Exile. Part 21

Again Robert fought the pole, then cried out as sparks burned his bare flesh.

Horizon attacked the tent flap.

And the raider took another step into the smoke. "You have witnessed"-cough!-"the strength of the Anthone military before."

Anthone. That was the accent.

Robert crouched low, his eyes watering from the smoke's sting. "Edward ordered men onto Tyralian land?"

"Why not?" The raider took another step. "Your king will never know. Or care."

What was that supposed to mean? That even the soldiers of Anthone had heard of the Tyralian king's apathy toward the northern half of his country? "His daughter will."

"She is the one who gave her blessing."

And then Robert knew. In that instant, he understood. The connection. Everything.

Melony. She had bought Anthone's help. Had let the neighboring military into her father's guard and hired them to murder her sister. She, not the king, had chosen Aurelia's escort. And as payment to Anthone, the blond princess had bartered the desert horses of the southern Geordian.

Was she powerful enough to hire palace guards? Robert's father had wanted to know.

The answer was that she was even more powerful. Powerful enough to destroy a treaty, devious enough to let a foreign power infiltrate her father's defenses, and foolish enough to invite another country onto Tyralian land.

But Anthone was a fool as well. "Has she married him?" Robert demanded. Because what else could she have promised to convince the old monarch that her own vendetta was his?

"No."

"And she won't," Robert replied. "Your king is deceived. He's bartered away peace to support the wrong successor. And I a.s.sure you her sister will care!"

If she lived. In the name of Tyralt, let Aurelia survive. He thought about the raids the interrogator had described, the deaths and other crimes committed by the attackers. Drew had been right. And Thomas. And way down deep, Robert himself. Because he had always known, from the very beginning of the expedition, that Melony could not become queen.

The smoke had grown so thick he could see nothing beyond the base of the raider's trousers, the fold in the cloth, and the lure of the blade that would sever his own soul.

Somewhere beyond, music still played, rising and swelling louder than ever.

And then a deep, soul-wrenching cry ripped through the harmony as an entire people raised their voices in terror.

Darkness enveloped Aurelia. Not smoke. But another scalding, choking blackness that stopped her heart and clogged her lungs. Her own barrier. Clotting her skull and crushing her mind.

She could not let the flames enter.

But they were already there. Inside her. Smoldering in her nightmares. Disguised in denial, and doubt, and even the great need to prove herself.

Now she would die as she had been meant to die that night in the forest.

We all will.

The thought jarred the blackness from her mind.

The screams continued, one long uninterrupted howl that bled from every corner of the tent. Bodies scrambled over her: hands, legs, elbows. Not people anymore but parts, plowing against one another, slamming, tangling, piling away from the entrance. Trampling each other.

Memory jolted her back in time. To Tyralt City. And the day the people in the marketplace, angry over a new tax, had unleashed their anger against the stone image of her father. They had formed a mob-a group as unhinged as this. And she had stopped them-had spoken and stepped into the crowd.

But here she was invisible, too invisible to even have lost her weapon. Her hand clutched the hard metal in her waistband. The knife was useless. She could not carve her way through panic. Nothing would stop these people. Nothing meant more to them than their own lives.

Except, perhaps, the life of one man.

She thrust her gaze into the chaos of tangled bodies. The Oracle was close, though out of reach. She squeezed under an arm and around a hip, then lost ground, a length of turban catching her throat, pulling her down. She wrenched it away, then had to fight the undertow. The bodies pushed, kicked, and jabbed, but she battled her way up. There before her was her only hope.

Aurelia pulled the blade from her waistband and thrust it to the Oracle's neck.

Stop! Her mind cried beneath the screams, not at the man, but at the people in panic. Please stop!

And they did. First those close enough to see the blade. And then others, the silence peeling out in a stunning swath, its power stronger in the midst of chaos than a thousand shouts. Heads turned; eyes hinged on the man in peril. He had not moved. Had not resisted the blade at his neck. Instead, he held perfectly still until the final screams were sucked into the silence.

Then his fingers closed ever so slightly upon her wrist. "And what will you do now?" he whispered in perfect Tyralian.

