Exile Read Online Free PDF Page B

been there.
    Robert unfolded his legs and stumbled as sharp spikes shot through his veins. Forced to pause, he breathed in the smokeridden air, then staggered to the tent flap.
    Boots pounded past. One pair. Two.
    His chest tightened as he peered out into the night.
    Two figures sprinted across the campsite and joined a ring of dark silhouettes.
    Around a tower of wild flame.
    Orange tongues wove upward, tracing separate paths on canvas, then coalescing, brilliant sparks spraying the darkened sky. At the tower’s center, there were no logs or branches, but the clear form of a tent. Aurelia’s.
    Robert’s gut urged him forward, but something held him back: his father’s voice, the same voice that had echoed in his head since childhood. Never rush into a situation without first surveying the scene.
    Robert counted the silhouettes. One, two ... six. Two more shifted into view. Eight. Each of the guards and wagon drivers. How had they all woken to the presence of the fire before he had even noticed it?
    And something else was odd. Above each figure, though hard to spot against the background of orange flame, a smaller light glowed. Torches . Robert inhaled the meaning with the thickening smoke. The campsite off the main road—one of the men had suggested it. The wine—to dull her senses. They’re not fighting the blaze. They’re feeding it.
    A sharp scream ripped through the air.
    And for one awful second, Robert thought it was Aurelia—that he had only dreamed of her presence behind him, and the blazing inferno was her reality.
    Then the scream cut through the clearing again, and he recognized the high-pitched voice of Horizon’s fury. The horses were on the far side of the blaze. Panicked. Torches shifted, their wielders reacting to the same incredible scream.
    And something clutched Robert’s arm. Fingers. Her fingers.
    He spun around.
    To see the reflection of murder in Aurelia’s eyes.
    Curse it! Hadn’t she seen enough without this? He shoved her away from the tent flap.
    She resisted.
    “Stop it, Aurelia.” His voice was low but commanding. He had to get her to the horses before those torches swung in this direction. How long before the murderers came after him, or questioned the missing odor of burning flesh or the princess’s failure to cry out? “We have to hurry.”
    He tugged her to the back of the tent and, bending down, ripped a stake from the ground to lift the canvas. “Go!”
    She obeyed.
    He grabbed his pack and thrust it through the opening. Aurelia grabbed it from the other side. He should have been grateful for her help, but those torches could arrive at any second. “Head for the trees!” he hissed, then rushed back toward his pallet, wrenched a blanket from the bed, and thrust it through the gap. Again, she yanked the object from his hands.
    “Aurelia, go!” he ordered.
    This time she argued back. “I’m not moving one step without you, Robert.”
    They did not have time for this. His eyes scrambled over the tent’s remaining contents: his flintlock, maps, saddle, saddlebags, bridle, and ammunition. There was no time to gather them all. Just get her out of here , his conscience demanded, but something made him snatch one last item—the one object in the tent he would have preferred never to see again.
    But the sword was his father’s, or had been before Mr. Vantauge had given it to his only son. And Robert could not erase that memory. Any more than he could erase the blood that had tainted the weapon in his own mind since the day of his cousin’s death.
    Sounds came from the clearing. Voices.
    Robert thrust the scabbard through the gap and this time went with it.
    Aurelia was still there, her body a shadowy outline. He tugged her into the trees, buckled the scabbard around his waist, then snatched the pack from her arms; she must have stuffed the blanket inside.
    “Where—,” she breathed.
    Crack! Something snapped in the distance.
    “Don’t speak,” his lips whispered in