Chapter 24
TAVERN AND TRUTH
They reached the village well past midnight, the narrow lanes deserted, the air thick with the faint tang of peat smoke and stale ale drifting from shuttered windows.
Ella was still dusted in dried blood, dirt clinging to her boots, her hair tangled and matted from the fight. When they’d first entered town, they had passed an inn, and every instinct in her body was screaming to scrub herself clean.
She rubbed her forehead and glanced at Jakobav.
“Do you think we can rent a couple of rooms for the night? I saw an inn earlier, and I desperately need a bath before we find the seer.”
Jakobav blinked at her as though she had sprouted wings.
“Of course not,” he said. “We’re staying at the tavern.”
“What?”
“Cathea runs it. She has a loft above the bar. She’d have my head if I stayed anywhere else.”
“Oh, perfect,” Ella muttered. “Can’t wait to meet the woman who literally threw you out of her tavern. And sleep in her loft.”
He only huffed and swung down, tugging her with him from the saddle as if eager to make introductions. Jakobav tied the horse outside, then pushed open the tavern door without hesitation, marching in as though the place belonged to him.
The tavern smelled of spiced mead and woodsmoke, its rafters charred dark with age and memory.
Bundles of dried herbs dangled from the beams overhead: lavender, sage, and something musty that pricked at Ella’s senses.
A wide stone hearth crackled low behind the bar, its flames throwing amber light across weather-worn tables and mismatched chairs that looked as though they had been salvaged from a dozen different households, none of them alike, yet somehow belonging together.
Symbols had been carved into the lintel above the threshold, old and curling, and though she didn’t know their language, power hummed as she passed beneath them.
The tavern noise dipped as they walked by, just slightly, as a few heads turned.
A pair of older men nodded once in acknowledgment before pointedly returning to their dice.
A barmaid lowered her gaze as she slipped past, quickening her steps.
No one dared interrupt, but clearly everyone knew exactly who had walked through their door.
At the center of it all stood Cathea, her presence unmistakable. A glint of obsidian gleamed at her throat, the carved black-rose pendant catching the firelight and holding it fast.
They grabbed a table near the bar, tucked at the edge of warmth and noise.
Laughter swelled from the far end of the room where a cluster of men threw dice.
A bard plucked at a stringed instrument in the corner, his notes soft enough not to intrude.
Tankards clattered, chairs scraped, voices tangled and rose again, and for the first time since the clearing, Ella allowed herself a breath.
Cathea was everything and nothing Ella expected.
Tall, broad-shouldered, her silver-streaked curls framed a weathered face with eyes that missed nothing.
Her tunic bore the stains of a long shift, ale-darkened and lived-in, and she moved with the absolute command of someone who had built the place with her own hands and dared the world to try and take it from her.
The moment she spotted Jakobav, her voice cut through the din like a cleaver.
“If you break anything this time, boy, I’ll sell your ass to a Thirelle sea circus.”
Jakobav grimaced. “Hello to you too, Aunt.”
Ella nearly choked on her drink. Aunt? Of course the terrifying tavern-keeper with a voice like a war horn would turn out to be family. Why had a Dravaryn royal chosen a tavern over living at the castle?
Cathea’s sharp gaze flicked to Ella, eyes glinting in the firelight.
“And who’s this? Pretty and bloody—just like those two women you usually haul through my door. What is it with you bringing me beautiful, half-feral fighters, boy? And I assume you’ve already roped her into your messes?”
Jakobav stiffened. “Maeren and Savina are not—” His jaw clicked, irritation flashing. “They’re soldiers. Respected First Guard. And Ella is…”
He faltered, as if a single accurate word simply did not exist.
Ella cut in smoothly before he could drown in the attempt. “More like dragged,” she said, lifting her cup and swallowing hard. “Threatened me with chains, actually.”
Jakobav bristled, his jaw tightening as his shoulders twitched, like the words had landed harder than he wanted them to. Ella smiled in quiet triumph. Gods, if he weren’t so determined to brood, she could’ve sworn his cheeks might have flushed.
Cathea barked a laugh that rattled the shelves. She slapped her palm against the bar and shook her head. “Ooo, I like her. About time someone poked holes in your armor, boy.”
“And the rest of you, quit staring,” she barked toward the tables without turning her head. “This tavern isn’t a throne room. He’s just Jake here, same as the rest of you sorry bastards.”
