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of a lion beneath the man’s left eye.
    She caught her breath. She’d heard enough in Hal’s court for the past two years to know that the northern soldiers tattooed themselves at birth, dedicating their lives to their warrior existence. A northern soldier, then, from Amanthia. From the executed Queen Felicianda’s homeland.
    â€œWhat have you done, Bashi?”
    â€œThat’s Prince Bashanorandi to you!” Bashi nearly screamed his rebuff, pulling hard on Mair’s arm. The Touched girl tried to bite back her cry of pain, but a little of the sound leaked into the clearing.
    â€œMy lord Bashanorandi,” Rani forced herself to say.
    Bashi nodded, apparently placated. With a curt gesture, he passed Mair to one of his soldiers. “Kill her, if that one takes a single step amiss.”
    â€œYes, my prince.” The soldier locked his arm across Mair’s windpipe, settling a long, curved dagger against her side. A curved dagger, Rani finally registered. Curved like the knives of the northern troops.
    â€œWhat are you doing, Bash –, Prince Bashanorandi?”
    â€œOnce, I thought I’d wait to show my strength, but you’ve made that impossible. Get on your horse.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI know you’re not stupid, Ranita. Get on your horse.”
    â€œI’m not riding anywhere with you.”
    â€œI’ll kill you here and now, if I have to.” Watching the pulse beat fast in his throat, Rani understood that Bashi was not making an idle threat. “I’m not going back to Moren, back to Hal. But if I sent you back to Moren directly, I’d never have time to get to Amanthia, before you’d have Hal’s soldiers after us. I just might convince my brother to ransom you two sorry excuses for courtiers, though. Parkman, get the creances.”
    The lion-tattooed soldier strode over to the toppled cadge, swearing as the frantic Maradalian flapped her grey and white wings. The man extracted two long leather leashes from the collapsed structure. He snapped the creances between his fists, testing their strength as he turned back to his liege.
    Bashi’s eyes glinted in the last of the sunlight. “I don’t want to do it, Ranita. I don’t want to order you killed, but I will if I have to.” The girl had no doubt that he would follow through on his threat. “Mount up now. We have a long ride ahead of us.”
    With a warning glance toward Mair, Rani turned back to her stallion. She grunted as she pulled herself onto her high saddle, trying to ignore the slash of crimson that painted the leather as her wounded hand opened again. Somewhere in the struggle of the last few minutes, she had lost her rough bandage.
    Bashi jutted his chin toward Rani, and the soldier snapped the creances once again. “Lash her to the stirrups.”
    Rani immediately set her heels, ready to kick the horse and flee back to Moren. Before she could act, though, Bashi barked a command to the soldier who held Mair. The man tightened his grip on Mair’s arm, twisting hard and pulling the limb high behind the Touched girl’s back. The crack of splintering bone was audible above the rustle of the high grass, and Mair cried out through her clenched teeth. “Don’t even think about riding off, Ranita. I’ll kill her before you’re out of earshot.”
    Certainly Bashi would use more violence to gain his way. The prince’s face was coated with a sheen of sweat, and his hands clenched and unclenched repeatedly in the twilight. Mair began to moan softly, although she tried to swallow her pain. Rani sat still as Parkman tightened the falcon’s leash about her, lashing first one foot to her stirrup then passing the leather beneath her stallion’s belly and binding the other. “Get her hands, too,” Bashi barked, and the soldier complied, using another length of leather.
    Staring at Bashi with bitterness, Rani only just