Champion of the Rose - Kobo Ebook Read Online Free Page B

heard too much about Fae curses and their wish to reclaim their
gift-kingdom to trust them with its heir.
    But beyond The Deeping were human lands. Kingdoms which shared no borders with Darest,
and had no great interest in Rathen children. It would be a journey of many weeks to reach them, but she could surely
find a hiding place there, if anywhere.
    She decided this over a week of sun-lit and unmolested
riding, north along busy roads to Islay at the tip of the Tongue. Then she turned down the failing trade road
east, travelling into a place of trees, tall and close to either side of a
near-swallowed road. As she passed
through the small, lonely townlets which scratched a brave existence in the
north-east, Soren's thoughts shifted to the more immediate future. What, for instance, was she going to do once
she reached Teraman? Ask to inspect
every babe born in the last few weeks? Hope one happened to have a convenient birthmark of a crown or some
such? And then try and spirit it away,
whatever the wishes of the parents? She
still hadn't thought of a reasonable explanation for a Rathen without Rathen
parents, and she was at a loss over how to go about identifying the right baby
and assuming Championship of it.
    "Champion?"
    Soren started, jerking Vixen's reins. She'd stopped at a stream, still an
afternoon's ride out from Teraman, and there'd been no-one visible when she'd
slid out of the saddle. Vixen lifted her
head and snorted, put her ears back, then returned to thirsty drinking. Water first, in this early Autumn warmth.
    "Don't look at me," said the voice, so naturally
Soren did, searching for the source. A
young girl was crouched beneath the small bridge crossing the stream. She was about twelve, berry-brown, and more
than a little damp. Pulling a frantic
face, she waved a hand, urging Soren to look away. "Pretend I'm not here!"
    "All right." Soren studiously turned her attention to the trees – a mix of walnut and
tall, black-barked loram. Hoping to make
Teraman before dark, she'd been feeling increasingly ambiguous about what was
to come. The girl was the first person she'd
seen since Thissen , the last village.
    Struck anew by the sheer unreality of everything happening,
Soren could only try to be practical. "Who are you?" she asked.
    "Nina, Champion. Lucia's my heart-sister. You are
the Champion, aren't you?"
    Soren admitted that she was. "Are you hiding under the bridge for a reason?"
    "They're looking for us, Champion. Mama and Mama-la sent me to tell you what to
do, when you get to Teraman. Don't
look!"
    "Who are 'they'?" Soren asked as she stared
obediently at the small round leaves of the lorams and suppressed a faint urge
to laugh. The situation appealed to her
sense of the bizarre, if nothing else.
    "Everybody," Nina said, sounding more than a
little overwhelmed. "Strangers
started arriving a week ago, but mostly they kept to themselves. Then the news came – about the Rose, and that
you were coming to make Helena Queen. After that, everything changed. No- one'd believed Lucia before, when she said
that the lost prince had come to her. Not even Mama-la, I think."
    This was getting convoluted. "What happened?"
    "Well, soon as Mama-la heard the news, she had us grab
what we could carry. Then we went down
the back. We were still on the stair
when they rode in, and we had to keep quiet, between the walls, while they
searched the inn. Jutlanders. From the trade caravan. Garrison men came and ran them off, but they
haven't gone far, Mama-la says."
    "Jutlanders?" That certainly wasn't who Soren had expected to be taking an interest in
the Rathen heir. New factors, spinning
her tentative plans all awry. "What
was that about a lost prince?"
    "Don't you know, Champion?" Nina asked, suspicious
and uncertain.
    "I only know that the heir is – or was – in Teraman,
two weeks ago."
    "Oh." The
little pause spoke volumes. Champions
were supposed to do better than that.
    Then, in a flurry of words: "The lost prince was one