Aurelia's heart thudded as she took in the status of the fire. The flames had not yet spread past the entrance. Instead, they had risen, eating their way up the canvas exterior and catching on the edges of the inner divide, forming a gap-a narrow gap beneath a blazing arrow-shaped curtain of dripping cinders and burning fabric. Her fist tightened on the knife. She could cut her own exit, but the breeze would suck its way through, sweeping the flames ahead. Over everyone.

Instead she guided the Oracle forward, straight up to the blazing curtain. She flung the knife through the gap in a public gesture, then pointed the man toward the blade. If she led, no one would follow. "Go!" she pleaded.

But the Oracle declined, holding the flat of his hand to her chest and calling out in words she did not understand. Then a surge of men swept forward, released from the crowd at even the farthest reaches of the tent. Not boys. Not old men. Warriors. They formed a column, then stormed beneath the flaming exit.

Their voices erupted outside in a fierce battle cry. Answered by birdlike shrieks and cracks of gunfire. The raiders, Aurelia realized. Death waited outside.

But her eyes followed the flames. The fire had scaled the open inner canvas and reached the wingtip of the phoenix on the ceiling. Now it was only a matter of time before the tent began to fall.

She tugged the veil from her face and met the solemn gray eyes of the Oracle. He knew the danger, yet was telling her to wait. Together they watched the flames stretch and reach, spreading their way over the crowd, bringing with them the choking, stinging smoke that could be just as deadly as the heat.

Still the hand blocked her chest.

Then a warrior, blood spattered on his face and arms, burst back inside. Had she not been so close, she would never have recognized him as the bridegroom. He was motioning for people to come.

The Oracle stepped back. "You may go," he said.

But she could not, not with their people still here. "After the tribe." She took her own step back, aligning herself with the edge of the flames so that she and the spiritual leader formed the posts of a gate to the flaming exit.

His response was to turn to the Jaheem. He spoke and they poured through-the same people who had almost trampled one another before, now working together. Children carried babies. Elders guided youngsters. Mothers helped the elderly. A woman's skirt caught on fire, but an old man smothered the flames in the folds. A girl dropped her doll, and the boy behind her picked it up before she had time to cry.

The Oracle said something to each person, and Aurelia wished she could understand the words because as the black smoke coiled its way down, infecting the air and thrusting the remnants of the group forward, her own turn became imminent. And fear grappled her soul.

Could she do it? Could she face the flames? Because everything in her mind said that this was her fault. That somehow, by eluding the fire in her past, she had brought it here, upon these people. And she could not-must not leave until every last one of them had escaped.

And even then ... did she have the right-if this was her fate?

The line for escape had dwindled down to two. A woman, frozen in fear, and a boy, screaming and clutching at his mother's waist.

Without thinking or wasting time, Aurelia wrenched the boy from his mother and hauled him kicking and screaming through the gap.

Out.

Beyond the flames.

Bodies littered the ground. She dared not look at them. She could do nothing for the dead.

Instead she looked up. The Oracle and the woman had escaped the burning curtain, and without Aurelia noticing, the screaming boy had detached himself from her grip and run back to his mother. There were people all over. Though no raiders that she could see. Not living. Only the Jaheem. Black with soot. Coughing. And staring at the chaos around them.

Horses were everywhere, eyes wild and rolling, hooves pounding without direction, heads tossing and flinching away from the flames. Heavy smoke rose in a thick solid cloud. The tents were burning. All the tents.

Robert! He was in one. Bound.

Aurelia sprinted then, not sure where she was going, but past the tribal sphere. She fought her way through a charred gap, not heeding the smoke beneath her boots.

There! Across the sand. Another bonfire. "No!" Her feet raced, her heart pounding with denial. For there was no way to enter the tent before her. No barren canvas. Barely a structure. A familiar red stallion reared nearby, screaming at the top of his lungs.

"No!" she yelled, and thrust herself toward the flames.

A hand grabbed her, holding her back, the fierce grip digging into the flesh beneath her elbow.

No! She screamed and fought the restraint. Only one grip, but it would not tear free. She jabbed with her heels, tripped and fell to her knees, tugging her captor down with her, then flailed backward with her right arm.

"Curse it, Aurelia! Stop!"

The use of her name brought her to a halt as the captor pulled her up against his hard chest.

"I'm all right." Robert's voice was in her hair, beside her ear.

