Briony shook her head. “It was by no means all bad. They saved us from bandits.” She remembered Dowan Birch’s bloodless face and half-opened, unseeing eyes. “Most of us ...” Her joy at having been spared turned into something cold and heavy. “Can we send for my companions, the players? They do not know what has happened to me. They probably think I am going to be beheaded or dragged back to Tessis.” She stopped in confusion. “Am I going back to Tessis? What will happen to me now that I am your prisoner, Prince Eneas?”
He looked startled. “Never my prisoner, Lady. Never. Do not even think such a terrible thing. Of course, you are free to go where you will… although, yes, I pray you will let me take you back to Tessis. We can clear your name of these offensive, baseless charges. It is the least I can do.”
“But your stepmother, Ananka, hates me ...”
For a moment Eneas’ expression hardened. “She is not my stepmother. With the grace of the gods my father will soon end this unseemly relationship.”
Briony doubted it would be so easy. “Still,” she said, “Two people close to me were poisoned by someone trying to murder me.”
“But you would be at my side,” Eneas said. “Under my personal protection.”
The idea of letting someone as kind and strong and competent as Eneas take charge of her was certainly tempting—Briony had been on her own a very long time. Her father was gone, both her brothers were gone, and it would be such a relief just to rest… “No,” she said at last. “I thank you, Highness, but I can’t go back to Tessis.”
He did his best to smile. “So be it. Still, whatever refuge you choose, Princess, I hope you will let me escort you there safely. That is the least I owe you for your harsh treatment in my father’s court.”
“Then take me back to the players—your captain knows where they are. And tell me everything you’ve heard and seen since we last spoke,” said Briony. “But I think no matter what I hear, I’ll still want the same thing—to go back to Southmarch. My people are in sore need.”
“If that is your choice,” said Eneas solemnly, “then I will take you there, though the legions of black Zmeos himself block my way.”
“Please, don’t talk about the gods, especially the angry ones,” Briony said in sudden alarm. “They are too much with us already.”
When it happened, it happened quickly.
Many days had passed as the fishing boat on which Qinnitan was a prisoner followed the coast of Syan into lower Brenland and into the straits that separated Brenland from Connord and the many smaller, rocky islands surrounding it. As a young woman who had spent most of her life in the Hive or the Royal Seclusion Qinnitan would have known none of this, but she had discovered that during the morning hours after he had swallowed his potion or whatever it was, Daikonas Vo would now sometimes answer questions. Clearly, something of his iron control was slipping, but Qinnitan did her best to speak to him only sparingly for fear of this unlikely spring of knowledge suddenly drying up.
Qinnitan had known for a few days that Vo was taking his physick every night as well as in the morning: he became more and more agitated as the afternoons wore away until he quieted himself with the potion a short time after dark. She did not understand exactly what this meant but she was grateful for the slackening of his attention, which allowed her time to think and saw through her rope with an iron rail.
For some time all she could see on the coast sliding past had been stony headlands, cruel cliffs with waves beating at them like beggars pounding on a bolted door. But today, as Vo paced the deck and old Vilas plied the tiller, his sons sitting at his feet like stones, the fishing boat slid past a last bulwark of hills. The rocky front suddenly dropped away to reveal a great, flat expanse of wet sand dotted here and there with massive round stones like the dropped toys of giant children. Beyond this wet tidal flat the land rose into grassy hills spotted with groves of white-barked trees; beyond lay a forest lay spread like a dark green blanket on the knees of distant hills.
Tonight, she decided: if it was ever to happen, it must be tonight. Soon the coastline might be all rocky cliffs again as it had been for days, stones against which even a good swimmer would be crushed and drowned. It had to be tonight.
It wasn’t hard to stay awake, but it was very hard to remain still. She forced herself to keep her eyes closed as much as she could, fighting the urge to make certain that the moon she had just looked at a few moments before was still as bright.
Vo was mumbling to himself, a good sign. When she had last dared to look at him he had been scratching his arms and neck with his fingernails as he paced, and rubbing his belly as though it pained him.
“… Waking up,” he said, then let loose a string of curses in gutter Xixian that would have made the Qinnitan of a year earlier blush and grow dizzy. “Tricked!” he growled. “Not asleep at all. Both of them! They knew! Did it to me!”
He stopped pacing at last and Qinnitan lay as still as she could, doing her best not to breathe. She risked opening her eye just a slit. Vo had his back to her and was licking the needle that he used to take his potion. To her surprise, he dipped into the bottle again, then lifted the needle to his mouth.
Licking the needle three times in a day! Was that good for her or bad? She thought for a moment and decided it could only be good. She found it even more difficult to wait now, but the gods were kind to her: after only a short while, Vo sagged down to sit on the deck.
Through half-shut eyes she watched until the moon had dropped behind the mainsail. Then, after taking a long breath and letting it out slowly, Qinnitan rolled over, snapped the last threads of rope, and crawled toward the shadowed figure leaning against the mast.
“Akar,” she whispered, using the Xixian word for master. “Akar Vo, can you hear me?” She reached out and gave him a carefully measured shake. His head lolled. His mouth opened a little as though he might say something, which made her start back in alarm, but his eyes remained shut and no sound came.
She gave him another gentle shake and as she did she let her hand slide into his cloak. She searched until she found his purse and drew it out. It was heavier than she’d expected, made of heavily oiled leather. She shoved the bits of hard bread she had saved into it, then froze in terror for a moment as her captor stirred and mumbled. When he had once more gone still, she quickly tied the purse to the piece of cord she wore as a belt over her tattered, threadbare servant’s dress from Hierosol. Her heart was beating very fast. Did she really dare to do this?
Of course she did. She could do nothing else. Now that Pigeon was gone she owed her life to no one. If she died trying to escape—well, that still would be better than what awaited her when she was given back to the autarch, of that Qinnitan had no doubt.
She reached into Vo’s cloak again and found the bottle, pinching it carefully between finger and thumb to draw it out. For a moment she hesitated. If she drank it herself, all her problems would be over—at least all problems that troubled the living. The darkness inside the small glass container called to her, a sleep from which she would never have to awake—so tempting… ! But the memory of the young man named Barrick, her dream-friend, tugged at her. Had he really turned his back on her? Or had something happened to him—did he need her help? If she ended her life she would never know.
Decided, Qinnitan pulled out the glass stopper, sent up a prayer to the golden bees of Nushash that she had tended for so long, then upended the bottle over Vo’s mouth.