Chapter 11 #2
‘There we go.’ Durlain unceremoniously chucked the tunic into my arms, as if it wasn’t the most expensive piece of clothing I’d held in my life. Within moments he’d pulled a second one from the rack, the cut similar, the colour a slightly paler brown. ‘And this?’
I felt my eyes grow wide. ‘You can’t take two—’
‘Watch me.’ He nodded in the direction of a closet a few yards away. ‘Let’s find you some decent boots.’
‘My boots are very—’
‘They look like they’ve seen more miles than my horse has,’ he interrupted with blistering bluntness, then swept around without waiting for a response. On his long legs, he made his way down the cramped isles as if he’d been born in this space. ‘Waiting for something?’
I bit down a curse and hurried after him.
Over the course of thirty baffling minutes, he proceeded to find me a new pair of boots – high and fur-lined – followed by a set of soft leather gloves, a sturdy bag for my brand new pile of possessions, and snug vambraces with intricate leather engravings.
I was too numb to protest, or at least I was until he finally turned his back on the clothing section and made for the knife racks in the back of the room.
‘I have plenty of knives!’ I hissed.
He threw me a glare. ‘Bold of you to think I hadn’t noticed.’
‘Then why—’
‘Because those rune knives of yours draw attention,’ he interrupted me, somehow talking over me even though he was speaking barely above a whisper, ‘and if I need you to be inconspicuous at any point of our journey, I don’t want to disarm you entirely. So we’re getting a few simple ones as well.’
That made an uncomfortable amount of sense. ‘But—'
‘Thraga.’ He was unbearably imposing in the shadows, a sleek steel blade of a man – all honed lines and inhuman stillness, looking barely real, barely mortal, between the messy piles of cloth and leather.
‘Stop making this about whether you should have more knives. I’m not asking you whether you think you need or deserve them.
I’d prefer for you to have them for entirely selfish reasons, and unless they’ll make you actively uncomfortable, I don’t see why you wouldn’t accept them. So?’
I swallowed.
Then glanced at the blades again, fingertips itching to brush over their smooth surfaces, test the weight and balance of them.
A stone sank into my stomach.
‘I … I might slow you down even more,’ I mumbled, not quite daring to look him in the eyes. Even acknowledging it out loud made me want to join the dust on the floor. ‘If I need to start counting them too, I—’
‘Ah.’ Somehow, he did not laugh or scoff as he tilted his head a fraction. ‘Of course. You’re free to lose these wherever you see fit, if that helps.’
It shouldn’t have helped.
The casual wastefulness should have enraged me.
But it loosened something in my chest all the same, and that was too stark a relief to argue.
I staggered forward, clumsy with the weight of our wares in my arms, and dumped the bags and boots and tunics on the floor beside me.
They were good quality, these knives. Not Kjell’s quality, of course, but good enough to work with – good enough to like them.
Getting snooty about your weapons, little princess?
Kjell’s voice, echoing through my memory – the laughter in his words, the nickname he used for me only when I was truly being an insufferable brat. I’d been twelve summers old. I’d drawn up a long and elaborate list of requirements for the next knife he forged for me.
I’m ever your humble servant, of course …
I’d punched him in the gut, and he’d laughed his arse off.
Something bitter caught in my throat.
I selected two blades I thought he’d have approved of, and tried not to wonder how long I’d get to keep any of this as I carried the unfathomable heap of stuff back to the study upstairs – if I’d have to hand over every last scrap of fur the moment we’d pulled Cimmura from Lesceron’s dungeons.
For the second time that day, I had to consciously remind myself that I couldn’t wait to have that first part of our bargain fulfilled.
Servants showed up minutes after our return, informing us with flawlessly expressionless faces that two bedrooms had been prepared. I wasn’t sure which of us was happier to escape the other, Durlain or me, but either way, we were out of the library at unprecedented speed.
The guest rooms were located in yet another wing.
The closer we got to the older heart of the manor, the more lavishly decorated the maze-like corridors became: flower garlands and willow wreaths covering the walls and doors, silk songbirds perching on sconces and frames.
The smell of fresh cakes and berry preserves followed not much later, and if I’d still felt any doubt about the reason for all this festivity, that settled the deal with a dull, disappointing thud in my stomach. First Fruits, again.
