He lifted his head a fraction. “What kind of powers?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It can’t be good, though. They performed sacrifices under the tree—lots of bloodshed.”
“That does sound like a Wren talent,” Hugo said bitingly.
I cringed again. My skin was not thick enough for this. I told myself I deserved it. Deep breaths. You hurt him. This isn’t about that, though. Move forward. “Whatever power the tree has, Robyn must want it, and if she wants it we can only assume that it’s for the worst.”
Hugo huffed and brought his hands to his hips. That’s when I caught the glint of something red in his belt. My eyes were drawn to it. Immediately I recognized the red dagger that housed Marafae’s soul. So he had stolen it, after all. I didn’t know what to make of it.
Hugo caught me looking and drew his coat closed over his belt. The red dagger vanished from sight. “What is the purpose of raising the tree from the ocean?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Forget the purpose. All we need to do is get rid of it or get rid of Robyn before she uses it.”
He paced. I watched him as closely as I dared.
“You make it sound simple,” he said. “There are thousands and thousands of mechamen on that vessel. How do you propose that we take them on?”
An itchy finger made me reach for my shortsword. “I have a few ideas. Five, to be exact.”
A flash of interest showed in his face. Then he scoffed. “The flute? Your monsters are no match for the machine. To summon them against it would be a…” he trailed off. He seemed to be recalling something.
I waited for him to finish the thought but he kept staring into space, seeing things that I couldn’t. For the first time, I recognized it as a trait he shared with my Spirit Mentor, Linaeve. His mother. I’d never told him. I wondered if I should. After all, she was as lost to me now as she was to him.
He came back to earth with a twitching of wings. “Not yet,” he said in a tone of grim certainty. “Keep your monsters. Alone they are useless and we are powerless.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
He scowled. “Do not question me. I know. That’s all.”
His crankiness was welcome after everything else he’d put me through. It brought back a little of our old dynamic. He would be grouchy and evasive and all I had to do was put up with it and try to get him to answer questions.
“What do you suggest then?” I asked, careful not to show any impatience.
“We wait.”
It was such an unexpected answer that I had to bite my tongue to keep from exclaiming, “What?!” I took a deep breath and tried to remain calm. “Explain,” I said. “What can be gained by waiting?”
“Knowledge, and a better weapon, perhaps. They key to a successful strike is as much about timing as strength. You know that.”
I remained silent. When he said ‘key’ I thought of the red dagger again. I wished he’d give it back.
He mistook my silence for agreement. “I will speak to Lord Finbarr. I can tell him what you’ve told me, or you can tell him yourself. Until we are threatened here, however, I say we wait.”
And that was that. He looked rigid and irritated and mean again, which meant it was time to go. I let out a little sigh of relief. I’d survived the apology. I felt no less guilty for it, though. At least I’d tried to make things better.
There came a loud thud on the door as something heavy rolled into it. Then I heard a bunch of hisses and Slaugh curse words.
“That’ll teach you to get in my way you mangy trollop!”
It was Valory’s voice. I gulped.
With a huff of exasperation, Hugo threw open the door and glared at the two Slaugh girls who were entangled at the bottom of the stairs. Valory had the upper hand at the moment. She had pinned Katriel to the bottom step and held her prone with a knee jammed in between her wings.
Katriel writhed and cursed. She had a bloody lip and—my stomach turned—some of the piercings had been ripped from her ears. The only damage to Valory was a black eye.
“Filthy, stump-sucking country trash!” Katriel screeched. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you! How dare you claim to be equal to our king? How DARE you?”
Valory grinned. “I didn’t say I was equal. I said I was better.”
Hugo pulled Valory back by her shirt collar and then shoved her into my arms.
“GET HER OUT OF HERE!” he bellowed.
Katriel jumped up and tried to leap at Valory, but Hugo held her back. Valory and I made a quick escape up the stairs. When we were safely in the next room, Valory started laughing.
“Did you see that tattooed mongrel? I had per pinned like a fish on a skewer! See, I came to check on you and she gave me a hard time so I—”
“I saw what you did!” I said. “You shouldn’t have come to check on me. Everything was fine.”
