Half an hour later, after nearly falling off a small cliff, being slapped in the face by a branch that Leander let go of too soon when he moved it out of the way, and falling on my ass in a patch of muddy ground and sitting on what might have been a loaf of bread sewn into the back of my coat, I knew Mara was right.
The Giant’s Shoe was exactly what I expected it to be. It was a huge formation of boulders that jutted out from the edge of the forest, like a giant had passed by and lost his shoe. It was impossible to miss from the ground, particularly since the forest ended abruptly at the base of the hill, giving way to a wide, flat meadow that made the Shoe visible for miles.
Unfortunately, that meantwewere visible as well.
Or, we would have been if the sun hadn’t set almost entirely by the time we emerged from the forest.
“Horacio?” I called out, taking a huge risk by being so loud.
I figured few if any people, let alone soldiers, would be outside of the city in such a remote area. Royersford was bigger than any other city or settlement in the frontier, but it had grown up the hillsides and out through the valley on the opposite side from the ocean. Perhaps in another hundred years it would expand all the way around the sides of the hills, encompassing the hills entirely, but it hadn’t grown that way yet.
My call was answered by rustling in the bushes just on the other side of the Shoe. Appius leapt against me, half hiding behind me and half circling an arm around my waist like he would defend me.
Mara and Lucius dropped into defensive crouches. At some point, they’d brought their weapons out. They looked like they had been on the run for weeks instead of an hour.
Leander and Darius were the only ones who hardly reacted. They started for the rustling, then broke into smiles when Horacio emerged from the other side of the Shoe.
“You made it,” Darius said with a wide grin.
“Welcome to our party,” Leander followed, smiling just as much.
“You lot need to keep your voices down,” Horacio hissed, marching over to meet us by the toe of the Shoe.
“Why? Are there soldiers in the area?” I asked.
Horacio huffed and rubbed a hand over his face. “No. No one followed me when I veered off the road earlier. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t noticed. Wagons go off the road all the time, but people talk about it.”
“Are we in danger?” Lucius asked. “Will we be able to get away from here without trouble?”
We all turned to Horacio, desperate for the answer.
Horacio laughed humorlessly. “There will be trouble for anyone doing anything until King Julius either changes his mind about ruling with an iron grip or is deposed,” he said. “But we should be able to make it back to the road in the dark and be miles away from here before anyone puts two and two together and figures out what happened.”
“I’m counting on that,” I said with a nod. “Where is your wagon?”
Horacio had his wagon parked in the bushes at the edge of the forest, half hidden by the Shoe. His oxen seemed to be enjoying the rest and the grass at the edge of the trees. We were all able to climb into the wagon bed, keeping low just in case someone was looking out for us, and to start away from the forest and the hill once the countryside was fully dark.
My nerves were on edge all through the night as we traveled across countryside that I didn’t know. It would have been a different story if we’d moved through meadows beside Yacovissi or through the forest near Kettering. I knew those lands well, even if I hadn’t been to Yacovissi in years. I would have at least had a sense of where we were, even in the dark.
As it was, the only thing I could tell about the countryside around Royersford was when we made our way out of the meadow and onto the road. The wagon stopped jostling and battering us against the sides and each other with each turn of its wheels. Even then, on Mara’s advice, we all lay down in the bed and covered ourselves with the canvas Horacio had with him to make it less obvious that the wagon carried a human cargo.
At some point, I fell asleep. I didn’t think sleep would be possible, considering the situation we were in, but exhaustion took over, and with Appius curled around me and Lucius’s back pressed against mine as we rocked endlessly onward in the cold darkness, I nodded off.
It was still dark when I awoke, but faint rays of light limned the horizon. A cold dew had settled over the canvas, covering those of us who were sleeping, but not everyone was still asleep. As I struggled to sit up, I noticed that Leander and Darius were sitting up on the wagon’s seat with Horacio, talking in hushed voices. Mara was awake as well, but she sat quietly in the very back of the wagon, staring off the way we’d come.
I shuffled around to sit beside her, rubbing my sore muscles as I did. She glanced my way and acknowledged me with a nod, then stared at the indeterminate shapes along the horizon behind us.
“I always knew I would leave my family someday,” she said in her usual, calm voice.
“You did?” I asked, then cleared my throat when my voice came out rough from sleep.
She nodded, still looking behind us, and said, “I’ve spent almost my whole life despising them. I never once felt as though I was a true Gerzia. Although, honestly, I’m not a Gerzia. My father’s name was Foscani.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say. It made sense. Mara’s mother was Julius and Magnus’s sister, so it stood to reason that if she’d married, she’d taken her husband’s name. “What happened to your father?” I asked before I could stop to consider it might be a sore subject.
Mara sighed and dragged her eyes away from the horizon to look at me. “Mother grew bored of him when I was about six and had him killed.”
I blinked and shook my head, uncertain whether I’d heard her correctly. “She what?”