Chapter Four
Jarok
Jarok slept little the night before. He’d been woken by a sharp intake of breath and turned from the wall to find Piris looking tired but alert, her eyes scanning the space before boring into his. She looked away quickly, and he did the same, not needing to think on her more when he should be sleeping. However, sleep eluded him as he obsessed over what had woken her, why she had been so alert, and the pang of now knowing what she looked like rumpled from sleep.
Eventually, he fell back to sleep, getting a few precious hours before Gem woke at dawn and stomped around to make sure everyone else got up and got ready to continue their journey. They had another full day and another night at a traveling house, then a second full day, before they stopped at the first inn as planned.
The traveling houses were preferred because they were isolated, more secure, more within the prince’s control in many ways. At an inn, anyone could come and go as they pleased, and the thought of it made the security-minded prince’s teeth grind. Luckily, he and Cylian had mapped out a six-day route where they stayed at inns only twice. The idea still made him even more on edge than the loss of sleep did. He was not happy when Gem asked, “When do we meet with the other Fae?”
He couldn’t be mad at his cousin for the question. She needed to know to properly plan, even if it was merely planning in her mind for future possibilities. But did she have to say it as Piris bent down on her knees beside his cousin, packing her bedroll as the rest of them did?
“At the first inn,” Cylian said, cutting his eyes to Jarok as if he sensed the tension pulsing from the man.
“Who is it?” Piris asked, setting herself back on her heels, facing the two Fae men who’d just finished putting their own rolls away.
“No need for you to concern yourself with it,” Jarok muttered, hoping she’d drop the topic. Knowing her, her dogged tenacity, and her uncanny tendency to clamp onto anything that annoyed him, she wouldn’t.
“Lord Padalist?” she asked, quirking a thick, perfectly arched auburn eyebrow at the diplomat.
“Cylian. Please,” he replied.
“Piris to you, then,” she said with a sweet smile Jarok had never seen directed at him, a stray realization that oddly hurt his head and chest for a fleeting moment. “Again, who is this mysterious ally?”
Cylian looked at his friend and cocked his head. Jarok knew she also deserved all the information, needed it just as Gem and he and Cylian needed it. Didn’t mean he had to like it.
“Darin Marco,” Jarok growled, shoving to his feet and slinging his pack over his shoulder.
Gem cracked out a laugh. “Oh, now I know why you’re so surly, cousin. Or at least, one of the reasons.”
“Enough, Gem.” Jarok stood and planted his feet, staring down his cousin, daring her to continue. She smiled at him completely unconcerned, rising herself, never one to back down from a fight in any form. Gem opened her mouth, likely to give him some snarky comeback, but Piris’s voice cut through first.
“Who is Darin Marco?”
Cylian gave her the bare-bone facts. “An ally from the Springlands.”
“Your ally from the Springlands,” Jarok said.
“Our ally now, friend. You must keep that in mind.”
Piris’s head whipped back and forth between the two men, soaking in all they said and what they didn’t say, her shrewd mind whirling behind those assessing bronze eyes.
With a sickly-sweet smile, she said, “Someone the prince dislikes so much must be rather interesting.”
“You be careful with Marco,” Jarok snapped before he could hold his tongue.
“I’m all carefulness, Your Highness.”
Jarok gave a dismissive snort before giving her another command. “You will steer clear of the Fae.”
“What makes you think you can tell me who I shouldn’t spend time with, Prince?”
“For your own good—”
She surged to her feet, stalking the distance between them as her feet remained light and silent, her training etched in every movement of her body. She stopped inches from his face. They were nearly the same height, Prince Jarok having only an inch or two on the woman, so her squinting, heated eyes stared easily into his from the short distance.
“You get no say in my good.”
A cocky smile tripped across Jarok’s lips, and his words tumbled out before he could stop himself. “Someone should, as you appear to lack the ability yourself.”
Piris cursed loudly before striking him with more honed words. “I apologize, Your Oh-So-Elevated Highness. Please, do command me as you do everyone else around you.”
Jarok ground his teeth, hating the words, hating she thought he was like that, and hating how sometimes he was, as he had spent the bulk of his life commanding in one way or another. He didn’t get a chance to lash out with his own barbed words before Cylian’s heavy hand landed on his shoulder. “Come, Jarok. Let’s ready the horses.”
