Page 134 of Golden Queen
"Would he really do that?" I asked, suddenly fearful that all of this had been for nothing. If the king might call his armies back for us taking too long to reach him, what would he do when, or if, he learned of the relationship that had been between us before the betrothal?
"No, Behr will keep his word," he said simply. "But if we linger too long, he might do the same, and until I know the men have marched, I would rather make haste."
I almost thought he was lying—making some attempt to reassure me, but that wasn't like him. I was more inclined to believe he was lying to himself. I felt sudden guilt that all my problems were taking him away fromhis original goal—his reason for coming to Windemere in the first place. I knew how important it was to him that he find the Withian children.
"There was a Withian boy—an acolyte of the Presarion—at my coronation," I told him. I could hardly believe I had forgotten about him in the madness of all that happened after the ceremony.
He halted his steps, turning to me. "How old?"
"Maybe eleven or twelve," I guessed. The boy didn't have distinctive skin, other than that he was very pale, so I assumed he was older even though he was still quite small.
"The Presarion chose not to evacuate," Io said, thoughtfully.
I nodded.
"So I assume he's still in the temple then," he surmised.
"Most likely," I said.
The Presarion would not leave the godsgrass—not for any invading army, the high priestess told me when I encouraged her to leave. I was not overly concerned with their safety, though, in their fortress temple just a few miles south of Albiyn. In addition to high, sheer walls, they had an entire underground fortification that could withstand even an aerial assault from Wyverns. And they had enough stores of food and fresh water to last through years of siege from Penjan.
"When the city is yours again, I'll go and find him," Io said. "To ensure he's there by choice and that the Presarion has no hand in the disappearances of Withian children or any others."
"I'll do whatever I can to help with that," I told him, praying that the holy order did not have a hand in anything to do with dark magic.
As we climbed back onto Veles, I couldn't help but feel that I would never retake my city. It didn't seem possible when I recalled the dark mark of the Penjani hoard spread out across the plains as we flew away. I was suddenly sure that there would never be a time when I could put aside this war and focus on one single boy in the service of the holy order.
We didn’t reach Cosdam before the sun set, but we decided to push on through anyway. The lure of a real bed and a bath was too great even if we were all tired, filthy, and cold.
Well,theywere cold. I was in a perpetual cocoon of warmth that made me wonder how much magic Io had inside of him to make it seem so easy to maintain the shield for hours with no effort at all.
We met in the common room of a well-appointed little inn on the edge of the city after retreating to our own rooms for a much-needed bath.
Britaxia loaned me an ill-fitting tunic and soft wool leggings, so I was at least finally clean as we sat down to eat a delicious meal of roast beef and vegetables.
It was much better food than I expected to have. The simple wood and bare stone building, with its boisterous taproom, had seemed too simple to manage what ended up being better than many of the seven-course meals served in the castle in Albiyn.
We drank big frothy tankards of fragrant ale as Aben talked about a trip he and Britaxia took to the Falls of Kesher a few decades before—when the two of them had apparently been a couple.
Kesher was a series of waterfalls in the Withian Highlands that dropped from the edge of a thousand-foot cliff of ice to crystal clear pools of steaming spring water. They were heated by under-ice volcanoes, and the only thing that made the boiling water cool enough to swim in was the constant flow of ice water from the highlands above.
"So we were in the spring, naked, doing a bit of frolicking, if you catch my meaning," Aben said suggestively. "And when we eventually climbed out, our clothes, packs, boots—all gone."
"No!" I gasped.
"Yes!" Britaxia said laughing. She had been friendlier since we left Albiyn, and I wondered at her change in attitude as she continued. "We were in the middle of a thousand miles of frozen Withian tundra—no people, no settlements—only hungry ice bears for company. We had to go back into the water or freeze to death!"
"What about your dragons?" I asked. "Could you not fly them back or I don't know...send them for help." I giggled as I said it, imagining telling a dragon to go and find help across a thousand miles of tundra.
"We would have frozen to death in minutes—orIwould have," she added. "Aben might have managed to keep himself warm long enough to get help, but in High Withia it’s so cold your skin will freeze in just a few minutes. Even dragons can struggle to stay warm in winter. We had worn Withian wool under our furs—spelled for warmth—which is why we assumed someone had taken it. It's very valuable."
"What did you do?" I asked.
"I eventually went looking for them," Io cut in. "I found them in the middle of the hot spring the next day, shriveled and so angry that they wouldn't look at each other."
Aben and Britaxia both laughed, and then Aben leaned over to add, "And the worst part of it was, Io found our furs—and the Withian wool—under a half an inch of fine powdery snow at the edge of the pool."
"No!" I hissed, and nearly squealed with laughter as Io nodded.
