It’s only fair.
My new normal involves practically begging one of them to escort me on toilet breaks – how would they feel if they had to get my permission to pee?
I should just be able to say, ‘toilet break,’ and have everyone stop and let me pee. It should be that simple.
“Toilet break,” I say – just to press Killian’s buttons, because there’s no way we’re stopping in the middle of a canyon.
And apparently my mouth thinks pushing Killian’s buttons is a great idea at this time of morning.
“Hold it,” the guy grunts.
“I’ll pee my pants,” I say, channeling full Seth – calm in the face of impending stupid-shit-coming-out-of-my-mouth.
“Hold it.” Killian’s grunt is more like a growl.
His gaze flicks around the canyon, like us talking is making him nervous, before settling on me.
“Should I pee your pants instead?” I ask.
I’ve never seen his brow draw together or his mouth slacken so quickly.
Did I go too far?
Seth’s cracking up, and the sound bounces off the canyon’s walls, making the vast space feel hollow. Pax growls, and all the noise makes Killian’s horse skip forward before the guy gets him under control and back into the line.
I chew my bottom lip, trying to control my mouth as I wait for everyone to fall into place, and the threat of me getting someone shot has passed, before I slip a feather from my pocket and flick it at the back of Killian’s shirt. It helps that my horse has slowed, and we’re a few inches behind him, but the shot still requires a moment to aim and a flick of my fingers.
I’d forgotten how good it feels to throw a dart – even if these feathers don’t have the same weight or flight precision.
Killian reaches across and grabs my horse’s reins, pulling him a few steps forward until I’m shoulder to shoulder with Killian again. No reaction.
He didn’t notice.
I smother my smile. Wait a few minutes. Then slow down again.
I probably should be watching the vibrant red and orange cliffs for danger the same way Killian and Pax are. But if there’s something up there, I’m going to be the last one to spot it.
Once we leave the cliffs, the road winds through oaks that stretch to impossible heights. Purple flowers unfurl along vibrant green vines, and the odd scuttle in the leaves hints at small wildlife.
But for the most part, that’s all just background noise as I flick feather after feather into Killian’s, and even Pax’s, clothes. Seth tries to flick a few, but after the third one completely misses its mark, he resorts to sleight-of-hand.
I run out of feathers at about the same time as the road vanishes into open space, the ground dusted with a scattering of leaves through which tracks have been made. The trees are spaced much further apart, and it’s clear that the area gets a lot of traffic, but there’s no defined roads. Just tracks in the leaves between several stables, and way off in the distance what looks like market stalls, with colorful buntings blowing in the breeze, and a few stone walls that could be buildings, but I can’t really tell from back here.
The guys stop, and my horse halts with them, but my attention is on three women who walk across our path toward the base of the nearest tree. Two of them are wearing vibrant hats with a mixture of feathers and flowers cascading down into their flowing auburn hair.
I bite my lip to smother any sound that might escape me – like laughter. Bralls, they look funny. But these guys beside me look worse.
The women step onto a wooden platform, and the thing starts moving – up.
I watch, my head tilting back and my jaw dropping. Up past the lower branches and into a tangle of timber bridges, decks, even houses.
Roarke crooks his finger under my jaw and closes my mouth.
“I’m guessing she’s never seen a sky-village before,” he says.
“Not likely. The border’s mist would have kept all of this hidden,” Pax responds. “I’ll get us a room,” he adds.
He dismounts, unbuckling one of the short swords from beside his saddle and adjusting it to hang around his waist.
This is it – the moment they realize I’ve decorated their backs in feathers.
Pax tosses his reins at me, and at the same time Killian’s mount lunges forward into a canter.
I have to pull my horse back sharply to stop him from following him before I can look around in surprise at Seth and Roarke. Pax has vanished between the trees, and Killian’s gone. There wasn’t even time to admire my handiwork on either of their backs.
“What could be that important?” I demand.
Seth shrugs.
Roarke isn’t even watching. He’s twisted to fetch coin from his saddle bag.
“Probably something Pax has asked him to do,” Roarke mutters. “I’ll hire some stalls. Follow me.”
Seth rides up and takes Pax’s horse’s reins from me. Good – I don’t have the skill to be steering two animals at once.
Now that I know to look, I can see that the ropes and ladders and platforms that lift into the trees are crawling with activity. Suddenly lights flicker on in a rush of glowing lanterns. Up the trunks. Along the bridges and walkways. In the windows of homes way above my head.
None on the ground around us, though, except for the various stables – like the ground isn’t even a part of this city.
Each tree trunk has Silvari writing carved and then painted into it. Which means I’m going to get very lost in this place.
Roarke rides straight into a small stable, one normal-looking for something in Silva. Which means it’s on the ground, not suspended in the air. He dismounts, awkwardly with his injured leg, in the middle of the corridor and looks around at the stalls on offer. I dismount and very slowly flex and curl the fingers of my right hand in a bid to push some of the ache away. Roarke reaches back, his arm going around my shoulders as he pulls me forward to stand next to him. A sensation that gives me little goosebumps and makes me forget all about the ache in my arm.
