In her escape, she proved to be more calculating than panicked, leading witnesses to believe she was headed north instead of south, and then she continued to leave deceptive leads. But farmers who imbibe tend to have loose lips and a penchant for bragging on good trades. Now I was following my last lead, a sighting of two people passing down the main street of Terravin with three donkeys, though the riders’ genders were unknown and they were described as filthy beggars. For her own sake, I hoped our clever princess hadn’t done more trading.

“Ho, there!” I called to a mop-haired boy leading a horse to a barn. “The brew here decent?”

The boy stopped, like he had to think about it, brushing the hair from his eyes. “Yeah, it’s decent. So I hear.” He turned to leave.

“What about the food?”

He stopped again, as though every answer required thought, or perhaps he simply wasn’t eager to unsaddle and brush down his charge. “The chowder’s the best.”

“Many thanks.” I swung down from my horse. “I wonder, are there mules or donkeys anywhere in town for hire? I need a few to carry some supplies up into the hills.”

His eyes brightened. “We have three. They belong to one of the workers here.”

“You think he’d let them out for hire?”

“She,” he corrected. “And I don’t see why not. She’s only taken them for short rides to town since she got here a few weeks ago. You can check inside with her. She’s serving tables.”

I smiled. At last. “Thank you again. You’ve been very helpful.” I threw him a coin for his trouble and watched his countenance change. I’d made a trusted friend. No suspicion would be tossed my direction.

The boy went on his way, and I walked my horse to the far side of the inn, where there were hitching posts for tavern customers. After all the dusty miles I had covered, I’d had a lot of time to wonder about this girl I was finally about to encounter. Was she so afraid of marriage that fleeing into the unknown seemed a better prospect? What did she look like? I didn’t have a description beyond her age and that she was rumored to have long dark hair, but I figured a royal wouldn’t be hard to spot.

She was only seventeen. Just a couple of years younger than myself, but a lifetime away in the lives we’ve lived. Still, a royal serving tables? The girl was full of surprises. It was unfortunate for her that, by virtue of her birth, she presented a threat to Venda. But mostly I wondered, if she truly had the gift, had she seen me coming?

I tied my horse to the last post with a jerk knot, giving him a wide berth from the other horses, and spotted a fellow priming a pump and dunking his head under the flow of water. Not a bad idea before I ventured inside, and if I could buy him a drink, so much the better. Solitary travelers always drew more attention.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE PRINCE

A wedding kavah. It took only a little inquiry—and a few coins—to pry the information from the stable boy’s lips. He was the sly sort, knowing her secret might prove of worth to him. I threw him a few more coins and a stern warning that the words would never pass his lips again. The secret was to remain ours alone. After a slow perusal of the sheathed sword hanging from my saddle, he seemed at least bright enough to know I wasn’t one to be crossed. He couldn’t describe the kavah, but he had seen the girl furiously trying to scrub it from her back.

Furious. How well I knew the feeling. I was no longer amused or curious. Three weeks of sleeping on hard, rocky ground had taken care of that. It seemed for days I was always just missing her, only a step behind, then losing the trail entirely before finding it again—over and over again. Almost as if she was playing a game with me. From the vagabonds who had found her wedding cloak and were patching together their tent with it, to merchants in the city with jewels to trade, to cold campfires off rarely used trails, to a filthy torn gown made from fine lace woven only in Civica, to the hoofprints left on muddy banks, I had followed the meager crumbs she left me, becoming obsessed with not letting her win at the game Sven had spent too many years training me for.

I didn’t like being played with by a seventeen-year-old runaway. Or maybe I was just taking it too personally. She was throwing in my face just how much she wanted to get away from me. It made me wonder if I would have been as clever or as determined if I had actually acted on my thoughts the way she did. I felt beneath my vest for the only communiqué I had from her, one filled with so much gall I still had a hard time imagining the girl who wrote it. Inspect me. We’d see who did the inspecting now.

I dunked my head beneath the flow of cold water again, trying to cool off in more ways than one. What I really needed was a good long bath.

“Save some of that for me, friend.”

I whipped my head up, shaking the drops from my hair. A fellow about my age approached, his face as streaked as mine with hard days on the road.

“Plenty for all. Long journey?”

“Long enough,” he answered, plunging his head beneath the water after he had pumped a steady stream. He scrubbed his face and neck with his hands and stood, offering his wet hand. I tried to size him up. He certainly seemed friendly enough, but something about him made me wary too, and then as his eyes glanced at my belt and weapon at my side, I knew he was just as carefully sizing me up—the kind of scrutiny a trained soldier might employ—but with the necessary casual regard. He wasn’t just a merchant at the end of a long journey.

I took his hand and shook it. “Let’s go inside, friend, and wash some of the dust from our throats as well.”