Page 231 of Golden Queen
“You are too young to understand it, birdy,” he said, using her least-favorite pet name. “But someday I will tell you the story of why Mandel is the steward of the blade.”
When Franca was older, she’d asked him again. “Will you give the sword to Aelia when she’s crowned?”
“I have already tried, more times than I can count,” he chuckled. “The blade will go back to Lithaway when it’s time. It is meant to be in the hands of the godsgrass throne.”
“So, why do you have it? Why did Queen Laisera give it to you?”
“That is a story for another time, Franca. It is not something you would understand.”
The words and the mystery had infuriated her then, especially as she knew he believed her too immature to comprehend whatever led the Windemerian queen to gift him the blade her own husband had gifted to her.
But as Franca walked away with the ancient golden blade wrapped in one of her old skirts and slung over her back, she surmised that the story had died with her father.
She didn’t even care. She would offer the sword to Aelia, as honor dictated. But all she really wanted to do was learn to use it, learn to fight—so that she could find the guard whose foot had broken Talia’s head and put the Sword of Lithaway in his heart.
She stayed off the road. She tried to make her way through the grass without leaving a trail for anyone to follow.
The soldiers had taken their supply wagon and all the food they carried from Albiyn, so all Franca had to sustain her was a tin of butter cookies and a few hard candies in the pocket of her skirts.
She walked without stopping, only laying down to sleep in the godsgrass whenever she felt herself stumbling with exhaustion.
When the butter cookies ran out, Franca began eating raw godsgrass. It sat heavy in her stomach for the first few days. Eventually, though, she became accustomed to the grain and could stomach eating enough of it to maintain her energy through the day and much of the night.
She ran into trouble when she reached a small stream meandering across the plains and stopped to fill her water skin.
A man in soiled and tattered clothes tried to take her pack, telling her she had no business being in his fields. "Get out!" he screamed, as though she was standing in the middle of his house.
"I'm leaving!" Franca tried to back away but the man made another grab at her bag. She swung it away, unwilling to give up her few meager possessions to some insane man screaming that the empty godsgrass plains belonged to him.
Franca's hand went to the dagger in her pocket at the same time the man reached down for a large rock.
Before he could lift the rock high enough to threaten her, hoofbeats thundered behind them.
The man shied back, dropping the rock and holding his hands up placatingly as a riderless horse came racing across the field. “Back you devil!” the man cried.
Franca did not shy away from the massive beast, though. She would recognize Aelia's big Artaxian stallion anywhere.
Franca had ridden Etreyiu herself several times during the journey from Albiyn. Each time, he had been as gentle as any horse had a right to be—nearly reverent, in the way he bowed to allow her to reach his back.
Etreyiu stopped just in front of the man and raised his front feet off the ground in warning.
His long mane whipped around his head as he approached, snorting and pawing his massive hooves, kicking up clods of dirt as he dragged them through the sparse godsgrass that lined the edge of the stream.
The man turned and ran away, muttering to himself about the false god being a white horse.
Franca ran to Etreyiu, wrapped her arms around his head, and wept. The horse leaned into her, huffing softly.
After that, Franca rode the big white Artaxian stallion across the plains—heading south to Athelen and the Windemere fyrd—secure in the knowledge that she had a guardian who would protect her as the Royal Guards who’d accompanied them from Albiyn had not.
One morning, as she and Etreyiu both lay in the godsgrass, Franca woke and sat up from where she had been sleeping propped against the stallion's massive flank.
Smoke filled the air, stinging her nose, making her cough. When she climbed onto Etreyiu's back and could see the source, her heart plummeted.
Great, billowing black clouds crossed the southern horizon from east to west. Faint orange flames could be seen on the distant hills where the godsgrass was burning.
Franca turned Etreyiu to the north and raced back across the plains, losing every bit of ground she had gained in the last weeks of traveling.
The fires grew closer every day even though they barely stopped long enough to close their eyes before the choking smoke became too thick and they had to race off to get ahead of the fires again.