Valory stopped and stared at me, oblivious to the shiner growing dark under her left eye. The expression on her face was one of pure, childish curiosity. For somebody who resembled Hugo so much, she couldn’t have looked more different at the moment.
“What did he say?” she asked. “What did you say? Does he still hate you?”
“Absolutely.” I tried not to wince as I said it. “I don’t think we’ll ever be friends again, but we sort of have a truce. I think we can at least work together now without all our, um, history, getting in the way.”
“That’s good, right?” Valory asked.
I sighed. “It’s good enough. Don’t go back there though, okay? I really think Katriel might try to kill you next time.”
“Not likely,” Valory said with a snort of contempt. “I think she just likes to fight. Didn’t she challenge you?”
“Yeah, she did, but we didn’t make it that far.”
“Next time I’ll land a good one of her,” Valory said. “She won’t know what hit her!”
Valory never got the chance because the Slaugh rarely ever mingled with the rest of us. They kept to their own quarters, took their meals at separate times and never sought out company in the common areas of Woodman’s Hall. Most days it was like they weren’t even there.
Sandrine’s crew was a different story. Yert became a permanent fixture in the kitchen, driving Anouk crazy with her singing and her deplorable cooking skills. Joyboy and Wimbleysminch took over the effort of retrieving the ship from the trees and repairing it. Bayard and Sandrine often appeared at meals to regale whoever was present with tales of their exploits on the high seas.
Bayard got the cold shoulder from everyone once word got around that he was the shamed Sword Bearer who had brought the curse of the Cian Varsha to Ivywild, but he tolerated the whispers and stares in good stride. Bizarrely enough, I ended up being the person he talked to the most. Over the course of a week, he grilled me about all the things that had happened since he’d been gone. The news of Commander Larue’s death saddened him so much that he spent a whole afternoon moping about and cursing the duke. He roused himself out of it in grand fashion, proclaiming that he’d scalp all the red capes he could get his hands on and use their teeth as buckshot for the ship’s cannons. That made him a bit more popular.
As for Hugo, I only saw him in passing a few times when I went to see Lord Finbarr. He regarded me with frosty indifference. If he truly still hated me, he didn’t put much energy into making me feel it. It was all business now.
Except for it wasn’t. It bothered me that he had the red dagger. As much as I felt sorry for how I had treated him, I thought I deserved to have the dagger back. He couldn’t understand its power. He wasn’t there when all that was left of Marafae flowed into it. He was punishing me by keeping it from me.
I mulled it over one hot night as I lay on a hammock on one of the hall’s many terraces. The late spring had brought much warmer temperatures than I was used to in Ivywild. Thanks to the tidal wave, there was far less shade than there had been before. Woodman’s Hall baked in the sun all day and scarcely cooled dow
n at night. We were all growing lazy and short-tempered. To make matters worse, there was no news from the team that had gone to Helm Bogvogny. They’d been gone over three weeks.
So I was very irritable as I lay in the hammock, dwelling on a dagger. I’d come outside to escape the worried looks of Mrs. Larue and her daughters. Anouk was depressed, too. Just that evening she’d broken down into tears over the potato soup and no cheery melodies from Yert could stop the outburst.
My back felt sticky with sweat. With a groan I rose from the hammock. I heard odd noises. A Fay boy and a girl younger than me were making out in the shadows of the terrace below. I thought about alerting Mrs. Larue to the forbidden activity, but then I decided not to. They weren’t bothering anyone else and it wasn’t like there was anything else for them to do.
Off in the distance I heard another noise. I scanned the treetops and saw a winged figure pouncing on a squerbil. I thought at first that it was Valory but then I caught the gleam of metal piercings in the moonlight.
“Hello, Katriel,” I said under my breath. “And who’s minding your king while you’re away?”
