Page 30 of Death of a Mortal

“Do you feel bad for Queen Malvina?”

It was always said that she was quiet and complacent, rarely speaking, just smiling on the arm of the king. I often wondered if she was dim.

“No,” I answered. “If she sits by the side of a cruel king, then she’s equally to blame in my eyes. Allowing something bad to happen is almost as bad as doing the bad thing. Especially if she’s able to stop it and doesn’t.”

As our conversation faded out, the sounds of the horses whinnying and tossing their manes in the stalls below helped me drift off to sleep, thinking one day soon I would finally see my mom again.

* * *

After a quickbreakfast from our rations and dismantling our hay beds, we crept out of the barn and away from the house that the men from last night surely now occupied. We circled the edge of the property to avoid being seen should they look out one of the home’s many windows and made our way back to the road and trekked on toward Dolvenar.

“What are we gonna do when we get to the capital?” Nella asked.

I contemplated, silently agreeing that now was the time to come up with a plan. “We’ll need to stake out closer to the city entrance, find out if the city is open, or if they monitor who goes in an out. We’ll figure out a plan to get in, then once we’re in, we’ll need to blend in with the lower class. There should be enough mortals working throughout the city that we can learn something about my mom without raising any suspicion. We may have to stay in Dolvenar a while, until we hear something concrete. The banshee said she’s in the capital, but we can’t assume we’ll stumble upon her as soon as we get there. And if she’s part of the rebel movement, she’ll likely be disguised or underground.”

“Naci, that’s a lot of unknowns, a lot to figure out on the fly.”

“I know,” I said with a smile, “but we’ve survived banshees, poisonous flowers, bloodthirsty sisters, and demon deer. This will be a piece of cake.”

Nella’s spirits lifted as we continued down the dirt road to Dolvenar. But if I were being honest, I didn’t feel as confident as I put on for Nella. The capital was huge, and finding someone who intended not to be found would be difficult, even if Ididknow what they looked like. Not to mention the tensions between mortals and fae, and what we learned the previous night from the overheard conversation in the barn about mortals disappearing.

We walked on past fields of cotton, hay, and coffee beans. Past patches of wildflowers and neat rows of exotic-looking blooms—tall fruit-bearing trees and short berry-filled shrubs. There were also pastures packed with animals of all kinds. If I didn’t despise the fae, I would be impressed by what their magic could do—I was no gardener, but I didn’t think, without magical help, that this array of plants would grow in the same area.

It seemed odd that no one was working in the fields, but I imagined there was magic far more capable of growing and cultivating than the labor of mortals could accomplish. We didn’t dare take from them, though. The rumor was that magical traps protected the plants,animals, and food from unwanted thieves. Rumors…and signs posted in every field that hinted they were true. So we ate and drank only from our dwindling packs as we walked.

The city gates soon came into view on the horizon. The black metal spikes were menacing, even from this distance, reaching for the sky above and connecting to a gray stone wall that stretched all the way around the capital. Its walls were tall enough to block any view of the city within.

With the sun setting soon once more, we needed to camp for the night and stake things out in the morning, closer to the entrance, to finalize a plan.

* * *

After a nightof sleep in a copse of trees off the main road, I awoke to the sounds of a horse-drawn carriage trundling by. Nella still slept. The girl could sleep through just about anything.

I woke Nella, and after finishing the last of the food and water from our packs, we followed the road toward Dolvenar, staying in the woods off to one side, crouching low behind the brambles when carts and carriages went by.

When we got close enough to see the entrance guards, the sun was nearing its peak in the sky, and traffic into the capital was picking up—this would be our stakeout.

We settled behind a large tree on the edge of the woods, which offered us cover from the main road and a line of sight through sparse bushes to the gates ahead. Despite being well hidden, we could see the traffic coming and going.

For hours, we watched in the late summer heat, sweat dripping steadily from both our brows. Some carts went right through the gates without being stopped. Others were stopped and the drivers questioned. Still others had their carts searched before being allowed past. Twice, a cart was refused entrance and turned around, leavingthe capital before it even entered. It was tough to find a pattern at first.

But after a while, it became apparent which carriages were let through without question. These were all smaller and far more lavish carriages, likely carrying important people. The shabbier and larger carriages were searched each time they approached and each passenger was questioned.

Looking closer at the ones admitted through, it was the golden accents, gold-adorned bridles and harnesses of the horses, and the sharp uniforms of the drivers that marked these as carrying the people that the capital trusted to come through the gates unchecked.

This would be our ticket in. It was predictable and, if we were on board, undetectable. But how to get on board unnoticed…

When we discussed this and the day’s observations, Nella was the first to propose a solution.

“I read once in a book about a robbery where the thieves got through the gates of the place they were robbing by holding on to the underside of a carriage.”

“Nella, that’s…that’s brilliant! If we can sneak up behind one, we would need to get the carriage to stop long enough for us to slip under. We would need a distraction that stopped the horses. They’re easy enough to spook, but how do we do it without being seen?”

“Need some help?”

There was the bird’s voice in my head again. Noxie. He swooped down from the large tree we were hiding behind to land between Nella and me, where we were seated on the ground in the brush of our stakeout.

Nella opened her mouth to speak, but when no words came out, she just looked from the bird to me and closed her mouth again.