The Girl of Fire and Thorns fat-1 Page 12

  A hand caresses my cheek, large and warm. Gentle.

  “Are you hungry, Princess?” A young, male voice. Very close. He holds the syllables back in his throat, then springs off of them in the lilt of the desert people.

  I strain to open my eyes, but something seals them shut.

  “Ah, poor thing. Let me . . .” Cool, dripping cloth smoothes across my eyelids. I realize I’m desperately thirsty. My eyes flutter open.

  I gasp, for his face is only a handspan above mine. I notice his eyes first, huge and glimmering brown like polished breadnuts. They are framed by more hair than I’ve ever seen on a boy. It parts in the middle and hangs in black waves well past his shoulders. Soft stubble can’t hide his youthfulness. It’s a pleasant face.

  The face of my captor, I remind myself. “What do you want?” My tongue is thick in my mouth, like a dry pillow, and the words sound muffled and round.

  “We want you, Princess.” He stands and steps out of my vision, revealing a ceiling of strange fabric held in place by wooden posts. It’s dense like wool, but variegated and rough as unfinished parchment.

  He returns with a wooden cup. He reaches under my shoulders and lifts me easily with one broad hand. With the other, he puts the edge of the cup to my lips.

  “Drink. If this settles well, we’ll try some food.” The water is warm and bitter, but I slurp it eagerly. The cup empties too quickly, and he lowers me back. “Now we wait a bit.” He settles back, like a stray dog on his haunches, and looks me over with interest.

  “Who are you?” I ask, and my voice works better this time, though it wavers with fear. I hope Ximena is all right. I hope Alejandro is searching for me.

  My captor smiles shyly, and his teeth are shocking white against dark desert skin. “I’m Humberto,” he says. “Traveling escort, by profession.”

  I try to shift onto my side to see him better, but my body is stiff and my hips won’t obey. “Humberto. Why can’t I move?”

  “Oh, that’s the duerma leaf. You breathed in a good lot of it. It will go away in a day or two.”

  A day or two? “How long have I— That is, how long since you kidnapped me?” I’m gratified to see him wince.

  His smile disappears. “Awhile, Princess. Long enough.”

  “The king will find me.”

  “He will look,” he says solemnly, then changes the subject. “You have nice eyes. Very pretty.”

  I close those eyes tight. Even so, tears squeeze from the outside corners and dribble down my cheeks.

  “Oh, Princess, I’m so sorry. I hope I didn’t say anything . . . And you’ll be treated well, I swear!”

  I open my eyes. The concern in his face is plain, even through tear-blurred vision. “What do you want? Why did you take me?”

  He shifts uncomfortably. “We’ll talk about that later. Hungry yet?”

  “A little.”

  “Wonderful!” He launches to his feet. “I’ll be back.”

  I’m left alone to stare at the strange ceiling, finally understanding that I’m in a tent. Thick blankets swaddle me, pinning my arms to my sides. By the smell, I guess they’re made of goat hair. My exposed face and neck are chilly, the drying tears on my cheeks icy.

  Muffled voices trickle in from outside. Three at least. My enemy must be powerful, or at least very clever, to sneak into the royal wing of Alejandro’s palace and then escape with an enormous bundle of a person.

  My enemy. I remember the words of Homer’s Afflatus about the enemy’s gates. About the realm of sorcery.

  I hear the flap of heavy fabric followed by shuffling footsteps, and Humberto hovers over me again. He puts the cup of meaty broth to my lips, and I sniff it suspiciously.

  “It’s not poisoned,” he says. “If we wanted to poison you, we could have done so when we dosed you with duerma leaf.”

  “Taste it for me.”

  He shrugs and tips the cup against his mouth. I watch closely to make sure he ingests a good bit.

  When he returns the cup to my lips, I sip eagerly. It’s delicious and hot, with an unfamiliar, gamey meat spiced with garlic and green onions. He pulls the cup away to let me swallow and catch my breath.

  “Thank you. What is it?”

  “My sister makes the best jerboa soup in Joya.”

