“We'll get you set up with a room and the essentials,” Rayne said as they stepped out into the night. The street glowed with fire from forges in the shops that lined the street. At the end of the row, the ocean spread out below them, gray and vast and endless. “What you do after that is up to you.”
“Up to me,” Seloue repeated.
“You can stay here in Orabel. Go back to Lueland. Go to Shade. Come live in the palace with me. The possibilities—”
“Are infinite.”
The carriage was waiting to carry them wherever they wanted to go. The girls climbed inside, Tierri following them. As the group rumbled through the streets, Rayne's heart swelled. The people of Orabel swarmed the streets. Laughter spilled out of a tavern. A family gathered around a hearth, visible through a window. Rayne wasn't going to be a pawn anymore, and she wasn't going to let these people suffer because of her weakness. Before she had been a Knight, she had been a Crowheart, and Crowhearts were not followers. They were leaders, conquerors, rulers.
Seloue was talking to Tierri about her plans, about where she would go next, a smile on her face that changed her, made her look young and happy. One down, hundreds—maybe thousands—to go. And she would do whatever it took to make them all look like Seloue looked right now. She was still holding the writ of ownership and she handed it across to Tierri.
“Take care of this, will you?” she asked.
It took only seconds for the piece of parchment to catch fire in his hand. He held the flaming paper out the window and three of them watched it burn and shrivel into ashes.
✽ ✽ ✽
“Good evening, General.” The guards stationed at the front door nodded at Tierri and Rayne as they passed. They had found Seloue a room at a boarding house and dropped her off after a late dinner, so it was nearly midnight. Still, the grounds were bustling with activity. It seemed the number of soldiers on duty had doubled. Rayne's eyes wandered the parapets, picking up shadows moving against the background of the stars, lamplight gleaming off of weapons.
Once they made it to her rooms, Tierri dismissed her maid and then walked from lamp to lamp, using just his fingers to bring them all to life, bathing her room in a soft orange glow. She watched him, but when she found herself wondering how it would feel to have those warm fingers against her own skin, she flushed and looked away, moving to a chair beside the hearth fire, where she sat to warm her frozen fingers. Seloue had kept the shawl, and when Tierri joined her, she saw that she had kept his boots, as well.
“I'll place an order for a new pair,” he said when he saw her looking at his feet, encased only in thick, woolen socks. “Boots are easy to acquire.”
Rayne nodded, pulling her eyes back to the leaping flames. She rubbed her hands together and held them, palms out, to the fire. Tierri took two steps closer and reached for her hands, cupping them in his. She had been right; they were deliciously warm. Rubbing her cold fingers between his palms, he glanced sideways at her.
“What you did for her…That was incredible.”
She pulled her hands from his. His nearness made it difficult to concentrate, and she needed to think. Her room was barren, all metal fixtures and golden adornments given to the jeweler in exchange for one girl. If one life was so expensive, how much would it cost to free an entire kingdom? An entire continent? “It was only one,” Rayne said, feeling petty but hoping Tierri would understand. She should be proud. She should be rejoicing for the friend she had managed to save, but all she could see were the faces of the people she’d lost and the road that lay ahead, littered with thousands of slaver's bands.
“Only one?” Tierri asked. “You shouldn't lessen Seloue's value like that. She is one, yes, but she is the first one, she is the important one. She is the beginning.”
“How do I do it?” Rayne didn't like looking up at anyone so she stood, running her hands down the front of her dress to smooth it. Reaching her hands to her head, she began to undo the pins that held her curls in submission. The tightness of her hairdo was giving her a headache. Or something was. “You told me to take small steps, but I can't afford to take a thousand small steps. I need to make a difference. I need…”
“To get rid of Edlyn,” Tierri said, his voice a whisper. “To sit on the throne of Hail. To have the power to defy your father.”
