by Page Morgan
“Good night, Ever.”
She turned her head, her profile sharply drawn against the flames. Her lips, so full and sensuous, parted. “Try to sleep. Your sister is going to be okay.”
Ever’s face dropped from sight, back toward the fire. My sister was depending on me to come for her. My family—the only family I had left. Yes, Lael was going to be fine.
I watched the rise and fall of Ever’s pulse as it skipped in the curve of her neck. Ever would be safe, too, though I didn’t know how just yet. But I’d made her a promise, and I would keep it. No matter what it cost me in the end.
25
Ever
Ferns rustled and snapped under our feet as we came upon a village late the following afternoon. Tobin stopped and pulled me down among the wide, thigh-high fronds and a scattering of thin linden trees overlooking the shallow bowl of a town. We were high enough to see thatched roofs, open garden plots, and narrow dirt-packed roads. Smoke clotted the air like a muslin cloth. But this smoke was not ominous like the billowing cloud over Havenfeld. This smoke came from the brick and clay chimney stacks sprouting from the top of each thatched roof. Still, the breath in my lungs turned sticky.
Each road and every visible corner of the village swarmed with armored Morvansk warriors.
“He’s here,” Tobin whispered.
“Then there are probably warriors here in the forest,” I said, quickly scanning the trees.
Tobin tucked himself lower. I followed. The scent of rich earth and musky ferns filled my nose. The clinking of armor was frighteningly close, but still below us somewhere in the village.
“I spotted a wood shed,” Tobin whispered. “If we can make it there, we can hide inside until nightfall.”
I didn’t ask what we’d do at nightfall. The idea of sneaking into this village teeming with warriors was overwhelming as it was. Tobin could kill one or two—perhaps more—but the two of us against the entire force of them would be hopeless. His hand grasped mine, and I could feel every tense muscle in his arm.
“Now.” He jerked me up out of the ferns, and we ran down the slope in an uncomfortable crouch. To my ears, we sounded like a herd of stampeding elk. The forest’s last smattering of trees was a poor cover, but no warriors rushed out from behind them to shout for us to stop.
My shoulder bounced off the shed when we reached it. The ancient shingles were fringed with furry green moss. I caught my breath, my chest ripping from the sprint and the spear wound, which was now free of any packing so that it might start to heal. But I could feel new slick wetness under the bandage.
We scurried around the corner of the shed and ducked behind a tattered length of canvas acting as a door. Crisscrossed stacks of split wood lined the side and back walls. The front wall was a mess of kindling wood and peeled bark. I tucked myself into the corner. Tobin followed, crouching low behind a single, cracked pane of glass.
“Someone could come in to get wood,” I said.
“We’d better hope not.”
I shivered, playing out in my mind what might happen if the villager who owned this shed appeared in the doorway. Would Tobin kill him? What if it was a woman, or a child sent on an errand? If he didn’t kill women, as he’d said, he certainly wouldn’t harm children.
“It will be dark in a half hour,” he observed.
“We can search then.” I wanted out of this shed, and yet I dreaded being out where warriors roamed.
Tobin shook his head. “Not we. I will go alone.”
I sat forward on the pile of moldering bark. “And leave me here?”
“Ever, I know how to be invisible.” He stared at me pointedly. I remembered the alleyway with Bram. How Tobin had appeared out of nowhere, without a sound.
“What if someone comes when I’m here, alone?”
Tobin lifted the hem of his trousers and unsheathed the blade from his left boot. He flipped it, caught the sharpened silver in his palm, and extended the bone handle.
“If it’s a villager, try and reason with him,” Tobin said. Or her, I thought. “But if it’s a Morvansk warrior…” He paused, licking his lips with uncertainty. “Get underneath the mesh at the throat and draw the blade across, deep and hard. Don’t hesitate. Finish. Make sure you slice into the windpipe quickly to keep him from screaming.”
My hand froze halfway to the knife’s handle. I stared at him, horrified.
“I can’t kill someone,” I whispered. “You might be able to do it without so much as a blink, but I can’t.”
I lowered my hand back to my side and watched him tap the handle against the side of his boot. The handle whacked against the leather as his face hardened.
“You think it’s easy for me?”
No. I didn’t want to believe that. I didn’t want to believe that he was a murderer at all. That he’d taken lives in cold blood.
“But you’ve killed nonetheless,” I said.
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“There is always a choice.”
Tobin got to his feet and paced a small corner of the shed.
“You’re right. I did have a choice, and I took the one that would keep me alive. I chose the option that would keep my mother and sister and baby brother from starving to death.” He quit pacing and faced me. The fading light of day reached through the window and the thin weave of the draped doorway. “I became the emperor’s huntsman because I didn’t want to hang for poaching in his forest. I was scared. I was eleven years old, and I had no father to take care of my family, or provide for them, should I die.”
Tobin came back and settled into a crouch before me. “With the first life I took, I realized the noose would have been better. I’d made a choice that would lead me straight to the devil’s gates. But it was too late.”
He hung his head, releasing me from a stare brimming with torment. “I am what I am, and I’ll be going to hell for it. But I’m going to make damn sure Frederic gets there first.”
