Exile Read Online Free

the diamond-patterned blanket, then buckled the strap.
    “You owe her a departure in person.”
    “You’re going to have to talk to her, lad. I’ve been talking too much for the both of you.” Drew tied his belongings to the back of his saddle. “Unhook that tether, would you?”
    Robert reluctantly retrieved the stake and handed over the rope.
    “Coward,” he said, aware that he was describing himself as much as Drew.
    The horseman swung up into his seat and rummaged in his pack, procuring his hat with the eagle feather. He settled it on his head, adjusting the feather’s slant, and pressed his heels to the sides of his mount. Then he turned and winked. “I’ll owe you one.”
    Robert watched the other man’s departure without actually seeing the figure fade along the road between the outstretched limbs of competing apple orchards. All he could picture was Aurelia’s face when she found out Drew was gone without a word. The blood that would darken her skin. The lines that would sharpen her forehead and jaw. The flames that would shoot from her eyes. Whatever Drew owed him, it was not enough.
     
    “He’s gone?” Panic rushed to Aurelia’s throat as she repeated the words for the third time. Beneath her, Bianca shuffled her feet, no doubt sensing her rider’s distress.
    Robert looked annoyed. He steered his mount away from the mare’s hooves. “You knew he would be leaving.”
    She had, but today? On their first full day out of Sterling? With Robert still not speaking to her? Why did Drew have to leave now? And without saying good-bye? No, that wasn’t true. He had said good-bye. To Robert. She took her frustration out on him. “You knew, didn’t you? Why didn’t you wake me?”
    He raised his gaze toward the backs of the guards, already heading out along the road. “There wasn’t time.”
    “Oh, I’m sure you had more pressing things to do at that hour of the morning.”
    He bit his lower lip, slapped his horse’s reins and urged Horizon forward, leaving her with the magnificent view of his stallion’s hind end.
    She could have screamed. Throughout the week in Sterling, she had managed to distract herself from Robert’s blatant silence, but on the road it was different.
    And now Drew was gone. Drew, who she had been counting on to fill Robert’s place until Robert decided to forgive her. For what, she was not certain. It did not seem fair that he could be mad at her for risking her own life, but apparently he was. More than mad. Though she was starting to think something else lay behind his strained behavior. Something darker. And less easy to forgive.
    A fierce pressure built up behind her temples as the day crawled on. The ill-maintained Northern Road seemed bent on testing her patience, and she could not quite allow her mind to wander, though Bianca was doing an admirable job picking her way around jagged stones and crevices.
    The sun fought a losing battle with the clouds, and the shadows of isolation spoiled the approach to the Asyan Forest—the largest forest in the kingdom, stretching over an eighth of Tyralt. Aurelia longed to ask about the mysterious blue-green tinge shrouding the horizon. There were folktales about the Asyan, whispered by palace servants and shared in the open by street performers and puppeteers in Tyralt City: about people entering the forest and not coming out for a thousand years, poachers turning into wolves and mountain lions, trees swallowing the souls of outlaws who tried to find shelter under cover of branches.
    “What do you think, Bianca?” Aurelia whispered in her mare’s ear. “What lies amidst those trees?”
    The magic, of course, was false, but the danger? There must be some reason for generations to repeat such frightening tales to their children. A tingle of forbidden allure rippled through Aurelia’s skin. She wondered what Robert would say—
    Stop thinking about him! She buried her face in Bianca’s mane and tried to push away the memories