Page 107 of Heir

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Quil

Quil fled the jungle with Sirsha, Arelia, and Sufiyan, Loli Temba’s brutal death fresh in their minds, lending them frantic speed. They didn’t stop to eat or drink or rest their horses. Not after seeing what happened to Loli.

Even when Musa’s wight arrived, Quil didn’t slow, reading the message as he rode.

Much of Serra destroyed, but we resist. Fewer supplies, enough for five weeks. Sadh under attack. Tribes scattered. Nur rejected a truce. It is gone. Send word of progress. Everything he needs awaits him. —AH

Destroyed. Scattered. Gone.The devastation was unending. The prince wanted to write a letter in which he told his aunt all that had happened, and all that he feared. He wanted her wisdom and advice. For years, that hadn’t been enough for him. What a fool he had been.

In the end, he responded curtly.Alive. Almost to T.

He knew his companions looked to him for their next move. But he couldn’t reconcile that the killer who murdered Ruh and Ilar was also the puppet of the Tel Ilessi. Questions circled his mind like hungry crows: How had the Tel Ilessi learned of Ruh and Ilar? Why had they been his first targets in a war that would claim thousands?

None of this made any bleeding sense. Quil wanted to carefully sift through every scrap of information he had before deciding his next step. But he was also consumed by a volcanic fury that he didn’t know what to do with. A grief-driven rage that obliterated all rational thought. Hedidn’t want to cage it, as he did every other emotion. He wanted to shout, break, stab.

Instead, he channeled the wrath into riding harder, into attuning his mind and body to every possible danger he and his companions might face. They rode all night and the next day, not stopping until they were out of the Thafwan jungle and entering the highlands that marked the country’s central region.

They’d long since left the road behind, and it was impossible to traverse the rocky terrain with so much cloud cover. Spotting a copse of trees and boulders that would shelter them from the rain, Quil finally called a halt.

“I could get a s-s-stew going,” Sufiyan offered, teeth chattering from the cold. “If you can find something to burn.”

“No fire,” Arelia said. “We’re too exposed. That thing saw us. It knows there are four of us, and if it’s working with the Tel Ilessi, the Kegari will know too. You said the Tel Ilessi saw you in Jibaut. That he tried to capture you?”

Quil nodded. “Would have, if not for Sirsha.”

“I have the killer’s trail now.” Sirsha’s voice was strangely flat, as if she’d never laugh at the world again. “She’s far from here, due south. As for the Kegari”—she tipped her head up to the rain-heavy sky, closing her eyes for a moment as it drenched her skin—“I don’t sense anything. But the wind is difficult to read. I might not be able to tell if they are close. I—I don’t trust my tracking right now. Arelia’s right. No fire.”

Quil felt her desolation, understood in his bones that even speaking took an enormous toll on her. She’d lost someone she’d loved. She blamed herself. Nothing he said would bring her out of it. All he could do was try to physically look after her and listen if she needed to talk.

He coaxed her down off her horse and asked Arelia to curry them. Sufiyan doled out the bread and cheese that Loli had packed, and after tucking an extra blanket around Sirsha, Quil checked the perimeter ofthe camp, looking for signs of pursuit and attempting to avoid copious piles of goat dung. At least there would be good hunting if they ever could make a fire.

By the time he returned to their shelter, the rain had stopped and Sirsha looked marginally less like a wraith. Arelia had lit a blue-fire lamp, keeping the flame low and hidden under a cloak, and she and Sufiyan rolled out a map beneath a tarp they’d strung up. They gestured Quil over. Sirsha lay back against a boulder, watching.

“We’re here.” Arelia pointed to the southern end of Thafwa. “A few days from the Ankanese border. The Empress told you Tas is in Burku, the capital.” She pointed to a dot southeast of their current location. “Sirsha—how far is it now that we’re off the roads?”

“Maybe ten days,” Sirsha said, and at their looks of dismay, she shrugged. “The highlands are hard going. We can do fifteen miles a day if we push the horses.”

Ten days to get to Burku. A day, at most, to find Tas. If he had whatever it was that Helene wanted—Quil assumed it was a weapon of some sort—they’d take the first ship north. Quil would have to persuade the High Seer to let them sail under an Ankanese flag, otherwise the Kegari would discover them. But if all went well, they would be back in the Empire within five weeks. Before Serra ran out of supplies.

The plan was solid. But Quil’s mind and body rebelled against it, for a better opportunity had presented itself.

“I’m going after the Tel Ilessi,” he said.

Arelia looked at him in alarm. “We have no idea where he is,” she said. “And the Empress told you to—”

“The Empress isn’t here,” Quil said. “She told me to save the Empire. I finally have a clear way to do that.” He turned to Sirsha. “You’re tracking the killer. You said she was bound to the Tel Ilessi. How tight is that binding? How long is the leash?”

“She can’t stay away from him for long.” Sirsha gave Quil an appraising look. “A few hours. As for the leash—I have no idea. The encampment the earth showed me was near the sea.” She leaned forward to examine the map, tapping on a broad swath of land to the east. “Thafwan prairie. The camp was massive—looked like it had been there for a while.”

“Perhaps the Thafwans capitulated to the Kegari,” Arelia said. “Like in Jibaut.”

“Thafwa has miles of shoreline,” Sirsha said. “The camp could be anywhere.”

Arelia looked between Sirsha and Quil, shaking her head. “If we go after the Tel Ilessi, we can’t go after Tas,” she said.

“Yes, you can,” Quil said.

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