thick, jagged line of raised flesh. “It was one of the Kin who gave me this.”
“A sword?” Demetri asked. A cut like that could only come from a person attempting to give a death blow.
Ward shook his head. “A dagger. It barely pierced my skin,” he said, tracing the scar with one thin finger.
“That’s not possible,” Demetri said. He knew how to recognize a lie. He had often called out boasters on inaccuracies in their wild stories told around the Patrol watchfire. Yet this was the first time he had accused someone of minimizing his story of injury and adventure. “It would take a deep cut to leave such a scar.”
“Not if the blade was tainted with a poison,” Ward said. “How fortunate for me that it was not enough to be deadly.” His eyes seemed to turn darker. “And how fortunate that I killed the man and took the vial of poison from his dead body.”
He tugged on a cord around his neck, pulling out the Guard Rider medallion, identical to Demetri’s. The symbol of the king was inscribed in it: the letter A inside a broken circle. But, dangling alongside it was a slim vial with a dark liquid inside.
“I keep the poison still,” Ward said, lowering it beneath his shirt, “in case the need to use it ever arises.”
Demetri didn’t like the way he spoke those words, and he was no man to back down from conflict. “Is that a threat, Ward?”
“Yes, Captain,” Ward said simply. “Those of a noble spirit are most…unpredictable. If I ever sense that you are no longer on our side, I will not hesitate to kill you. Neither would Lillen. Your choice to betray us would be your last.”
With that, he walked away, leaving Demetri standing alone.
He hardly spoke a word to either of his companions as they continued their journey. They visited three groups of Kin that day, all camped near the swamp, and all distantly hostile. In every place, Lillen and Ward surveyed the people to find the “likely ones,” and Lillen spoke to them of the reward. At least, Demetri assumed she spoke about the reward. Ward never let Demetri get close enough to hear what she said.
The Four would die nameless, then. There was no question that they must die. Demetri had pledged himself to the Guard Riders, sworn to destroy the Youth Guard. Aleric, the captain of the Riders, would punish him for another failure. And Ward had made it clear that turning back was no option.
As they left the last Kin encampment, Demetri felt the power of the Rider medallion he wore. He reached up to touch it. It gave him strength, somehow, and reassured him that he would enter the swamps and come out alive.
But the Four, the nameless Four, would not.
Chapter 2
When Jesse turned his boots upside down, there were twin holes in the heels. “Silas,” he groaned loudly. “Is the entire surface of your district made of jagged rock?”
Silas, already getting out the fishing line, didn’t seem bothered by Jesse’s comment. “Your district has grassland and mud. Mine has rock and—”
“More rock,” Rae added, when Silas couldn’t think of anything to finish the statement. She tapped her leather boots. “But blame the makers of your shoes, Jesse, not the land we’ve crossed. Mine are just fine.”
Jesse rolled his eyes. “A fine lot of support I get around here. I’ll have you know these boots were made for farm work, not for climbing over every rocky trail in the kingdom of Amarias.”
“Never fear, Jesse,” Parvel said, clapping him on the back, which nearly knocked him off the boulder he rested on. “District Two also has a very fine swamp—one that I hope we will be approaching very soon.”
He directed this last comment at Silas, who nodded. “Two days journey, perhaps. Maybe less.”
Jesse wasn’t sure if this was good news or not. According to the Forbidden Book, the swamps were the last place one of the missing Youth Guard squads had been seen alive. When they reached the edge, they would have to enter and find them, facing unknown dangers along the way. Even Silas, who had grown up in District Two, knew very little about the swamps. Or, at least, he’s telling us very little.
The thought had crossed Jesse’s mind more than a few times that Silas might know more than he said, afraid of frightening them. But after all we’ve seen in the last month, what could be worse? Besides, we don’t have a choice. If we don’t go into the swamp, the other squad will die.
“I can’t wait until we get something to eat besides fish,” Rae said, scowling at the stream next to them. Their supplies, borrowed from Prince Corin, had only lasted a few days. For the past week of traveling, they had followed the river, eating fish from the stream for dinner.
“I can fix it a little differently this time,” Parvel offered hopefully.
“No,” they all said at once. The night before, Parvel had garnished the fish with a red sauce. The fish had been halfway to Jesse’s mouth when Silas asked him what he had used. It turned out to be bloodberries. Jesse had immediately dropped the fish and threw it into the fire. Even the smoke smelled toxic.
“He could have just poisoned us all and saved the king the trouble of killing us,” Silas had muttered while washing off his plate.
Hearing him say that reminded Jesse exactly how serious their situation was. Sometimes, fishing with Silas in the dusk, he forgot that a Patrol division could march out of the woods and kill them, leaving them in unmarked graves along the road.
They’d have to go a distance to find a road, though. That was Parvel’s idea. “Chancellor Doran must know we’re alive by now,” he had said the day they set out from Davior. “He’ll send someone after us. We should go the long way to the swamp, avoiding main roads and all towns.”
That was why they were still two full days away from the swamp after a week of travel. Every morning, Jesse would wake up achingly stiff, only to face another long trek over rugged terrain.
But it’s worth it if it keeps us alive. And, anyway, I’m getting used to the hard travel, Jesse thought. His skin was darker from hours in the sun, and if he wasn’t mistaken, he was developing a bit of muscle. Not on his crippled left leg, of course, but the other was growing twice as strong.
“Come on, Jesse,” Silas said, jerking his head toward the river. “Let’s catch dinner.”
Jesse took out the leather cord and makeshift hook that served as his fishing pole. All the poles he had ever owned were handmade, but this one took the prize for the most crude—pieced together from odds and ends they had brought with them from Roddy’s tavern and Prince Corin’s store of supplies.
Silas was already by the water, perched on a mossy boulder. “What’s the score?” he asked Rae.
She sat on the bank a distance from the water, as usual. Jesse knew it was because she was afraid of water, but none of them ever mentioned it. The first person who does, Jesse thought, will probably get punched.
“Jesse eight, Silas three,” Rae recited.
Don’t be smug, Jesse commanded himself. Still, he couldn’t help but grin a bit. It was nice, for once, to be better than Silas at something—anything. Silas,
