Page 5 of The Flame King's Captive

I don’t know what the invader will do when he comes back from battle to find I’m not in his tent or at the camp, but I have no doubt he’ll soon forget all about me.

3

Isavelle

I’ve seen Maledin in spring and summer when fields and meadows are bursting with blades of green grass and wildflowers in a hundred delicate shades. I’ve seen fall sweep across the land, turning everything gold and crimson while berries grow fat and sweet on thorny vines. I’ve witnessed dry winters like this one where only a few snowflakes are blown over bare ground, as well as winters when the drifts stand as tall as houses and we have to dig ourselves out of our own front doors.

But I’ve never seen Maledin like this before.

I stand at the crest of a hill, gazing into the valley below. Smoke belches from a burned-out monastery and guard barracks. I can guess which creatures left those long, blackened streaks on the earth.

There’s a roar above me, and I shrink back into the bushes as three of them fly overhead.

Dragons.

I study the enormous creatures closely, wondering if one of them belongs to the commander, but the dragons in the sky aren’t black, and they’re not quite so large. The biggest dragon is snow white with shades of sky blue at the tips of its claws and tail. It’s flanked by two smaller dragons, one a bright apricot, and the other dove gray. The graceful movements of their wings and undulating bodies captivate me. These monsters are beautiful but deadly. As they bank to the left, I catch sight of the riders perched between the dragons’ wings. They hold no reins and don’t call out commands, but they sit in saddles and gaze ahead as if they’re the ones in charge.

A few moments later, the dragons and their riders disappear beyond the hills, and I can breathe once again.

As the smoke clears, I see something on the horizon. A jagged cliff that juts over a distant valley, which has been a familiar sight every market day all my life, though I always saw it from the other side. If I follow the way that cliff is pointing, I’ll find my village.

Desperately, I scan the skies. Will I be able to make it all that way without being seen? It will take me more than a day of walking, and probably closer to two.

Whatever happens, I’m not any closer to home just by standing here, so I set off.

I don’t want to walk along the road that’s being used by Brethren Guard, so I follow the stream instead, knowing it will eventually join the river that flows beneath that jagged cliff. I stay beneath the canopies of the leafless trees as much as I can and dive into scrub when I think I hear marching or the beating of leathery wings.

By dusk, I’m dizzy with hunger and my feet are an agony of burst blisters. Even walking up a small hill makes spots dance before my eyes. I drink freezing water from the spring, but there’s nothing to eat in this barren, wintry landscape.

At nightfall, I spy some outbuildings set back from a dark little house, and I’m desperate and cold enough to approach them. My stomach aches from hunger and my fingers and toes are stiff and swollen.

Inside one of the outbuildings, I climb a ladder into the hayloft with painfully frozen fingers and bleeding toes. I heap hay over myself and lay there shivering, trying to ignore my twisting, aching belly.

Something moves against my leg, and I nearly scream, thinking it’s a rat come to gnaw on my body before I’m even dead. I sit up and see the shape of something small and furry in the dark. Bigger than a rat, and fluffier too.

I breathe a sigh of relief when I realize it’s a cat with green eyes, a great deal of tawny fur, and tabby markings. It yawns luxuriously and stretches its forelegs, extending ten sharp claws. Its eyes half close, and it seems about to put its head back down and drift off to sleep again when there’s a clattering from downstairs.

While the cat seems unbothered, I freeze.

“Puss-puss!” a woman calls.

I put my eye to a crack in the boards and see that a woman has placed a saucer of milk down by the door. The cat gets to its feet, arches its back, and pads its way through the hay to the ladder.

I listen as the woman’s footsteps fade away before following the cat down the ladder and lifting it away from the saucer before it can start lapping. “Sorry about this.”

I’m not that sorry, though. This cat is soft around the belly and feels like it consumes saucers of milk night and day.

The cat watches with an affronted expression as I take a mouthful from its saucer of creamy milk. I don’t think I’ve tasted anything more delicious, but I’ve barely swallowed it down when there’s a screech behind me.

“Who in the bleeding hell are you? A cowardly deserter in my barn? Get gone with you, back to where you came from.”

The woman has come back and she has a broom in her hands, raised high.

“I’m not a—”

She swings the broom right at my head. I drop the saucer and it smashes on the ground, sending shards of ceramic and splashes of milk everywhere. The cat streaks away in panic. I duck away and run for the door, narrowly missing a swipe of the broom, and race out into the night.

I keep running until I’m lost among the trees, trip over a root, and go sprawling through the freezing mud.

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