Talin took a seat, softening a bit. “I’m sure there will be exceptions made for special circumstances.”

Shale shook his head. “I’m afraid not. We were told to report for duty one morning, no exceptions. Ella and I ran that night.”

I looked across the fire at Talin. He was staring into the flames, his expression unreadable. “Surely you can stop running,” I said. “Meradin is neutral territory, and the woman king won’t be coming this far north.”

“Perhaps. But once we started moving, I wasn’t really sure when to stop. We have no other family. It seems as if the entire kingdom is at war, or about to be.” He took a few bites of stew, stretching his long legs out in front of him. “What about you? Where are you heading?”

“To Galeth,” Talin said, surprising me. I wasn’t sure if he would reveal our destination to a stranger.

Shale’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “Is that where you’re from?”

“No. We’re Ilarean.”

Shale looked at Zadie and me. “Not these two.”

I smiled. “No, not us.”

“Where are you from?” Ella asked Zadie. My sister had always been the more maternal of the two of us, and Ella had gravitated to her like a moth to a lantern.

“We’re from a place called Varenia,” Zadie told her. “We’re refugees, just like you.”

“Varenia?” Ella asked. “Where the princesses come from?”

Zadie nodded. “That’s right. It’s a small village in the middle of the Alathian Sea.”

“But you don’t really live in the ocean, do you?” Ella looked at her father for confirmation. He nodded, and she turned back to Zadie, eyes narrowed. “I thought only mermaids lived in the ocean.”

Zadie and I chuckled. “Our mother always said my sister is half fish.”

“Is that so?” Talin grinned at me, finally relaxing.

I wiggled my feet in the air in front of me. “A quarter fish, at most.”

Ella laughed, and in that moment, we were all friends traveling the same road together. As we settled down for the night in our bedrolls, our bellies full of stew, my heart still light with Ella’s laughter, I turned to Talin.

“Good night,” I said sleepily.

His hands were folded behind his head and he was staring up at the night sky, wide awake. “Good night, Nor.”

“What’s the matter?” I scooted closer. Osius was standing first watch, and everyone else was already asleep, or close to it.

“I can’t stop thinking about what Shale said about my mother.” Talin rolled to his side, propping his head on his hand. His cheeks were shadowed with stubble, which made him look older, less like a princeling and more like the fugitive he had become.

“He wasn’t talking about your mother,” I said gently. “Not really. The people have built this woman king up in their minds. She’s become some mythical creature, when in reality she’s your four-year-old sister.”

“If that’s true, it’s only because my mother allowed it. Encouraged it.”

“I’m sure she felt like she had to. How else would she get people to join her cause?”

Talin stared at me for a few moments, but I knew he wasn’t really seeing me. “Do you think she’s actually forcing people to join her army?”

I could see the fear in Talin’s eyes, his concern that his mother had become someone he didn’t know in the past four years. I shared his apprehension. It was easier for me to believe she had changed, having never known her in the first place. But he didn’t need me to add to his worries. He needed my support.

“I think,” I said finally, reaching for his hand, “that there are two sides to every story. I’m sure Shale isn’t lying, but I also don’t believe your mother is behind whatever forced him to flee. She’s doing all of this for her own children, after all. She wouldn’t be that cruel. No one who raised you could be.”

His smile almost reached his eyes. “Thank you. You’re probably right. I’m letting my fears get the best of me.”

“Understandably.” I glanced at the forest around us. The fire had died down, and despite the moonlight, there was something about the trees that made me uneasy. I preferred the wide open skies of Varenia, where it was much more difficult for something to sneak up on you.

Talin smiled and patted the ground next to him. “For warmth.”

I only hesitated for a moment. Everyone knew how Talin and I felt about each other. What did it matter if we slept closer to one another?

I dragged my bedroll next to his and tucked myself under his outstretched arm, which started to close around me. When he felt me flinch, he lowered his arm until his hand just rested on my hip.

“What is it?” he asked.

I closed my eyes, not even sure myself why I didn’t like the feel of his strong arms around my chest. Gods knew I had, once. “It’s nothing.”

Within moments, I could feel Talin’s breath on the back of my neck, deep and even, and I was glad that my presence calmed him, even if I couldn’t relax in his arms. I didn’t know what awaited us around the next bend in the road, but our fears had not gotten the best of us yet.

The best was here, in the space between us, soft and warm and safe.

9

The next morning, we left Shale and Ella on the road, wishing them a safe journey. They were on foot, and we couldn’t afford to wait for them. I hoped they found a place to settle where they could live in peace. It seemed like such a simple thing to wish for.

The fifth day of our journey was uneventful, though we were all growing weary of the road. While I had developed calluses on my hands from rowing so much in Varenia, they had softened during my time in Ilara, and my palms were raw from gripping the reins. Every morning when I went to saddle Titania, she lowered her head and exhaled heavily through her nostrils, the equine equivalent of a sigh.

On the evening of the sixth day, when by all accounts we should have been close to the Galethian border, Osius pulled out his map of the continent and spread it on a large rock.

“Why is Galeth blank?” I asked, peering over Talin’s shoulder at the map. “Surely the mapmaker knows what the geography is like there.”

Talin glanced at me with a knowing smile. “Perhaps. But this is an Ilarean map. Whoever commissioned it, probably my grandfather, would have told the mapmaker to leave it blank. It’s still a sore spot that the Galethians took that piece of land from us.”

“What is it like?”