A strong temptation took hold of me. Who was guarding Hugo’s door if his watchdog wasn’t there to do it? The moon was high. He might be asleep. If I recalled correctly, he preferred to wake and hunt around midnight. He was a heavy sleeper, too. It had surprised me when I found that out. I’d figured all Slaugh were twitchy at rest as when they were on their feet, but not him. I grinned, realizing it was something he and Valory had in common.
It had been much easier not to think of him when he was far away—out of sight, out of mind. Besides, I’d been too focused on survival over the past few months to think about anything else. Now that we were back under the same roof I kept getting distracted by his presence. I couldn’t walk the halls without my breath catching at the sound of his footfalls or my ears perking up at the muffled sound of his voice behind a closed door. I caught myself taking more time with my appearance in the mornings, something Valory had to comment on, of course.
“Good grief, Em. You brush your hair anymore and it’s gonna fall out. Whatcha washing your face again for? You took a bath last night, didn’t ya?”
I’d gotten angry with myself then. It was stupid. There was no reason for me to try and impress Hugo. Why would I even want to? Things could never go back the way they used to be. He’d said so himself.
And yet…
I still had feelings for him. I hated him for that. I hated me for it, too.
It came as a welcome surprise the next morning when Lord Finbarr called up an emergency meeting and invited me to attend.
To keep a level of peace between the taciturn Slaugh and the anxious Fay, Lord Finbarr treated King Hugo as an equal in the business of maintaining Woodman’s Hall. He was always in attendance whenever Lord Finbarr held council.
Today was no different. Hugo waited in the back of the long, narrow room that Lord Finbarr used for meetings. A couple of other Slaugh were there, including the lovely ray of sunshine known as Katriel. Also in attendance were Mrs. Larue, Anouk, Yert, and the team of men who’d found Valory and me in the woods. I had since learned that the men were the remnants of a military group called the Terra Cartisans. Their specialty was in mapping and exploring, not combat. Their leader, the man who had marched me into Woodman’s Hall, went by the name of Macon Tully.
I took a seat on a bench in front of Mr. Tully. Latticed windows cut the sunlight into crossed patterns on the floor. I studied the golden patches and tried not to think about the dark, stony figure at the back of the room.
Lord Finbarr got down to business as soon as he called the meeting to order. The past few weeks had taken a visible toll on him. Dark circles showed under the rims of his spectacles. He smiled as always, but it looked forced.
“We’re going to have to broaden our hunting grounds,” he said. “Our supplies are running short. I’ll let our resident cook explain.”
Anouk stood up nervously. “We’ve run out of smoked meat,” She said. “All the small game has left the area. We might have some luck with fish, but all that we can find in the stream outside is minnows.”
Behind me, Mr. Tully cleared his throat. “Going upstream is risky,” he argued. “It’s too far out of our safety zone. We may not run into any red capes, but there are trolls and sasquatch out there that wouldn’t hesitate to break your neck if they caught you in their hunting ground.”
I stood up. “I suggest that we send Valory. She’s great at fishing. I’m sure she could get us a whole week’s supply without having to go too far upstream.”
“No. Not her.”
Everyone turned to look at Hugo. He was standing with his arms crossed. He wore a frown that dared anyone to challenge him. The Slaugh who were with him looked equally displeased.
I bit my tongue before I could say anything inflammatory. This was a council. I had to be diplomatic even if he wasn’t. “What are your objections?” I asked evenly, staring him down.
He met my eyes with one heated glance and then looked away. “She’s loud. She’s too rough. It’s asking for trouble sending someone like her into unsafe territory. I’d rather send some of my people.”
True, Valory could be loud when she was in company, but when she was out in the wilderness she was quiet and deadly swift as any Slaugh. The poor girl had been chomping at the bit to stretch her wings for weeks. A fishing trip was perfect.
“I disagree,” I said in a neutral tone. “I’ve never seen anyone better at fishing and hunting.”
Hugo’s expression turned so dark that he seemed to seep some of the light out of the room. “That is only your word, though.”
Everyone else remained silent, watching the exchange. I savored the moment. It was perfectly fine if they all came to an agreement to send somebody else, but it had to be a fair decision. Hugo couldn’t dismiss my suggestion on his opinion alone.
