THIRTEEN
Onward Ava plodded, pausing every dozen steps to push Lagle higher onto her horse's back so she would not slip off. She would have given everything she owned to be riding full tilt along the dusty army road with Bianca to the Summer Palace.
The thirst she thought she'd quenched raged again, but she could do nothing about it except hope that the journey would be over soon.
The forest ended as abruptly as it had begun – on the banks of another river, or so it seemed, for this one was wider and deeper than the one they had forded several hours back. There would be no fording this river, so it was a mercy that a wooden bridge spanned the watery barrier that would otherwise keep them from the city.
Until they emerged fully from the forest, trees had hidden the city walls, which
