Page 15 of The Starlit Ring (The Chronicles of Liridin #1)

T he next few days passed in a blur. There weren’t many extra horses, and I wasn’t to be trusted anyway, so I sat next to one of the wagon drivers. A long, grey beard hung to his belly. His irises were a deep amber, nearly orange. I tried not to make too much eye contact.

But Jerek was kindly, if a little odd, and regarded me with only some trepidation.

My arrival sent the camp into a frenzy. The first night in Ria’s tent, I lay awake listening to conversations as they passed us.

Everyone wondered if I was a traitor, if I was sent by King Amonrew, if Ria knew about me.

I fully expected someone to try to sneak in and kill me.

I was somewhat shocked when I woke in the morning, exhausted and aching, but unharmed.

There were always too many eyes upon me. My skin felt as if it might crawl from my body, and away from me. I braided my hair (luckily still brown) in an attempt to divert some gazes, but it didn’t work. My long, loose waves weren’t the problem, after all.

Maybe it was the sword at my hip, which I was begrudgingly allowed after I swore to multiple soldiers that I was only here to guard Ria (and do her hair).

Maybe it was my skirt. I hadn’t thought to bring any pants, although to be fair, I hardly owned any.

Father abhorred a woman in pants, claiming that they left too little to the imagination, that he knew too much about them at first glance.

The only pair I owned was for horse riding, and I didn’t always wear them—Father preferred I rode sidesaddle, and I preferred not to argue with him.

Ria and I shared little resemblance, so I doubted that anyone had guessed the truth of our relationship.

I was shorter and fuller-figured, where she was tall and willowy.

Her hair was so dark it was nearly black, her eyes a steely blue.

I was paler, with hazel eyes, and now honey blond hair, thanks to the pin.

Though we had similar noses, my features were not nearly as delicate and dainty as Ria’s.

My mother was fuller figured, descended from a long line of northerners, and I took after her. Strong arms, broad shoulders, thick thighs. Though I was not large, I was more robust than Ria.

Women were uncommon around camp, working primarily as servants. Few though they were, they kept the camp running—building fires, cooking food, setting up tents, tending the horses. I felt out of place as I watched them work, suddenly aware of how coddled I was.

I knew next to nothing of travel, let alone setting up a camp. I offered to help, but the servants only rolled their eyes and assured me that the process would go faster if I stayed away.

So I spent a lot of time sweeping Ria’s hair into elaborate, braided updos that made her like a warrior queen, ready to ride out to battle on horseback, sword raised, breastplate gleaming in the sunrise.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. She stared grumpily at me from beneath her heavy cloak, cheeks red from the cold, consternation in her eyes as I passed her the mirror. “I look like a Northerner.”

“Well, that’s the idea,” I said, deflating. Our mother wore her hair like this sometimes, when the mood struck her. Had Ria forgotten?

“Tocchia isn’t that far north,” she said, tilting her head one way, then another. “How did you learn to do this?”

I shrugged. “Boredom, mostly.” And a desire to connect with our mother, half-forgotten, more shadow than memory with each passing year.

The days dragged on. To pass the time, Jerek told me stories of Tocchia.

Of princes and kings who fought knee-deep in rushing rivers, queens who crawled through broken glass to save their heirs from certain death, the merpeople who visited from the coast, of the sky islands that hovered over the forest, mist layering between treetops and floating rock.

All things that sounded more fairytale than truth, but I’d heard King Amonrew mention them, too.

Olmstead didn’t have mer, he’d once explained. The Halbard Sea was too cold, the rocks too sharp for them to easily come ashore.

I thought Father was just telling stories. By nature, he was not a man of whimsy. I probably should have known better, especially when Rowan once suggested trade with the mer. At the time, I thought him as drunk as Baden, and opted to politely ignore his ramblings.

“They’re real,” Jerek told me, laughing when my eyes widened.

“They’re very real. You’ll probably meet them.

They’ll want to meet the new princess of the realm.

And you’d never know it, unless you saw them crawling out of the sea like urchins.

They clean up real well, they do. Not like those seaweed dragging monsters you see in all the paintings. ”

A tapestry in the castle library depicted the mer naked and dripping, with seaweed climbing their legs like the wrappings of elaborate sandals, starfish in their hair, conch chariots rising from the depths behind them.

As a child, I’d been both fascinated and terrified by it.

The mer exuded power and mystery. The stormy sky and riotous waves lent the tapestry a sinister tone. One that haunted my nightmares.

It was fire that I feared the most. The excruciating heat of flames, the choking black smoke, the voracious appetite.

But the sea was not so different, I thought.

Overwhelming and dark, it could drag you down, down, down into its depths.

People built boats and told themselves that they were safe, but that was all up to chance, and any fool knew it.

So like any reasonable person, I chose to align myself with the forge.

Prince Marius passed by frequently, always when I was at Ria’s side. Though he scrutinized me less than the soldiers, I sensed his eyes on me and tried to avoid them. I didn’t like the way he looked at me—like he knew something I didn’t.