Tobin again held the knife out to me. The bone handle was glossy in patches, and worn and dull in the center where his hand had, I imagined, so often gripped it. I let the tips of my fingers travel lightly on the bone, and tried to fathom how Tobin actually killed people. Not the method, as to which he’d just instructed me so bluntly. But how had he been able to bear it? I gripped the handle, Tobin still holding firm to the blade. He was too good to be a murderer. And right then, I hated Frederic more than ever for turning him into his huntsman.
26
Tobin
The thunderstorm was a blessing in disguise. Rain fell like sleet, matting my hair and clothing in a cold, stiff layer, but also reducing visibility. The claps of thunder muffled my footfalls. There were plenty of trees and shrubbery, fences and shadowed spaces to hide in and behind when the creak of armor came too close. But the weather had driven most of the warriors indoors. The ones I’d seen, from where I sat perched in the branches of a tree, were mostly stationary beneath the eaves of stores and homes.
I needed to hurry; I was nervous about leaving Ever alone for too long. Even though I’d instructed her on how to make a quiet kill, I was positive she wouldn’t be able to do it. I admired her for that.
The tavern was one of the only places in the village teeming with life. I watched it through the sodden leaves of the tree. Like Volk’s, it had tall front windows to show off the crowds of patrons inside, and tempt others to stop in. The melody of gusli strings matched the music I’d heard through the mirror shard that Ever had commanded just before I’d left the shed.
Frederic was inside, but not in the main room. He’d been sitting in a red silk chair, threaded with thin gold stripes, a glass of wine in one hand, his eyes closed to the melancholy notes of the music. A second request from Ever to show Lael had put me at a certain level of ease. The wall coverings and furniture where she was were different. She was not in the same room as Frederic, but a bedroom nonetheless. Now I just needed to find which room and climb up to it.
The tavern was thre
e stories, and nearly every window emitted lamplight. The curtains of some were drawn, and I watched for shadows behind them. I could end up sitting here all night waiting for Lael to pass in front of her bedroom window. The desire to see my sister and speak to her, to escape with both her and Ever, filled my chest with so much hope, it burned.
Then again, I could also wait until the lights in the tavern extinguished before crawling to the third story of rooms. Frederic was there, I was certain of it. Only three windows on the top floor were lit, the other rooms most likely vacant to secure the emperor’s privacy. He preferred to be as high off the ground as possible. It was a better vantage point, a better defense. I could scale the tavern to the third story, enter one of the vacant rooms, and take my chances slaying the emperor in his sleep.
I closed my eyes. The idea was overzealous. There was no chance the darkened rooms would be vacant. There was no chance I could enter the emperor’s room and not meet a warrior in each shadowy corner, attending Frederic even while he snored.
“Karev!”
My eyes snapped open. The sleet stung, but I refused to blink. A flicker of lightning reflected off the shiny armor of a warrior just below the tree.
“An old woman four houses down says she saw two people running into the village before nightfall,” the warrior who’d called Karev’s name said.
My lungs turned to lead.
“So why don’t you go check on it?” Yes, it was Grigory. He must have joined Frederic’s army after the princess’s death.
“Because I’m off duty, cold, and thirsty. And I outrank you, worm. So you can go check on it,” the other warrior answered, and then stalked toward the tavern. The branches swayed in a wet wind, and beneath me Grigory grumbled a string of profanities.
It didn’t surprise me that someone had seen us. I was only glad it had been an old woman and not a warrior.
“To hell with this,” Grigory muttered to no one but himself, and followed the other warrior’s lead, into the tavern.
I held my position in the branches, contemplating. Grigory could have been going inside to have a mug of ale, or he could be gathering a few more warriors to check on this old woman’s claim. If the second proved true, Ever would be in trouble. I couldn’t take the chance. I searched the windows of the tavern once more for any glimpse of Lael, and then descended the tree branches. It didn’t take long to slip from shadowed space to shadowed space, back to the woodshed.
The structure was nothing more than a blot of black and brown as I approached. The dark windows of the house it sat behind, and the utter silence of the yard, made me uneasy. I had not heard or sensed any warriors on my way back, and yet I felt as if I was walking straight into a trap as I came up to the draped doorway.
A roll of thunder masked the sound of my right sleeve’s springing mechanism as it ejected the hidden blade into my palm. I grasped the handle tight, a rash of heat prickling my skin. With my free hand, I reached for the drape and started to pull it aside. If someone was inside, lying in wait for me to return… If they’d harmed Ever…
I slipped through the doorway and immediately sank into a low crouch. A foot came flying at my head. It grazed my shoulder before I could block it and swipe my attacker’s other leg out from underneath him, felling him to the floor. In the pitch black shed, I lunged forward to pounce, but he had already rolled away and found his footing. I barreled into him, using my shoulder to tackle him. He was smaller, nearly weightless, and the reason why clicked into place the same moment something cold and sharp pressed against my throat—and hesitated.
“Ever?”
The knife at my throat withdrew. “Tobin!”
