Page 5

Chapter Four

Guinevere

The rabbit was lean and somewhat tough, but Guinevere was too famished to care. She asked for more, which Oskar obligingly gave.

Once the edge had been taken off her hunger at some point around her third helping, the awfulness of her situation began to set in. She was three weeks away from Nicodranas, without her guards, without a wagon, without the oxen. Her parents were going to wring her neck.

Such a disappointment, Guinevere, she imagined her mother saying. I knew you couldn’t handle something even as simple as this.

I can’t believe you lost Bart and Wart, her father would moan. They were like the children I never had.

And the horrible thing was that it wasn’t even the bandits’ fault that the oxen and the wagon were gone. Guinevere had been the one to manifest Teinidh, because she’d been so afraid that she’d failed to keep a level head.

We should never have listened to that batty old hermit, lamented the imaginary version of her mother.

I should have tossed that terrible amulet straightaway!

The imaginary version of her father nodded along, although with less rancor because he wasn’t the one who’d had to pop out a baby in the middle of an inferno.

“Where is it that you’re supposed to meet your parents?” Oskar asked abruptly. Guinevere told him, and he arched a brow. “The Menagerie Coast is a long walk from here.”

“I’d not planned on walking.” Misery leached into her every word. “I had an escort, as well as a conveyance.”

Gods, this predicament was dire. She had to keep it together, though.

It would be most improper to fall to pieces with Oskar sitting across from her.

He was so impassive and stern…and last night he’d dispatched that giant orc without breaking a sweat, and he’d carried her and the trunk effortlessly through the woods…

and he’d even rustled up some breakfast…

An idea struck.

“Oskar,” she said, with a slow-blossoming hope, “I don’t suppose that you could escort me?” His features hardened, but in this instance, desperation overcame her natural timidity. “Once we reach Nicodranas, Father will see to it that you’re adequately compensated for your trouble—”

“I cannot accompany you south,” he interrupted. “I’m headed north. To Boroftkrah.”

“Oh. I see.”

It could not be overstated how hard Guinevere struggled not to burst into tears in front of a man she’d met only the previous night.

But despair rose from the bottom of her stomach and filled her chest and tangled in her throat.

What was she going to do? She didn’t even know the way out of these woods.

Her eyes grew moist and, mortified, she tried to rein it in, her bottom lip quivering.

Oskar’s sharp jaw clenched. “However, I will take you to Druvenlode.” He couldn’t quite conceal his annoyance at this disruption in his schedule, which made matters worse. “It’s the nearest settlement. If we start walking now, we can get there before dusk—damn it, Guinevere, stop crying.”

“Druvenlode is still south, though!” she wailed, wringing her hands. “I’ll be t-taking you out of your w-way!”

“It’s no trouble,” he said curtly. “I live there, and I need to restock what was destroyed in the blaze.”

At this blunt reminder that the supplies for his own journey had also gone up in flames, thanks to her, Guinevere cried even harder.

Memories of last night’s events swept through her like a wave, jumbled yet relentless, dragging her into a deep and tumultuous ocean of belated terror that was no place for a girl who could call the wildfire.

A heavy hand fell on the round of her shoulder.

Oskar was crouched beside her, doling out awkward pats as she sobbed.

He was so strong and broad, her unlikely rescuer, and she was overcome by a fierce longing to throw herself into his arms, to draw comfort from his warmth.

But years of etiquette lessons and cutting corrections stopped her.

They’d only just met. He was neither a relative nor her betrothed.

She was wearing a nightgown, for crying out loud.

It wasn’t proper. There were rules. Those bandits certainly hadn’t lived by the rules, and Guinevere wasn’t going to let them drag her down with them.

So she just stayed still and kept weeping.

“You’re safe now. That’s what matters.” Oskar’s tone was surly and ill at ease, but the words…

somehow, the words were what she needed to hear.

She clutched at them like they were lifelines.

“It was unfair, what happened, but you made it through admirably. None of it was your fault. You’re all right now. You survived.”

Not your fault.

She had never heard that before.

Guinevere got her last few tears out of the way, then smiled at Oskar softly. He tensed and withdrew from her, shooting to his feet.

“Let’s get going,” he muttered.

He lent her a tunic from his surviving pack. It was most scandalous to wear a strange man’s clothes, but anything was better than her muddy, too-thin nightgown. She retreated into the privacy of the cave to change, discarding the ruined white garment with a sigh of relief.

Oskar’s tunic was spun from coarse, sandstone-hued hemp.

It was the roughest fabric that Guinevere had ever felt against her skin.

The hem fell almost to her knees, and the cuffs dangled so far past her wrists that she had to roll the sleeves up to her elbows, but the tunic was clean and dry and did not smell overly much of smoke. It was a vast improvement.

She slung the satchel over one shoulder and dragged the trunk out of the cave by its ornate handle.

She was almost brought up short by the sight of Oskar slouched carelessly against a tree while he waited for her.

He was tall and imposing in the dappled morning light, his skin a sylvan commingling of golden sunbeams and oakmoss shadows, the threadbare tunic clinging to his solid chest. His wavy hair was a black halo around his terse face and was pulled back enough for her to glimpse the points of his ears.

His strong jaw protruded slightly, making space for those white tusks that sliced upward like crescents.

He looked dangerous. Like he belonged to this wilderness that had bested her. And yet the thrill that fluttered through the pit of her stomach laid no claim to any part of the inhospitable territory that was fear.

What was it, then?

Before Guinevere could examine her odd reaction to him, Oskar’s tawny gaze fell on the trunk, and a long-suffering expression darkened his features. He went over to her and tucked it under his arm the way he had last night.

“I can haul it along,” Guinevere protested, not wanting him to expend any more effort on her account.

He cast a dismissive glance over her petite frame. “Trust me, it’ll be faster this way.”

He stomped off, leaving her no choice but to follow.

They hiked west for several minutes, over gnarled roots and black earth, through bramble and birdsong, stewing in that awkward what-did-I-do-wrong- now silence that Guinevere was quickly coming to associate with her rescuer.

Eventually the dense curtain of red-and-brown trees parted, revealing the Amber Road—the Dwendalian Empire’s main thoroughfare, a wide and dusty path that snaked all the way from Rexxentrum to the Wuyun Gates.

It was a clear day. Beneath a deep blue sky, Guinevere spotted the towering, autumn-rusted peaks of the Silberquel Ridge in the distance; chiseled into its base was the collection of streets and rooftops that made up the mining city of Druvenlode.

The Amber Road veered left of the Silberquel, spilling on into forever.

Something about all the open space gave off a sense of endless possibility, and the back of Guinevere’s neck prickled with excitement despite herself.

She was on an adventure. She would go to interesting places and meet interesting people. All she had to do was follow the road, and it would lead her to new experiences beyond her staid, elegant life in the Shimmer Ward…

“Quit dawdling!” Oskar called without looking back. He was several feet ahead of her.

Guinevere stuck her tongue out at him in an uncharacteristic burst of churlish mutiny, then hurried to match his pace.