Dedication
FOR JILL MYLES, WHO REFUSED TO GIVE UP ON ME
Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Excerpt from The Crown of Embers
Title Page
Chapter 1
About the Author
Back Ad
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
MARA wakes in the predawn chill. She did not stoke the fire in her tiny bedroom the night before, knowing the cold would rouse her early. She will need the darkness and solitude for her deception.
She swings her legs over the cot and places bare feet on the earthen floor. The chill creeps through the soles of her feet, into her legs, as she fumbles across the tree stump she uses as a nightstand for flint, steel, and tinder.
A spark, a wisp of smoke. She touches a candle wick to the tinder, and the sudden glow makes her feel warmer than she actually is. Or maybe it’s just the thought of escape.
She places the candle on the floor so she can find stockings and boots, and the light flickers across her toes. Even more than the candle, more than the thought of getting away, a memory wraps her with warmth and light and love—Julio’s fingers tracing her toes with callused but gentle fingers, almost but not quite tickling. She always thought her toes too long and thin, to accommodate her too-long, too-thin body. But thinking about Julio makes her wonder if her toes might be a little bit beautiful, too.
From the common room come the rustling of parchment and the clink of a mug set upon the table. Mara’s blood freezes, even as her heart pounds out the aching rhythm—No, no, no, not this morning of all mornings.
Papá is awake.
She could try to bluff her way past him, but not even the prospect of meeting Julio in the meadow makes her brave enough. She should go back to sleep and try again later. Julio will wait for her. He’ll worry, but he’ll wait.
Heart sinking, Mara starts to pull her feet back under the quilt, but she kicks the candlestick and sends it soaring. It clatters against the wall, snuffing the flame.
Her hand flies to her mouth to stifle a gasp, but it’s too late.
“Mara?” comes the gruff voice. “Is that you?”
No help for it now. She shoves her feet into her boots—too dark to find the stockings—saying, “Yes, Pá. I startled awake.”
Leaving the boots unlaced, she pads toward the doorway. Her stomach clenches as she pushes aside the doeskin that separates her bedroom from the common area. “Sorry to disturb you,” she says, keeping her voice mild.
Papá sits on a large cushion at a low table. Parchment and scrolls are strewn before him, seeming to writhe in red-orange shadows cast by a flickering candelabra. He stares at her, quill poised in the air, black ink marring his gray beard. The candlelight shades his eyes and his cheekbones; for a moment he looks as gaunt and alien and cruel as an animagus, one of the enemy sorcerers that have been prowling their hills in recent months.
The irony of this comparison is not lost on her.
“I rarely see you up at this hour,” she says, trying to sound offhand as she strides toward the adobe hearth. Their huta is the largest in the village, with four rooms and a common area large enough for many guests. Her father is the village priest, after all, and very nearly wealthy.
“I’m holding services tomorrow,” he says. “With the Inviernos coming closer and closer every day, and the king unwilling to send troops, our people need a call to hope and faith.”
As if hope and faith could stop the weapons and sorcery of the Inviernos. “So this will be an important sermon, then?” she say, just to fill the cold air with something besides her own dread. She swings the iron arm holding the kettle over the fire to reheat the water. It squeals; if this were not her last morning in the huta, she would oil the joint.
“The most important I have ever given,” he says with gravitas and conviction that make her squirm with guilt. He is a good man in so many ways, a devoted shepherd to his flock of people. For the thousandth time, she wishes his kindness extended to her.
If he was up all night working on his sermon, he must sleep soon. Which gives her an idea.
“Would you like some tea, Pá?” Just the tiniest amount of duerma leaf would do it. He’s already exhausted. And Mara is the best cook in the village—she can disguise or enhance any flavor. He would never know.
“Yes, thank you.”
His quill scritch-scritches against parchment as she sorts through the shelves, gathering herbs for her cheesecloth. Hopefully, she is now forgotten, invisible. Carefully, surreptitiously, she reaches behind a bundle of dried mint for the packet of duerma leaf.
“Are you tending the sheep again today?” he asks, louder this time, and she almost drops it. Of course she is tending the sheep. He only asks to remind her how much he hates letting her out of his sight, out of his control.
“Yes,” she says, not turning to face him.
“You’re not meeting that boy again, are you?”
“Of course not,” she lies.
She doesn’t hear him move, but suddenly her forearm is in an iron grip. His thumb presses into the flesh above her wrist so hard that tears spring to her eyes. But she knows better than to gasp or wince. Or drop the duerma leaf. Mara blinks rapidly to clear her eyes, then turns to face her father.
His smile is too brittle to fool anyone save by the most meager candlelight. “Is that why you’re up so early, Mara?” he says, almost crooning. “Because you can’t resist the desires of the flesh?”
She straightens and holds her head high. She shouldn’t, because she’s taller than he is now, and feeling small makes him mean. But she does it anyway. “I startled awake,” she says softly. “But since I did, I might as well head to the meadow early. I spotted a stand of sage yesterday, so I’m bringing my spice satchel. I could gather enough to keep us in savory scones until spring. If you’d rather I didn’t go, just say the word.”
