The iron-rimmed wheels of the heavy ox-wagon groaned against the white salt crust.
Kaelen Vance did not look up from the open pages on his chest. He was wedged between four thick goose-feather quilts, wearing a loose hemp robe that smelled faintly of dried mint. The heavy wooden slats of the carriage blocked out most of the midday heat, though fine alkaline dust still drifted through the linen curtains like flour.
In his hands rested Claire Vance’s grease-stained leather recipe book.
Anyone peering through the window would assume the third son of the Vance clan was studying the lost culinary arts of the river valleys. The embossed gold letters on the spine claimed the volume held fifty methods for braising river carp with wild mountain onions.
Inside the cracked leather binding, however, sat the ninth pamphlet of The Bandit King’s Secret Bride.
Lady Amanda has spent four straight sections locked in the bandit king’s iron cellar, Kaelen thought. And she still hasn’t noticed he leaves the latch unhooked every Tuesday. Peak literature.
He turned a yellowed page with his thumb, taking care not to crease the corner.
Outside, the arid wind whistled across the endless white expanse of the Salt-Waste Penal Frontier. Five miles behind them, the dark stone ramparts of the Iron-Crown Duchy stood tall against the eastern horizon. Duchess Valeria held those ramparts now, backed by thirty thousand ducal infantry and ten thousand Academy disciples.