Jakobav only sighed, the sound long-suffering, as though he had carried Cathea’s antics for half his life.
Up close, Ella was drawn to the pendant at Cathea’s throat, a carved obsidian rose etched so finely the petals seemed to fold inward on themselves. The sight unsettled her, a faint shiver of something otherworldly crawling beneath her skin.
When she lifted her gaze, Cathea was already watching her, sharp and unhurried, patient as stone.
The woman wore the look of someone who knew exactly what Ella had felt and was just waiting for her to catch up.
Gods, it was the same way Jakobav acted most of the time.
That same watchful, silent knowing sat in both of them like a birthright.
Before Ella could linger on the thought, Cathea’s grin curved as she leaned across the table and launched into a story about the night Jakobav had tried to juggle flaming mugs, only to catch his own shirt on fire.
“Nearly singed his princely bits,” Cathea said with relish.
Jakobav buried his face in his hands. “Why are you like this?”
Ella’s laughter broke loose, wild and unstoppable, tumbling out of her like something that had been waiting too long to be freed. When she finally managed to pull air into her lungs, Jakobav was staring at her, but not with irritation or his usual storm. Just…watching.
“There,” he said softly. “That smile is the real one. It suits you.”
He leaned in slightly, the shift subtle but intentional. “Second time I’ve seen it. The first, you were holding my knife you thought you’d gotten away with stealing, which I’m learning is fitting for you.”
Ella opened her mouth to reply, but Jakobav lifted a finger, gaze never leaving hers. “Don’t ruin it by explaining.”
She lost the words completely, caught staring at him, exposed in a way she hadn’t braced for.
Unfortunately for her focus, the next image that forced itself into her head was Jakobav half-naked.
Not a hazy fantasy or some imagined indulgence, but the very real memory of him walking out of the bathing room, water dripping over his skin, unapologetically bare, as though modesty was a language he’d never learned.
She’d only glanced once. Well, maybe twice, but that glimpse had burned the image into her memory.
The ink crawling down his chest like it had a mind of its own. The ridges of muscle shifting with every step. The deep V cut into his hips, leading downward like a map she hadn’t meant to memorize yet had clearly imprinted into her subconscious, staging mutiny at the worst possible moment.
She swore under her breath and raised her mug high.
“Another round, please!” she called to the barkeep, maybe louder than she intended.
Then, under her breath, barely a mutter, she added, “Before I start remembering more things I didn’t fucking ask for.”
Jakobav nearly choked on his drink.
“What?”
Ella flushed. The ale in Dravaryn must have been stronger than anything she was used to.
“What were you just thinking about?” he asked, a wicked smile curving his mouth.
She blinked. Hard.
Fuck.
Maybe she should switch to water.
A smell wafted through the room, pulling her attention across the tavern.
In a shadowed corner near the hearth, two cloaked men sat hunched over a low table, smoke seeping from their mouths in slow, iridescent spirals, twisting like serpents toward the rafters.
The metallic tang of wraithleaf thickened the air, bitter and sweet all at once, stinging her eyes.
One of the men exhaled through his nose, his gaze glassy and unfocused.
The other muttered in a language Ella didn’t recognize, the words thick and syrupy, each syllable dragging heavy through the air.
Jakobav didn’t glance their way, but his posture shifted subtly and his hand drew closer to the hilt of his blade.
Ella forced herself to look away, too exhausted to ask if he’d understood the foreign words, though the echo of them clung in her mind a beat too long. She tipped her mug back and drank again, the ale suddenly tasting bitter, fizzier than before, the swallow harsher than she intended.
When she lowered the cup, Jakobav was watching her.
“You want to head up soon?” His voice had dropped, quiet enough to belong only to her. “We face the seer tomorrow. Best not to be hungover for…whatever that’ll be.”
She parted her lips to reply, but the conversation at the next table bled into her awareness.
“…Orchid’s queen… weeks now…”
“…doors shut… physician from the capital…”
“…collapsed in the hall, I heard…”
“…the girl should be crowned already… what’s her name…”
The words fell heavy as stones into water, rippling outward until everything else in the room blurred.
Sound thinned, the chatter dimming to a muffled hum, and her hand tightened around the mug until the handle bit into her palm.
Heat stung behind her eyes, sharp and useless.
She couldn't tell whether her lungs remembered how to expand.