Chapter Five Selka’s Warning #2
“Maybe. Faint.”
Osa looked displeased.
“Stone men smell like medicine and arrogance.”
“This smells like old leather kept in a wintergreen chest,” Selka said. “Not fresh. Stored with tack or riding gear.”
Willa looked at the token.
Redjaw bone token.
Dropped by false Pike.
Wanted back badly enough to threaten Osa.
Smelling faintly of Stonewatch leather storage.
“Varric,” Willa said.
Riksa lifted one hand. “Or someone using Stonewatch storage.”
“Yes.”
“Do not skip steps because the last step has a handsome villain.”
Willa blinked.
Selka looked up.
Even Osa paused.
Riksa frowned. “What?”
“Handsome?” Willa said.
“Annoyingly. Not medically relevant.”
From outside, Torren growled.
Willa closed her eyes.
Of course he had heard that.
Riksa shouted toward the door, “I said villain.”
Osa cackled.
Selka’s mouth twitched.
The mark warmed with Torren’s irritation.
Willa sent back amusement before she could stop herself.
His irritation sharpened.
Then, very reluctantly, warmed too.
Good.
They could be absurd beside danger.
That mattered more than it should.
Osa wrapped the token again but did not hand it over.
Willa noticed.
“You are keeping it?”
“Until Miri Saff comes.”
Riksa’s brows lifted. “You know she will?”
“Arlen is her brother. She will go where the best question is.”
“Pike Hollow asked what he thought was worth disappearing for,” Willa said.
Osa nodded approvingly.
“Better than asking if she trusts you. She does not.”
“Fair.”
“She will trust anger if it has manners.”
Selka murmured, “That sounds like half the north.”
Osa pointed at her. “You. Marr girl. Why are you here?”
Selka stilled.
“You know why.”
“I know why Pike Hollow says. I know why Marr says. I asked you.”
Willa looked at Selka but said nothing.
The question was not hers to answer.
Selka’s hand tightened around the cup.
“Because if I went back, they would use my mouth.”
Osa waited.
Selka’s lips pressed together.
“Because if I stayed at Red Creek, Marr would call me stolen and polite women would wonder whether I had invited trouble by being too visible.”
Osa still waited.
Selka’s eyes flashed.
“Because Willa Renn is the only woman in the north who had everything they said should make her obedient and became more difficult instead.”
Willa’s breath caught.
Selka looked away immediately.
“And because Hessa has food.”
Riksa snorted.
Osa considered her for a long moment.
“Better.”
Selka’s face colored faintly.
“I was not seeking approval.”
“Good. It makes people stupid.”
Riksa nodded. “True.”
Osa sipped her tea.
“Marr will come for you.”
Selka’s throat moved.
“Yes.”
“Frostmere will help if it helps Frostmere.”
“Yes.”
“Your mate?”
The room changed.
Not violently.
Precisely.
Selka set her cup down.
Her sour completed bond was not visible, of course. No glowing mark. No public wound. But Willa had learned to see where Selka held herself around it. Like a badly healed rib.
“Marek will obey late,” Selka said.
Riksa’s eyes sharpened.
Willa did not speak.
“What does that mean?” Osa asked.
Selka’s mouth curved without humor.
“He will know the right thing before he does it. Then he will suffer enough to consider himself improved.”
Osa barked a laugh.
“You do listen.”
Selka looked down at her hands.
“Unfortunately.”
A faint pulse touched Willa’s mark.
Torren outside, hearing Marek’s name through tone if not words.
Not jealousy.
Not exactly.
Old anger.
Willa sent calm.
Then stopped herself.
No.
Not calm like leash.
Presence.
I heard.
The bond settled.
Better.
Riksa saw, because Riksa saw everything she was not supposed to.
“Good,” she said.
Willa pretended not to understand.
Osa wrapped the token fully and tucked it into a pouch at her belt.
“Miri will come by dusk if Perrit found her.”
“Here?” Willa asked.
“No. She is not a fool. Red Creek.”
“We should go there now.”
Riksa nodded. “Yes.”
Selka stood too quickly, then caught the table.
Willa looked at her.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
Riksa turned.
Selka sighed. “No.”
Osa looked satisfied.
“Better.”
Riksa took Selka’s wrist without asking politely because Riksa was Riksa.
Selka stiffened, then endured.
“Pulse high,” Riksa said.
“The morning has been irritating.”
“Your cheek?”
“Fine.”
“Your bond?”
Selka went cold.
Willa’s mark tightened in response, but she kept still.
Riksa’s face did not soften. Her voice did not either.
That helped somehow.
“If it is pulling, say so before you faint into Osa’s herbs and she charges us for crushed inventory.”
Selka’s lips parted.
Closed.
“It pulled when you said Red Creek,” she admitted.
Riksa’s eyes narrowed.
“Toward Marr?”
“No.”
“Toward Marek?”
Selka’s jaw tightened.
“I do not know. It feels… sourer when I think of being seen by neutral women again.”
Osa muttered, “Completed badly, then carried badly.”
Selka looked at her sharply.
“Can it be fixed?”
The question left the room without armor.
Willa’s chest ached.
Riksa released Selka’s wrist slowly.
“Fixed is a child’s word.”
Selka’s face closed.
“Of course.”
“Do not make that disappointed face at me. I did not say hopeless.”
Selka looked up.
Riksa continued, “A completed bond can change if both wolves change inside it. It can also be severed, with pain. It can rot if everyone keeps pretending perfume is medicine. I would need to examine you properly to say anything useful.”
Selka swallowed.
“Later.”
“Yes. Later.”
Osa pointed at Selka’s untouched second half cup.
“Drink. Sour bonds make fools of blood.”
Selka drank.
Willa looked toward the door.
Torren was still outside. Waiting. Not entering. Not standing in the doorway.
Good wolf, Bram would have said.
The thought almost made her smile.
They stepped out into the damp afternoon.
Torren’s eyes went immediately to Willa’s face, then her mark, then the room behind her, then Selka.
“Well?” he asked.
Riksa answered, “Osa threw boiling water at a suspicious man’s leg and kept a Redjaw token that smells faintly of Stonewatch wintergreen leather oil.”
Brann blinked.
Noll said, “Good.”
Torren’s gaze cut to the house.
Osa shouted from inside, “Do not stand in my doorway, feral boy.”
Torren stopped half a step from the side door.
Willa bit her lip.
The mark warmed with her amusement.
His eyes narrowed.
“You enjoy difficult women.”
“Apparently.”
“I am suffering.”
“You’re doing very well.”
Osa shouted, “No, he isn’t.”
Riksa smiled for the first time all day.
“I truly did miss her.”
They left for Red Creek before Torren could decide whether old women were worth growling at.
The road was wet and mean.