There it was again, that word. Power. He said it so casually, and maybe it was easy for someone like him, who'd had powers all his life, to throw around. He could summon fire and manipulate the ocean; defying a king would be easy for him. But what about her? Someone who had never had control over anything?
“I don't know if I can.” Admitting it to him was hard, but when she looked over at him, where he was half in light and half in shadow, she didn't see any disappointment on his face.
She was fumbling with her hair so Tierri came around behind her and began to work out the knots, his fingers deftly smoothing out the curls that had wrapped around pins. She dropped her hands and closed her eyes, letting him work as one by one, the pins fell to the floor.
“We'll do it together,” he said. “No more hotheaded assassination attempts. No more cowardly poisons. You and me. We'll figure this out.”
As her hair came loose, her headache dissipated and she became aware again of how close he was and how it made her stomach tighten in anticipation. “You and me,” she repeated.
His fingers were in her hair, then on her ears, then trailing down the curve of her neck to her shoulders and she wondered if she was dreaming, if this was just another illusion. She sighed, caught between the warmth of his body and the heat of the hearth fire, torn between opening her eyes and keeping them tightly closed so she wouldn't wake up from this dream.
His hands trailed down her back, plucking at the laces of her gown, and then landed on her hips. He lowered his mouth to her neck.
“Tell me to stop,” he told her. His warm lips grazed the sensitive skin between her neck and shoulder and she groaned without meaning to. “Tell me this is wrong and I'm just a slave and I should get my hands off of you.” Every word moved his mouth against her and instead of speaking, she reached an arm up and pulled his mouth down against her neck. His hands pressed against her stomach, pulling her even closer against him so she felt every line of his muscled torso against her back, felt the way they fit together perfectly so that no space was left between them.
He spun her around in his arms, his nose brushing hers, their lips a mere breath away from each other.
“Please,” he whispered, and she didn't know if he was asking permission or begging for mercy. Tired of doubt, tired of putting herself second, she leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his. He was surprised at first but after a small hesitation, reacted by tightening his grip on her waist and lifting her from the ground as if she weighed nothing, holding her to him and opening his mouth to deepen the kiss.
It was all she knew after that—they were just lips and tongues and hands. The room fell away and took her worries with it. She had been kissed before, touched before, but never like this. With Merek, she had been playing a role. With Tierri, she was completely herself, unreserved and unrepentant. And most of all, unafraid. He had seen her at her worst, raging and angry and grieving, and he still wanted her. For someone who had felt unworthy all her life, it was exhilarating to finally feel like she belonged somewhere, even if it was just the small space inside the circle of his arms.
Her hands explored the muscles beneath his shirt, the small tendrils of loose hair at his neck, the stubble along his jaw. She leaned into him, his teeth grazing her lower lip, his breath hitching as her fingers found skin beneath his shirt, her thumbs looping around the leather weapons belt and pulling his hips against her.
He released her with a gasp, the coldness of his absence washing over her like the ocean waves. Her lips felt swollen and raw, and she brought a hand up to touch them, to feel the physical proof that he had been there.
“I want to give you something,” he said, and though he
tried to hide it, she heard his breathlessness, saw the way his chest still heaved as he reached to his waist and withdrew her blade, offering it to her hilt-first.
“Someone will notice it’s missing,” Rayne said without taking it.
He bounced the blade in his hand, biting his lip and weighing his words before speaking. “I don't have a lot of control, but I take what I can. When a Knight needs to escape, I can pretend I don't see a loosened chain. When his assassin needs a knife, I can leave one in my open cabin. I meant for you to have it back, and I mean for you to use it.”
Her fingers closed around the hilt before she could say no, before she could deny any of it. Somehow, he knew everything. “I was twelve years old when I left. I just wanted to escape. I never wanted to be an assassin. I never wanted any of this.”
“And yet, here we are.” He spread his arms out to the side. His shirt was rumpled and his cheeks flushed. “Enos has a funny way of getting us exactly where we need to be.”
