So now he was supposed to be dead and also moved out of Milisatria? How did that benefit the person behind this?
Javan’s thoughts raced, but he couldn’t make sense of it. Why take his belongings if he was dead? And where were his belongings now? A hint of red caught his eye, and he leaned down to find the crimson sash he’d worked so hard to earn crumpled up beneath his bed. Whoever had packed his belongings must have missed this. Pulling the sash out, Javan folded it with shaking hands and slid it inside his tunic.
Turning his back on the empty room, Javan retraced his steps through the dorm, past the commons, and back to the academy’s drive. Four carriages remained, and the academy’s staff were already busy sweeping the walks, washing the windows, and entering the buildings with buckets and mops.
Javan glanced around, expecting to see the headmaster bidding farewell to students and their families as was his custom, but he was nowhere to be seen. Scanning the staff members closest to the drive, he found one he knew fairly well.
“Aaler!” he called as he approached the liveryman.
The shorter man gave the load strapped onto the carriage beside him a thorough appraisal before nodding his approval to the family’s coachman and then turning to face Javan. His eyes widened in surprise, and he glanced at the drive again as if looking for the prince’s carriage.
“Did the headmaster decide he’d rather stay at the academy, sir?” Aaler asked.
Javan frowned. “The headmaster?”
“Where is your carriage?” Aaler craned his neck to see farther down the cobblestoned road where it wrapped around a bend in the hill and disappeared from view.
“I don’t have one. Where is the—”
“Of course you have one. I approved the load at least an hour ago. Maybe more.” Aaler met Javan’s gaze, the confusion on his face a perfect match for the prince’s own.
“You sent my carriage on its way without me?” Javan kept his voice even, though he wanted to shout in frustration. All his belongings, and apparently the carriage his father had sent, gone.
But why would the coachman drive away without the prince?
“No, sir. You know you were inside. You and the headmaster.” Aaler took a step back as Javan quickly closed the space between them.
“I wasn’t in that carriage. Why are you lying to me?”
“I’m not lying!” Anger sparked on the man’s face. “You were inside the carriage while your coachman packed up your room and then had your guards help load the trunks.”
“Did you actually see me?”
“Yes!” Aaler paused. “Well, from a distance. I saw you look out the window once. And then the headmaster entered your carriage to talk to you, and he decided to ride with you to your first stop.”
Javan lifted his head to stare at the distant southern hills that edged the border of Loch Talam before giving way to the enormous Sakhra bridge and then the road that cut through the Samaal Desert. Someone had been inside the carriage posing as Javan. Someone who looked enough like him to fool others at a distance.
He had no idea why the headmaster would enter the carriage and travel with the occupant, but he was certain of one thing: he had to reach the carriage before it entered the city of Makan Almalik.
No one besides Uncle Fariq and the parents of a few of his Akramian peers had seen him in ten years. Including his father. If someone was making a bid for the throne by posing as Javan himself, there was a very short list of people who would even recognize the deception. A short list Javan felt certain the person who’d set a Draconi and then a team of assassins against him would have no compunctions about killing.
“If you weren’t in the carriage, my lord, then who was?” Aaler’s voice rose. “And what have they done with the headmaster?”
“I don’t know. But I intend to find out.” Javan met Aaler’s gaze. “I’m going to need a strong horse and provisions for the trip. You can put it on my father’s account.”
Moments later, Javan sat astride a sturdy black gelding. He’d traded the clothes he’d worn to the tavern for the flowing white linen pants and tunic that were acceptable for traveling across the desert. A hooded woolen cloak hung from his shoulders. It wasn’t the royal purple and silver of Akramian royalty since his had been taken by the impostor in the carriage, but it would do. A satchel containing spare clothing, a bedroll, a feed bag for his horse, and several skins of water was bound to the saddle behind him. Aaler hadn’t been able to give him any coin since only the headmaster had the keys to the trunk that held the academy’s spare funds, but Javan, after strapping on a short sword and two daggers, had taken several extra daggers from the armory and packed them into a soft leather bag that hung by his side. He’d be able to trade a weapon for provisions and shelter along the road if necessary.
He hoped it wasn’t necessary.
He hoped to catch up with the carriage before dawn, expose the impostor’s charade, and put a stop to the entire thing before any damage was done.
Bidding Aaler farewell, Javan turned his horse south and nudged him into a brisk trot. The cobblestoned road banked around the base of the hills, and then cut south through a pair of silvery lakes. The imposing stone facade of Milisatria grew small behind him as the cobblestones gave way to the packed dirt of the main road that wound past the final craggy hills and meadows of Loch Talam before reaching the imposing length of the Sakhra.
Javan urged his horse into a canter and anchored the bag of weapons to his side with one arm so that it wouldn’t bang against the horse’s flank. Traffic on the road was light. Most people had no interest in crossing the Sakhra and entering the desert at night when temperatures plummeted and bandits roamed.
As the giant pillars of the Sakhra came into view, Javan pulled the gelding into a walk, both to give the horse a chance to catch its breath and to assess what he was seeing.
Built of glistening dark stone that curved gently upward before arching in the middle and then descending to the far distant edge of the desert that pressed against the banks of the enormous Abhainn Liath river, the Sakhra was wide enough for four carriages to travel abreast. Intricately woven black rope formed a safety netting on either side of the bridge. A small crowd of late-afternoon travelers were clustered at the edge of the bridge staring down at the body of a man that lay crumpled on the shore beside the bridge’s entrance as if he had been tossed from a moving carriage.
Javan’s heart pounded and his hands grew clammy on the reins as he drew closer.
The body was unnaturally still, and no one made a move to offer medical aid. The man’s official Milisatria uniform was stained dark with blood, and the dying light of the sun painted his gray hair gold.
Javan slid from his horse, tied the reins to the closest bridge post, and stumbled to the edge of the shore.