They rode for an hour before the path forked away from the mountains, and through the trees ahead, Nick saw the blue gleam of the river. He heard the leaves rustle overhead, the lap of water against the shore. A familiar groan of creaking wood.
Julia stopped.
Seche looked over his shoulder at him. “She thinks you asked her to halt. See how your weight has leaned back –”
Nick cut a hand at Seche to shut him up.
Seche’s comfortable look vanished, and his horse came to a sudden stop. Nick straightened, listening. He heard the creak again. “There’s a boat. Is there meant to be a boat?”
“No.” Seche’s horse whirled on its haunches. “Hold on.”
Nick grabbed a handful of Julia’s mane as she swung around. Seche cried out. He fell forwards as his horse thundered past, the shaft of an arrow sticking from his back. Nick caught a glimpse of horse mane curled in Seche’s fist as he clung on.
Something bowled into Nick, ripping him from Julia’s back. He landed heavily on his side, and someone landed on top of him, knocking the air from his lungs. “This him?” an unfamiliar voice asked. Nick shoved off the ground, somehow managing to twist and get his elbow into someone’s face with a satisfying crack. A growl, and the back of his neck was caught and slammed into the ground. Dirt and dried leaves billowed out under his harsh breaths.
“That’s him,” said someone in a resigned tone. Nick recognised the voice. He looked up to see Captain Hin standing on the path, looking at Nick as if he was disappointed to have found him. “The information was good. Kit’s not here.”
“We can look –”
“Don’t have the time.”
“We have all day,” the man on Nick’s back said. A swishing noise let him know it was a kit that had him pinned.
Captain Hin looked down the pathway where both horses had vanished. “The informant said it would only be the witch’s apprentice. Get him on board, we’re leaving.”
???
The journey upriver was unpleasant.
Nick was stashed in the brig of a riverboat. There was no natural light, no candles, no bed. Breakfast was a small loaf of hard bread, and dinner was a bowl of cold fish stew. The man who came to give the food was an unfamiliar one. He ignored Nick, not acknowledging him at all when he spoke.
He saw nobody else.
Nick hoped that Seche made it back to the castle safely, that the gleaming leather armour he kept so well was functional as well as decorative. He feared Kit’s reaction when he didn’t come back. He agonised over the details—if Seche made it back, how Kit would receive the news. If Seche didn’t make it back, and Kit realised that something had gone wrong.
That Valor would stop Kit from coming after him was the only silver lining Nick could find.
The hull vibrated against his back, a low groan emanating from the wood as it scraped against something solid. The door to his cell swung open, bathing Nick in blinding light and stale air. He flinched as two kits hauled him roughly to his feet, his muscles sore from sleeping on the hard ground. The chains binding his wrists rustled. Nick’s eyes adjusted, and a shadow in the corner transformed into Evie, Desre’s handmaiden. She peered up into Nick’s face, examining him with a blank look before nodding to the kits at either side of him. “My lady wants him brought to councilman Greya immediately.”
Nick didn’t resist, wanting nothing more than to be out of the dank, humid room.
They were docked in a large, sprawling town at the base of a mountain that jutted up abruptly high into the sky. He’d seen the mountain in the distance from the castle but realised now it was much taller than he’d first thought. Kit had told him nobody lived on the other side of the mountain, as it was almost constantly in shade, while Aridia bathed in the light. The density of buildings fanned out gradually,justorderly enough that Nickthought it a purposeful, planned gradient. With stone buildings and red-brick roofs, Aridia was a stalk of green grass shy of pretty. The fields surrounding the castle had been barren and yellow; the fields here were scorched to sand, the last remnants of trees bowed into husks, curled in death. The riverbanks, where growth might have managed to gain a foothold, were lined with large slabs of scrubbed, dark granite.
Nick’s attention moved to his immediate surroundings. Exhausted kits littered the deck of the ship, dragging harsh, sharp breaths deep into their lungs. Most cupped raw hands to their stomachs, bright pink blisters blooming where they’d gripped the river oars. The kits at the castle had been filled out, full of colour and energy; these kits were scrawny and pale.
On the dock, a small crowd of kits surrounded the boat. Stone-faced guards called out, “No food,” to the onlookers, and it wasn’t being received with grace. Nick was hauled through the crowd. Some curious eyes were thrown his direction, but most shied away from his flat-eyed jailors like they were something to be feared.
Evie led the way to a building with spires that towered above all other buildings, edges sharp and Gothic. The windows were stained-glass, a man with golden hair artfully painted in each one. The river cupped the outskirts of the building in a horseshoe shape, mere inches between the water’s edge and the foundation stones. They crossed a reinforced granite bridge to large double doors that swung open before they reached them.
Evie and the guards stopped mid-step, quickly bowing their heads. The kit on his left grabbed a handful of hair at the back of Nick’s head and shoved him down. “Fuck off.” Nick’s anger exploded. He wrenched away, kicking out at that asshole. “I’m not bowing my head to some fucking –”
The kit punched his sternum, knocking the breath out of Nick in one fell swoop. He gasped, ribs creaking in protest.
“It’s just a servant,” Evie muttered, straightening. Before Nick recovered, they marched him into the church. They passed through a main hall so cavernous their footsteps’ echoes had echoes, where rows of pews led to a circular altar atop a raised platform. They quickly entered a side room, where he was led to a chair in the centre and forced to sit. A lush red carpet covered the floor, and between bookcases lining the walls hung oil paintings, all depicting a man with golden hair.
His two escorts remained next to him, the one who’d punched him placing a hand on his shoulder where his fingers dug painfully into muscle. Nick scowled, lips parting to deliver every curse he could think of, but just before he spoke, the open book on the desk in front of him caught his eye. He tilted his head, staring down at the symbol in recognition: the duplication rune on his inner wrist.
The door behind them opened and shut. The two kits bowed, and Nick’s head was wrenched down once more by an unyielding fist.
