well-fitting, devoid of any mark that might tie him to his king.
For a moment as they watched each other in the midafternoon sun, he looked haggard, tired in a way she had never seen him before. But a moment later, that smirk was back, his annoyingly impenetrable mask slamming back down in place.
“Talk,” Cassandra said.
His gaze narrowed. “As you know, Medira has an . . . interest . . . in what Ineti is doing in our lands.”
An interest. Cassandra almost snorted. “The marriage to the Inetian emperor’s daughter. I’ve heard.”
Arphaxad’s gaze skittered from hers for a moment, then snapped back. “I suppose I would have lost respect for you if you hadn’t known about that.”
Her lips curved. “Glad I’m not a disappointment.”
“You never disappoint me, Cass,” he said.
Warmth pooled in her belly. The queen’s words came back to her in a rush. “You are quite blind when it comes to him. Don’t do anything rash.” Her hand tightened on the dagger. Her sister was wrong. She was not blind when it came to him. He was arrogant, sly, and not to be underestimated. There wasn’t anything to be blind about.
“What do you know about Ineti’s presence here then?” she asked. “I’d expect the king’s nephew to have some insight.”
Arphaxad gave a dry chuckle. “You would think that, wouldn’t you? But as I said before, I know just about as much as you.” He paused, eyeing her for a moment, as if weighing his next words. “I think we can help each other.”
Help each other? Her brows shot up. They had never once been on the same side. That was just not what they did.
“Work together,” she repeated dumbly. “With you.”
“Oh, come now, Cass,” he said, his mouth quirking. “I’m not so bad.”
She couldn’t keep from snorting this time. “So, I’m to help Medira secure an alliance with Ineti? That doesn’t sound like something I’d be interested in, Phax.”
He spread his hands. “On the contrary, I think it would be mutually beneficial. With the entire hoard of Sorothi chanters down there who wield who knows what kind of magic as well as unknown Inetian caravanners, we could both use a little back up.” He paused. “Besides. I have...doubts...that whatever we uncover will lead to Medira following through with this alliance.”
Cassandra’s eyebrows rose further. “So, you want my help to...end the alliance with Ineti?”
“Which can only be a good thing for Rendra.”
She couldn’t argue with that logic. They both wanted to understand what was happening in that valley. And if he thought it was something that could break Medira’s pending marriage alliance with Ineti, then it had to be serious.
“I still have no reason to trust you.”
He met her gaze for a long moment. ”You don’t. And I have no reason to trust you. It’s a choice.”
Her heart gave a sudden thud. A choice. She had allowed him to get the best of her too many times. But there was truth to what he was saying.
And there was a part of her that really, really wanted to play the game he was asking her to play.
“Besides,” he said, “you know that if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be here at all.”
Her cheeks flamed. If she hadn’t been so stupid back in Medira and let him get his hands on that letter...“Is that a thank you I hear?” she said, pushing back her embarrassment.
A muscle twitched in his jaw. She almost burst into a surprised laugh. For once, Arphaxad Ilin Serra had not known about something going on in his own kingdom. That delighted her far more than it should.
She grinned at him. “Well, then,” she said sweetly. “It seems you do have me to thank for this.”
He arched a brow at her, and her grin widened.
“It’s only polite to offer some sort of thanks for a favor, I believe.”
“Is it?” he said, leaning forward so that his neck brushed the edge of her knife. Their gazes locked. She would not be the first to look away.
An earth-shattering boom rocked the valley below. Cassandra was tossed away from the ridge like a rag doll, her knife flying from her hands and skittering away into the forest. Her shoulder slammed against a fallen trunk as the world turned white, and the breath was knocked from her lungs.
For a moment, she lay still, trying to get her bearings, to figure out what had just happened. Arphaxad. She scrambled to her feet, swiftly drawing another knife from her boot.
He was crumpled on the ground a hundred feet away. He grunted and stiffly pulled himself to his feet, and they were left staring at each other across the forest, a cacophony of birds scattering into the air above them. A strange white glow radiated from the valley, along with a cloying sense of wrongness that was impossible to describe.
Cassandra swallowed, her eyes wide. “What in the name of the Archer was that?”
Arphaxad’s usually composed face was ashen, his mouth pressed together in a thin line. “That was the sound of magic gone awry.”