Quietly, civilly, without even the tiniest speck of cheekiness, I turned to Lord Finbarr. “What do you think, Sir? You have had time to become acquainted with Valory and you have known me for years. Have you any reason to doubt me?”
In spite of the dark circles there was an amused sparkle in Lord Finbarr’s eyes. “No, Miss Wren, I trust your judgment. However, we have to consider what will make everyone most comfortable. I suggest that you accompany Valory, and that King Hugo select two of his people to go with you as well.”
A murmur of surprise came from the others. I gulped. What had I gotten Valory into? Perhaps I had pushed too hard. I was about to speak up and withdraw my suggestion, but I heard an agitated scuffle of wings.
“Fine,” Hugo said in a tone that was the opposite. “Be ready to leave in one hour.”
“One hour?” I blurted before I could stop myself.
Hugo glowered at me like I was an impertinent child. “Yes, if you are to return by supper time.”
I considered it and decided it wasn’t unreasonable. My only worry was whom Hugo would pick to accompany us.
Lord Finbarr gave me a questioning look. He was waiting on my agreement before calling the meeting.
“Okay,” I said, nodding. “We’ll be at the drawbridge in one hour.”
Valory was ecstatic.
“Finally we get to get in on some action! I’ve felt like a loafer around here, ya know? Back at the cabin I had to do everything and here I’ve just been lazin’ around.”
I tucked some supplies into a daypack along with a few nibbles of food. I wasn’t sure what to take or how much help I’d be to three Slaugh. Somebody had to be Valory’s handler, though. I would rather do it than let anyone else.
“Just tone it down a little, okay?” I pleaded. “Those Slaugh don’t like you, so don’t give them any reason to try something. This isn’t some kind of fun field trip. We’re doing this for everyone at Woodman’s Hall. They’re depending on us.”
“You can count on me!” Valory said. “I won’t mind the company no matter how bad it is. I won’t
start nothing. I promise.”
To Valory’s credit, she had no idea how bad the company would actually be. I was already dreading a journey with two sullen, antisocial Slaugh. When we arrived at the drawbridge, we found Katriel waiting with Hugo.
I was stunned into speechlessness. Valory beamed a toothy grin and offered Katriel a hand to shake.
“Hello, fishing buddy! Ready to snag some big ones?”
Katriel sneered at the outstretched hand. I thought for a moment that she was going to spit in it.
Hugo remained aloof save for one satisfied sneer of his own. I felt a stab of resentment. He was setting us up for failure. I realized what a bad idea it had been to nominate Valory for the mission. With Katriel and Hugo along, it would surely bring out the worst in her.
“Just keep your mouth shut and let’s get this overwith!” I whispered to Valory.
Katriel glared down her nose at me. “And what’s this scrawny thing? Are you the bait?”
“Oh, ha ha,” I said. “Such wit. Too bad you don’t have the looks to match.”
Hugo passed between us, cutting off the chance for any more catty barbs.
“I’ll fly ahead and be your lookout,” he said to Katriel. “Guide them upstream. Go quietly.”
“Guide?” Valory grumbled under her breath. “I don’t need no guide. I can find my way through the forest blindfolded with both eyes poked out.”
“Let’s try it and see,” Katriel said, tapping her rapier.
I gave Valory a warning look. Valory sighed and started walking. She carried the baskets for our catch. I carried the supplies. Katriel carried nothing, but she marched along the riverbank like she was important. Hugo was just a shadow darting through the trees far ahead.
At the furthest perimeter of Woodman’s Hall we passed the resistance sentries. I recognized them as members of the Terra Cartisans. Hugo stopped to speak with them while Valory, Katriel and I forged ahead upstream.
We soon came to the part of the forest where the resistance had no eyes. It was far enough up from shore that it had escaped the reach of the tidal wave. The shady coolness was welcome along with the wind rushing through conifer needles and animals scurrying through the branches.
The Flute Keeper's Promise (The Flute Keeper Saga) Page 35