She may not have wanted any of this, but he was right. This was a choice that she had made and a choice that had affected everyone around her. Merek. Imeyna. Edlyn. Tierri. They were all where they were because of her. She owed it to them—and to herself—to see this through to the very end, but this time, on her own terms.
The knife slid into her belt easily. By the time she looked back up, Tierri had left the room, but his presence lingered, a spark in the air that made her think of campfires and cider and breathless nights on the deck of a ship, staring up at the endless stars.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Sibba
Aeris was not a patient bird. That was perhaps part of what had gotten her into trouble as a fledgling when Sibba had found her on the ground without a nest or a mother. The horses plodded laboriously through the forest, following Aeris as she hopped from branch to branch. Sometimes she would fly ahead but she always came back and screamed her disappointment at the girls.
“We're coming!” Sibba shouted up at her. “Not all of us can fly.”
They were riding single file down a barely-discernible wildlife path, Sibba in front and Tola bringing up the rear. Between them, Estrid kept up a one-sided conversation with herself about the situation, blaming herself for what had happened, for not divining the truth about Evenon, for letting him come along in the first place.
“This whole disaster is all my fault,” she was muttering.
“You brought on the storm, did you?” Sibba called back to her as Aeris flapped her wings impatiently overhead.
“No,” Estrid said, “but I shouldn’t have let him come. I should have—”
“And I shouldn't have been so stupid,” Sibba said, cutting her off.
“Besides,” Tola called from the back, “the storm was mine.”
Sibba and Estrid whipped around in their saddles to find Tola grinning back at them. It was a striking grin, a gash across her face, softening the lines but making it impossible to tell if she was serious.
They kept to the forest as the day wore on, but when it was nearly midday, it became clear that Aeris was leading them out. The trees grew thinner and dry, brown grass began to poke through the underbrush. Sibba turned her face up to the warm sun.
“Shouldn't we stay off the road?” she asked. Aeris was just above her, watching her with one large eye from a high branch.
“Between the threats on the road and the wights of the draugnvithr, always choose the road,” Tola answered.
Sibba scoffed before she could stop herself.
“You do not believe in the ghost forest?” Tola asked, turning her green eyes on Sibba.
Estrid laughed as she dropped her horse back to ride beside Tola, leaving Sibba in the lead. “Sibba does not believe in much except for her ax and her bow,” she said. The words stung, and though Sibba would not admit it, her next words had a sharp bite to them.
“No,” Sibba said, “I do not believe in fantasies and stories told to keep children in line.” Her voice was her mother’s, but even as she said it, she remembered the figure she thought she had seen on Ey Island, watching her from the edge of the abandoned village.
She was raised in a place that believed in things like nature spirits and shadow-men by a mother who presented it all to her as just stories. Did she believe there was a forest that bordered Malos, the Realm of the Dead? Did she believe that the spirits trapped there would keep anyone who trespassed, warping their minds until they were nothing but shadows hiding among the trees? It was impossible to say. The part of her that visited the sadj and buried her mother with gold and weapons thought that yes, she did. But there was another part of her that wanted to side with her mother, as she had always done, and dismiss them as silly stories.
“Do you believe in me, then?” Tola asked as they emerged from the trees and turned south on the road to Ydurgat.
Sibba turned back around in her saddle so she would not have to look the girl in the eyes. “Yes,” she said. “Because I have seen you and what you can do.”
The girls rode on in silence for a time after that, sometimes side-by-side across the road which was wider than the forest path had been, and at other times spread far apart when they grew weary of each other’s companionship. All the while, Sibba kept glancing behind them, expecting Silentarm riders to come pounding out of the distance. But no one came.
“Stop worrying,” Tola finally said, nudging her horse forward to Sibba's side. “They will not catch us.”
“How can you be so sure?” Sibba asked, not able to stop herself from another look over her shoulder.
“They ride in the wrong direction,” she answered. “Chasing phantoms east across the Fields toward the Towering Mountains.”
