A hard day’s ride from Catiscal to Horvald left her limp as a rag doll. She glanced at Devadas who dismounted from his horse looking as if he’d been for a ride in the country. He wouldn’t look at her. Since he’d rescued her and left Catiscal in the care of Princess Dana, he’d said barely a word to her. She wondered if he believed she’d been defiled by Antos and was somehow contaminated, but he’d been appalled when she suggested such a thing in the one conversation they had just after Antos had been banished. Since then he’d avoided her. He wasn’t cold, just distant and preoccupied. She thought perhaps he was full of unexpected grief having to bind his older brother to a horse then direct two guards to escort him to the port of Telno. They were to pay for his passage to the Southlands. ‘Find your fortune there,’ Devadas told him. ‘Your destiny is not in Catiscal.’ Antos had spat on the ground in front of his brother and glared at him with a hatred that made most onlookers step back.
