Chapter Thirteen
In the morning, the camp rises late. Word of last night’s events has indeed traveled like wildfire, but it isn’t what caused the delay.
We’re delayed by Seth’s hangover.
He stumbles out of the tent at first light and rages at everyone to stop moving until he gives an order. Then he throws himself back into his bed, but not before vomiting into his chamber pot.
“Never drink, Sylvie,” he calls to me. “I’ll never drink again.”
I highly doubt that, but I’m grateful for a little extra sleep. And his torpor allows me the chance to break into his desk again for the willow bark to soothe Taran’s pain.
It’s even easier for me to reach now that the furniture has been moved to accommodate Taran’s cot.
“What do you have in your pillow?” he asks as I give him the bottle.
“A sleep elixir. I don’t know how long we have before he notices it’s missing.”
“Why didn’t you use it last night? You had every opportunity.”
I cap the willow bark elixir and tuck it back into the desk before replying. “Whatever has happened between us, I won’t leave you here. We’ll get away when you’re healed.”
“I’m healed enough now,” he says, lifting to his elbows with only a small wince. “Enough to fight my way out if I have to.”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that. But I think our best chance may be on the road today. Or at the next camp at night before everything is unpacked and settled.”
Taran looks around the tent for the first time since he arrived. “What the hell is all of this for, anyway?”
I roll my eyes. “Gods only know.”
“He’s something, your brother. I didn’t know what to expect. He’s a brilliant strategist, but I’m wondering if that’s because he’s good at planning, or if it’s just because he’s completely insane.”
“Is being completely insane a good quality in a general?”
“It can be,” Taran admits. “There’s a fearlessness to his tactics that makes them hard to anticipate.”
“Probably because it’s never his life on the line.”
“True enough,” says Taran. “So we have the elixir. What else can we use? Anything else you can take from the desk?”
“He keeps it all carefully arranged. The sleep elixir was in a hidden compartment. I’m worried about taking anything he’d miss.”
“Are there other hidden compartments?”
Why didn’t I think of that? I glance at Seth’s bed in the next room, but he’s face-down, passed out cold. “Let’s find out.”
I rummage through the drawers with only a small amount of caution.
If Seth catches me, I’ll tell him he would have been disappointed if I didn’t at least try to escape.
I don’t find anything in the top one with the letters, but in the bottom drawer along with an assortment of scrolls, I feel another latch.
“Got something,” I say. I reach into the compartment and come out with an ornamental knife.
It’s made of volcanic glass, like the one Ronan showed me in the market the first time we went. When he was still disguised as Soren.
I flash it up at Taran. “Now where are we going to keep this?”
“Hand me my pants,” he says.
I toss him his linen trousers, which he pulls on under the covers.
“Where will you keep the elixir?”
I gesture to my chest without shame, knowing he may blush, but he won’t be weird about it. Gods bless men that love men. “I’ll have a shelf once they give me my underwear back.”
The servants enter to dress us and feed us before Seth wakes, giving us an opportunity to stash our stolen items without notice. By the time Seth finally rises and the camp is allowed to pack, it’s past noon, and an angry letter from Adria has arrived via a messenger on horseback.
Seth clutches his head as he throws the letter away without opening it. “We’re coming, we’re coming,” he says, slumping back into his desk chair.
The servants pack up the tent around us as Seth supervises, snapping at them to be careful and yelling at them about being the “clumsiest group of good-for-nothing ingrates Nithyria has ever seen,” but he doesn’t lift a finger to help them.
The good news is that between the upheaval of the camp and his own consequences of last night’s debauchery, Seth doesn’t remember to try to coax my shadows out again, although he’s needlessly cruel and mocking towards Taran whenever he spots him across the room.
The bad news is that every packed crate brings me closer to Adria.
The camp moves slowly, just as Seth predicted. We’re shackled to a cart that’s so full of the belongings from his tent, we have no choice but to walk behind it.
At least the weather has turned cooler. The Selaran sun still bears down on us, but there’s a breeze coming off of the Mara that offers sweet relief from walking slow miles in chains.
We’re never unguarded as we walk through fallow fields past villages that are all but abandoned, their citizens fled since the start of the war.
Seth chatters away to various commanders and advisors, giving orders and complaining at length about every godsdamn thing he can think of: the weather, the conditions of the road, the pace of the army.
