Page 36 of The Threadbare Queen

“Evelyn!”

“She won’t die of cold.” Evelyn’s sulky voice wafted through the badly fitted planks.

“If she’s coughing and sick? And some idiot soldier at the border decides to use that as an excuse to keep some of my gri because she doesn’t look in good condition?” Sirna half-turned in his seat. “All for the application of a blanket?”

Evelyn said nothing. She didn’t like being admonished. Who did? But there was obviously only so much sulkiness Sirna was prepared to take.

“Now!” His voice was a whip crack, and the horses moved nervously at the fury in his voice.

“Then slow down so I can give it to you.” Evelyn’s tone was cool.

Sirna’s grip on the reins tightened to white knuckles, but he treated his horses well, Ava saw. He didn’t yank, he eased, so they were soon at a walking pace.

Evelyn hopped down and walked to the front, tossing the blanket up to Ava.

She was still not herself, not by a long way, and she nearly fumbled it and dropped it back on the ground. But she managed to hold onto one corner and pull it up. She settled it around her shoulders in relief.

She didn’t thank Evelyn, and neither did Sirna, and after waiting for a moment for some token of gratitude, Eveyln turned on her heel and stalked back to the rear of the cart.

Ava didn’t look over at Sirna, and he didn’t say anything. From the corner of her eye she saw him rubbing at his growing beard, then he twisted in his seat and wrapped the end of the rope that was around her waist over and over the back of the driver’s bench, knotting it tight enough she wondered if he’d be able to undo it later.

Slowly, the warmth of the blanket seeped into her skin, and she felt more able to look around and see where they were.

She also tested the limits of the rope.

Sirna had given her a little bit of room for movement—some of the rope lay loose by her side—but she guessed the farthest it would go would be to allow her to stand up, no more.

Given the state of the road they were traveling on, she worried about what she would do, how she’d get to safety, if the wheels gave or the horses bolted.

Especially as she no longer had the agility or the strength of only a few days ago.

The Rising Wave hadn’t taken any of the merchants’ roads on its way to Fernwell. They had forged their own path across the plains.

The road Sirna had them on now clearly was a merchant track, although not the main one. She’d heard Sirna tell Evelyn it was a back road he took often to avoid the Kassian army.

It wasn’t well-maintained, and Sirna had to stop and clear the path of fallen branches a few times.

He was fit but not overly muscled, and he had a twitchiness about him, as if he were never able to rest.

She thought, with a spike of dark humor, that his conscience must be bothering him, but it was only amusing because it clearly wasn’t true. He was likely more worried about being caught by the people General Ru would have sent after her than any regret for what he’d done.

The sun shone down warmer than it had been for a few days, and she found her eyes closing and her body relaxing.

They came to a bend in the path around midday and she roused herself from her doze to see the gleam of reflected sunlight on water up ahead.

The road dipped, and in the distance a clearing lay off to the side of the road. The open space fell away in a shallow slope into the river, and four covered carts, some blocking the way ahead, had stopped there for a midday meal.

“Shit.” Sirna slowed the horses and then brought them to a halt.

“What is it?” Evelyn finally emerged from the back, coming around on Sirna’s side. She shielded her eyes against the glare, and swore softly herself. “What do we do?”

“We can’t go back. And there’s no room to go past.” Sirna looked over at Ava. “What are we going to do with you?”

Good question, Ava thought.

Her heart started to pound, because the spelled rope would look pretty tempting as a solution.

“If we use the rope, we could say she’s ill.” Evelyn said exactly what Ava thought she’d say.

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