Page 102 of To Kill a King
But she’d never forgive herself if anyone else died on her behalf when she could’ve prevented it. Without Cressida, the elves probably wouldn’t welcome her back, anyway.
Behind her, the conversation wound down. It must be supper time, which meant she had only five or ten minutes before they brought her food and discovered her absence.
Her stomach growled.
In retrospect, perhaps it would have been better to wait to escape until after dinner, when two of the three slept?
But whoever was on watch would be semi-alert and waiting for her to try something like this. The last thing she needed to be doing was stumbling around the woods in the dark. There’d be no mountain elf savior popping into her camp this time.
No. Now was best, even if it meant she’d go hungry tonight.
She glanced back down the path toward Filathas and sighed. She’d never asked for her magic, or the crown.
But now she was queen, at least in name. Time for her to do something with the title.
She took a few strides down the left pathway and broke the end of a twig. After several more steps, she snapped another one. She bit the inside of her lip. How many should she break to hint she ran that way, without making the trick so obvious they wouldn’t fall for it?
Probably no more. The signs Elessan pointed out when he tracked an animal were subtle. One final touch was all she needed.
Turning her back to the rest of the trail, she walked the opposite direction—to Malkov and her fate.
As she passed the fork in the path, she pushed her magic into the soil. Her footprints appeared in the dirt, heading back toward Filathas.
Time to put some distance between her and that cursed wagon.
Balling her fists at her side, she strode down the track, still being careful not to snap any twigs or brush any branches.
Behind her, a shout rang out. They’d finally discovered her absence.
When she was far enough away the sound wouldn’t carry, she broke into a sprint. She couldn’t waste the last bit of daylight.
Chapter 21
Malkov
“What do you mean you lost her?”
Malkov’s booming voice echoed through the scrying mirror. The three trembled, kneeling so low their foreheads touched the mossy ground of their campsite.
King Malkov closed his eyes and rested his fingers on his temples. The motion did nothing to allay his headache. Good help was so hard to find. He leaned back against the wood and velvet chair in his study and sighed. His parents had never had to deal with these issues. “This is what I get for hiring incompetents.” Perhaps he’d been too hasty in infusing his Arcane Inquisitor with the mage compass so he didn’t have to leave his palace to chase Aliya across the realm himself. He opened his eyes, meeting Brooks’ gaze when the man glanced up. Absentmindedly stroking Shadow’s back where she perched on the corner of his desk, Malkov curled his upper lip. “You promised me your friends were the best. I paid you twice the going rate, and you guaranteed me results. Where is my queen?”
The man had sworn they could deliver. Malkov had literally emptied the royal coffers to pay the first half of Stephen’s fee up front.
“We’re sorry, Your Majesty,” the female said. “She slipped the manacles and disappeared into thin air! We can’t figure out how she did it.”
Ugh. Idiots! He ground his teeth until the tendons in his jaw snapped. “If you put the chains on tight enough, she wouldn’t have escaped!”
“I assure you, my lord, the bindings were snug to the point of bruising.” Stephen dared to lift his face from the dirt to meet Malkov’s eyes. “I checked them myself. She must have gnawed off her wrist.”
“Or dislocated her thumb,” the woman added.
Malkov cursed. He hadn’t foreseen the timid Aliya Larimar having the inner fortitude to forcibly separate her own joint. Or the knowledge. Regardless, anklets would work better. No joints one could dislocate to remove those. He made a mental note for next time.
He met the gaze of the brazen hit man and clenched his fist.
The man screamed.
“Stephen!” The woman lunged for him.