The only thing Papá enjoys more than sermonizing from the Scriptura Sancta is the money she earns at the market with her baking. She has trapped him neatly.
“I don’t like you going alone,” he murmurs. “It’s not safe.”
He’s right. It’s not. Which is why she and Julio must make their escape before the Inviernos have blocked all the roads. But she doubts her safety is his true concern. “Come with me,” she coaxes.
His thumb digs so deep that it takes all her control not to cry out, and for a terrifying moment, Mara fears he’ll call her bluff.
All at once he releases her. Warm blood rushes into her hand, and she stumbles backward, hitting the shelves.
“Add a few pine needles to the tea,” he says, settling back down on his cushion. “I need something tart to keep me awake a while longer.”
“Yes, Pá,” she says, still clutching the duerma leaf.
2
IT takes almost an hour for Papá to collapse onto the table. She nudges his shoulder gently, but he does not stir. He will know at once what she has done when he does finally wake. Mara will be long gone by then.
She gathers her bow and quiver, her spice satchel and water skin, and leaves through the back door. A dry wash runs behind their huta. It’s overgrown with yucca and mesquite this time of year, perfect for making a quick escape from the village. Not that
anyone would question seeing her on her way to the sheep pens at this hour, but she can’t lose the niggling worry that Papá will wake up after all. She imagines him barreling out the door toward her, fist raised to strike.
But the day is so beautiful, and the sheep bleat with such delight at seeing her, that the worry fades as she herds them up the mountain. Mara has always loved early mornings—the clarity of the air, the chirping rock wrens, the waking lizards, the freedom and solitude. She especially loves the way light edges the teeth of the Sierra Sangre, reminding her that not even the mighty mountains can hold back the dawn.
Her bow doubles as a walking staff; it clicks against the rocky trail as she guides them between red-orange buttes and through a gully wash. A quiver of arrows slung across her back rattles with each stride. She’s been practicing ever since her father gave her the bow. Last week she bagged two rabbits, and yesterday she scared off a coyote that had prowled too close. But she wouldn’t want to test her amateur skill against an Invierno.
Still, growing the flock is the smartest thing she’s done in her seventeen years, because duty forces her to leave the village—and her father—almost every day to graze them. Unfortunately, the surrounding area will soon be grazed out, and they’ll have to move farther afield. Her father will never allow it, especially now that the foothills are lousy with enemy scouts.
After today, though, it will no longer be her problem. “I’m sorry I have to leave you,” she whispers. Her sheep are the one thing about this life she’ll miss. They are too relentlessly stupid and sweet to hurt her on purpose.
Her path opens into a drying meadow surrounded by swirling sandstone outcroppings, edged in thirsty cottonwoods. A seasonal creek bed, barely trickling with last week’s fall storm, winds through the grass. One of the younger ewes leaps into the air, tail spinning, and takes off across the meadow in an exuberant gallop. Mara understands how she feels.
Her breath catches when arms snake around her waist and a warm body presses against her back. Julio’s lips nuzzle her neck. He whispers, “Good morning.”
She spins in his arms, pulls his head down, and presses her lips to his. She kisses him deeply, hungrily, until he breaks away, laughing.
But he sobers when he sees her face. The skin around his eyes is prematurely crinkled from days spent on the trap lines, or maybe from too much smiling. It’s one of the things she likes best about his face. He scans her from top to bottom. “Did he hurt you?”
Mara looks down, her bruised forearm suddenly screaming with pain.
“Every time he hurts you, I want to kill him,” he says. “It’s wrong of me, but I can’t help it.”
It makes her stomach turn to think that Julio might be capable of the same rage as her father. She releases his hands, hides her arms behind her back. “I put a bit of duerma leaf in his tea. He should sleep all afternoon.”
His eyes dance. “You didn’t!”
It never would have occurred to Mara to be amused were it not for him, and she finds herself smiling back. “I did.”
“I hope he wakes with a massive headache.”
She glances around the meadow. Julio’s pack of supplies is propped up against a cottonwood. “Where is Adán?” she asks. Julio’s little brother has been their co-conspirator. Today is his turn to check the trap line, but he agreed to ditch his duties and instead bring his horse for them. After they leave, Adán will herd the sheep back to safety.
Julio rolls his eyes. “Mamá caught him stealing pomegranate jelly from the cellar. She’s making him muck out stalls this morning. He’ll be here soon enough.”
Mara nods, relieved. Julio’s mother won’t keep Adán long. His parents are aware of their plan, or at the very least suspect something. For Deliverance Day this year, they gave Julio a brand-new traveling cloak lined with fur. Julio said that when they draped it over him to gauge the fit, his father wrapped him in his arms and held him long enough for Julio to feel awkward.
What must it be like to have loving parents, who encourage you to follow your dreams, even when they don’t exactly approve? Even when they might be dangerous?
“I’m worried about the Inviernos,” Mara admits. “A man who bought scones from me the other day said they’re harassing traders along the northern road now. What if the way west is blocked?”
