As soon as Safiya was also upright, Iseult and Evrane moved in close, their stances defensive while Yoris’s “boys” trickled out from the forest with their leader at the fore.

Yoris was a lean man with only three fingers on his left hand—supposedly he’d lost the others to a sea fox.

“’Matsi scum.” Yoris sucked his teeth in Iseult’s direction. Then he spat at her feet. “Go back to the Void.”

Iseult barely managed to grab Safiya before she lunged. “I’ll show you the Void,” Safiya growled, “you hell-ruttin’—”

Six of Yoris’s soldiers trained their bows on Safiya—and more arrowheads materialized from the dead pines.

Merik’s hands shot up. “Call them off, Yoris.” This was not the happy reunion he’d hoped for with one of his childhood idols.

“Arrows won’t save your skin,” Safiya muttered. “I’ll shred it with my kni—”

“Enough,” Iseult snapped with more emotion than Merik had ever heard. “His Threads are harmless.”

Safiya clamped her mouth shut at that—though she still moved in front of Iseult.

“Lower your bows,” Merik ordered, louder now. Angrier. “I’m the Prince of Nubrevna, Yoris—not some raider.”

“But who’s this, then?” Yoris tipped his head toward Evrane—who still had her cloak tugged low and body poised for action. At Yoris’s nod, a soldier extended his bow and flicked back her hood.

“Hello, Master Huntsman,” she drawled.

“You,” Yoris growled, shoving past Merik. “The Nihar traitor. You aren’t welcome here.”

Evrane’s sword rasped free at the exact moment that Merik yanked out his cutlass—and thrust it against the old man’s back.

“If you slander anyone else in my party, Master Yoris, I will run you through.” Merik prodded the blade forward until Yoris’s shirt wrinkled in. He’d had enough, and Yoris knew damned well how quickly the Nihar rage could escalate. “Evrane is a vizer of Nubrevna and a sister to the king, so you will show her the respect she deserves.”

“She abandoned her title when she became a Car—”

Merik’s boot connected with Yoris’s knee. The man crumpled to the earth and all around, arrows nocked.

But Yoris only erupted with laughter—a sound like crunching stones. His head swung up. “Now there’s the prince I know. I just had to check you weren’t bewitched by the ’Matsi girl—that’s all. That’s all.” Another chuckle, and the Master Huntsman rolled easily to his feet.

Bows and arrows lowered in a rustle of movement, and Yoris flourished a graceful bow. “Allow your humble servant to escort you to your new home.”

“New?” Merik frowned, sheathing his cutlass.

A sly grin spread over Yoris’s face. “Noden smiled upon us this year, Highness, and only a fool ignores His gifts.”

* * *

The morning sun beat down on Merik, sent his shadow slivering behind him or into the sun-bleached pine stumps and dusty yellow earth. Safiya stayed ten paces behind, keeping close to Iseult while Evrane bought up the rear.

Merik was relieved to find he could easily ignore the domna so long as she remained just out of earshot, just out of sight.

And so long as she wasn’t on top of him.

He did glance back every few minutes, though, to make sure the women kept up. Though Iseult didn’t complain and she didn’t slow, she wasn’t fully healed. Even with her face as blank as snow, there was no mistaking the tightness in her jaw.

Then again, she’d looked comparably severe on the Jana when she’d struck Merik with those strange questions. It was hard to ever tell what she felt—or if she felt at all.

Fortunately for Iseult and Evrane, Yoris’s prejudiced guards had vanished into the silent woods during the first mile of their hike. And fortunately for Merik, those same soldiers crawled within this ghost forest for thousands of acres.

If Safiya decided to run, Yoris’s men would be upon her in minutes.

Merik didn’t expect Safiya to flee, though. Not with Iseult still healing.

The group hiked onward, and the silent landscape never changed. On and on, it was an endless graveyard of splintered trees and sun-whitened trunks, bird corpses and soil dry as bone. Whenever Merik was here, he kept his voice low and head bowed.

Yoris had no such impulse. He regaled Merik—loudly—with updates on the men and women Merik had grown up with. Men and women who’d once lived and worked on the Nihar estate. It would seem everyone had now moved to this new home with Yoris and his soldiers.

Despite all the evidence, Merik still caught himself hoping to find something alive. A flake of lichen, a scrub of moss—he would have taken anything so long as it was green. Yet it was just as he’d told Kullen: nothing had changed. Moving east or west made no difference in a world of death and poison.

When Yoris reached a fork in the path—the right road continuing along the Jadansi while the left trail veered inland—an alarmed thought occurred to Merik. “If everyone has moved, did Kullen’s mother also go? He planned to visit her.”

“Carill stayed at the estate,” Yoris said, “so Kull will find her exactly where he left her. She was the only one who wouldn’t join us. Then again, this was never her home. She’s still Arithuanian at heart.” He unhitched a flask from his belt, head shaking as he marched down the left fork.