Chapter Twenty-Seven
What if the people out there could help me? I was about to call out when Zain’s hand went over my mouth.
“Dracanians,” he whispered.
That was enough to quiet me. Dracanians were the monsters of my childhood. I had been told so many stories about the horrors they inflicted on others.
One of their worst crimes was slavery. They raided villages, captured innocents, and sold them as slaves to far-off lands. I’d heard about more than one Thracian who was never heard of again after dealing with the Dracanians.
They served the goddess of discord. Only the worst kind of people worshipped her.
I felt him slide a ring onto one of my fingers. “What are you doing?”
“It hides your tattoos.”
I looked at my legs and watched as the blue tattoos seemed to swirl . . . until they were gone. Where had he gotten this magic?
“Thracian women don’t get sold as slaves,” he said, going to work on my ropes.
“What do they do . . .” My voice trailed off as my stomach sank down to my toes. I knew exactly what the Dracanians did to Thracian women.
“I’m going to untie you,” he said in my ear. “I know your instinct is going to be to kill me, but don’t. We are going to have to work together.”
“Give me my sword. We’ll fight our way out.”
He tugged at one of the ropes. “I see ten of them. Which means there are at least forty hidden out of sight. We can’t fight. We’ll be dead in seconds.”
“If you don’t want to fight, then leave it to me.”
“We’re not fighting.” He removed the rope from my wrists and ankles and handed it to me. I wrapped it around my waist, like a belt.
He ran over to his horse and began removing things from his bags, putting them in hidden pockets in his outfit. How had I never noticed those before?
“I want my sword. I would rather leave this world fighting and taking as many Dracanians with me as I can,” I said, standing up. My ankles and wrists were sore, my limbs tired.
“We need to talk our way out of this,” he said. “Think of it this way, Basileia. You can’t enact your revenge on me if we’re both dead.”
That made me pause.
“Greetings!” A man’s voice came from outside the rocks, and then he entered the area we were in, sliding between two of the large piles. “You are awfully far from home, Queen Thalia.”
Was he speaking to me? I nearly looked over my shoulder to see if Lia had somehow shown up.
“Queen Thalia is far from home,” Zain agreed with the man. “Are you here to escort us back?”
The man laughed and looked at the other Dracanians who had joined us. “We are not here to take you to Ilion. We are here to take the queen to Epirius. King Actos has requested her presence.”
“As kind as that is, we are actually on our way to—”
“We sent the request to your palace to come to Calydon to deal with an ‘emergency.’ We had heard of your arrival from Ilion and expected to find you there, but you set out quickly and we lost you in the Wastelands. We discovered you in Sagaris but then you slipped away from us again. We offered a sacrifice and then the goddess showed us where to find you.”
That was why the message from Calydon had gone out and why the archon didn’t know anything about it. This seemed a rather elaborate plan for the Dracanians, who were primarily a “smash and grab” type of people. They had intended to lure Lia out of Troas. Why?
And a sacrifice? What had they killed? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
The man took a step forward. “It is not a request. You will come with us.”
“Of course,” Zain said, and it took everything in me not to punch him for agreeing.
“Who is this?” the man asked me. “Is he your . . .” Then he said a word in a language I didn’t understand and his men laughed. “Your, uh, manservant?”
For just one brief moment, a dark impulse urged me to tell them that Zain was my captor and let them take him.
But no one should be enslaved, not even him. “Yes, this is—”
“Theogenes,” Zain said, cutting me off. The same name he had used in the tournament.
“And he is my manservant,” I finished.
The Dracanians laughed again and began talking to each other quickly in their native tongue.
I leaned in toward Zain. “I thought we were going to talk our way out of this.”
“We’re still alive, aren’t we? And headed to Epirius instead of their ships.”
“Please allow us to pack your belongings for you,” the man said to us.
Pack our belongings. Ha. We were never going to see any of this again. The other nine Dracanians started going through our things, discussing what they found in their language.
