JAVAN JOLTED FROM unconsciousness when his body hit water. His eyes flew open, and he dragged in a quick, startled breath as he broke the surface of whatever body of water he’d been thrown into. The sun was a pale light in the sky, and Javan’s heart raced. He’d lost the chunk of time between leaving the tavern and dawn. Was anyone out looking for him yet?
For a second, he could see the faces of his attackers—three Akramian men with rough woolen cowls pulled over their heads—and then they disappeared from sight as murky water rushed over Javan’s face and pushed against his lips like it wanted permission to flood his lungs.
Javan tried to lift his arms, but his hands were tied behind his back. Tried to kick, but his legs were tied together at the ankles. He was trussed up like a pig on a spit, and the sunlight that grazed the surface of the water was quickly disappearing.
He was sinking.
Jerking his body, he kicked his legs as one, trying to swim without using his arms, but he kept steadily drifting toward the bottom of the lake.
Panic hit, slicing though his thoughts like a hot knife.
He was going to drown. Suck the murky water into his lungs and never be seen again. Jerking against the ropes that tied him, he thrashed and struggled while his lungs began straining.
Why was he sinking?
Forcing himself to stop struggling, he tried to think.
Weights in his cloak pockets. It had to be. There was no other explanation for his rapid descent. His lungs begged for air as his pulse pounded inside his head.
He had to get his cloak off. It was his only chance.
His chest ached with the need to take a breath as his feet grazed the bottom of the lake, his boots catching on the rocky surface. Yl’ Haliq be praised that the lake was shallow enough to allow a faint sheen of sunlight to help Javan see his surroundings.
Prayers tumbled through his mind as he frantically looked around the lake floor, searching for something he could use. He was surrounded by algae-coated rocks. Ignoring the fierce pressure in his chest, Javan crouched in front of a rock the size of his torso and thrust his bound hands toward its sharp edges.
A quick bite of pain snaked up his arm, and blood bloomed in the water around him as the rock sliced into his palm. Desperately rubbing the rope against the rock, Javan pressed his lips closed while a faint ringing sounded in his ears and spots danced at the edges of his vision.
Yl’ Haliq be merciful, he didn’t want to die.
His thoughts began to fray, and panic screamed through him. Gritting his teeth, Javan called on his remaining strength and scraped the rope against the rock as hard as he could.
It gave. Heedless of the cuts that sliced into his skin, Javan scraped harder, tugging and pulling at the rope as it began to unravel. Seconds later, as the ache in his lungs became a burning pain, the rope loosened enough for Javan to pull one hand free. Quickly freeing the other, he shoved the cloak off, kicked his feet against the ground, and shot toward the surface.
At the last moment, he realized the men could still be on the shore watching for him. His lungs spasmed, and he nearly coughed. The ringing in his ears was deafening. When at last he couldn’t avoid breathing for another moment, he turned onto his back and let just his face clear the water.
Air rushed into his lungs, and the pressure eased. He stayed like that for nearly an hour, floating on his back just beneath the surface, letting his mouth leave the water long enough to take a breath before he submerged again, before he finally dared poke his head out of the lake to search the shoreline for his attackers.
They were gone.
Quickly, Javan swam to the bank, hauled himself onto the shore, and assessed the position of the sun.
The sun was halfway toward midday. That meant the royal coach was at Milisatria and everyone would be wondering where he’d gone.
He needed to get back to the academy to enlist the help of the royal guards and the headmaster to flush out the three men who’d tried to kill him and get some answers. It was unlikely Akramian peasants could afford to hire a Draconi assassin, which meant they were probably working for the same person. Javan had no idea why someone would want him dead, but the why mattered less right now than getting to safety before those who wanted to kill him realized he was still alive. Turning in a slow circle, he got his bearings and then started moving south toward Milisatria.
It was nearly noon by the time he reached the academy. There were still a few carriages scattered about the academy’s semicircular drive, but a quick glance showed that none of them were the teak and ebony vehicles preferred by Akram’s aristocracy.
Was the royal coach late? Or had the same person who’d sent men after Javan attacked his coachman and his guards too?
Javan hurried toward his dorm. Maybe Kellan was still here. Maybe one of his remaining classmates had seen something that would give Javan a clue about why anyone would want to kill him.
Did a rival family want to declare him dead and make a move to put themselves in line for the throne instead?
Was this a ploy to break his father’s will or punish him for something?
