Page 43 of The Stolen Throne
I’m still grateful.
She goes to the doorway but pauses. “Your Shadowraith friend asked me to arrange a hot bath for you.”
I straighten, warmth surging into my cheeks. Reven did that? When?
That jolt of eager interest gets trampled by immediate annoyance. I cross my arms. Not five minutes ago, that man was giving me to Cain.
“Would you like that now or after you see her?” Magda asks.
“After.”
“The sun will be up soon. Don’t let anyone see you leave or return.” She winks. “It’s easier than having to explain yourself.”
19
I Used to Do This
All the Time
I don’t wait long before I swap clothes and sneak out of the tent.
Moving unseen and unnoticed around a zariphate camp is both easier and leagues harder than getting out of the hovel I lived in with Omma in Enora. There, I had a limited number of ways in and out, but the Hag, who Omma paid to keep tabs on me, was also my only block, and she was bribable.
Here, there are many ways to go. I can do things like slip under tent sidings. They are heavier than you’d think, but they’re moveable. However, I don’t know who or what might be on the other side. I am also dealing with a larger number of guards and patrols, all hypervigilant and well trained. None bribable.
Good thing I’ve had years to practice moving around this zariphate in particular.
I can’t help a grin as I roll under the side of my room and pause in the dark alleyway created between the zariph’s tent and those closest to it. My amulet warms against my skin. Just for a flash before it cools again.
Let’s assume that was encouragement.
Using the darkness and the way my new clothes blend into the sand—I’ve draped the wraps over my hair and face—I move through the camp, scooting around corners, squishing against tents, using the shadows, and dropping to my knees or even my stomach when I need to.
I have to be wary not only of other people moving around but of those inside their tents. I don’t want someone to hear me, and that’s entirely likely to happen, because I can hear them fine. I catch an argument between heartmates in one tent and the opposite sound of lovers in another.
“No rune!” a child cries out, so close that we’re only separated by the tent siding and the air we breathe.
And I have to smile as I recognize words that go with a board game the Wanderers play—Sur—about strategy and tossing runes to determine your next move.
It takes me longer to get by that one, because they’re sitting so close to the tent wall.
At least I know exactly where I’m going. Once I get through where the Vanished are housed, my plan is to go out into the desert and circle back to approach Tabra’s tent from the backside, avoiding the guards at the front.
Outside one tent, I catch a familiar sound. Horus’s voice. I’m getting close.
The scuff of footfalls over sand has me dropping to my stomach, trying to make like a divot in the dunes, but whoever it is keeps coming closer. Tucking my hands under my stomach so they can’t see the light radiating from my palms, I use my power to pull sand up and over me, pulse racing as a sentry passes by not ten feet from where I lay.
Thankfully, they don’t pause, moving out of sight. I let out a silent breath. That was closer than I’d like.
I give the sentry another minute to clear out of the area before getting up and shaking the sand off me, flapping a bit as some goes down the back of my shirt. Then I keep going, making it to the outskirts. Checking to be sure Tabra’s guards can’t see me from where they are, I step out into the open desert. When no one calls out, I keep going. I go until I can no longer see the camp, hidden by the rolling dunes. Then I make my way back around to the left to come up from behind where she is.
The sky is still dark, though. No glow to the sky. I pause, staring off in the direction where the sun would come up. Should I wait a little longer?
A skittering of tiny feet in the sand has me looking around only to catch the glint of not one but several pairs of curious eyes in the dark. Sand foxes. The sigil of Cain’s zariphate. I’ve heard they are half the size of foxes found in other dominions. Ours also change color to blend with the desert sands, even the blue of the Lazuli Desert.
I expect them to whisk away the second I notice them. Sand foxes are notoriously wary of humans. They’re also keenly intelligent and hang around zariphates for the food.
They don’t go. Instead, a head pops up, nose twitching. My brows raise as the vixen comes over the top of the dune, her white fur blending into the sand, and moves straight for me. Followed by three pups.
