Chapter 68
“So you just—what—tossed them over the edge?” Another flurry of feathers float into my lap as Pyrok digs through his second sack of plucked goggin bird plumage, on a staunch mission to find his discarded flasks. “Gone?”
“Gone,” I echo, scanning the thin path streaming in our wake like a creek of snow-crusted mud. “I don’t have it in me to watch you asphyxiate on your own drunken vomit, Pyrok. Way I saw it, it was a matter of life or death. They had to go.”
He stills, like he’s thinking hard, then grunts and resumes his rummaging—gouging through the feathers with gusto. “You’re lying to me. They’re in here somewhere.”
“You think I made a treasure hunt with your flasks? Really?”
Pyrok groans, pulls his head free, and glares at me. Framed in wild red hair dashed with feathers, it’s almost impossible to take him seriously. “I know you’ve been in a shit mood since we left the spawning grounds, but that doesn’t mean you have to dampen mine.”
He’s not wrong. But after two cycles of hard travel, I’ve come to realize things aren’t quite as dire as I thought they were.
Even if Kaan were to discover Arkyn’s residence, it’s not like he’s going to fly Rygun into The Shade to hunt him down. It’s too cold for a Sabersythe so big. He’d have to charter a Moltenmaw, and given the coming moonfall, I doubt there are any to commission.
I have time to beat back his urge to avenge me. To convince him to focus on more important things.
Of which there are many.
I see the endless stream of larks he receives. Saw the tight worry on his face when he dropped Roan in Beluhn with Ahvi’s dense pile of instructions on how to duplicate the runes on Bothaim’s arches. Heard the way his voice caught when Noeve brought up his sister earlier.
My past is a sinkhole that’ll swallow Kaan if I don’t find a way to stop him from inching closer to it. So I guess I’ll just … do that.
Find a way.
A bell chimes in the distance, swiftly responded to by Noeve jiggling her own loud enough to toll through the mist.
I open my mouth to question the meaning.
“Signal the path is occupied,” Pyrok mutters, rebinding the bag with a length of string. He stuffs it to the side and groans again, flopping against the puffy pile. “You should care less next time. That’d be great.”
“Tried that. Doesn’t end well,” I murmur as the path begins to widen in our wake. Just slightly, but a sure sign we’re coming upon the other side.
I whisper another soft request for Clode to remain still, plying her with compliments over how beautifully she’s controlling her gusty impulses, confused when she doesn’t respond immediately. She’s rarely so distracted that she makes me wait.
“Carts ahead,” Noeve calls back.
Shit.
I’m quick to untie the back flap so it flops down, concealing us. Just in case, I pull the thick throw farther up over Ahvi—still slumbering off his exhaustion from the big journey, rasping through each slow breath.
Worry worms between my ribs.
Kaan may have carried him through the Forest of Harthor and done everything in his power to make the flight easier, but riding a dragon is hard on any body—big or small—let alone someone who has trouble breathing.
I push his hair back from his brow so I can more easily see his pallor. Thankfully, his lips and cheeks are pinker than they were when he first sank down against the sacks.
Easing the flap a little to the side, I peek through a thin opening as we swerve around a cart that’s beginning to move out onto the path. Another is wedged behind it … another … all grinding forward, dragged by restless, snow-dusted colk snorting steamy breath from flared nostrils.
From my vantage point, I have a perfect view of their stowage spaces and what they’re carrying.
Mostly folk stuffed in like us, wedged between travel trunks that are wide open, personal possessions spewed through the carts.
The travelers are working hard to reorganize their things, some crying, others stony faced as they slash glances back in the direction we’re headed.
Unease is already nipping at me by the time we move around the last cart in the lineup, within which a female fae cinches the binds of her blouse with trembling hands.
She plants a fake smile on her face, then spins to take her crying youngling into her arms. Consoles him with soft words and gentle gestures despite the darkness gathering in her eyes.
My next breath burns like frostbite in my lungs.
Ahvi gasps, eyes popping open. Quick to find me, they strike like a slap to the face.
He wears no walls in the brief moment we lock gazes, and I know he’s hearing things he shouldn’t be. Getting dressed in traumas that don’t belong to him.
“I’m here,” I mouth, brushing his hair back from his brow. “It’s okay.”
A lie, of course. We both know it. But he falls into it, relaxing against the sack.
He squeezes his eyes shut, then whispers, “There’s a barricade of Fade soldiers ahead.
They’re taking all the bloodstone from folk who want to bide the moonfalls away from the capital.
I don’t think they’ll make it easy for us to get past the gates.
