Sadie
We rolled over the rest of the rope bridge, up higher where the railings disappeared and the wagon wheels were inches from the edge on either side. Maez and I clutched each other randomly at every rock and shake of the wagon, thinking we strayed a little too close to the edge and were falling. It probably didn’t help that we were both impossibly hungover from the night of gambling that Maez had goaded me into once we left the tavern in the sky.
We were so high now I could barely make out the dots of the lagoons far, far below. Maez and I watched out the window as the sharp obsidian of the mountain’s underbelly came into crystalline view. The jagged rocks looked almost carved like joinery fittings, and I wondered if there was another continent, another world where those puzzle work rocks fit like a lock to a key. The mystical nature of these floating mountains gave credence to the dusty old scrolls in the refuge library. Maybe Wolves truly weren’t the first beings to inhabit this land. More and more, I believed the humans’ histories and further doubted my own.
“One more bridge to go and we’re in Rikesh,”
Navin said as he sipped the last of his tea at the kitchen table. Our two mugs sat cold across from him, our stomachs unable to manage more than pieces of the grease-fried bread Navin had whipped up for us.
“Another bridge,”
I groaned as Maez gripped my forearm. “Remind me never to return to this Gods-forsaken place.”
“No wonder so few people make the journey to the Onyx Wolf kingdom,”
she quipped. She frowned at the last bite of bread pinched between her thumb and forefinger. “Why don’t you have a song for curing hangovers?”
Navin chuckled and reached for my forsaken mug, helping himself. The Onyx guard’s uniform was folded over the back of the chair next to him, looking freshly pressed now, along with a gauzy orange monstrosity that was apparently for me to wear. I didn’t have the energy to complain, though. Maybe after another piece of bread . . .
As we entered the thick, teeming jungles of Eshik, the temperature morphed from the blistering dry heat of the desert to the far more humid kind. The wagon rocked again, rolling over the road covered in dried leaves and crawling vines. The verdant green surrounded us. Parrots squawked from the skies, black and golden monkeys climbed through the treetops, and striped snakes slithered off the road with the rumble of the wagon. The distinct smell hit me, too: not the spicy arid scent of Sankai-ed but now an earthy smell of leaves composting back into soil, damp foliage, and viscid air.
“It’s beautiful,”
Maez said as she hooked her elbow out the window and admired the landscape.
“And shaded,”
I sighed as I poked my head out and looked up at the thick, flourishing canopy above us. The top of Galen den’ Mora barely skirted through the arching space created from many traveling wagons, the trees trained up and around to create a tunnel through the forest.
“We’ll need to keep our heads down in these parts,”
Navin said, grabbing me by the hips and tugging me back into my chair. “Both of you,” he said, nodding at Maez. “You two will need to stay in the wagon until we reach the other side of the forest. No Wolves should be lurking out there.”
“Makes sense,”
Maez says. She looked at me. “Are you going to be able to play along with this?”
“Of course.”
I’d bathed and changed back into my own fighting leathers, my pack still waiting for me right where I’d left it the day of the sandstorm. Her eyes dropped to the butter knife I’d inadvertently picked up off the table and started flicking back and forth. I scowled and put the blunt knife back down.
“Of course? You know that means no violence, right? You need to seem under his control.”
“Why does everybody keep treating me like I’m so prone to violence?”
I spat, smacking the table and making the tableware clatter. Maez only raised her amused eyebrows at me. “Point taken. I only have to pretend for long enough for Navin to get the vase,” I said.
Maez looked me up and down. “You should get her a veil in the next town. Present her as a little less feisty, more demure. No one would believe a human captured her looking like that.”
Maez held in a laugh. “Maybe that will buy us some time as well. Give Tadei some time to inspect his present—a little more pageantry might help sell it.”
I mimicked gagging but said, “Fine, whatever.”
I pointed at Maez. “But you better be ready to make some moves. I’ve got about five smiles and fake laughs in me before I choke the life out of him.” I stabbed my butter knife into the wood table, leaving only an amorphous dent.
Navin groaned. “Could you make your point without damaging the furniture, please?”
I gave him a mischievous wink and he rolled his eyes.
“When we reach the other side of the forest, I should contact Briar,”
Maez said. “Last we spoke to Calla, we were here to make allies. Now we’re going to steal from them.”
“Surely Calla knew our chance at making allies disappeared the moment Luo agreed to my marriage to Tadei without my consent?”
I asked incredulously, and Maez snarled at the thought. “Exactly.”
“The way these Wolf Kings think they can trade us around like sacks of grain without even our knowledge,”
Maez growled. “The Moon Goddess herself chose Briar for me and me for her. Why hasn’t the pack risen up against Nero for this deal with Evres?”
“I don’t know.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Fear of his retribution? If Nero says the Goddess made a mistake, who amongst the pack would lead the charge against him now that we’re all gone?”
Maez’s hands balled into fists. “I thought our families wouldn’t be so cowardly.”
I thought about my father and uncles, mourning the family I lost, one that I was just beginning to realize I never truly had to begin with. There was no loyalty to me. There was no loyalty even to the Gods. They only scrambled to save their own tails from Nero’s wrath. They manipulated and abused to uphold the power of their King, and yet even the highest ranked among us lived and died by the whims of a system that was never designed to serve the many, but only the one.
“So Luo gets me, Nero gets Briar and a million Valtan gritas and an army of Onyx Wolves to help him take the rest of the continent,”
I said, craning my neck up to the high canvas ceilings as if searching for an answer.
“And I’m certain Nero promised to return Luo’s money tenfold when they take Olmdere,”
Maez said. “Though I don’t see the greedy bastard splitting his mines with Valta anytime soon. Maybe he’ll cut them out entirely once he gets his hands on it.”
“I would almost count on it. And Taigos?”
I mused. “What will the country in the middle of all three do?”
“Survive. It depends if Calla is successful or not in persuading her, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Queen Ingrid will do as she’s always done,”
Maez observed. “Be impartial to protect her court. Let whoever the strongest and baddest ruler is at the time dictate who enters her kingdom.”
“Which is almost certainly not the Golden Wolves,”
I grumbled. “I know Calla is doing everything she can to rally Ingrid to her cause, but I don’t think the Ice Wolf Queen has anything to give but empty promises.”
“You’d think she’d at least try to protect herself from Valta,”
Maez said. “She was once promised to Luo, you know. He still feels jilted about not possessing Taigos if rumors are to be believed. With his alliance with Damrienn, he’ll be able to take it from her.”
“Too afraid to fight back until it’s too late,”
I said. “Which is why we have to get this vase from them now.” My gaze slid to Navin. “We can’t let anyone possess such a powerful weapon, least of all our enemies.”
“Only if you can pull off this ruse.”
Maez let out a sharp huff.
“How long does it take you to locate and steal a vase?”
Maez shrugged. “How long can you hold a smile without a knife in your hand?”