Page 1 (1/2)

PART I

1

WE run

My heels crunch sandy shale as s pound a steady rhythful of dry air My chest burns, s with the agony of a ripped blister

Ahead, Belén glances over his shoulder to check on the rest of us His boots and his tunic and even his leather eye patch are tinged brownish orange with the dust of this desert plateau We’ve fallen too far behind, and it’s my fault He checks his stride, but I wave hi, and a failed sorcerer--are all more accustomed than I am to hard travel, and I dare not slow us down We e of this flat, easy terrain while we can, for we have less than two re, sneak into enemy territory, free Hector, and escape Otherwise he dies, and the country we’ve sacrificed so much to save descends into civil war

I unclenchloose, and spring a little harder off of hs intensifies, but it’s only pain, and not nearly the worst I’ve felt I’er than I’ve ever been

Iron clatters behindin my chest But Storm’s uncannily beautiful face is so furroith frustration that I soften toward hi in the dust now, streath of ed, impossible to res so they don’t interfere with his stride or, worse, announce our passage

Mara, her up onto her shoulder and wipes sweat froround and crouches beside Storh the chains"

Storm stretches out an ankle for her I scowl to see my friend bowed at his feet like a supplicant while he accepts her ministrations with an air of supreme boredom

"Mara," I say

She turns a dirt-smeared face to me

"Storm will be responsible for his own chains from now on"

"Oh, I don’t mind!" she says

"I do" So too lare She rolls her eyes at rabs her bow and steps away Storm looks back and forth between us, and I half expect his and hunkers down to tend the chains hio on like this" The low voice in host, even when stealth is unnecessary

"The next village will have horses that haven’t been conscripted," I tell him "It has to"

"And if it doesn’t?"

I turn on hi I’ll have to mount one of the horrible creatures But it’s worse to consider what I must to do in order to accomplish it I say, "If the conscription has reached this far east, we’ll steal sodo experimentally The chain stays put "Conde Eduardo has been planning his rebellion for a long time," he says "Maybe years We won’t find available transportation until we’re in the er Eduardo is one of Joya’s most powerful and trusted lords A member of the Quorum of Five, no less But he has robbed hundreds, maybe thousands, of their livelihoods to feed his aes and food stores, even their young men, for military use And he has done it so that he can divide rab my water skin from its hook at my waist and take a much deeper draft than I should I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and toss the water skin to Mara, who catches it deftly

"A queen shouldn’t have to steal her own horses," Mara says

"Do you have a better suggestion?" I ask "Announce ourwill attract attention too"

I nod "But better than parading in full regalia into the next village and co what I need With luck, the conde won’t hear of the theft for a long tiht not occur to him that it was his queen"

Storm chuckles "Queen, chosen one, horse thief Let it never be said that you are not accolare at him fails when my lips start to twitch

"In that case" Belén says, a slow grin spreading across his face "We need a plan"

The sun is low on the horizon, painting the plateau and its toothed outcroppings in fiery shades of coral The breeze picks up, flinging hair that has loosened froreat sand desert to the south, the evening ill kick up enough dust to make travel almost impossible Not much time left today "A plan ait until we’ve caht," I say

Fro his quiet approval I don’t catch ain

"Elisa?" Mara says

I clench my hands into fists "Let’s run," I say And we do

2

THE afternoon pours heat onto our backs The four of us lie on our bellies on a s red branches of a e below It’s co of adobe hutas and an inn with a stable, all surrounding a cobblestone plaza with its resident well Date pals, bent eastward froe’s southern edge, chewing calo We need horses

Like all the other villages we’ve encountered, it’s crawling with Eduardo’s soldiers Except this tiarb--linen blouses and sturdy pants, utility belts and long desert cloaks--rather than the red-and-black uniform of Eduardo’s countship Were it not for the red ribbons tied around their arms or pinned to their cloaks, no one would know they were Eduardo’s men

"They’ve run out of uniforn"