Not if they see me or find the book in your bag. ” He flicks a glance at Pyrok. “Or—”
“Got it,” Pyrok says, meeting my wide eyes.
We curse in unison.
“Luiere, Clode,” I whisper, easing my hold on her.
Wind howls—whipping with such violence I realize Clode’s been watching shit go down at these apparent gates with a chest full of screams she couldn’t release.
The cart wobbles from side to side as I stuff my blade away. Begin working past Pyrok and over a small mountain of puffy sacks, just pulling back the partition flap when Kaan grinds out three terse words.
“This is new.”
In the distance, smudged amidst the pale gloom, is the hint of a Fade military cart and the tall, sturdy blockade. An iron gate hung between two thick, heavily runed poles guarded by numerous Fade soldiers—bold in their bloodred armor, vibrant against the bleak backdrop.
Half the contingent appears to be on this side of the gate, half on the other. And though I can’t see their beads from here, I have no doubt some of them are wearing one.
“It wasn’t like this when I came through three cycles ago,” Noeve bites out.
Gaze firmly on the path, she aims her next words at me.
“There’s a hidden compartment beneath the floorboards, marked with a knot of wood that looks like an eye.
Pressing the knot will reveal the lid. I suggest you all get in there. Less questions, the better.”
I drop the leather flap to see Pyrok’s already shoving sacks of feathers aside. Upon locating the knot, he pops the lid, wedges his fingers beneath it, and lifts—exposing the metal hollow beneath. Long and wide, it’s etched in thousands of tiny runes barely visible in the low light.
Pyrok peers into it like he’s staring down the throat of a Sabersythe. “You want us to climb in a metal casket, Noeve? Really?”
“Better than getting blood on my feathers,” she says on a cough. “It’s got an airhole, so you won’t die. But I couldn’t work out the right sequence of runes to make it soundproof. You’ll have to find a way to keep your gob shut.”
Pyrok scratches the back of his head, grumbles something inaudible, then grits his teeth and climbs in, reaching up to take the hatchling still bundled in a sleepy ball of prickly pin feathers that have sprouted like well-fed grass.
Ahvi shuffles closer, looking up at me through big, wide eyes. “You know, I could fix that … make it really soundproof.”
My smile is instant. “I bet you could,” I whisper, stuffing the compartment with his throw, then our satchels. I help Ahvi edge down into the hollow, about to close them off. “I need you to activate that shield now.”
He nods fast, moving his tongue around inside his mouth. He bites down, the silver sheen of his shield rippling out and around him as I lower the lid.
Relief loosens some of the many knots in my chest.
I’m just shifting sacks back into place when Kaan’s voice comes to me—hard and heavy. “Raeve, get beneath the boards.”
I snort-laugh. “You get beneath the boards.”
Since I know there’s not a lick of hope he’ll actually do it, I don’t bother hanging around and crawl toward the flap.
I clamber through, flicking my hood up as I wedge between Kaan and Noeve, my next breath thick with sweet herbal-smelling smoke.
“Wow. The view’s much better up here,” I say, plucking a feather from the loose ends of my hair.
Noeve arches a brow at me.
A low rumble erupts from Kaan’s chest. “If someone recognizes—”
“Either of us. Or have you forgotten Bothaim? The ambush? Besides,” I say, thinking of the female’s glazed eyes as she consoled her youngling; of the way she discreetly tried to re-ruche the neckline of her blouse, “this is my hunting ground.”
“We’re not hunting,” Kaan grinds out.
“Not if the soldiers behave.” I crack my neck, the tips of my fingers tingling. “Which I’m hoping they don’t.”
“You’re blood bound.”
“Hasn’t killed me yet.”
“Feather sack. Get in. Now.”
I frown. “Do you want me to die? I’d bet my entire dagger collection that’s the first thing they’ll stab. No, thank you. I’ll have much more fun stabbing them.”
“If you two get blood on my cart, I’ll turn you into cushions,” Noeve mutters around the smoke stick dangling from the corner of her mouth. “I have a newfound respect for the comfort they provide for my sore, sorry arse.”
Probably not a good time to tell her I’m not particularly good at clean, tidy slaughterings …
Kaan tugs my hood farther down with more gusto than necessary. “Where’s your veil?”
“Anyone sees my face, or yours, I’ll cut out their eyes.”
He grumbles about begging the Creators for patience.
I’ve tried that a few times. Another thing that doesn’t work.
The colk stomps to a halt at the gate with an impatient snort. She shakes her big, boxy head, jostling the shell of snow that had collected on her pelt. Obviously as hackled as we are by this meddling blockade.