As The World Catches Fire

Chapter 10: Nightmare

It would be a month's journey to the Kaeltan border. Seylas had planned our route to shroud us in secrecy. I hated the idea of doing anything Seylas said, but I didn't' argue. He knew better than anyone how to travel the country unseen, and we could not risk the princess being exposed.

We were to take the Glass Bridge into Andiya's homeland. It was a remnant of the Creators, one of the few wonders they had left behind when they disappeared from our world. The Glass Bridge ran all the way from Bel Arben to Kaelta, but no human had ever crossed it. Whatever magic guarded the daemon lands kept us all away. Ships hoping to sail for daemon shores quickly found themselves sucked down into maelstroms; those who tried to fly across the sea were struck by lightning, wind, and storm; and any who attempted to walk the Glass Bridge did not make it twenty feet before their hearts simply stopped.

We picked our way carefully through the woods, Seylas at our front. This part of our journey was to be the easiest. Once we crossed into Etvia, we would be invaders in a hostile land—to reveal ourselves in the Drahko's land could end with the princess's head on a pike. The Drahko was not an enemy, yet, but his disdain for the Canavar was not a secret.

I asked one of the assistants what they'd told everyone else about the princess's absence.

"Officially, the princess never left the Korongorod," she said. "We dropped all foreign guests off in Volobirsk and refused any further meetings for the next two months. We've informed the public that the princess will remain in her quarters for a period of mourning."

"Mourning who?"

"The ... the archon, Eon. Her father."

"Right. Forgot."

"And how broken up she seems about it," Andiya sniggered.

I flicked the bond. "You should probably learn to respect your future archon."

"No."

We woke just before dawn and mounted up. An assistant attached an ironbow to my saddlebag. While we pushed through the thick underbrush, I noticed that Andiya kept her leg curled away from it.

"Iron didn't seem to bother you while you murdered my archon."

"Oh, it did. My magic just shielded from the pain." Her voice came quieter. "But the iron hurt me well enough when you took my magic away."

While she'd been interrogated. "Well. Maybe that's why you don't kill kings."

"They would have done it regardless," she spat.

I couldn't deny that. The interrogation of a High Order would have been by Seylas's order. Was telling Andiya that her torturer rode just ahead a cruelty or mercy?

She sighed aloud and rested her chin on her shoulder. "I'm bored. You'd think a clandestine mission would be more interesting. But it's just sitting on a horse all day."

Unlike before, I refused to rise to the bait. Let her lean on me if she wanted. She wouldn't get any entertainment out of it. "Find something to do."

"There is nothing for me to play with but you, Rozin. What if ... Ah! Question for question. I know your princess is curious about me."

"And you promise to answer truthfully?"

"I do."

"All right. Ask."

"Who is Kamala?"

I went rigid. No one—not even Yulia—knew that name. I'd worked hard to keep it that way.