body, still vibrated with Captain Huntley’s presence. He lingered there, the sun’s afterimage burned into her.
“You may be a Blade,” she said to her father, “but you also have a broken leg. Both of mine are whole and hale. The responsibility now falls to me.”
“Only you, my dear?” Her father found the crutches next to his chair and pulled himself up, waving away the solicitous Batu. He limped toward her, his expression concerned and dark. “This will be a dangerous task. I cannot send my only child, my only daughter, into such peril.”
“There’s no choice, Father,” she answered levelly. “I must go.”
“But you aren’t a Blade, Thalia,” he countered. “I am.”
Thalia knew he was trying to protect her, but his words still stung. “You cannot ride, not as fast as you need to go. I can ride fast, I can shoot straight, and I will make sure that whatever needs protection will be kept safe.”
After a few moments, her father sighed and shook his head. She knew then that, though he did not like it, he understood that she spoke the truth and was giving her leave to carry out the work of the Blades. As she had longed to do ever since she was ten years old and had first learned of their existence.
He pulled out a chain that hung around his neck. Hanging at the end of the chain was an old locket. “You recognize this, don’t you?”
Thalia nodded, stepping forward. Her father had never been without that locket, not once. Carefully, he unclasped the chain, put the locket in his palm, and then opened it.
Her and her father’s faces were bathed with a soft glowing light. On both sides of the locket appeared a pair of tiny people, barely two inches high. They smiled and waved, though neither of them seemed really to see either Thalia or her father.
“Your mother,” her father murmured. “And you.”
Thalia bent closer, even though she had seen the locket many times. It still sent a shiver through her. One of the little figures was Thalia herself, and it was strange to see herself in miniature form. But the most amazing thing was Thalia’s mother, healthy and happy. It had been years since Thalia had seen her mother as anything other than this small magical image. Looking at Diana Burgess’s tiny figure, Thalia felt her throat ache.
The locket enabled the wearer to see whomever they loved most dearly. It wasn’t always such a gift.
“I shall look at this every day while you are gone,” her father said quietly.
He shut the locket and then refastened the chain around his neck.
She tried to make herself smile, but her heart was pounding with mingled fear and anticipation. Nearly everything she knew about the world of the Blades had been related to her by her father or other members of the group. Their activities were shrouded in danger and mystery. Some Blades never returned from their missions. She might soon be added to that number. But there was no room for failure. There was much more than her own life at stake.
“I set out at first light,” she announced.
Chapter 3
Followed
Though it was only September, the predawn air was bitterly cold. Huntley stood in the darkness, hidden from view by a fence surrounding one of the large felt tents, his breath curling in warm puffs before dissipating in the chill. He kept his icy hands in his pockets and didn’t stamp his feet to warm his almost-numb toes, since he was too well trained to make any noise while lying in wait.
The same couldn’t be said for his horse. The animal chuffed softly behind him, moving restlessly and tugging on the reins. You’ve gone through the trouble to get me awake, she seemed to say, so why not make use of me? Huntley stroked the horse’s softly bristled muzzle and murmured soothing words into her ear to quiet her. The mare seemed appeased, but only slightly. She wanted to move. He couldn’t blame her.
Huntley had spent the better part of yesterday evening tracking down a horse large enough for him to ride comfortably. Mongol horses were sturdy beasts, adapted well for the steppes and hard weather, but they were also remarkably small, almost the size of ponies, and unless Huntley wanted his knees knocking against his jaw as he rode, he needed to find a horse that could fit his tall frame. He’d also bought himself a Russian saddle of soft leather. The wooden Mongol saddles were beautifully ornamented, but deuced uncomfortable.
He hadn’t any idea how many miles he would cover on the journey ahead, but he wanted to be prepared for any eventuality. He tried to think of anything that could happen, be ready for whatever came his way, for good or ill. That was something else that had enabled him to rise to the rank of officer when others who’d enlisted at the same time languished as sergeants.
Huntley was no longer an officer, no longer a soldier, but his senses in the frigid morning were still sharply alive as he kept watch over Franklin Burgess’s compound. After sleeping a few hours in a hospitable Mongol’s tent in exchange for splitting firewood, Huntley had taken up position opposite Burgess’s own group of tents to wait. The man had insisted that he didn’t need Huntley’s assistance, but it was clear that the blasted message Huntley had delivered yesterday meant that trouble was coming, and a middle-aged man with a badly broken leg wouldn’t be able to face it properly on his own.
Though Burgess wasn’t entirely on his own. There had been his daughter, too. Julia. No, that wasn’t her name. Thalia. A young woman with bold eyes and a bolder mouth, neither of which he had been able to forget, even while he had slept. His mind also kept circling back to those muddy boots peeking out from under the hem of her dress, what they meant, and why he’d even care about some girl’s boots.
He hadn’t expected to find a young Englishwoman in such a wild place as Urga, and her presence inside Burgess’s tent immediately threw him when he entered. He had been so focused on delivering the message, finally learning what it meant, that Huntley had never considered that Burgess might not be a single man like himself, but a father, and worse, the father of a daughter. Huntley didn’t like having genteel ladies around. He didn’t know what to say, where to look. Genteel ladies seldom had much to do with enlisted men, but when he had become an officer, he’d had to associate with the other officers’ wives. Their fripperies and fragility made him nervous. Somehow, he almost always wound up offending them, though God only knew how.
Strangely, he hadn’t offended Thalia Burgess, but they riled each other. He wasn’t used to being questioned. Fifteen years of steady and good service for Her Majesty meant something.
Damned aggravating, how difficult it had been to tear his eyes from her, how, from the moment he had set foot inside Franklin Burgess’s tent, Huntley had been aware of her, every movement, every word, even, for the love of the devil, her breathing.
His only explanation was that it had been six months since he’d taken a woman to bed. He had to think for a moment, and then only barely remembered Felicia, Lieutenant Colonel Calvin’s wife. Huntley generally avoided sleeping with married women, but everyone in the camp knew that Calvin kept at least two native mistresses and had given each of them a handful of babies. When Huntley had sold out, he finally gave in to Felicia’s advances. They’d spent a single pleasant, but not particularly remarkable, night together. And that was really six months ago? Great Gideon! Being near any woman was bound to attract his attention, and Thalia Burgess was definitely a woman. That had to be the reason.
He’d found her manner to be a peculiar mix: on one hand, she was trussed up in a dress that looked ill-fitting. Wrinkled and seldom worn. The fabric had been tight across her bosom, but he’d tried like hell not to look. He’d tried, and failed. She could fit quite nicely in his large hands, filling them but not spilling over.
He clenched his hands into fists, as if the feeling of his fingers curling into his palm might erase the desire to peel that damned dress off Thalia and see if his intuition was right.
That didn’t stop his mind from wandering back to her, though. It didn’t help that he had nothing to do but wait, no task to keep his