The building is made of the same branches-twisted-together style as the White Castle stables, but they’re in desperate need of a polish. I should know, I’m good at polishing stable branches.
The ground is compacted dirt – but it’s raked clean. The lighting is poor, but we are inside a building and underneath a dense canopy, so that’s to be expected at night.
A girl saunters out of one of the stalls, a rake in her hands. Black hair is pulled into a tight braid and her no-nonsense-got-work-to-do clothes are smudged in dirt and speckled in straw. But they’re made from fine Silvari cotton, so she’s not a slave or a servant. Just a girl doing a job.
She looks like she’s about to say something but freezes instead. The rake drops from her grip and crashes to the floor.
“Saber,” she gasps.
Next to me, Roarke levels his dazzling gaze on her. His chin lowers a little so his hair frames his face, and a seductive smile hangs in the corner of his lips. The scent of roses fills my nose. Which is odd, because I haven’t seen a rose bush since I left the manor – maybe she has rose soap.
I elbow the guy hard enough to make him grunt and break his gaze with her.
“We need five stalls for the night,” I say – but her gaze barely flicks to me before it’s back on Roarke.
“What she said.” He waves one hand at me while the other hugs his ribs.
Good.
He turns away, gripping his horse’s reins and limping to claim the nearest stall. The girl chases him.
I consider sticking my foot out and tripping her over, but as she nears, I feel the telling pressure of magic and consider that tripping an unknown SaberSeed is probably a bad idea.
“You don’t understand,” she says, leaning against the divider between the stalls and trying to catch his eye over the back of his horse.
And she is definitely bathing in roses. A whole chuckin’ garden of them.
“Understand what?” Roarke asks, but his
focus stays on unclipping buckles and sliding his saddle free.
Seth scoops my reins up from where I dropped them and sticks them in my hand. A quick nod indicates that I should take the stall next to Roarke’s. So I do.
“You know horses can run off if you just let them go,” Seth says.
“Yep,” I reply, too focused on the girl and Roarke.
She looks just a tiny bit younger than me – which possibly means she’s forty Silvari years old. Who knows with these people.
“I’ve never met another Seduction before,” she says, her voice lilting with awe.
She rests her arms along the railing, then her chin on her arms, smiling at him like he’s the sun and she’s a delicate flower.
Roarke glances quickly at me, maybe checking I’m not close enough to hit him, but his attention is drawn across to her pretty face and breathtaking smile.
“You’re waiting to be called to the castle,” he says. “SeductionSeed.”
She nods profusely.
Seth lets out a slightly disgusted huffing sound.
“Bloody Seduction,” he mutters under his breath.
“I’d like some time to talk to you. Alone, preferably,” she swoons.
“You think you can handle me?” Roarke asks, his tone sizzling with want.
A rush of heat surges in my chest, and I forget all about unsaddling my horse. Sure, jumping this fence is going to hurt, and tackling Roarke isn’t something I’ve done before, but I start moving anyway.
I just narrowly avoid an object as it sails past my face and whacks into the side of Roarke’s head.
“Bottle it,” Seth orders. “I don’t care how much it hurts.”
Roarke rubs the side of his head, settling his gaze on me.
Me, with my one leg over the railing.
“Not a good idea,” he says, wrapping an arm around my waist and guiding me back to the ground on my side of the low stall wall. “I’m not a SeductionSeed, and your pretty little power wouldn’t survive five minutes,” he says to the girl, then mutters to himself, “Besides, it isn’t you I’d lose my control with.”
He grabs the brush off the ground. I try to force myself to unsaddle my horse while my brain demands I stop acting like a jealous idiot. What the bralls was that anyway – was I going to launch myself at Roarke?
Or at her?
Definitely her, followed by eye gouging, I try to tell myself.
But more likely Roarke, followed by kissing.
I groan inwardly, grab the saddle, and struggle to move it from my horse’s back to the railing.
“That’s disappointing,” she says, then immediately launches into a new train of thought. “What does the call feel like?”
She keeps her face at a delicate angle against her arm, her eyelashes fluttering every so often.
“Impulsion,” Seth says loudly. “You’ll just start moving. You won’t even think about it.”
“And what about meeting the rest of your triune? What’s that like?”
“Like meeting family,” Seth answers again.
She scowls in his direction, but the ChaosSeed has his line of sight on Roarke.
I’m… not jealous… But I’m definitely pissed. I’ve got great reasons to be – Roarke’s mine.
Okay, that much is clear, but I can’t pin down why Seth would be pissed.
“We have two more companions to arrive,” he adds.
Roarke unlatches the gate to let himself out of his stall, but stops short at the look of surprise in her wide eyes.
“You’re an Allure. The Allure,” she says, followed by a swift bow.
Neither of them react.
“We’d blend in better if we picked up one more companion,” Seth says to no one in particular. “We’d look like two triunes.”
“Not her,” I growl, tossing the bridle over the railing and hastily letting myself out of the stall.
“He wasn’t being serious,” Roarke assures me. “But maybe the Seduction has some potential. If she can sense the difference between Seduction and Allure, she could become Elite.”
Seth moves to join us, a horse brush still in his hand.