Occasionally, he lobs one of those complaints in our direction, decrying the burden of having to care for his prisoners, something he has fully outsourced to the servants, like most of his responsibilities.
The walk has been taxing on Taran, who is still recovering from his injuries. I help him with his chains as best as I can, and he pulls water from the air to give me in repayment. “Thank you,” he whispers to me at one point when we’re stopped to give Seth a break from the saddle.
“For what?”
“The pain elixir. I couldn’t have managed without it.”
I feel guiltily grateful to have Taran with me. We’re in this together, and as much as I worry for him, I’m glad I’m not alone.
When the sun lowers in the sky, the servants and soldiers re-erect the tent, unloading cart after cart of furniture and books into almost exactly the same configuration as before, with one notable exception: we’re now within a few miles of Adria’s camp.
“Bad news, my little chain gang. Adria’s on her way,” says Seth after we’re chained to the tent post once more.
He slumps into his desk chair, exhausted from riding but not too tired to drink wine directly from the bottle.
“What am I going to do with you?” The wine sloshes in the bottle as he gestures at us with it.
“Do you think if I give her Taran, she’d let me keep you, Sylvie?
But if he’s gone, then how am I meant to scare the magic out of you? ”
He gestures lazily to Taran’s cot, and it ignites.
“Fucking hell, Seth!” I scream, using my ordinary shadow to extinguish his flame as Taran dumps water on his blanket.
“That’s no good, is it?” Seth shakes his head. “It’s too easy for you to put out with your regular magic.” He stands up and reaches to his side, patting for something. “Ah, here it is.”
He pulls out his dagger.
“Seth…” I start as he walks over to Taran. Taran pushes himself off of his cot with some effort, but he quickly reaches the end of his wrist chains as he approaches my bed.
I stand and put myself between them, staring down the fine steel blade of Seth’s dagger. “You will not hurt him.”
“Won’t I?” says Seth, twisting the knife in his fingers. “I think I would. I could take his hand like I did to your friend. But would that frighten you enough?” Seth paces, looking for a way past me. “Or would I need to cut his throat? Do you think I won’t do it?”
“It won’t work. Listen to me. Please.”
Seth shifts the knife in my direction. “Then you do know how it works. You lied to me before. Tell me now, and tell me quickly, and maybe I’ll let him live.”
I look at Taran in a panic. This piece of information is our only leverage, but if I withhold it, Seth might kill Taran right here. Or he may give us over to Adria, and then we’re as good as dead anyway.
“It’s Ronan,” I say finally. “I can only use the shadow tendrils when Ronan is nearby.”
Seth laughs, patting his legs with his hands. “You expect me to believe that? Oh come on, Sylvie. You can do better than that. You think I’ll let Ronan live because of your special magic connection?”
“I’m serious. I didn’t realize it at first, but Ronan has to be close for me to be able to use that part of my power.
” And for me to use part of his—to feel Ronan’s own feelings, although I don’t share that knowledge with my brother.
“I’m not sure exactly how close. A hundred feet or so, maybe.
Our magic works differently when we’re together. ”
Out of the corner of my eye, Taran’s hands twitch. He’s concealing something, but it isn’t the dagger we stole from Seth’s desk.
It’s a shard of ice.
“Please, Seth. Get me back to him, and I’ll use my magic to stop Adria.
You’ve seen what it can do. We want the same thing.
If you let her take me, you’ll never be free of her.
Think of what she’ll be like on the throne.
What she’ll demand of you. If you let her kill me, she’ll leave you in charge of Nithyria on your own. ”
“Hmm,” says Seth, tilting the dagger to the side. “You see, you say you need Ronan, but you haven’t really tested it.”
Suddenly, he reaches forward and yanks my chain, flinging me to my knees. Then he grabs Taran by the shoulders, holding the dagger’s blade to his neck. “Try and stop me,” says Seth through gritted teeth.
I do. I reach out and try to force the shadows out of me, but they just won’t come.
But my regular shadows do. I lower the entire tent into darkness, extinguishing the candles and leaving both Taran and Seth blind.
“Fuck!” says Seth, moving out of the way just as Taran’s icicle grazes his leg. He tries to ignite a flame on his fingertip, but it barely sparks.
Taran pulls another icicle from the air. His body tenses—he’s tracking Seth by sound.
“Godsdammit. ‘I have it completely under control,’ he says. ‘No need to come check,’” comes a voice from the tent flap.
Adria.