Jarok’s head was jerky, stiff, as he nodded in the lady’s face. He swiveled on his heels and stomped away from her, far less graceful than her, despite his own years of training. He made his way out the door and to his horse, his jaw locked tight and his movements precise as he did what he had to do to get them on the road—get Lady Piris back in the carriage and away from him with her too-smart gaze and too-quick tongue.
The morning stretched long and cold. The coachman had prepped the carriage quickly and seen to the horses’ spells to keep the snow and ice from packing their hooves and making travel dangerous for rider and horse both. No one spoke on it, but everyone there had either seen or heard of the accident with Strella’s horse during the Battle of the Ice plains, how it had thrown her and Ghel had only just managed to avert utter disaster for his princess. The five travelers tore into a quick breakfast of crisp travel bread with a tub of cheese Cylian had smartly brought along. Easy enough to keep it cool in this weather, which was the usual gray bleakness of the Winterlands. Not that anyone minded a great deal. It was their home, their land, and the frozen scenery around seeped into them, energizing them in some ways.
All except Cylian. He was a son of autumn, used to a certain chill, but the slight coolness of autumn was no match for winter, even when a Fae piled on the furs over their leathers.
After the fifth time Jarok heard Cylian blow into his gloved hands and rub them together for a little friction, he chuckled, the puffs of hot air creating white clouds of laughter around his head. “Cold, are you? Here I thought your magic could warm you.”
“Some, yes, but not enough for riding hours across this freezing land.”
Jarok used his own power to break the headwind so Cylian wasn’t directly bombarded. “Let me know if my mind slips, and I’ll pick it back up.” His wind power required some intent, but not a great deal of concentration. He’d honed his skills with a tutor. His father, having something similar in the ice and cold he could direct, had helped him practice his magic to become nearly automatic to him, something he could bring up and down, command and shut away with little thought. If he wished, he could command a gale from a small breeze and whip wind around an enemy, which he’d done enough in his past. This barrier, winds of protection, was a piece of his magic he enjoyed. It gave him the ability to defend, not simply attack.
The Autumnlands lord called to him, “No need, friend. You should reserve your energy for more important things.”
“The comfort of my friends isn’t important?”
Cylian, who’d been a few horse lengths ahead, slowed enough to get side by side with Jarok. The prince saw the dark look on his face and worried his teasing had gone too far somehow. A problem he sometimes had, and usually only regretted when it bit into family or friends.
“We’ve had a quiet day and night. Does not mean it will remain so, even in this desolate stretch—maybe most especially here. It was in a similarly isolated place where your brother and the princess were attacked by the Benders.”
Jarok looked away, partially shamed by the fact he’d spent a good bulk of the morning sulking rather than keeping himself alert and trained on the area. Gods damn it all, he wouldn’t—couldn’t—allow agents of Engad Monti to get at their group. He, and his family, figured he might be a direct target. He knew the Benders’ leader wanted to lash out at the royal family for his own twisted reasons he called noble.
Engad Monti wanted power. Oh, sure, he wrapped it in talk of bettering the lives of warrior Fae like his clan, but his domination of other clans, his aggression and acts of war, told otherwise. He was a Fae out for himself, cloaking his actions in words like honor and freedom. Because it was about power, about what he could gain. His actions hadn’t ended with Ghel winning the battle over him and his clan. No. They’d end when he was imprisoned or dead, which was why Jarok was out here to begin with. To gain knowledge or, hopefully, stop the Monti outright before he could bring more chaos to his land and his family.
He concentrated more, sending the barrier he’d placed at the head of Cylian in an arc, then a circle, creating a wind tunnel of sorts where their horses and the carriage were engulfed in a small stream of air. Enough to confuse and misdirect any arrows that might surprise them. Jarok had done the same the day before, all day, but he hadn’t put it back into place that morning because of his absurd bickering with Piris.
His friend heard the click of his teeth and saw the tightness spread over his shoulders and said, “All is well, has been well, Jarok.”
Cylian was attempting to reassure him, let him off the hook for failing in his duties. Something Jarok himself couldn’t quite do, not yet. Not with himself.
Early afternoon, they stopped to rest and reset the magic of the horses, eating more bread and cheese with little talk between them. Jarok found himself staring at Lady Piris as she stretched. She wore the same gray traveling dress as the day before. The color was dull and drab, but touches here and there showed its expense: the double stitching in the seams held strong; the fabric, while dull in color, was thick full wool guaranteed to keep out the cold; and the cut was modern and in keeping with the latest Fae fashions in their land. His mother wore dresses as often as she wore leathers, something she said was a different form of armor she needed as queen. Jarok thought Lady Piris likely felt the same, which was why her traveling dress was as nicely made as the leathers he knew she had in her trunk.