He brushed past a pair of third years who were hauling a chest between them and edged around a woman with a wide skirt and an even wider hat who stood, arms akimbo, in the center of the hall calling instructions to a trio of servants as they scrambled to empty her child’s room of its belongings.
Taking the stairs two at a time, he reached the top floor quickly, but then had to lean against the wall as dizziness swamped him. His head still ached from the blow that had knocked him unconscious, and his near drowning had only served to make the pain worse. When the spell passed, he entered his hallway and moved to his room.
The door stood open, and the room was empty of all but the beds, dressers, and desks the academy provided for students’ use.
Javan blinked and moved a few steps into the room.
Where were his belongings? His blankets. His framed painting of Makan Almalik at sunset. His copy of the sacred texts.
He pulled open the drawers of his dresser while confusion warred with dread within him.
Everything was gone.
It was as if he’d never been here.
So now he was supposed to be dead and also moved out of Milisatria? How did that benefit the person behind this?
Javan’s thoughts raced, but he couldn’t make sense of it. Why take his belongings if he was dead? And where were his belongings now? A hint of red caught his eye, and he leaned down to find the crimson sash he’d worked so hard to earn crumpled up beneath his bed. Whoever had packed his belongings must have missed this. Pulling the sash out, Javan folded it with shaking hands and slid it inside his tunic.
Turning his back on the empty room, Javan retraced his steps through the dorm, past the commons, and back to the academy’s drive. Four carriages remained, and the academy’s staff were already busy sweeping the walks, washing the windows, and entering the buildings with buckets and mops.
Javan glanced around, expecting to see the headmaster bidding farewell to students and their families as was his custom, but he was nowhere to be seen. Scanning the staff members closest to the drive, he found one he knew fairly well.
“Aaler!” he called as he approached the liveryman.
The shorter man gave the load strapped onto the carriage beside him a thorough appraisal before nodding his approval to the family’s coachman and then turning to face Javan. His eyes widened in surprise, and he glanced at the drive again as if looking for the prince’s carriage.
“Did the headmaster decide he’d rather stay at the academy, sir?” Aaler asked.
Javan frowned. “The headmaster?”
“Where is your carriage?” Aaler craned his neck to see farther down the cobblestoned road where it wrapped around a bend in the hill and disappeared from view.
“I don’t have one. Where is the—”
“Of course you have one. I approved the load at least an hour ago. Maybe more.” Aaler met Javan’s gaze, the confusion on his face a perfect match for the prince’s own.
“You sent my carriage on its way without me?” Javan kept his voice even, though he wanted to shout in frustration. All his belongings, and apparently the carriage his father had sent, gone.
But why would the coachman drive away without the prince?
“No, sir. You know you were inside. You and the headmaster.” Aaler took a step back as Javan quickly closed the space between them.
“I wasn’t in that carriage. Why are you lying to me?”
“I’m not lying!” Anger sparked on the man’s face. “You were inside the carriage while your coachman packed up your room and then had your guards help load the trunks.”
“Did you actually see me?”
“Yes!” Aaler paused. “Well, from a distance. I saw you look out the window once. And then the headmaster entered your carriage to talk to you, and he decided to ride with you to your first stop.”
Javan lifted his head to stare at the distant southern hills that edged the border of Loch Talam before giving way to the enormous Sakhra bridge and then the road that cut through the Samaal Desert. Someone had been inside the carriage posing as Javan. Someone who looked enough like him to fool others at a distance.
He had no idea why the headmaster would enter the carriage and travel with the occupant, but he was certain of one thing: he had to reach the carriage before it entered the city of Makan Almalik.
No one besides Uncle Fariq and the parents of a few of his Akramian peers had seen him in ten years. Including his father. If someone was making a bid for the throne by posing as Javan himself, there was a very short list of people who would even recognize the deception. A short list Javan felt certain the person who’d set a Draconi and then a team of assassins against him would have no compunctions about killing.
“If you weren’t in the carriage, my lord, then who was?” Aaler’s voice rose. “And what have they done with the headmaster?”
“I don’t know. But I intend to find out.” Javan met Aaler’s gaze. “I’m going to need a strong horse and provisions for the trip. You can put it on my father’s account.”