Ever kicked at my legs and squirmed until I climbed off of her.
“I could have killed you!” I said. Ever got to her feet, her figure still dark, but unmistakable now that my eyes were adjusting.
“And I could have killed you.” She jammed the handle of the knife into my stomach. I caught it before it hit the floor and then bent down to place it back in the boot sheath.
“You’re right, you could have.” I shook my head and smiled. “I honestly didn’t think you’d fight well.”
“Thank you for the sweet compliment.” Ever brushed past me toward the window, and sat down on the pile of bark and shavings. “You could have announced yourself.”
I followed her, and once closer, saw she’d spread our two blankets atop the pile. Sleety rain pelted the windowpane, and a shiver of wind scuttled in through the cracked glass and drafty board walls.
“I thought someone was in here with you. An old woman saw us run out of the woods and into the village.” I took a seat on one of the blankets. Ever was sitting at full attention now. “I overheard a pair of warriors talking about it. One of them was Grigory Karev.”
Ever breathed in sharply.
“It doesn’t sound like they want to investigate the woman’s claim, and the house here looks empty.” I hooked the blade, still in my hand, back into the spring and reset it. “I’ll keep watch for a little while, but I think we should be safe here for the night.”
And in the morning, what then? This couldn’t just be about revenge now. I had to look past that…I had to look past whatever it was I was trying like mad not to want with Ever. My devotion needed to be to my sister, and my sister alone. There could be no other choice.
“I’m sorry, Ever.” I paused, catching myself. “There’s nothing to eat. If you’re hungry.”
My eyes had adjusted even more to the darkness. The small amount of light coming through the window revealed her figure on the blanket next to me.
“I’m not,” she said.
“Then we should sleep.” It wouldn’t happen though. I was too wound up, the acid too heavy in my stomach. She trusted me to help her, and here I sat, knowing Lael’s safety had to come first.
“The same way as last night?” Ever asked. Her voice was breathy, the question cautious.
My muscles went hard, then warm. The night before, I’d tried to keep at least a few inches between us as we’d huddled beneath the blankets, sheltered from the frost. Sometime before dawn, Ever had rolled onto her side and faced me. Her knees had rubbed against my thighs, her breathing light and warm on my neck.
“It might not be a good idea,” I said with an obvious lack of conviction.
When Ever woke, tucked into me, she’d gone still and turned her eyes to mine. I’d already been awake, watching the early sun sparkle on her lashes. We’d lain there for a minute, maybe two, just staring at each other.
Ever closed the space between us now and settled herself on the edge of my blanket. She gave hers a rustle to shake off any wood shavings, and then covered our legs with it.
“Ever—”
“I want to imagine we’re in the barn loft behind Volk’s.”
I held my breath as she moved closer, so close I could see the shine of her eyes through the dark. And then her lips found mine.
In less than a second, any level of control I thought I had, ruptured. I kissed her in return, pulling her against me, then took her down onto the blanket. She opened her mouth to me, and all I could taste was need. Hers. Mine. They were one and the same. My mind, it wasn’t working in the logical, methodical way it normally did. Instead, as her tongue curled around mine and her arms held me closer, my brain started thinking the strangest things, like how I wanted out of my own body and into hers.
Clothes were a hindrance. I yanked her shirt hem from the waist of her trousers, wanting to touch her skin. It was soft and warm, and Ever gasped as I closed my hands around her waist. Wanting more, I let go and found the buttons on her shirt. She joined me, her fingers working the lower clasps and mine the top. She reached for my shirt, tugging it up around my stomach. Her fingers brushed my skin; it bolted through me, a wild surge of lust, tempered by a hot lick of guilt. It fired into the center of my chest, that lust and guilt tumbling and colliding and tugging me back down into reality. Damn it. I peeled myself from her lips, her b
ody.
“Tobin?”
I crouched, moving out of her reach. “We’re not in the loft.”
“I know that.”
I gritted my teeth. “We can’t pretend.”
She leaned forward. “Tobin, I want to—”
I grasped her wrist and held her away from me. “Don’t. Don’t trust me.”
She didn’t try and free herself.
“I know what I want. I do.” Ever’s breath rattled in her throat, thickened by tears I couldn’t see. “And what I want is to pretend that you’re not going to go to Frederic in the morning and trade me for your sister.”
27
Ever
Tobin rose out of his crouch. I bit my bottom lip and swore under my breath. I’d made a pact with myself that I wouldn’t say anything about the decision I’d made while Tobin had been slinking around the village, searching for his sister. I’d promised myself that I would bear the truth with dignity. And now here I sat, begging him to have me. Begging him to care about me, even though he planned to hand me over to the emperor in order to get his sister back.
I wasn’t a fool. I’d noticed the way he’d been distant and quiet ever since showing him Lael in the mirror. I knew he was searching for a way to get close to Frederic, and now that he knew how important I was to the emperor, the idea to dangle me like bait had to have crossed his mind. It had certainly crossed mine, more than once.
I swiveled around on the blanket, breaking from his stare. It was unbearable even through the dark. I gathered my knees into my chest and braced my legs with my arms.