At court, the official arrival of spring wasn’t celebrated – one of those provincial old Seidrinn holidays that regrettably had not died out yet.
But mere days away from Mount Estien, those same sneering fireborn tended to be happy enough with any excuse to drink and fuck themselves stupid for a night; I really, really shouldn’t be surprised by a former Averre general decorating his home like a witch’s for tomorrow’s festival.
It left a sour taste all the same.
At least the bedroom itself was blissfully plain, to the extent a room with silk bedsheets could ever be called that.
I washed myself as well as I could without taking off my undershirt – I knew better than to uncover my rune mark in the home of people I didn’t trust – then tucked my new clothes into my new bag, counted my knives, and counted my knives again.
I might have spent the whole night doing little else if not for the knock on the door, which made me hastily shove my blades beneath my blankets before yelling, ‘Yes?’
The door squeaked open. An abundance of gold silk spilled in.
‘Evening, darling!’ Hevaine exclaimed, dashing in without waiting for me to return the greeting.
A flower crown lay draped haphazardly across her blonde head; she was holding a glass of fizzy white wine with an air that suggested it wasn’t her first of the night.
If she was surprised to find me sitting fully dressed on my own bed, her cheery voice didn’t betray any of it. ‘Mind if I come in for a little chat?’
I did, in fact, mind.
But she had already come in, and shoving my host out of her own rooms seemed poor etiquette even for a guest who’d sneaked into the house in the middle of the night and run off with half the wardrobe.
So I forced a smile, gestured half-heartedly at an unoccupied armchair, and said, ‘Not at all, of course.’
‘Oh, glorious.’ She plopped into the chair, skirts splaying wide around her.
‘Did you find the clothes you were looking for? Are you all settled in? I must apologise for those garish decorations in the rest of the house – the guests just love to feel scandalous, but of course, a fireborn home is hardly the place where you as a witch would like to see—’
I choked on my own exhale.
Hevaine abruptly stopped talking, her make-up glittering in the candlelight as she leaned forward. ‘Are you quite alright, darling?’
As a witch.
Had she said that?
Fuck. She’d said that.
So casually, in passing, as if my very bloody life didn’t depend on that secret – as if she wasn’t the wife of a fireborn courtier who’d no doubt have my head and fingers if he found out.
Hell, what had Durlain said? Don’t tell her your secrets if you’d like them to remain secrets, and now, of all the things—
‘So I was right, then?’ Hevaine brightly enquired.
I stared at her, slack-jawed.
‘Yes, I thought so.’ She settled back into the armchair, skirts rustling around her as she crossed her shapely legs and sent me a beaming smile.
‘Durlain told me he was looking for runewitches a while ago, so adding up one and one wasn’t the greatest challenge.
Don’t worry about it. I dislike our exalted rulers too much to go blathering about their scapegoats. ’
Something shifted ever so slightly in her voice with those last sentences.
Still cheerful, still just a tad theatrical, but now with a hint of something plainer slipping in – an edge to her vowels that reminded me faintly of Jay’s gutter accent.
Not court-born, this woman. Or, alternatively, a court-born actress who’d mastered her craft – if she was Durlain’s creature, I should know better than to trust my first impressions.
And if I wanted to get out of this tangle alive, I really, really should stop gaping at her like some witless village fool.
‘You …’ My voice didn’t sound like my own as I forced the words out – too hoarse, too timid. As a witch. ‘You work for those exalted rulers, don’t you?’
‘Oh, no, no. Mercy me.’ She lifted a jewelled hand to her heart as if the very suggestion had mortally wounded her. ‘I make my money off them, darling. An entirely different thing. Didn’t Durlain tell you anything about me?’
Useful, was all the bastard had said.
It seemed wiser not to repeat that to her face. ‘Not really? I … I thought you were one of his people.’
‘And he wouldn’t voluntarily disabuse you of that notion,’ she dryly agreed.
‘I used to work for him, then started my own business after he died. But then of course, if he hadn’t offered me a job when he caught me running off with his sister’s jewellery all those years ago, I wouldn’t have been in a position to start anything at all – so I still help him out every now and then. Strictly at market rate.’
It came out so lightly, that entire explanation – wine loosely in her hand, ruby-red lips curved into a wistful smile – that it took me half a second to realise just how outrageous every single word of the story was.
‘You … you started—’ No. Wrong point. ‘His sister’s jewellery?’