As furious as I still was with Zain for taking the diviner stone from me, a part of me was glad that it was gone and wouldn’t land in Dracanian hands.
They were excited when they found the bag of gold and my golden laurel crown. Which, now that I thought about it, probably helped to sell the story that I was Lia.
The only thing she and I had in common with our appearance was our red hair. And while she was taller than most women, I was taller than most men. Including all of the Dracanians.
“What is this?” one of the Dracanians asked with a heavy accent as he pulled something out of one of Zain’s saddlebags.
I glared at Zain. “You brought Dagger?”
“That is my dog,” Zain said, completely ignoring me. “He is stupid and useless. He only has value to me.”
“It is so scrawny we could not even sell it for meat,” another man commented. “And it is a terrible guard dog. It did not alert you to our coming.”
The man threw Dagger at Zain, and he caught his dog easily. Dagger made a whining noise, his tongue hanging out of his mouth. Zain scratched behind his ears and soothed him.
“How do we know she’s really the queen of Ilion?” someone asked.
“She has red hair and we saw her coming from Ilion. She’s not Thracian,” the leader said. “She doesn’t have any tattoos. Besides, what do we care if she’s lying? We’ll get our reward either way.”
How hard could it be to pretend to be Lia?
I would just have to say “by the goddess” and “savior” repeatedly and make cow eyes whenever I talked about Xander.
While I normally hated lying, I thought this would be one situation where it would be fine.
I didn’t want them going after Lia. What if they actually managed to lure her out of her palace somehow? This way I could keep her safe.
After they had stolen all our goods, they directed us out of the enclosure. They didn’t have their weapons out, but I knew one misstep and they would be. I was directed to a covered cart and told to sit in the back.
“A queen must ride in luxury,” the leader said, and again his men laughed. I didn’t know what had been in here before, but it smelled horrific. Like something had been slaughtered and the rotting corpse had been left in here for weeks.
Someone took Dagger out of Zain’s arms and threw the dog into the cart alongside me. Poor thing. I picked him up and patted his head. They tied Zain’s wrists together and attached that rope to the back of my cart.
They moved the group forward, and I saw the men who came out of hiding to join in. Zain had been right. There were dozens of them. I would have been able to hold my own for a while, but eventually I would have gotten overrun.
They were all on horses. Zain was the only one walking.
He stumbled slightly and then righted himself. I felt a pang of sympathy at his plight. I knew it couldn’t be easy. I admonished myself. He was reaping what he had sown.
It still made me feel bad for him, and I hated that.
I had been right in what I told my mother.
There was only lust and everything else was just dressed up to make the lust seem more palatable.
If I had remembered that, I wouldn’t be in this situation right now.
Zain had blinded me with physical chemistry and his body and I’d let him. Even though I knew better.
I turned my head so that I wouldn’t see him. I hated the idea that I had ever imagined that I cared about him.
We traveled throughout the day, headed north, stopping infrequently to rest their horses, eat, drink, and relieve ourselves. I was the only woman in the company and it was humiliating to have one of them stand over me while I urinated.
Not that I had much urine—they’d given me barely any water. And it was so hot. I felt a thirst unlike any I had ever known. My throat burned from it.
To my surprise, they pushed on through the night. I tried to sleep but the cart was too bumpy and it was too hot.
Another full day of travel and, again, no resting at night. We had been on the road for two whole days now.
The next morning, when we stopped for a break, I realized that Zain’s face had gone pale and his lips were cracked. Had they given him any water at all in the last two days?
They were going to kill him, and only I got to do that.
“I want my manservant in my cart with me,” I announced loudly. There was some muttering as the message was passed along. The leader came up to me.
“What is it you are demanding?”
“I want my manservant in the cart with me,” I repeated.
“That’s not appropriate. You are above him in station.”
Was I really supposed to believe that this man cared about class and station? It seemed to me that they just enjoyed torturing Zain.
Sadistic bastards.
I had to gulp down my pride and I did my best to look helpless. It wasn’t easy. “It’s just that I’m so frightened by all of this and I would feel so much better if he were with me.”
