Chapter 9
I was still counting my knives in the farthest corner of the room – had been counting my knives for perhaps half an hour – when Durlain returned, slamming the door open with all the force of a drunkard returning home.
By the time he’d clicked the lock in place behind him, he was magically sober again.
‘There you are.’ There was no joy to the observation – but I imagined a slight, confusing hint of relief as he strode into the spacious room, expression grim, fingers stripping off their gloves with swift, snappish motions. ‘Good.’
I shouldn’t have been glad to see him.
Liar, murderer, power-hungry schemer – all still as true as they had been last night, and yet I was grateful to the marrow of my bones for the sight of that stupidly striking face, the aura of impending doom that clung to his every calculated move.
He was here. With me. Not screwing some giggling fireborn woman for the rest of the night, which I didn’t otherwise care about, but—
Hell’s sake.
He was dangerous. Spine-chillingly, mind-numbingly dangerous, and I desperately needed some danger on my side.
‘You told me to come here,’ I muttered, the retort not nearly as biting as I’d have liked it to be. ‘Did you think I’d have returned to the kitchens?’
‘You might have bolted.’ The long black coat with its gold-and-purple embroidery followed the gloves to the floor.
In nothing but boots, trousers, and shirtsleeves, Durlain knelt by his bags, pulled out a leather water bottle, and gulped down a long swig, then wiped his lips with the back of a scarred hand.
‘Tried to be back sooner, but I had to shove Naucelle at Belloc first. That should buy us some time, at least.’
I blinked. ‘Weren’t planning to shag her, then?’
‘Naucelle?’ He jerked around with what looked like genuine horror on his face. ‘Have mercy. Didn’t I mention something about a low tolerance for incompetence?’
Oh.
I imagined telling Kjersti that.
It wasn’t funny. Nothing about this was funny, and yet I was overcome by a sudden, ridiculous urge to burst out laughing – the panic, the nerves, the entirely unjustified relief of having the hell-cursed bastard here, sober and ready to fight, after I’d been bracing myself for a night of hiding behind the tapestries of this stupidly spacious room.
Something like a chuckle hiccupped over my lips, and then another one.
‘Deep breaths, Thraga.’ He rose without looking at me, raked a hand through his mussed curls, then dropped down on the edge of the bed and crossed his legs. ‘Alright. Time for deliberation. How well does Belloc know you?’
All lust for laughter evaporated.
‘Not very well.’ Only a moment later did I realise my fingers had tightened around Ehwaz’s hilt; I awkwardly forced them to loosen and added, ‘I don’t think he’s ever seen any of the birds as more than tools.
He doesn’t know our faces well, and I’ve always been one of the quiet ones, even if I was also one of the exceptional ones. ’
‘Because of the magic,’ Durlain said slowly, pausing until I nodded. ‘Would he realise he’s seen you here once he hears you’ve fled Mount Estien?’
I winced. ‘Possibly.’
He sighed – a tight, clean sigh, no emotion but a grim acknowledgement. ‘Reason to travel fast, then.’
‘Yes.’ I pulled up my knees, leaning back against the drawers in which my knives had been hidden. The urge to crawl into one of the cabinets myself and never show my face to the world again was embarrassingly strong. ‘Doesn’t he know you? I thought, with both of you being next of kin to kings …’
‘Last time he visited Mount Averre, I was a child,’ Durlain said, a sliver of something unpleasant in his voice. ‘And he thinks I’m dead.’
‘Yes, but he might have seen more recent portraits, or—’
Something twitched in his jaw. ‘There are no portraits.’
I fell silent.
That seemed … odd.
It explained why I hadn’t known what he looked like until he was shoved into my cell, admittedly – why I’d seen Lorigern and Nalzen’s faces around the Estien court but never his.
But he was a bloody prince, for hell’s sake.
Princes had portraits. Was this part of the game he’d been playing all his adult life?
Making it easier to take on whatever name he wanted by not having his likeness plastered all over the court?
When had he started doing that, switching masks?
So many questions – but I already owed him one set of answers, and I shouldn’t be adding to that debt until I knew what he’d ask in exchange for my earlier questions. So all I could come up with, after a silence several moments too long, was a sheepish, ‘Oh.’
His jaw unclenched slightly – as if he, too, had heard the questions I’d swallowed.
‘Yes. So all in all, it seems Belloc is not an immediate concern for now – in which case there’s one more thing we need to discuss.