  “Jerboa?”

  “Little sand rat.” He makes a tight fist. “About so big.”

  I recoil into my blankets. “I’m sipping rat soup?”

  He laughs. “Well, jerboas are very different creatures, really. Cleaner, for one. A lot more appealing too, with nice tawny fur and tufted tails.”

  I am not reassured.

  “Ready for more?”

  Though he said I would be well treated, I am certain of nothing and cannot know when next I’ll eat. I force myself to slurp the rest.

  When I finish, Humberto stretches. “Try to sleep, Princess. We leave in the morning.” Leave and go where? But he is gone, the torch with him, before I can ask my question, leaving me alone in the frigid dark.

  I have never felt so frightened and powerless. Closing my eyes again is a relief. In spite of everything, I drift into natural sleep.

  I’m awakened by an intense need to relieve myself. Golden light and pleasant warmth creep into my tent, but the pressure in my lower abdomen is ferocious. I flex my toes and bend my knees to test them. They’re heavy and weak, but they do respond. Quietly, I wriggle my arms from their stiff swaddling.

  A light wind batters the tent walls, but I hear no voices, no movement outside. Nothing ties me down. Perhaps they didn’t expect the duerma leaf to wear off so soon. Just maybe, I can escape.

  I twist away from the goat-hair blankets and clamber to my feet, then I freeze for a moment, listening. Nothing. I tiptoe across canvaslike material to the tent flap and put my hand to the light-edged crack. I hesitate, realizing I’m still clad in my nightgown and bed slippers. But I cannot afford time for modesty. My heart patters as I peel aside the fabric.

  Light blinds me. I turn my face to the side and wait for my vision to adjust. It does, slowly, as a hot breeze ruffles hair that has escaped Ximena’s clip. I step outside, into fine sand that warms my feet even through my slippers.

  Another step, and I know, definitively, that there will be no escape. I hug myself, sickened by hopelessness and feeling very tiny. The swooping dunes of Joya’s desert are everywhere, in every direction, burnished red in the shadowed side, bright like molten gold in the sunrise, to the very edge of the world. The breeze stirs little eddies along the top sides, and I see how fluid this place is, how unpredictable and dangerous. The sun is at my back, already merciless. I stand on a rise such that my shadow stretches into the distance, curling and plunging across the scalloped sand.

  “Going somewhere, Highness?”

  I jump at her mocking voice. It’s the familiar one I couldn’t place while fighting my duerma-leaf coma. I close my eyes and take a deep, controlling breath before turning to face her.

  “Hello, Cosmé.”

  She stands straight, arms crossed, short hair curling and loose in the desert breeze. Her black eyes and delicate features are the same, but she seems different without the maid’s apron and cap. Or maybe it’s because her stoicism has been replaced by open hostility.

  “It’s so nice to see you,” I lie. “I hope you’re well.”

  “I see the duerma leaf is wearing off quickly.”

  “What did you do to Ximena? Did you kill her to steal me away?”

  She shifts in the sand, a tiny crack in her callous bearing, perhaps. “Your nurse is fine. I put a pinch of duerma leaf in her tea so she would sleep soundly; that is all.”

  The relief is overpowering, but I will not cry in front of Cosmé. The only weapon I have right now is unpredictability, so I shower her with polite respect. “Thank you. And thank you for the soup last night.”

  Her brows furrow in annoyance. “Don’t thank me. My brother has taken a liking to you and insists we treat you well, so thank him.
”

  “Humberto is your brother?” I can’t imagine how two such different people could come from the same blood. Though looking at her now, I see they share the same curling black hair, the same cast to brow and nose.

  She doesn’t deign to answer. “I have traveling clothes for you. We must set off right away. Humberto will teach you to pack your tent. You’ll be responsible for it from now on. Also”—she gives me a disgusted look—“if I catch you stealing food or water from the stores, I will kill you, understand?”

  I nod coolly, though my pulse is a drum at my temples, and say, “You have nothing to worry about. I’m not the kind who sneaks around in the night taking things that don’t belong to me.”