“Problem, Prince?” he heard her sneer a second before he realized his eyes had snagged on the gathered ruffle at her chest as he thought about dresses and ladies in his odd, haphazard way. Jarok shook his mind out of thoughts of fashion and necessity and muttered something incoherent.
“Excuse me?” Lady Piris asked, her hand hovering over her pocket, her eyes squinting at the prince.
Jarok cleared his thoughts, gave her his eyes so she could see he was serious, and answered, “I said, ‘Apologies, Lady Piris.’”
Her eyes widened a flash before she went back to a tight stance in front of him. Neither said anything for long beats. They stared at one another, dark-brown eyes locked to bronze, assessing.
“Yes, Lady Piris,” Gem snickered as she returned from her rest stop behind a nearby mound of dirt and snow pushed off the road. “Oh, do forgive the utter rudeness of His Royal Highness, daring to lay eyes on such a delicate lady.”
Jarok watched Piris flinch, fascinated by the play of thoughts on her face at his cousin’s words. He’d made her flinch before, of course, as she had him, but dark, hot wind stirred in him when someone else, even his own cousin, did the same. He popped his mouth open and frowned at Gem, but before he could get a rebuke out, he heard Piris mutter something herself.
“Huh?” he asked, turning in time to see her head down as she moved closer to him. She stopped a few good feet away, close enough he scented her, the smell of clean ice and steel he associated with the bite of her tongue.
Keeping her eyes on the ground, he just managed to hear her say, “Call me Piris. Please.”
He could give her snark, offer a snide comment her way, but he stopped himself. For the peace of their journey and because of the emotions he’d seen on her face when Gem called her “lady” in her joking tone. So he nodded at her, a nonverbal acknowledgment before he croaked out, “Jarok,” his voice oddly broken even to his own ear. Why not? Everyone else on the trip called each other by their given names. He and Piris could as well.
She blinked his way, rapid movements taking him in, before she turned at a quick clip and stalked back to the carriage, her long, leanly muscled legs eating the distance, or so he imagined. He couldn’t see them under her dress.
“Easy now, cousin. Some might see such a look and think dirty things,” Gem said, hitting him on his shoulder as she passed. He muttered and hmphed and sputtered in reply, but the one thing he didn’t do was correct her.
The second night at a traveling house went differently than the first. They stopped at a clearing with five small cabins, each unoccupied for the night. Piris declared she and Gem would stay alone, and the coachman again refused to stay with the prince, which left Cylian and Jarok in a single cabin together. It wasn’t bad, but Jarok found himself looking out the one small, dirty window in their cabin over and over again, checking no one else showed and nothing amiss happened in the cabin where his cousin and Piris were staying. His wind absently whipped around the structures, a moving shield.
“Sit,” Cylian ordered after the tenth time he’d paced to the window, and Jarok listened. Not because he had to do so—he was a prince, after all—but because Cylian was a friend, an intelligent Fae diplomat and strategist, a solid fighter, and in this, right. Jarok needed to calm down. He was hovering, even from a cabin away, and he really shouldn’t be. Not with her. He’d witnessed both Piris and Gem in fighting form, had taken hard blows from each. Knew they could hold their own against anyone who might attack. Still, the idea of not being there, with them, in person, made his skin stretch tight and itch. It was best for everyone, especially himself, if he sat and tried to think of something else.
Even sitting, Jarok moved, his leg bouncing as he tapped the toes of one foot on the floor. Cylian looked from his dancing foot to his face and back again before his face softened. “They are secure in that cabin, friend.” Understanding shone through Cylian’s eyes.
Jarok stopped him before he could say more, flipping his hand in the air. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Obviously they are fine. Everyone is fine. No need to discuss further.”
“If you say so,” Cylian called, moving to unroll his pallet, though Jarok saw the ghost of a smile crack his lips before he fully turned away. Jarok decided to follow Cylian’s lead and prepare for bed.
As he tried to make himself comfortable in his roll, Cylian said, “We will meet with Darin tomorrow.”
Immediately, any comfort Jarok could’ve grasped flew away like a snow owl. He stiffened and simply replied, “Yes.”
Cylian sighed deep, hard, and said, “Maybe, Jarok, you should give Darin a chance.”
