Sienna Du’for's Arc

Chapter 21 of 30

By the third village, the line behind Sienna had doubled. She could hear the scrape of boots and the low talk of strangers who spoke her name like a prayer. Caspian rode close, pen moving, catching every face that joined the road. At a crossroads well, a woman with three children fell in step behind Clementine's horse. Sienna slowed and turned in the saddle. "Why?" she asked. "You have children. The road is long." The woman shifted the smallest child on her hip. "Your sister raised the salt tax twice this spring. My husband was taken for the guard and not returned. I would rather walk behind you than sit in her kingdom another week." Sienna had no answer ready. She nodded once and rode on. Caspian brought his horse level with hers. "That is the fourth today who has said her name." "Cecilia's." "Yes." "Write it down." "I already have." By afternoon the road held near two hundred people. An old baker walked with a sack of bread on his shoulder. A boy led a goat. A blacksmith carried his hammer as if he meant to use it. Sienna heard the same story again and again, in different mouths. Cecilia had emptied granaries. Cecilia had jailed a priest. Cecilia had turned the guard on her own villages when they could not pay. Clementine rode close and kept her voice low. "She has been busy in the year you were gone." "She has been herself," Sienna said. "Louder." At dusk they made camp in a fallow field. The followers spread out in loose rings and lit small fires. Sienna walked among them because she did not know what else to do. Hands reached for her sleeve. She let them touch it and moved on. A rider came in from the south at a hard trot. Dark hair, plain cloak, no colors. He drew rein at the edge of the fires and swung down like a man who had been in the saddle since morning. The followers parted for him without being told. Caspian rose from his page. "That is Aldric Thornhaven." Sienna knew the name. The whole road knew it. The new king of Embermere, crowned less than a season ago after taking the throne back with his own sword. He crossed to her and stopped an arm's length away. He did not bow. "Princess." "Your Grace." "I heard at noon. I rode." He glanced past her at the fires, the goat, the baker asleep on his sack. "Your sister has been writing letters to my council. Grain. Levies. Passage." "And?" "I have refused each one." He met her eyes. "I will ride with you to the border. Not as king. As one sword." Caspian's pen scratched across the page. Sienna looked past Aldric at the fires stretched into the dark, at the faces watching her decide. She had wanted one true friend. She had a small army instead. She could not send them home. "Then ride," she said.