  Her face twitches. “Just get dressed.” She whirls and marches away before I can ask her where we’re going.

  It was foolish to aggravate someone who just threatened to kill me. I will have to be so much wiser if I am to survive whatever is to come.

  The pressure to relieve myself is fierce. I take a deep breath to still my panicked heart, then I trudge through the sand, looking for Humberto.

  We break camp quickly. Besides myself, Cosmé, and Humberto, there are three other boys about my age, who regard me guiltily every time they pass. My maid—my former maid—hands me a pile of clothing, leaving Humberto to explain how everything is worn. It’s light in color and thickly woven. A shawl goes over my head to protect me from the sun. Ties tickle my left cheek, and I resist the urge to scratch. Humberto explains that I can tie my shawl around my face if the wind picks up, to keep the sand out.

  The most important item is a pair of stiff boots. “Sand and shale will wear through an ordinary pair of boots in days,” he explains. These are stiffly soled and knee high, with chaps made of camel hair that wrap around several times. Humberto shows me how to tuck the edges in below my knees and fasten them with ties. “It’s the season for sandstorms,” he says. “And the sand is most violent near the ground. I know they’re hot, but they’ll protect your legs.”

  Sandstorms. I remember Hector telling me about them as we gazed from a place of safety over distant dunes. He told me they could flay a man’s skin from his bones.

  What has made these people so desperate that they would risk the desert during sandstorm season?

  We leave the packhorses behind with one of the young men and set off walking, while two camels carry our tents and our food and water. I stare after the man who rides in the opposite direction. There is a way out of this desert, for those who know it.

  “He’ll be fine,” Humberto says. “He’s a traveling escort, like me.”

  “Why can’t we ride horses?” Horses have always frightened me, but riding would be better than slogging through sand on foot.

  He nearly chokes. “Oh, Princess. Horses need too much water to last in the deep desert. We rode them this far so we could get you quickly away. But only camels from here. It’s many days to the next water source.”

  My stomach does a little flip. Though my hope of escape fled this morning, I’d harbored thoughts of Alejandro rescuing me. Surely he is ransacking the palace in search of his missing wife. Maybe even sending runners into the surrounding desert. But the farther we travel, the harder it will be to find me.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Far away, Princess.” He holds up a hand to forestall further questions. “Don’t bother asking more. I won’t tell you. At least not yet.”

  “I’m not . . . that is, I’ve never been an athletic person. I will walk as long as I can, but . . .”

  “Oh, I have that figured out already.” He’s wearing that grin of his, like he’s perpetually on the brink of laughter. “We brought you here on a travois. Did you think we could carry you the whole way?”

  No, of course not. The strongest man alive couldn’t carry me for any distance.

  “I mean,” he continues. “You can ride in the travois if you need to, but try to walk for a while? It puts a strain on the camels. They’d need more food and water, see, and my sister . . .” His voice trails off.

  What was he about to say? My sister wants an excuse to kill you? “I’ll do the best I can.”

  He nods. “I know you will.”

  Walking through desert sand is the hardest thing I’ve done in my life. It only takes moments for my ankles and calves to burn with effort, for my breath to come in dry heaves, for sweat to soak through the first layer of clothing. But I press forward, nearly gasping with relief each time our small group crests a dune. Inevitably, I lag behind.

  I take some comfort in the fact that I’ve been outfitted with great care. My captors mean for me to arrive somewhere, and safely. But getting left behind in this wasteland would be certain death. Cosmé looks over her shoulder from time to time, as if expecting to find that I’ve given up or collapsed in the sand, and each time she does, a fire burns in my gut and I put one leg in front of the other in grim mutiny.

  As I wade through the sand, I have plenty of time to think about why I’ve been kidnapped. By stealing me, they have stolen a Godstone, and I dread the moment when they realize how useless I am. What will they do then?

  My only hope is that Alejandro searches for me. That, in spite of the slim odds of finding me in this vast place, he cares about me enough to not give up.