Naucelle made reference to some … rather unpleasant points that I’d like to have more clarity on. ’
‘About Lesceron and your father?’ I guessed, the urge to flee abating slightly now that we were at least talking about royals I had little to do with.
‘About Lesceron and my father.’ His lips gave a swift, mirthless twist. ‘Specifically, in between all the giggling and drivelling, Naucelle mentioned that it was Lesceron who reached out to Averre to initiate talks – which would be deeply unusual, considering that Garnot tends to keep to itself as much as it can. If she’s right, Lesceron must have been quite desperate for something.
And if he’s desperate to get my father’s help … ’
My breath caught. ‘He has the perfect bargaining chip at hand?’
Cimmura.
The daughter Varraulis didn’t even know had come back to life – unless he did know, and in that case, how much longer would she be at Mount Garnot?
How much harder would it be to free her if she was taken to the Averre court instead, where everyone knew Durlain and where his murderers were still walking around alive and well?
Fuck. If we failed at that mission, would he simply refuse to bring Lark back?
‘I see you’re grasping the gravity of the situation,’ he interrupted my thoughts, and the hint of causticity in his voice told me everything his face was trying to hide.
How much effort did it cost him, I wondered, not to jump onto his horse right this instant?
‘I’m going to have to discuss some things with an acquaintance of mine at our earliest convenience, then find a way to intervene if that turns out to be necessary.
My original plan was to aim for Colris tomorrow.
We’ll be riding to the southeast instead. ’
Southeast.
That sounded deliberately vague. There were at least three different towns he might have in mind, not to mention the handful of rich farms and manors sprinkled in between.
Either he was expecting me to object to the specific destination he had in mind, or he was accounting for the possibility that Belloc would be interrogating me about our plans before we left in the morning; neither option made me feel any more optimistic about the remainder of the night.
‘And you don’t think …’ I started, sentence trailing off as I realised there was no good way to end it. You don’t think you might be on track to get me killed after all?
‘I do think,’ he sardonically reassured me, eyes reading my doubts in my face.
‘Quite a lot, in fact. If you’re worried about Belloc, he’ll be occupied for tonight, and I told him we’d be making for Colris and then Mount Estien tomorrow.
Even if he has any moments of clarity in the coming days, he’ll have a hard time coming after you. ’
I didn’t want to shiver.
But I smelled sulphur again, felt that fire-hot palm against my throat again, and my nerves made the decision for me.
‘Not reassured, I see.’ He stood with swift grace, a quicksilver motion so far removed from his drunken staggering that I had trouble ascribing them to the same person. ‘You know him better than I do. If you need to sleep here, the floor is all yours.’
How very fucking generous, I should have said.
Instead, I didn’t say anything. If I opened my mouth at all, I feared nothing but a pathetic please, please, yes would roll out.
It was a sanctum, this lavish room with its lush tapestries and its obnoxiously expensive wood – a blissfully safe refuge.
Even the Estien heir wouldn’t burn down a fellow guest’s lodgings based on nothing but an unsupported hunch …
and if he tried, at least I’d have a powerful fireborn mage around with a bloody good reason to keep me alive.
But I’d have to sleep in the bastard’s room. Again.
Lark would come back to me soon, and if he heard about the utter lack of a spine I’d shown in his absence …
Well, he’d understand, of course. He always understood – but he would be quietly disappointed all the same, and it was that thought that had me scrambling to my feet at once, hands wandering aimlessly from knife to knife to knife.
‘I suppose it would rather ruin the servant guise,’ I managed hoarsely. ‘If people realised I was sleeping anywhere near your bed, I mean.’
‘Perhaps.’ Durlain canted his head, observing me in silence for a moment. ‘I care more about your survival than I care about Givron’s reputation, though.’
Care.
Something twisted in my chest.
Hell, what was wrong with me? I hated his guts. He was nothing but a tool to me, a necessary evil; surely I wasn’t so pathetic, so desperate to fill the void Lark had left behind, that I’d angle for something like sympathy from a mist-cursed Averre prince?
Except that he was here.
Except that he had saved me from Belloc’s deadly curiosity and offered me a safe place to sleep, and I was so fucking tired of fleeing. Of being frightened all the fucking time.
‘Thanks,’ I said roughly, too exhausted to know better for an ill-advised moment. ‘I appreciate that.’
He did not stiffen, exactly.