Page 115 of Pawn of the Cruel Princess
He grins, rakish and half-apologetic. “I gave Stefa the key to her cell. Tucked it under the pie I left for her. She’ll eat that soon, since it’s perishable, and she’ll find the key.”
“Damn you, Ducayne. What if she lets the other two out?”
“She won’t. I made sure of that. Unless Cowen does some excessive groveling, he’s staying put.”
Ducayne looks very smug, and I can’t help a small smile as I shake my head. “You’re too merciful.”
“What’s that? You say I’m too beautiful? Oh, sweetheart, I know.”
I roll my eyes and look ahead at the road, which slopes down between bluffs topped with waving sea-grass.
After a few minutes I say, “I’m glad you did it. Maybe we can’t take her with us, but she deserves a chance to get away from my father’s control. Maybe she can defect to Yurstin.”
“They would use her for her gifts, just as your people have.”
“Remember when you asked me if I was jealous of people with magic?”
He nods.
“I’ve decided I’m not. When you have power, people just want to take it and use it for themselves.”
“Unless you have so much power you’re unassailable.”
“Even then you don’t get to enjoy it,” I counter. “Because no one is unassailable. Not even my father. I wonder what he’ll do, once he realizes both Vienne and I are gone.”
I hope he weeps over us. I hope it hurts.
We ride a little farther, side by side, watching the last orange of sunset melt into the sea.
“I like the sea at twilight,” Ducayne says. “It’s quiet and beautiful, deceptively harmless.” He glances over at me with a half-smile.
“Are you scared?” I ask.
“Of you? Gods yes. You’d be furious with me if I wasn’t.”
“Not that.” I pucker my lips, trying to make myself say it. I have to learn to say things to him. “When I think about leaving this continent, about actually getting away, my stomach drops. It’s thrilling and horrible. I want to leave so badly I can hardly stand the time it will take to reach Oleyra, find a ship, and get underway. And yet Thannira is all I’ve ever known. Once I leave it, I’ll be adrift in the wide world, and I’m not naïve enough to think it will be any safer out there.”
His expression sobers. “About that—Cowen mentioned that your father will likely send people after us. He’ll figure out which vessel we take, even with the false papers, and he’ll send his fastest ships to intercept us and get you back. Our best chance is to find a ship planning a short voyage to a port nearby, anywhere but this continent, and hope we make it there before he catches up. Once we’re on land again, we can lose ourselves among the people.”
“Unless it’s a small island and there’s nowhere to run,” I say glumly. “Maybe this is foolish, Ducayne. Maybe we should go to Yurstin.”
“We’d be caught or killed trying to cross the border. And even if we made it, your identity would eventually be discovered, and that would be more of a nightmare. Imagine it—the war, stoked to new heights, ransom demands made to your father, my execution as a traitor—”
“I see your point.”
“Don’t think about it now,” he says. “All we need to do is get to Oleyra, find the inn, and have a chat with any captains who happen to be there. We’ll find one who’s shipping out at dawn. There are bound to be a few who were trapped in port by the storm and are eager to make headway. We book passage, and we’re off!”
He makes it sound so simple, and perhaps it is. But I am a knotted tangle of nerves, and no matter how much I try to unravel myself with calm, logical thoughts, I can’t. I keep touching the lumps on my thighs, where my knife sheaths are strapped over my pants, beneath my riding dress and cloak.
Ducayne is wearing more clothes than usual—a high-collared shirt, doublet, and leather pants, with a cloak and fine boots. His black hair is neatly braided in a simple style, befitting his new identity.
In his pleasure-slave attire, he is all sex and virility; but in this outfit, I find him equally appealing. How do his shoulders look so much broader than usual? And his legs look damn fine in those boots.
He boasts the same confidence now that he does when he’s nearly naked; and when I look at him, a little of that confidence seeps into me. So I glance at him often, and I keep one hand on the reins and another on one of my hidden knives.
By the time we ride into the port town of Oleyra, a deep blue night has fallen. Streetlamps and windows paint the sandy cobbled streets with golden smudges. The sea is a continuous murmur, carried to us with the scent of salt and fish. Wooden shop signs creak in the stiff breeze, and my hood billows. I have to hold it with one hand to keep it on.
Ahead, between rows of shops and tenement houses, a swatch of the dark sea glimmers under the rising moon. There’s a distant creak of timbers and a flap of tied sails. Against the sky rise the masts of at least three ships, possibly four—hard to tell from the angle of our approach.