Julio plunks onto the ground and crosses his legs. He sifts through the grass with his fingers, saying, “Then we join the rebellion.”
She snorts. “The rebellion. What a sorry bunch of—”
“What’s the king doing to protect us? Nothing! If it weren’t for the rebels—”
“You shouldn’t say such things so loud!” She sinks to the ground beside him.
Julio yanks a blade of grass and starts chewing on it. “Yes, the sheep might declare me seditious.” More seriously, he adds, “Whatever we do, it’s only for a year. Once we’re married—and your Pá has cooled off—we’ll be back.”
Papá’s temper never cools. It only simmers, hidden, until an explosion brings it to the surface. But it would be cruel to ask Julio to leave his family forever, so instead of protesting, she sprawls out and lays her head in his lap. “So,” she says, gazing up at the brightening sky, “we go west as planned, but if the way is blocked, we join the rebellion.” She silently considers that her hostile feelings toward the rebellion might have more to do with Belén, the boy who wooed her, then ignored her, then left to join the rebels. “I suppose even sedition is better than asking my father for permission to marry.”
“Frankly, I can’t decide which is more fraught with adventure and peril.”
She laughs giddily, thinking, Oh, Pá, you are so wrong. It’s not the desires of the flesh I can’t resist. It’s this. The sharing of dreams. The hope.
His fingers trace her cheek, her neck, her collarbone. She closes her eyes, wanting to savor every sensation, treasuring them up in her memory box so she can take them out for admiring later.
But then her eyes fly open. “I smell smoke. Not a cook fire.”
His fingers freeze. “You’re sure?”
The scent is off. Not green wood, not firewood. More like rushes, or maybe wool. “My cook’s nose is never wrong.” She sits up and scans the horizon.
“Stay here.” He launches to his feet and dashes toward the nearest outcropping. Despite the dread curling in her throat, she can’t help but admire the way he scrambles up the rock, the strong hands that have learned every bit of her body clutching handholds with swift assuredness as he pulls himself to the peak.
He gazes off in the direction of the village, and his mouth drops open in horror.
Julio scrambles back down—more falling than climbing in his rush, and she’s shaking her head against what he’ll say long before he reaches her.
“The village,” he pants. “Burning. All of it.”
“The Inviernos,” she whispers.
He cups her face in his hands. “We could run,” he says.
Hope sparks in her gut, so shining and sharp that it hurts. But she stuffs it away.
“No. My pá. Your little brother . . .”
“Adán!” he gasps, his face frozen with guilty shock. “How could I not think . . . he could be trapped in the stable!” And then he’s off running.
“Oh, God,” she whispers at his back. “The duerma leaf.”
Mara sprints after him.
3
THEY slow as they approach, fearful of stumbling upon the enemy. The village lies in a small canyon at the base of a mountain. It’s usually impossible to see until one is at the edge of the ridge, looking down at it. But today its existence is brutally marked by a beacon of brown-black smoke choking the sky.
They hear the Invierno before they see him—his anklet of bones rattling, the thwack of a longbow releasing its arrow, the victory yell. Mara barely holds in a whimper. The Inviernos are up here on the ridge, shooting the people she grew up with like they’re sheep penned for slaughter.
They crouch behind a ma
nzanita bush. Julio slides a knife from his boot. He pantomimes creeping through the scrub and taking the Invierno by surprise. She shakes her head in protest, but he grabs her hand, brings her knuckles to his lips. His eyes are dark with intensity, and she hopes he’s not saying good-bye.
He’s on his feet in a swift, silent movement, and he disappears into the scrub brush.
Mara claws the dirt as fury washes over her. She will not let Julio die. Or young Adán. Or even her papá. She won’t.
She reaches behind her back and quietly slides an arrow from her quiver.
Mara steps forward in a half crouch even as she notches the arrow against her bowstring. With luck and no wind, she can hit a rabbit at fifteen paces. Can she kill a human at five?
Julio is nowhere to be seen, but the back of the Invierno’s head is barely visible through the high scrub. Never has she seen such hair—pale yellow-brown, like aged oak. As she creeps toward him, his longbow comes up. He pulls an arrow, draws, sights something—or someone—in the village below.
Mara abandons stealth. The underbrush stabs her ribs, slices her face as she charges through, yelling. His shot flies wide, and he whirls to face her.
She breaks through the manzanita as he pulls a dagger. She draws her bow. Focus, breathe. He lunges, and his eyes—blue as the spring sky—are so startling that her elbow shakes as she lets fly.
The arrow grazes his shoulder with enough impact to twist him around. He rights himself and stumbles toward her. She pulls another arrow from her quiver, tries to notch it, misses, tries again. He is nearly upon her.
He freezes, back arched, eyes wide. Mara sidesteps as he topples forward to reveal Julio standing behind him, holding the blood-soaked skinning knife.
“Are you all right?” he says.
She nods. Her heart races, her hands shake, and something wet and warm slips down her cheek, but she feels neither pain nor exhaustion. That happens sometimes, when her father raises a hand to her. It might be hours before she understands whether or not she is hurt.