Nor did I like to look at him. He hadn’t gotten uglier, like I’d hoped.

In daylight, he was absolutely mesmerizing.

Always loosely tied back, his long hair captured the sunlight, emphasizing a berry blush of warmth in his cheeks.

Those cheekbones were still prominent, his lips full and soft.

Pale lashes framed glacial blue eyes. His eyebrows were too expressive for propriety, always jumping and angling and pulling together.

An easy tell. I would bet good money that they nearly drove King Hergarv of Tocchia to madness.

No heir to the throne should betray his emotions so easily.

This was a weakness I approved of and secretly gloated over. Prince Marius might think that he could observe me from afar without my notice, but I knew better, and did my best to either disappear from his line of sight or become unbearably boring.

He was right to be skeptical, of course. A war could be triggered if he were caught trafficking a princess—or a spy or an assassin or whatever else I might be accused of—into Tocchia.

Sometimes, I felt bad about that. Then I looked to Ria, miserable and lonely, and decided that I’d made the right choice. I couldn’t abandon her now. Couldn’t bear to lose her .

We would manage, somehow. Together, we always found our way.

My confidence waned as we entered the mountains.

Snow crunched beneath my feet and dusted the branches of evergreens and the pockmarked surfaces of great, mossy boulders.

Deer darted between trees and crashed through the underbrush.

Once, the scouts ahead encountered a bear, massive and snarling, with scars across its muzzle and claws longer than a human finger.

It disappeared into the woods, but we had no doubt that it was still out there somewhere.

At night, wolves and wind howled as one. Our tent threatened to rip free from its stakes, and I feared what might happen if it collapsed. I slept with a knife under my pillow, but what if I couldn’t cut through the heavy leather in time?

The trail grew rocky and uneven. We traveled slowly, so that the horses were less likely to snap their legs.

Castle Ackervail lurked in the shadow of the mountains, in the rugged terrain along the rocky sea.

Our winters were frozen, our summers mild.

The mountains were great, jagged specters capped in white and grey, so lined with trees so that they appeared furred on clear days.

I had little appreciation for the way the pass would swallow us whole, carrying us alongside verdant valleys dotted with brilliant, turquoise lakes and ponds.

Ledges were sharp and steep. One wrong move, and I might topple into those depths—a sea of green trees, massive boulders, and swaying grasses far below. Like an open maw.

Ridges and sharp peaks stretched out before us, harsh, unforgiving, beautiful in the same way as a cougar or shark. It was easy to forget the danger until the hair stood up on the back of your neck.

As a company, we were a racket, nearly a riot, stomping through the mountains, all clanking armor, thumping wheels, and loud voices.

Sometimes, the soldiers erupted into song, and Jerek and I would join in, raising our voices high, garbling the melodies and mixing up the words.

Most of the soldiers shot us dirty looks, but others conspired with us, creating parodies of the original lyrics, their laughter echoing through the trees.

This isn’t to say that we weren’t miserable.

Winds whipped at high speed, threatening to overturn the wagons, chapping our skin, aggravating the horses.

The mornings and nights were frozen. Even with the sun to warm us during the day, a cloak and boots didn’t feel like enough protection from the cold.

Twice, it snowed. Fat, heavy flakes that drifted slowly to the ground, compounding the piles already there, spreading slowly across the forest floor like a pestilence. The wind was cruelly cold. It leeched the warmth from my bones and fed it to the frozen sky.

Our tent could not keep out the chill. Ria and I slept beneath a pile of heavy furs, huddled together for warmth, as we did when we were children.

Except now there was no giggling. No stories were whispered, no hopes and dreams traded.

Shock had stolen the words from Ria, and I feared making things worse for her by saying too much, so I kept my mouth shut, loneliness locked deep inside.

I missed my snarky, angry sister. The woman in her place was tired, lost, broken down. Sometimes I saw Prince Marius and hoped he might fall over the ledge, and land atop a bed of sharp rocks.

Why did he want Ria so badly? Vengeance? Jealousy? A sense of ownership?

For all that I wanted him dead, Prince Marius didn’t seem to feel any of these things.

So far as I could tell, he was not overtly wicked.

It didn’t matter what Ria did—he offered no opinion.

Did not warn her away from the outskirts of camp when she went to empty her chamber pot (something I, as her new maid, had promised to do and promptly forgotten).

He did not care that she never rode with him, and often preferred to walk amongst the soldiers, head held high, fine boots growing dirtier by the day.

If he were naturally cruel, he might force her to walk, or to sit beside him—whichever was worse. He might withhold food or water, or force to share his tent. But he never did any of those things.

He was far from kind, and I didn’t trust him one bit, but I didn’t think he posed an immediate threat.

Hypocritical though it might be, I monitored him, too.

What kind of man ordered an attack on the castle of his former betrothed?

It wasn’t like he and Ria were in love, or he couldn’t find another arrangement.

If not for his hasty actions, the alliance between Tocchia and Olmstead might have one day been repaired.

I watched, and I pondered, and I waited.