“Don’t worry, Cylian. I can play the part as well as you. I’ll be civil.”
“Being civil and being open to knowing someone are two different things.”
“Is it necessary we become friends for this to work?”
“No, Jarok, but it might make things easier in the long run, especially if certain concerns you have come to light.” He didn’t need to name Piris and her powers for Jarok to know exactly what he meant.
Jarok stayed quiet, not talking about why he distrusted Darin so much. He did eventually say, “He’s a killer.”
“As are we all, in one way or another,” Cylian replied. Jarok couldn’t argue the fact.
“He kills for a fickle and cruel ruler.”
Cylian ended the conversation by embedding a verbal dagger right in Jarok’s skull. “Unlike you, who became part of a kind and just royal family, Darin Marco and I come from corrupt houses. With only a worthless, long-forgotten title to his name, he had few options outside his arrows and his wits. The various Fae lands are not always kind to those born within certain power structures, friend. I’ve seen it, time and again. Felt it myself, my whole life. You know this but chose to ignore it for a man from the Springlands who had little he could do with his life because of where he was born.”
Jarok remembered little of his time before being folded into the royal family—flashes of cold and hardness with dashes of hunger thrown in. He was thankful, both for being taken in by his family and for not really remembering what he had before them. Cylian, on the other hand, had been born into privilege, as he freely admitted, though his privilege came with its own harsh reality, one example of which shone like a fork of lightening on his face in the scar running through his one silver eye. His words buried themselves deep into Jarok’s brain. Before he closed his eyes to sleep, he thought maybe he’d give the Fae a chance after all.
Jarok’s wind died down as he slept. He didn’t need a great deal of thought to keep up his protective winds, but he did need consciousness. When his ears caught something, a shift in frozen ground outside the cabins, he bolted up in his roll.
He saw nothing from the window, but he knew someone was there, close by. He felt them like a burn on his skin. Jarok couldn’t pinpoint them yet, so he snuck out of the cabin as quietly as possible, thinking he’d spare Cylian in case it was a winter fox moving around instead of some nefarious Fae.
With his falchion unsheathed and gripped tight in his hand, he crouched low and moved swiftly around his cabin, the one at the end of the row. A sound, soft but ringing in the silence of night, alerted him whoever lingered there was just around the corner. Quick as a flash, he shot out his hand without looking, grabbing the Fae by the throat and slamming them against the far side of the log wall of the cabin.
He smelled icy steel a second before he realized Piris was staring at him. Her eyes were trained on his, unblinking and unafraid, despite the fact he had his blade to her neck. She remained cool, calculated, and utterly unconcerned, at least on the outside. Jarok’s keen eyes saw the pulse in her neck jump slightly.
“Can you let go of my neck?” she asked, calm and blasé as if he weren’t holding her throat in his palm or pointing a blade to her skin. Gods, she felt hot under his hand, searing, her throat working with the words in a delicious way he tried to shove down, way down, as he let her go.
In a split second he was steps away, hand flexing as if burned by her flesh, sword now at his side. “Piris, I—”
“Thought I might be some agent or intruder? Understandable. However, I was just visiting the outhouse.” She waved behind them vaguely. He cursed himself mentally for not thinking of that, for automatically jumping to fight.
“Yes, well.” He didn’t have words. What could he even say? Sorry I nearly choked you without permission and put a sword to your throat? Instead, he straightened, looked toward the cabin where his cousin obviously still slept, and wondered aloud, “Why is Gem still asleep?”
“I made sure not to wake her.”
“Impressive,” he muttered, then gave her more, an olive branch of sorts he could offer in the cold, dead night when it was only the two of them. “Not many could say they snuck past Gem Aurora without waking her.”
Piris nodded, not verbally acknowledging what he said, but he saw her eyes glint in the moonlight.
He chuckled, thinking of the night they met. “We should stop fighting in the dark.”
Piris didn’t laugh; she simply walked away, heading for her cabin. Before she got there, she did turn back, a tentative look in her eyes.
Jarok understood it, as he was also trying to find footing on this new ground they were attempting to cultivate between them.
“I like you in the dark.”
He cracked out a laugh. Such an odd thing to say. “So you don’t have to look at my smug face, I assume,” he said, though not with the bite and snark he’d have used with her before.
She shrugged and turned away, neither confirming nor denying. Piris left Jarok to stand in the cold for long minutes, wondering what she meant by those words.