“She didn’t, though. You told her you weren’t Seduction, and she did the math on the rest.”
“I’m right here,” she says, but her voice is still too awed for either guy to take her seriously.
Then, as if a little ashamed, she bows again.
Doesn’t make me like her, though.
“What does it matter if she worked it out? She still has an agenda. The Silvari servants at the inn wanted to marry you because you were Sabers,” I say.
“Sabers, yes. They didn’t have the brains or the presence of mind to wonder which Sabers we were,” Roarke says.
“And that was before the place was blown to pieces by people trying to kill us,” Seth adds.
There’s a moment of silent communication between the two. The girl is starting to look pissed that she’s being talked about but not included in the conversation. She plants her hands on her hips and opens her mouth – but Roarke cuts in.
“Kitten, cover your ears,” he says.
I don’t hesitate, sticking my fingers in as far as they will go. Seth steps behind me and presses his hands over the top. Roarke’s words are muffled, but the feeling of magic in the air still washes over me. The roses in the room dissipate, replaced by the scent of jasmine.
My head is released from Seth’s grip, and a little gingerly, I pull my fingers out.
The girl nods, and I turn sharply to face Roarke.
His brow is drawn down and worry, maybe stress, paints his expression.
“What did you say?” I ask.
“What did you hear?” he counters.
“Nothing.”
“Good,” he smiles. “I just redirected her suspicions. Removed the knowledge that we’re Sabers. Convinced her we’re just travelers. Nothing special.”
“Wait, I don’t understand why you were entertaining her in the first place?” I demand.
Seth leans in next to my ear to answer as Roarke collects his bags, plus Pax’s saddle bag.
“Not him, his power,” he says.
Something twists in my chest, my jealousy mixing with a kind of disappointment. What gets the final say on who Roarke takes an interest in? Him, or his power?
Seth has already grabbed his own plus Pax’s duffle – and I don’t own anything, so I have nothing to grab. The girl is just shaking off her dazed look when Roarke leads the way toward the door.
“What’s with the feath–” she begins, pointing at Roarke’s back.
I grab her arm and push it down.
“Nothing,” I say. Shhh… You can’t see any feathers.
Her eyes glaze over again, and I rush to get away from the tingling scent of jasmine. Too much jasmine, it gives me an instant chuckin’ headache.
Roarke has walked off – but Seth’s waiting for me at the door, half a smile on his lips and half a question in his gaze.
“What’s with all the flowers?” I grumble, trying to explain why I’m practically running from the stables.
“Flowers?”
“Yeah, she stinks of roses one minute and jasmine the next.”
Seth cocks his head to the side. “Hadn’t noticed.”
“How could you miss that?”
He doesn’t get a chance to answer as we step out the back door of the stables and directly onto a platform. Roarke drops his bags down, tugs a rope attached to a bell, and the platform immediately starts moving. It jerks upwards, and my stomach does a flip.
I squeak, grabbing onto the nearest thing I can for balance.
That nearest thing is Seth.
He chuckles.
“Any time, Vexy,” he says, putting one bag down so he can wrap an arm around me.
“There’s no railings,” I gasp.
“You’re not supposed to fall off,” he says.
“Falling down is exactly what happens when people go up. Maybe no
t every time, or every day, but it would have to happen.”
“Practice,” Roarke says. “And a dose of immortality.”
“I’m not immortal!” I object. “You’re not even immortal. You guys can die – that makes you mortal.”
“Our souls live on in a physical existence,” Roarke says.
“Not helping,” I growl back.
Branches envelope us, and the platform stops sharply, level with a timber deck. Roarke steps off. Seth goes to collect his bag, but he can’t really move because my grip is like a vise – I’m even hurting myself.
“Here,” Roarke says.
He must have already dropped his bags because he grabs me around the waist and pulls me free from Seth.
“Drop me, Roarke, and I’m going to cut your hair off,” I growl.
“Ghosts can’t use scissors,” he says.
“This ghost will find a way!”
He sets me on my feet on the deck, and I take three quick steps to the point where the timber meets the tree. Also known as the furthest point from the edge.
The deck’s round, hugging the tree in a big circle. Three rope bridges stretch out from here, and there’s a guy on the pulley system watching me like I’ve lost my mind.
He’s got short black hair, brown eyes, and two previous breaks making bumps in the line of his nose.
“How do you die, then? If the fall won’t kill you?” I demand of the random guy at the crank.
His eyes go wide.
“She doesn’t mean it,” Seth chuckles.
Both his hands are full of bags. Same with Roarke. Which means I have to walk on my own two feet. Or my hands and knees. Crawling is an option.
“Yes, I do. I mean it,” I say.
“Come on, before the guy calls enforcement and has you arrested for conspiring murder,” Roarke says, moving toward the nearest bridge.
The bridge is made from a net of ropes on either side and planks fitted so closely together that there’s barely a gap between them. It’s actually pretty safe-looking.
Safe, I try to tell myself.
I don’t believe me.
Roarke is already halfway across, the whole thing bouncing a little with his every step.
We’re almost twice the height of the manor roof. Which is freaking high.
Shadows and Shade Box Set Page 53