Emotion poured out of her, relief ricocheting through her insides and violently shaking its way from her body. He was alive. Alive.

She whirled and flung her arms around his neck.

He flinched, and then she remembered his injury, camouflaged by the soot. He had been in the fire. As close to the flames as she had been. Dropping her hold, she traced his face, the sharp furrows of his forehead, the dark streaks across his cheekbones, and those blue, blue eyes she had rejected the last time she had seen him.

His left hand was on her neck, caressing her hairline, and then his lips were on hers. Fierce. Tight. And there was nothing she would have or could have done to stop them. For this one moment, there was no future or past or destiny. Only Robert.

Her hands wavered, palms skimming down his chest, afraid of hurting him, then they found the raw marks on his right wrist.

He stiffened and pulled away.

Her gaze fell to the rope burns. "How did you-"

"The raider who tried to burn down the tent." Robert's voice was harsh. "He had a knife."

Chapter Twenty.

THE ORACLE.

"YOU DID NOT KILL HIM." THE LOW VOICE DRILLED into Robert as he stepped across the blackened threshold the next morning.

The spiritual leader of the Geordian sat directly upon the sand at the heart of the barren tent. His long white robes disguised the limbs crossed underneath, and despite the hardship of the past day, his face was smooth. Expressionless. Two knives lay before him, one tinted black.

Obtained from the ashes.

Robert relived those final moments in the burning tent. The screams of an entire tribe echoing in his eardrums, smoke tearing through his lungs and shredding its way through his chest. And the desperate grab he had made for the knife.

He had been prepared to kill. Had been certain once the hilt was in his hands he would have no other option. But the blade had remained a tool, not a weapon. The rope had severed. And the raider who had started the fire had chosen to use Robert as a human shield rather than an enemy.

Not cowardice. A change in judgment. The type that came when death was imminent.

Robert forced himself to respond to the Oracle's statement. "I've killed before," he said. "I had no wish to do it again."

Gray eyes delved into his soul. "The men who brought you here three days ago could not tell me your name, or hers." The leader nodded toward the tent flap. "I think it always wise to know whom one is capturing; do you not, Robert Vantauge?" The name dropped like shoveled ash.

Without response.

Robert too knew the art of testing a theory.

The Oracle spun the blackened blade in a slow circle. "I had heard of a man from both the north and the south who traveled toward the desert on a magnificent stallion," he continued, "but at no time was I told that this stallion belonged to the Geordian."

"The stallion is mine," Robert replied. "His sire was given to my family by a trapper who claimed to have won the horse from a desert tribe in a gambling match."

"My people do not play cards." The Oracle traced a line in the sand with the blade.

"No, but that does not mean they do not gamble."

A thin curve crept up the corner of the Oracle's mouth, and the sketch in the sand began to wind in a long connected spiral. "Six years ago, a trader came to the desert on a frontier mustang. My people laughed at him, not only because they had no need of his furs, but because they found his horse to be dull and ugly. He challenged them to a horse race, the prize for which would be a steed. My people, of course, did not want the mustang, but the bargain was made to defend their honor. And the race was won by the man and his ugly brown horse."

The blade came to a stop, then switched directions. "An important lesson was learned that day, I think," the spiritual leader continued. "Though the tribe members involved in the bargain were not gracious in their loss. The trapper was given a Geordian stallion, a wild red with a violent temper. This, I believe, may have been the sire of your horse."

"Then you admit Horizon is Robert's." Aurelia's voice swept in from the tent's entrance, followed by her disheveled figure. There was ash on her skirt and sand in her hair. Blood streaked her right cheekbone. She had been helping to dig the graves.

"Ah." The Oracle lifted the second knife. "On this point, we differ, Your Highness."

Robert's veins tightened.

But Aurelia's voice remained cool. When had she developed such calm? "You just stated that Horizon's sire was fairly won."

The Oracle acquiesced. "It was not illegal for the Geordian red to be given away or for your companion's family to accept the gift." He swept a swift X through the spiral. "However, it was illegal for them to keep the stallion's offspring."

"That is politics, not truth," she replied. "Your men saw how angry the stallion became when Robert was shot with the arrow. And yesterday Horizon helped capture the raider that set fire to the prisoner's tent. You believe in the bond between man and horse, do you not?"