72. Maren
72
Maren
K ing Emilius approved my request to ride with Kye to Winterlight. It surprised me that he did, though I had to wonder if he was simply hopeful I’d wind up dead. His eyes followed Selena as she stood beside me, so hungry with flagrant desire I had to stifle the urge to leave them looking like Burian’s.
But three days after I emerged from the Juile Sea a Queen of Naiads, we set off from Calder City, finding ourselves headed in the opposite direction that Kye and I had forged two months before.
At least I found myself happy to ride Kolibri every day.
Dimas and Leal were apparently cousins, though you’d never know by looking at them. Dimas stood as tall as Aren, just a few inches shy of Kye, with the dark green eyes of a hunter, his words brief and his movements stealthy.
Leal’s height reached just past my own. He wasn’t the thinnest man I’d ever seen. Pheolix held that title, though with every day that passed, Pheolix seemed to fill out more and more, the emaciated cut of his cheekbones rounding as he lived another day outside of Thaan’s control.
Leal was simply cut like a wire. His voice cracked like a whip, and he wore a smile brighter than the blinding fields of white snow we rode past on our way north.
Unskilled with a horse, Aitne sat behind Selena and kept her head down, pretending Leal didn’t sneak sideways glances at her. Selena must have noticed. She often took the last place in our line, seated high and proud on her white stallion as though she’d been born in a saddle and offering Leal stifling glances when his eyes strayed too far in their direction.
Ten days passed.
Cold and wet, I tried to keep my inner complaints to a minimum. It didn’t help that Kye loved it all. The trees, the mountains, the endless feeling of exploration as the road stretched out from us. I suppose his heart was carved with wings and a burning wanderlust. Mine had been carved from roots that grew deep into the earth, resistant to the idea of pulling myself out for the sake of straying from home.
She named you her heir the day you retrieved the Breath of Safiro under the ice.
My hand found the stone hanging from my neck. Would I have felt the same, had I never touched it? Was it the voice of the stone that called me to return to the Juile Sea? My bond to the waters there as queen?
Or was it simply me?
“Another hour until we reach the last inn,” Dimas observed, pushing his horse to ride astride Kye and me. We’d been practicing sharing our thoughts over the course of the trip, and he tossed a sideways glance at me, brow raised.
How much time is left in the day?
I glanced up, gauging the lazy winter sun. Forty-five minutes.
“We’ll need to hurry,” Kye said, straightening the silver-tipped black fur that laid over his shoulders. “We have half an hour, maybe, before dusk sets in.”
“That sun’s not setting for at least another hour,” Leal piped in, riding to my left. Kye glanced at me.
Yes, but those clouds to the south are coming this way—
“Those clouds to the south are coming this way—”
And they’ll bring night sooner than a clear sky.
“And they’ll bring night sooner than a clear sky.”
“Don’t pretend you can read the sun-damned skies, Laurier,” Leal snipped. “Ten fraggs says those clouds don’t shift over our heads until after nightfall.”
Kye’s eyes bounced to mine. I gave an imperceivable nod. He clasped Leal’s outstretched hand.
An hour later, Leal grumbled as he dug his coin purse from his saddle bags in the driveway of the inn.
We stopped somewhere just below Pirou. Diara’s home. I craned my neck in the late dusk for a hopeful glimpse of her father’s estate somewhere in the hills above, wishing we could stop and see her. I’d sent a letter ahead, informing her that we’d be passing through. I wondered how she was faring with Hadrian. The thought sank my teeth into my lip.
All roadside inns looked the same to me. Structures carved from wood, many of them stacked logs, built into a hillside to protect them from vicious wind in the absence of a town. This one burrowed deep into the mountainside, or at least the drifts of snow made it look that way, draping over the inn’s roof to look like one long white rope of garland. Smoke puffed from various chimneys across its gables, the scent of beef and carrots and salt waking the sedentary mind of my belly.
Inside the inn’s tavern, Aitne ate her hot stew in silence, Selena beside her.
Leal flopped into the closest seat, dropping five coins on the table in front of Kye. “Rotten cheater,” he muttered.
Kye scooped the fraggs up. “How would I possibly cheat?”
I stirred a breath into my steaming stew and said nothing.
Aren’s white furry dog, Fox, sat at his side. He leaned back in his chair, pointing his spoon at Leal. “Are you not eating?”
“The sun-damned crown’s stolen all my money.” Leal tossed a small pouch of peanuts on the table and plucked one out, twisting it at the center to break the shell.
“Oh, for Aalto’s sake,” Kye shoved the coins back at the man.
“I don’t want your dirty money,” Leal said, plopping a small peanut into his mouth. “It’s tainted with the evil of immoral deeds.”
“Get yourself some fucking soup.”
“I don’t like soup.”
Aren leaned forward on his elbows. “Then quit griping and let the rest of us eat in peace.”
For a moment, the only noise came from the great fireplace beside our table and the gentle clinking of silver utensils against ceramic bowls. For an inn built in northern Calder without a city, this one was particularly glamorous, its ceilings high and walls sparkling with lacquer, the rooms spacious and the carpets lush.
Leal chewed in silence, tongue working between the grooves of his teeth. “Ever notice how when you’re eating peanuts, you’re still eating peanuts long after you’ve stopped eating peanuts?”
Kye scooped a bite with a thick hunk of bread. “How many times can you fucking say peanuts in a sentence, Leal?”
“More than that if I tried.”
“I’m turning in,” Selena stood, a shadow of a smile over her mouth. She waited for Aitne to finish as well before standing, and Aitne climbed to her feet without a word, drifting off with Selena to the room they shared.
Leal watched them go, peanuts crunching in his mouth. “Does your friend have a husband, Lady Princess?”
I glanced up to find Dimas interested in my answer as well.
“No,” Kye said, swerving the last of his bread around the empty rim of his bowl. “But she’s not interested, and she has an older brother that will tear your limbs apart.”
Aren smiled into his slowly disappearing meal. Leal sank in his seat, chewing his peanuts loudly. “Fair enough, I suppose.”
Belly sated, my feet and fingers finally warm from the lack of winter wind, I was suddenly ready for bed. “Are you sure you don’t like soup?” I asked Leal. “I’m finished with mine.”
“Give it here, then,” he said, reaching for it. Kye met my eyes, giving me a short head tilt down the hall in the direction of our room. I smiled back at him, and we both stood.
Loud slurping ensued behind us, followed by the sound of Aren groaning in annoyance. “Aalto and back, Leal, you could suck a sun-damned wine bottle out of a pigeonhole.”
“I know,” Leal shot back. “I’ve informed the Crown of my disability, but they haven’t offered me compensation.”