After a few moments, the leader said, “Fine. Throw him in there with her.”
Two of the men did just that—they untied Zain from the cart and threw him into the bed. His wrists were still tied together.
“Thank you,” he said to me, and then he passed out.
Despite my own thirst, when they next brought me water, I poured almost all of it into Zain’s mouth. He swallowed it but didn’t open his eyes. I also cupped some into my hand for Dagger, who greedily gulped it down.
The view never changed from the back of the cart. The Wastelands here were different than the ones near Sagaris. It was all flat sand as far as the eye could see. None of the brushes or rocks that they had farther south.
No oases as far as I could tell, either. I would’ve given anything for one, to be able to drink until I burst. My mouth tried to salivate at the thought but couldn’t.
I did my best to stay awake. I didn’t know what would happen to me if I was foolish enough to sleep, and I did not trust the Dracanians. Even if they had been hired to bring “Lia” to Epirius, they’d never specified what condition I had to be in when I arrived.
My eyelids had started to flutter shut despite my best efforts. Fortunately, a few seconds later someone called out, “Epirius ahead!”
That woke me up. Thank the goddess. Epirius had to have water.
It felt as if it took forever before we reached the city gates. Our caravan came to a halt and the leader walked around to the back of the cart and threw something at me. “Put this on.”
It was the silk dress Zain had bought me. A moment later a full waterskin was also thrown in. I grabbed at it but then turned to Zain, offering to help him drink it.
“You first,” he rasped.
I shook my head. “You need it more than I do.”
“They will be suspicious if a servant drinks before his queen.”
He was right. I uncorked the waterskin and took a drink. I had never tasted water so sweet and so perfect before. And it was cold! How had they managed that? I didn’t care.
Quenching my thirst after crossing that desert—it was one of the best things I’d ever experienced.
Worried that I would start cramping if I kept going, I then helped Zain to drink. He gulped it down quickly and I could see the color returning to his face.
“Some for Dagger,” he said before he had finished the waterskin off.
I cupped my hand again and gave the dog the rest. He seemed to perk up.
“They had water. Why didn’t they give us any?” I wondered, angry at their cruelty.
“To keep us docile and under their control. If they’d had any idea how strong you actually are, they wouldn’t have given you any.”
The leader yelled, “Put the dress on now, Your Majesty! Or I will send some men in to help you with it.”
I grimaced. I didn’t want any of them touching me.
The back of the cart didn’t close, and it seemed most of the Dracanians had gathered there to watch me. Zain sat up and I turned around, facing him, making it so that the Dracanians would only see my back.
I took off my rope and handed it to him, and he put it around his own waist. The silk dress was wrinkled and I didn’t understand why they wanted me to put it on. It looked terrible.
When I took off my tunic, I heard their lewd laughter and jokes but ignored it. I glanced down at Zain and he had turned his head away from me.
So that he wouldn’t watch me change.
I ignored the strange pang this caused and quickly put on the silk dress. I heard sounds of disappointment from the Dracanians that I was now clothed.
“I’m dressed,” I said to Zain.
He looked up and I wondered if he was thinking about when he’d given this to me.
Something metallic clanged behind me. “Wear that, too.”
It was the gold laurel crown from the tournament. I put it on my head.
“Now get out. King Actos has requested that we walk to the palace.”
I climbed out of the cart. Zain handed Dagger to me and then climbed out himself. He wasn’t as weak as he’d been even a few minutes ago.
I didn’t want to speak to him but he was the only person here I could talk to.
“Why do you think they’re making us walk?” I asked.
“The king is going to parade you around to show off his prowess for having stolen you from Ilion.”
“He didn’t steal me.”
“But he paid the men who did.”
There was a loud creaking and cranking sound as the gates were slowly opened. It felt as if it took forever until there was a space big enough for us to pass through.
The leader walked through the gate and spread his arms wide. “Queen Thalia, welcome to Epirius.”