Something in her eyes must have made Yrenna hesitate. She gave a small, uneasy laugh. “Well . . . go no further than Lornhelm, please. And make sure you’re back by supper. I think Cook is preparing something special today.”
Jingyi squeezed Yrenna’s hand one last time, then turned away.
The path to the stables stretched before her, a grey ribbon under the vast, indifferent sky. A wild, wounded part of her said:Stay. Wait for him. Demand an explanation. Make him look you in the eye and say it.
The thought solidified into ice in her veins. To wait was to be trapped. If his letter to the king was any indication, his decision was made. Waiting would only mean being formally presented with her fate, likely under watchful guards to ensure she didn’t escape.
No. The time for questions was over. The only answer that mattered was the one she gave herself.
Run.
She took Brisa and followed the trail Bertrand used for limyerite shipments. The ground was soft with moss and leaf mulch, the mare’s gait steady as her own pulse. The path narrowed and dipped. Birds scattered. Sunlight flickered ahead. Then, the trees parted, and the river came into view.
The dock was no more than a stretch of uneven stone over a natural embankment. Wooden platforms jutted out at crooked angles, patched with mismatched planks. But it was busy—lively in a way that surprised her. Men and women moved among crates and cargo, shouting in . . . Xûengua, of all languages, lifting barrels of dried fish and sacks of rice to carts waiting inland. There was laughter too—short, rough bursts in familiar accents.
And there, moored just off the main platform, was a barge. Low and broad, its white canvas stretched over its midsection. The hull bore the painted glyph of a phoenix feather curling upward.
Her breath caught. A Xûen rice merchant vessel.
Several crew members sat on land, eating from tin bowls around a cracked bench. Their presence made it easier. She could pass as one of them—a trader’s daughter, an herbalist’s niece making deliveries.
She dismounted by a patch of grass and stroked Brisa’s neck. “You’ve done well. Thank you.”
She turned the mare toward the trees and gave a gentle nudge. “Go on. Back to Parandor.”
Brisa hesitated, then huffed and trotted off.
Jingyi angled toward the dock, the medicine chest pulling at her hips, her gait uneven. Her eyes scanned the barge crew. Most looked too busy or likely to refuse her. Then she saw an older woman sitting on a crate with her sleeves rolled and a shallow scar cutting through her left brow. She smoked a slender pipe and watched the dock with disinterest. Something in the woman’s posture—steady, unsentimental—reminded Jingyi of Wu Ma.
She stepped closer and inclined her head. “Excuse me, Auntie.”
The woman’s eyes flicked to her, gawping up and down with a dock worker’s practical instincts.
“Where didyoucome from?” she said at last. “You’re not one of us.”
JingYi held her gaze. “No. I need a passage to Bashkor. Can you help?”
The woman scoffed. “We’re a grain barge, not a ferry. We don’t take passengers, unless you’re a sack of rice.”
The woman chuckled at her own joke, revealing the gaps in her smile.
JingYi reached into the pouch at her belt and drew out a limyerite shard—rough-cut, no bigger than a pea. “What about now?”
The woman blinked, took the shard, turned it in her fingers. “This changes things.” A beat. “But we’re not bound for Bashkor. We sail to Aethonia, drop the grain, then circle back to Xûen. If you want Bashkor, catch a bigger ship from Aethonia.”
She remembered Aethonia from the brief stopover on her way to Tremore—the turquoise shallows, the white cliffs catching the sun, the kingdom rising above it all like something out of a dream. The idea of slipping into those sunlit streets as no one at all brought a fragile hope to her chest.
JingYi nodded. “That’s far enough. I’ll find my own way onwards.”
The woman tilted her head, pipe balancing in her mouth. Her eyes lingered on the birthmark across JingYi’s cheek.
“Did a man give you that bruise?”
JingYi’s chin lifted a fraction. “No. I was born this way.”
The woman’s gaze narrowed, sharp as a hooked net. “There’s something about you, Little Sister. Are you an Omega?”
Alarm shot down JingYi’s spine. This is it. The gamble. Her life now hinged on this stranger’s mercy and her own ability to reveal nothing. She forced her breath to stay even.