  At last, we stop for rest and water. Cosmé passes a goatskin bag around. I watch to see how much each person drinks, and I’m careful to take only my share. The bag goes around twice, and Cosmé moves to reattach it to the camel’s pack.

  “Cosmé.” Humberto gestures toward me with his chin. “A little more for the princess.” She glares at him, but her brother smiles in return. “She’s not accustomed to this, and she’s perspiring a lot. Please.”

  She grunts, but tosses him the bag. He catches it easily and hands it to me. “Drink deep, little princess.”

  I hesitate, not sure what to do. One of the other boys, the darkly quiet one, glares at me. The other, slender as a tree even in his desert robes, winks over his crooked nose. I raise the goatskin to them both. “Thank you.” And I take a single, deep draft. Oh, it is not enough, but I hand it back to Humberto.

  We set off again, and my legs are wobbly as date pudding. I fall behind even sooner this time, but I keep moving, teeth gritted with resolve. The heat is unbearable, my lungs burn, and the air shimmers before me. After a while, I don’t even try to keep an eye on my companions, finding it easier to look down, following the sandy indentations left by their feet.

  My walking turns to sliding, then stumbling. I walk right into a camel’s rear.

  “Oomph,” I say. I look up, blinking. The others have stopped to wait. They’re staring at me, but I cannot discern their expressions through stinging eyes.

  “Humberto.” It’s Cosmé’s voice, and it’s unusually soft. “Rig the travois.”

  I want to hug her.

  Humberto rushes around while I sway on my feet. At last he takes my hand and guides me to his makeshift sand-sled. I lie down and cover my face with the shawl, and we set off. The camel’s gait is strange and jerky, but after a while, I adjust to the odd rhythm. I am exhausted, and my eyes drift closed, but I cannot sleep for overhearing snatches of relaxed chatter and easy laughter. It is clear that my captors do not feel there is any danger of being pursued.

  Chapter 14

  THAT night, Humberto shows me how to erect my tent. The poles aren’t heavy, but managing their awkwardness requires strength and balance. He assures me I’ll get the trick of it, but I don’t see how.

  After the tents are pitched and the camels tended to, Cosmé builds a fire and makes a batch of jerboa soup. I walk away from the hot flames to watch the sun set across the desert. It’s a beautiful place, vast and shimmering, red as blood in the fading light. The dunes fascinate me. Though rippled on the windward side, leeward they are smooth as cream and dishonestly soft, like a favorite rug. It’s an astonishing place, and terrifyingly powerful, and I find I’m resting my fingertips again
st the Godstone in wonder.

  “Does it talk to you?” Humberto stands beside me. I didn’t notice his approach. He shifts on his feet; his brown eyes are black in the twilight, like his sister’s.

  “Why? What do you think the Godstone can do for you?”

  He looks down, his face grave. “It can save us.”

  My mouth opens to protest, but I stop myself just in time. My survival may depend on their belief that I can actually do what they hope.

  His next words come in a singsong chant, “‘And God raised up for Himself a champion. Yea, once in every four generations He raised him up to bear His mark.’”

  “That’s Homer’s Afflatus!” I grasp his upper arm. “You know of it!”

  His face is puzzled. “Of course.”

  Cosmé calls us to dinner at that inopportune moment.

  “More soup!” Humberto says, then rushes away. I plod after him, preparing myself to appear confident, like one who can save others.

  I settle across the fire from Cosmé, amazed at the sudden drop in temperature and grateful for the flames. There are five of us, including myself. The divine number of perfection. From my studies with Master Geraldo, I know the desert nomads always travel in multiples of five, for luck and blessing.

  Cosmé passes a bowl to each of us. After watching the others, I understand not to expect a utensil, to tip the rim to my lips and scrape at the shreds of meat with my dusty fingers. I scour every drop from my bowl, and my stomach gurgles in response. The soup has chased away my hunger, but I am far from full. I set down my bowl, disappointed. Cosmé stares at me from across the fire ring. The sun has long since disappeared, and the wavering flames make ghastly shadows of her face.

  “Highness,” she says, soft and low. “You get the same ration as everyone else.”