Sibba didn't understand how Tola knew or what Tola had done, but she was beginning to accept that she might never know those things when it came to the vala. It was hard for her to let someone else handle something, but maybe Tola was the right person to start with. She had certainly proven herself trustworthy so far, but hadn’t she thought the same about Evenon? Look where that had gotten her.
“Do you smell that?” Estrid asked from behind them, her nose lifted to the sky. “Smoked pork.”
“You're just hungry,” Sibba teased.
“No, she's right,” Tola said, drawing her horse to a stop. “This must be—”
But Sibba didn't hear anything else. Aeris had stopped leading them and was instead circling around a barely-visible stream of gray smoke just to the west of the road. Sibba kicked her horse twice and her mount surged ahead, cutting through the grass and up the rise. A small farm sat in the valley, consisting of a longhouse, an outbuilding, and a few vacant fields. Aeris landed silently on the edge of the thatched roof and looked back at Sibba before preening her feathers in satisfaction.
The three girls hid at the very edge of the forest until night fell. Tola had forbidden them to go any deeper into the trees, and Sibba had forbidden them to light a fire, and so they had shivered there for hours in silence, exposed to anyone coming down the road, but no one appeared. Smoke never stopped wafting from the hearth fire within the small house, and they all gazed longingly at it but none of them said a word. Sibba wanted to wait until it was dark to make any move, and so they would.
“Why is he there?” Estrid asked as the last light from the sun sank behind the gently rolling hills. “Wouldn't he want to get to Ydurgat as quickly as possible?”
“Something happened,” Sibba answered, rising to her feet and checking her weapons belts. The ax was still secure, and the sword was safe in its scabbard. She wondered if he would make her use one, and which one she would choose. “I think he’s injured.” Sibba remembered the vision that had come upon her by the fire, the boar and the blood.
“If only Hefdis would be so kind,” Estrid said. Hefdis was the goddess of vengeance. Sibba agreed that it would be nice to have her on their side and was glad that the ever-faithful Estrid was there to ask for her help. “What are we doing?” Estrid asked, also standi
ng.
“I'm going in,” Sibba answered. “You two stay here. If he escapes, shout. Give chase. Anything. Just don't let him get away.”
Before either could argue, Sibba took off into the dark. On silent feet, she crept through one of the barren fields, ducking low so as not to cast a shadow. With the moon half-hidden behind the clouds, it was fairly easy for her to sneak unseen to hide under the overhang of the outbuilding. From inside there came the uneasy snort of a horse and the bleating of sheep. There was the sharp, iron scent of blood in the air. His, she hoped.
Anger made her brave, or reckless, depending on her mood. In this case, she knew she was being careless, but she couldn't help herself. The rage was back, simmering just below the surface, threatening to spill over into everything else. He was here somewhere, and she would find him, and she would kill him. She touched the ax handle and dared to ask Hefdis for help one last time before slipping across the yard and inside the house without a sound.
Evenon slept soundly on a bench, covered in furs. His boots were beside the door, along with his bow and quiver full of arrows, minus the one that had killed her mother. A boar was on a spit, dripping fat into the flames that sizzled and popped. Draped on the warm stones beside the hearth were strips of bloodied cloth and his once-white shirt soaked red and torn. What she had seen in her vision, then, had come to pass. What had Tola done to her?
She considered drawing the sword—killing him with his brother's own sword would be satisfying—but the weapon was too burdensome in the small space. Instead, she pulled the ax from her belt and knelt at Evenon's side. He shifted and she froze. The blanket slid off and she saw the oozing gash in his abdomen and the darkening bruises spreading over his ribs. The strange tattoos seemed to pulse and fade, swirling with a magic she didn’t understand.
The ax was warm and sharp in her hand, a silent predator, a beast that bit hungrily into flesh and always thirsted for more. She brought it to his cheek just as he had done to her, and pressed it hard there until it drew blood.
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