The bile burned the back of my throat, tasting of copper and woodsmoke. The burning village was a jagged orange scar against the black mountain, the screams finally dying into a heavy, suffocating silence. Alaric threw me into the shadows of a limestone overhang, his hand bruising my mouth to keep me from crying out as a line of Inquisition riders thundered past.
"Don't. Move," he hissed, his breath hot and smelling of the brandy he'd used to numb his own wounds.
He let go of me and knelt in the dirt, his eyes scanning the path we'd just sprinted across. I slumped against the cold stone, my chest heaving, my bound wrists throbbing with a dull, rhythmic ache. My pockets felt heavy—too heavy. In the chaos of the shed, I hadn't just grabbed a firing pin. I'd grabbed the original topography parchment I thought Alaric had burned.
I have it. The real bypass map. The one that proves the Crown intentionally flooded the lower valley to starve the rebels.
If the riders found this, I wouldn't just be a fugitive; I'd be a catalyst for a civil war. I shifted, trying to hide the bulge of the parchment under my cloak, but the stiff paper crinkled. The sound was like a gunshot in the quiet of the cave.
Alaric froze. He didn't look at the road. He looked at me.
"What is that?" He stepped closer, his shadow stretching over me like a shroud.
"Nothing. It's just... a scrap of vellum."
"Liar." He lunged, his fingers catching the edge of the parchment sticking out of my bodice.
I tried to twist away, my boots skidding on the loose shale, but he pinned me against the limestone with the weight of his entire body. He ripped the paper from my clothes, his face a mask of predatory focus. He didn't just glance at it. He unrolled it, the moonlight catching the precise, red-inked lines of my father's secret survey.
This is it. He's going to hand me over. This is the evidence he needs to buy his way back into the King's good graces.
"This is the Southern Flood Plan," Alaric whispered, his voice sounding hollow, stripped of its usual iron. "You've had this the whole time."
"I found it in Silas's lockbox," I choked out, the ringing in my ears growing louder. "Alaric, it shows the sluice gates were opened on purpose. They didn't just fail. They were murdered. All of them."
"Give me your hands."
He pulled a knife from his boot. I flinched, expecting the cold bite of steel against my throat. Instead, he sliced through the leather binding my wrists. The sudden rush of blood back into my fingers felt like needles.
"Alaric?"
"Quiet." He looked toward the road. A scout had doubled back, the horse's hooves clopping slowly, searching the treeline.
Alaric looked at the map. Then he looked at the rider. He could have signaled him with a single whistle. He could have held up the red-inked parchment and ended our flight in ten seconds. He'd be a hero again. He wouldn't have to sleep in the dirt or eat raw grain.
Instead, he did something that made my heart stop.
He folded the parchment into a tight, hard square and shoved it into the hidden lining of his own tunic.
"Captain Veyron?" the scout called out, his voice thin in the wind. "We found tracks heading toward the ridge! Should we pursue?"
Alaric stepped out from the overhang, his posture shifting instantly back into the commanding officer I'd first met. He didn't look back at me.
"Negative!" Alaric shouted, his voice steady as a mountain. "The girl doubled back toward the gorge. I saw her shadow near the bridge ruins. Take the riders and circle the southern perimeter. I'll flush her out from the flank."
"Yes, sir!"
The scout wheeled his horse around and galloped away, the sound of his departure fading into the distance.
Alaric stood there for a long time, his back to me. The silence was heavier than the noise had been. He'd just lied to his own men. He'd just committed high treason to protect a piece of paper—and the girl holding it.
I could run now while his back is turned. Or I could ask him why.
I didn't run. I stepped out of the shadows, my legs shaking so hard I had to lean against the rock. "Why didn't you give it to him?"
Alaric turned. He looked tired. Not just physically, but as if his very soul had been eroded by the weight of the last hour. He walked toward me and grabbed the back of my neck, pulling me toward him until our foreheads touched.
"Because if they have that map, they'll kill everyone who ever saw it," he muttered. "Including me."
"You're protecting yourself?"
"I'm protecting the only thing I have left that isn't a lie." He kissed me, and it wasn't ownership this time. It was a desperate, messy collision of two people who had just burned every bridge they ever built. It tasted of salt and the iron of his armor.
I hated him. I hated that he was a traitor, a liar, and a soldier for a King who murdered his own people. And yet, I clung to him, my fingers digging into his cloak because without him, I was just a ghost in the snow.
"The riders will realize the tracks were a ruse in an hour," Alaric said, pulling back. He reached into his belt and pulled out a small, heavy iron key. He didn't give it to me. He held it up. "This is for a lockbox in the port of Oakhaven. It contains the original logs for the sluice gates."
"You already had them?" I gasped, the nausea returning in a violent wave.
"I've had them for three years, Elowen. I was the one who was supposed to burn them."
The relationship shifted. He wasn't just my captor or my protector. He was the man who had been carrying the evidence of a massacre in his pocket while he served the murderers.
"You're worse than Silas," I whispered.
"I know." He grabbed my arm, his grip tighter than it had ever been. "But I'm the only one who can get you to that box. And the Inquisition just reached the treeline."
A flare went up from the ridge—a bright, sickly green light that illuminated the entire valley. They hadn't fallen for the ruse. They'd found our camp.
"Run," Alaric commanded.
We sprinted into the deeper blackness of the pines, but as we moved, I realized something Alaric hadn't said. He'd given the scouts the wrong direction, but he'd also given them a target.
My sister wasn't at the ridge. She was at the bridge.
And Alaric had just sent the entire Inquisition to find her instead of us.