More correctly, the dust from the road was spotted by the guards on the walls just about the same time two outriders appeared on foam-flecked horses. By the time Jehan and his honor guard trotted tiredly through the outer gates and up the streets to the castle, the brown and silver banner indicating the Crown Prince in Residence hung below the king’s banner, limp in the humid air. A small army of stable hands waited to take the drooping animals in hand as the guards dismounted, everyone weary from the grueling pace the prince had kept. (Why did they volunteer for honor-guard duty? Hadn’t everyone said he always stopped at every inn to get drunk and flirt with the prettiest girls around?) But no one was more weary than Jehan, who hadn’t let himself sleep more than a couple of hours at a stretch for several days. His mood was vile. Not because he was hot and tired, but because he had tried to outrun his thoughts. He knew better. But the chattering voice in his head had kept pace right with him, whispering all the things he should have said to Sasha to convince her, leaving him with the even more depressing retort: Doesn’t matter.
