I left my cabin, in search of what, I didn’t know. I stumbled to the deck and instantly saw the single wyvern circling above had been joined by another. They flew in high loops and circles, always around the ship—and they made no effort to conceal what they were doing. I knew they watched me.
A male passenger who gambled at the tables too much said as if he was my superior, “What are you doing out here alone?”
His tone was slurred, his piggish eyes squinted against the bright sunlight, and if there had been a lighted torch within reach of his expelled breath, it would have flared in response to the alcohol on his breath. I turned away without answering.
His hand reached out and took me by my shoulder. He spun me to face him. His mouth opened to speak again. Before a single word emerged, my anger took hold. As my body swung around, my left elbow drove up under his chin. It slammed his mouth shut, as the balled fist of my other hand short-punched him in the sternum. I’d done it exactly as the King’s Weapons-Master had taught me. The short punch might not sound like much, but it took the breath from him long enough for my next round of strikes.
Another hand spun me the opposite way. It was Will. He had no right to stop me. In a fury, I swung at him, to have something to strike out at. His forearm easily deflected my fist. His turned hip avoided my knee aimed at his groin. He ducked under another punch aimed at his head.
Will leaned closer to me and wrapped me in a hug that restrained my arms and kept my feet and knees from hurting him. I tried butting his head with mine. “Enough. Please calm down and go to your cabin, Princess.”
Like a child, I obeyed while ignoring the accusing eyes of the other passengers on deck. By mealtime, every passenger, crewman, and officer on the ship would hear versions of the maniac princess who beat another passenger and attempted to do the same with a second passenger. Will was right. It was no way for an emissary representing an entire kingdom to act.
I hung my head in shame. Once back in my cabin, I determined what I’d tell Will on our next encounter. He would hear of my anger and how he had no right to prevent me from continuing with the drunk gambler. After blubbering for a while to myself, I stumbled onto the conclusion he’d been right to keep me from taking out my frustrations on the man. Not that I owed him an apology, but he would keep his hands to himself or suffer my wrath again.
The truth was, I was scared. The Blue Woman was only part of it. Behind her was a mage who killed kings and their families, and beyond that were people who formed councils and ruled in place of the rightful kings—people I believed were more sorceresses than not.
How I came to that conclusion is another mystery, but it made perverse sense. A powerful mage created the circumstances for the council to be formed as a temporary measure, much like a regent sitting in for a young king, and eventually it becomes the permanent ruling body. Seating several sorceresses on a council where they could manipulate the minds of the others to do as they wished made sense. It’s what I’d do if I were the young mage.
Now that I had an idea of what was happening, I paced three steps from wall to wall in my cabin and tried to figure out what to do with the information. My problem was that while I now knew more than before, I had no plan, saw no resolution, and in some ways believed I was in more trouble than before.
And I was alone.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Damon
I held my finger to my lips for the girls, my sister, and Flier to all remain silent, as we crept away from the sleeping Slave-Master as if playing a game. Or perhaps better, I acted as the tricky demon he said my name meant. I doubted he would chase after us. It wasn’t because he’d given his word. That didn’t count. What it was about was that he didn’t care about any of us. The slaves he had in chains and that he would sell in Kaon were his only worry unless it was being defeated and humiliated at the game of blocks by the likes of me.
He would probably rush to catch up with the guard that had let him down by allowing Kendra to capture him. Then he’d search for his strings of slaves in chains and be on his way to Kaon. The slave markets awaited his delivery and he has slaves to sell. If we ever met again, he wouldn’t try to take my head, but he would want to challenge me to another game of blocks. That was something I understood and appreciated.
When we had traveled over the hard-packed sand and rocks far enough to feel temporarily safe, we were all suffering the first effects of the lack of water. “Flier, ever been here?”
“No.” His voice rasped.
“Any tips on where we can find a drink?” I continued.
He took the time to look at the mountains where the pass to Trager was hidden to my gaze. He noted the various peaks and must have decided he knew our approximate location. He said as he pointed, “The river is over that way.”
“How far?” Kendra asked.
He said, “It can’t be too far. We walked down from the pass to where the Slave-Master released us in half a night and part of a single day. The Vin river on this side of the pass travels south and east, but we can’t miss it if we keep going in this direction.”
I thought of asking Kendra to use her dragon to fly up there and tell us but thought better of it. The dragon might get a drink but wouldn’t be able to tell us about it. We were still so ignorant of so many things about magic in general, our powers in specific, what information we should share and what we shouldn’t speak of with others nearby. It was better to say nothing until we obtained basic knowledge. The question was, from whom could we learn.
I trusted Flier and the girls, but there were simply too many variables. Later, we saw a stand of green trees in the distance and walked in that direction as rapidly as we could. It was a classic desert oasis. As we grew closer, it was easy to discern there were willows, palms, and other deep-rooted plants that grew near water before our hopes were dashed when we arrived to find a reeking mud-hole we could throw a rock across. It contained a stinking brown sludge where animals watered, peed, crapped, and even the rotted remains of a goat lay at the edge of the brown liquid.
My mouth felt all the drier. Flier wordlessly pointed for us to move on. My mouth was parched, my skin pink, and a headache from the intense sun threatened to burst my brain from my head in a splatter of red and gray. My feet felt like the chains were still on them. I lifted my head to find I was probably in better shape than any of the others.
To their credit, not one of them complained. That impressed me more than words can express. Even little Emma walked with slumped shoulders, her toes dragging in the sand with each step, but she trudged on, never falling behind.
We reached a ridge, an escarpment of sandstone no more than the height of a man, but in the distance from that slight vantage, a line of green cut through the brown sand of the Kondor desert. Flier smirked confidently but said nothing as he looked for a way down to the lower ground.
He turned our direction slightly, so we’d encounter the line of trees sooner. The sandy ground turned rocky, peppered with rough rocks from the size of my thumb to my fist. The ground was hard between the rocks. It was as if the desert had been pounded flat and then strewn with rocks large enough to hurt or trip us. In our exhausted condition, it did both.
Flier limped nearly as much as when we’d first met. However, his attitude was growing more pleasant with every step. The line of trees came clearer, and I thought I could smell a hint of water in the dry air. It didn’t matter because the ground demanded my constant attention to avoid the sharp rocks.