Moments later, Javan sat astride a sturdy black gelding. He’d traded the clothes he’d worn to the tavern for the flowing white linen pants and tunic that were acceptable for traveling across the desert. A hooded woolen cloak hung from his shoulders. It wasn’t the royal purple and silver of Akramian royalty since his had been taken by the impostor in the carriage, but it would do. A satchel containing spare clothing, a bedroll, a feed bag for his horse, and several skins of water was bound to the saddle behind him. Aaler hadn’t been able to give him any coin since only the headmaster had the keys to the trunk that held the academy’s spare funds, but Javan, after strapping on a short sword and two daggers, had taken several extra daggers from the armory and packed them into a soft leather bag that hung by his side. He’d be able to trade a weapon for provisions and shelter along the road if necessary.
He hoped it wasn’t necessary.
He hoped to catch up with the carriage before dawn, expose the impostor’s charade, and put a stop to the entire thing before any damage was done.
Bidding Aaler farewell, Javan turned his horse south and nudged him into a brisk trot. The cobblestoned road banked around the base of the hills, and then cut south through a pair of silvery lakes. The imposing stone facade of Milisatria grew small behind him as the cobblestones gave way to the packed dirt of the main road that wound past the final craggy hills and meadows of Loch Talam before reaching the imposing length of the Sakhra.
Javan urged his horse into a canter and anchored the bag of weapons to his side with one arm so that it wouldn’t bang against the horse’s flank. Traffic on the road was light. Most people had no interest in crossing the Sakhra and entering the desert at night when temperatures plummeted and bandits roamed.
As the giant pillars of the Sakhra came into view, Javan pulled the gelding into a walk, both to give the horse a chance to catch its breath and to assess what he was seeing.
Built of glistening dark stone that curved gently upward before arching in the middle and then descending to the far distant edge of the desert that pressed against the banks of the enormous Abhainn Liath river, the Sakhra was wide enough for four carriages to travel abreast. Intricately woven black rope formed a safety netting on either side of the bridge. A small crowd of late-afternoon travelers were clustered at the edge of the bridge staring down at the body of a man that lay crumpled on the shore beside the bridge’s entrance as if he had been tossed from a moving carriage.
Javan’s heart pounded and his hands grew clammy on the reins as he drew closer.
The body was unnaturally still, and no one made a move to offer medical aid. The man’s official Milisatria uniform was stained dark with blood, and the dying light of the sun painted his gray hair gold.
Javan slid from his horse, tied the reins to the closest bridge post, and stumbled to the edge of the shore.
“Careful there, son. Don’t want to end up going in.” A man reached for him, but Javan couldn’t feel the hands that held him back.
Something wild and awful awoke in his chest and grew until it was a monster howling beneath his skin. He fell to his knees and dug his fingers into the rocky sand as he stared at the body of the man who’d been as much of a father to him for the past ten years as the one who’d given him life.
“Son?”
“Did you know him?”
“Might be his first dead body. Can be a shock.”
“Night’s falling. We can’t stay.”
The words swirled around Javan, passing over him without a ripple as the monster in his chest swelled into his throat until it was difficult to breathe.
The impostor in the royal coach.
He’d done this.
Killed the headmaster for trying to have one last word with Javan.
Killed him because the headmaster had seen the impostor. Because he had known something was wrong.
And because to fake your way onto a throne, you had to remove anyone who could dispute your claim.
If Javan hadn’t accepted the invitation to go to the tavern. If he hadn’t decided to use the privy and walk back by himself. If he’d fought harder. Escaped sooner. Run faster.
The headmaster would still be alive.
The monster tore into him with feral teeth, drawing blood from the scars of grief that covered the wound of his mother’s death. Javan threw his head back and howled at the darkening sky.
His mother was gone. His father hadn’t shown up. And now he’d lost the headmaster, a man he’d loved like family.
The hands that were holding him back let go. The voices that were talking over him gradually ceased. The prince bowed his head, grief sinking into him until the blood in his veins felt turned to stone.
It took two hours to dig the grave in the thick dirt above the shoreline. Another hour to carry the headmaster, arrange him with dignity and honor, and gently cover him with soil to keep him safe from carrion eaters until word could be sent back to Milisatria so that they could collect him and give him a proper burial.
Darkness was a vast, cavernous presence across the land, dusted by the distant glitter of cold white stars, as Javan laid a heavy stone across the top of the headmaster’s grave and scratched the man’s name into the rock with the tip of a dagger.
Resting his hands on the stone, Javan murmured a lament for the dying. It was supposed to be prayed before the loved one passed over into the next realm, but Javan knew Yl’ Haliq would understand.
Just as he would understand the deep dishonor that had been done this day, and what Javan had to do to make it right.
The sharp edges of his grief hardened into determination as he mounted his horse, lifted his hood over his head, and set his course for the desert.