The pace increased after the cistern station. The vanguard lengthened. The carts groaned into motion. Morain’s assistants began shouting before anyone had done anything wrong, so that when error arrived they would already be prepared for it.
Alianor knew her father well enough to understand that memory had done what news could not. The cistern station had displeased him. Galeran’s carved name, the dead carts, the old laughter about Felrian, the sight of the army returning west without banners: all of it had settled under his skin. Rydric Aldren did not like sitting with things he could not strike. He rode away from them.
The rest of them followed.
By afternoon the road had flattened into a pale strip between low hills and thorn scrub. Heat pressed down without drama. No great furnace-blast, no desert terror worthy of song; only a steady, mean warmth that dried the mouth, salted the collar, and made armour feel less like protection than penance. Dust rose from the hooves and wheels and hung behind the column in a long, dirty veil.
Nasir translated a question from Suhayl about the next watering place, carried Baudren’s answer back, corrected the answer because Baudren had used a word that could mean either “after the rise” or “after the ridge,” then corrected his own correction when the road proved to contain both.
The heat had made men dull and irritable.
Zeid drank first, but only because a Jaludian rider offered him a skin by rank. He took one measured swallow and passed it to Rafiq, who frowned at the insultingly small amount and said something under his breath. Zeid ignored him.
Alianor did not drink.
The road climbed a little. Her mare stumbled once on loose stone. Alianor corrected her lightly with the reins, and the leather dragged across a blister in her hand.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Pain bit clean and bright.
She did not move her face.
Zeid shifted in his saddle when the road levelled. His hand brushed the lower edge of his coat, then returned to the reins.
Alianor looked ahead and smiled with only one side of her mouth.
The next time the column slowed, she dismounted without using the stirrup as heavily as she wished. She landed well. Her hand did not matter if she did not allow it to matter. Sivelle appeared at her side with the expression she wore when she knew exactly what Alianor was doing and had decided, for the moment, not to insult her by helping.
“Your glove wants changing,” Sivelle said.
“My glove has not been consulted.”
“It is making its opinion known in blood.”
“Then it should learn silence.”
Sivelle’s eyes went briefly toward Zeid, who remained mounted while Rafiq adjusted something beneath his stirrup leather. “You have both chosen a noble contest.”
“I do not know what you mean.”
Alianor gave her a look. Sivelle returned one of perfect blank loyalty. It was one of her more insolent expressions.
By late afternoon the column’s order had loosened just enough for discomfort to show. Esberian men rode with their helmets hanging from saddle hooks. Jaludian riders unwound the ends of their turbans and drew them across their mouths against the dust. Priests had ceased singing. Even Morain’s shouting had grown hoarse.
A water skin came forward from Suhayl’s side, passed from rider to rider under the etiquette of rank. It reached Zeid first once again.
He took it, weighed it in his hand, and turned toward Alianor with a courtesy so elaborate that it became aggression.
“Highness.”
She stared at the skin.
“You were offered it first.”
“Then I may offer it second.”
“I did not ask.”
“No. That is why I am being generous instead of obedient.”
Her hand throbbed. Her mouth was dry enough that swallowing hurt. Behind Zeid, Rafiq watched with condescension.
Alianor took the skin.
She drank exactly half.
Then she returned it.
Zeid looked at the weight of it, then at her. He drank the rest.
Both of them behaved as though no agreement had been reached.
A little water escaped the corner of his mouth and vanished into the dust on his chin. Alianor looked away before he could notice that she had noticed.
“Your western roads are very unpleasant,” he said.
“This is not the west.”
“It is west of where I began.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“It is to my horse.”
She almost laughed. The heat must have weakened her.