Chapter 17 #2
‘Good.’ He leaned against the table, the tension never leaving his spine and shoulders as he closed his eye for a brief moment.
The illusionary one remained open, gazing lifelike but lifeless at the world ahead.
‘I suppose they all know you? The gentlemen downstairs and whoever else Aranc has sent after you?’
My stomach clenched tighter. ‘If they know Kestrel, they know me.’
‘So we need to keep you out of sight while we leave the city. Understood.’ He pursed his lips, the gesture hollowing out his cheeks, turning his cheekbones into edges of whetted steel.
‘And then once we’re out of Brainne, we need to get back on track for Mount Garnot as soon as possible – so where do we go next? ’
From Lark’s lips, it would have been an exercise at filling in the blanks.
From his, it was a question.
Fuck. I didn’t want to think about that difference.
I just wanted the man before me to tell me what to do, how to get out of this mess – because he was the fireborn prince between us, the ice-scarred deathmade mage, and what was I except a doomed, deadly burden?
But this was Durlain Averre, with his ruthless demand for competence …
and something told me that begging him to solve this dilemma would only earn me a withering glare and a generous number of thorny remarks.
Where would we go?
Where would they expect us to go?
Something like clarity sparked through the mist of my dread.
‘They still assume you’re just Lord Givron, don’t they?’ I said hoarsely. ‘If Belloc had recognised you – if they’d been looking for a resurrected Averre prince downstairs – surely you’d have heard about it?’
‘One imagines there would have been some uproar, yes.’ His eye narrowed as he inched forward a fraction, resting his palms on the edge of the table. ‘Interesting point. What of it?’
‘I … I’m just thinking …’ That was a lie.
I was barely thinking – but he seemed to believe I was, and I’d be damned if I squandered that bit of hard-earned respect so easily.
‘We’ll never outfight all of Aranc’s people if he really wants to find me.
And trying will only slow us down, which we can’t afford with your sister still in Lesceron’s hands, yes?
So we have to get them off our trail, which means they need to think we’re going somewhere we aren’t actually going—’
‘Ah,’ he said slowly. ‘Like Genestelle.’
I blinked. ‘Genestelle?’
‘Givron’s estate, in north-east Averre – or rather his father’s, to the little rat’s great displeasure.
’ He paused for a moment, gaze distant and calculating, then added, ‘I suppose that could work. If I drop some hints that we’re heading back home, we take the north gate from Brainne, then slip off the road somewhere between here and the Averre border …
yes, that should confuse them plenty until they find out I’m not Givron at all. Good thinking.’
I blinked some more.
That spark of a challenge flared back to life in his gaze as he cocked his head – a swift, hawklike motion. ‘Or wasn’t that what you were thinking?’
It had been what I’d been thinking – more or less. I just hadn’t suggested it yet. I’d referred to something vaguely resembling a plan, and now it suddenly was a plan, as if he’d looked straight into my mind and pulled that single thread of sense from the frightful chaos tangling my thoughts.
As if he’d wanted me to make sense.
It felt like a greater magic than fire and mist together.
‘No,’ I stammered – straight face, I desperately reminded myself, straight shoulders. I wasn’t thinking of Rook and his relentless questions. I wasn’t thinking of Jay creeping up the stairs, blades in hand. ‘No, that was what I meant. And then once we’re off the road and we’ve lost the birds …’
Durlain clucked his tongue. ‘I have contacts in Maresse.’
‘We can’t go to Maresse.’ It fell from my lips as if it was a fully formed thought rather than a stab of panic.
‘The provost is Aranc’s marshal’s cousin!
He’ll have heard about this days ago. Actually, every provost within five days from Elenon will have heard, because if Aranc is pissed enough to send more than a single bird around … ’
A shadow drew across his face, visible even as he looked away to strip his gloves off his fingers with small, measured yanks. ‘Some smaller town, then. If we aim for something near the Foxtail Falls …’
‘We’ll draw twice as much attention in smaller towns,’ I said numbly. ‘You know, fireborn man, human woman. Rook will find that trail within days.’
I shouldn’t be arguing. He was still the fireborn prince between us, and I was the doomed little burden; the roles ought to be clear.
Except that I could already feel Aranc’s breath against the back of my neck, the burn of his palm against my throat – except that for once, with hell knew how many birds at my heels, even arguing felt safer than the alternative.
Kestrel, my thoughts whispered.
I shut them out as firmly as I could.
‘I’m perfectly aware none of our options are ideal,’ Durlain said sharply, dropping his gloves on the table with unexpected force.
‘If a perfect solution existed, I assure you I’d already have found it – but rural towns tend to be less amiable towards fireborn, so there’s a slightly better chance no one will sell us out to Aranc’s cronies.
And if they do, at least we won’t be running from an entire city guard, which—’
‘We shouldn’t be running from anyone at all!
’ I pulled back a chair and collapsed into it, as if I’d think better with the weight taken off my shaking legs.
‘As soon as there’s a fight, it’s news, and as soon as there’s news, the birds will be back on our trail.
This whole strategy depends on remaining unnoticed, and villagers talk. ’
Which he had to know.
He was the prince of many faces; he picked minds like he picked locks. Of course he knew. And yet it took a moment too long before he opened his mouth again – as if that razor-sharp wit had abruptly dulled to a blunted edge at the worst possible moment.
‘Regardless,’ he said slowly, and that ostentatious court accent was suddenly twice as strong in his acid voice, ‘we’ll have to go somewhere.
If you’d prefer Maresse after all, by all means, let me know.
If not, shall we discuss actual plans and destinations rather than lament our unfortunate circumstances until Belloc is knocking on the door? ’
Death’s arse.
That was just uncalled for.
I wasn’t fucking lamenting. I’d attended a few too many of Aranc’s blood balls, had heard a few too many of his captives screaming in their cages as the court feasted beneath them; I knew exactly what death awaited me if we got this wrong, and Durlain couldn’t compliment me on my good thinking one moment, then start sneering at me again the second I disagreed with him.
If he wanted me to make plans, I damn well was going to make plans, and the only thing that made sense in our current predicament …
‘Nettle Hill,’ I said.
He stiffened.
It was barely noticeable. His perfectly poised, bitingly elegant posture didn’t change – the air of impervious apathy that must have carried him through twenty-odd years of backstabbing court intrigue.
But his lips tightened, those stupidly expressive lips I shouldn’t have been looking at in the first place, and for the blink of an eye, the scars on his knuckles seemed to glitter so much more brightly.
‘Nettle Hill is abandoned,’ he bit out.
‘Which is the whole damn point.’ Once, the ghost town on the banks of the river Svala had been a bustling traders’ hub, the heart of the flourishing Whitemoss estate.
Then the fireborn had come, the Whitemoss family had sided with Seidrinn’s royals, and by the time they’d died their inevitable deaths, their lands had gone so barren no one else had bothered to claim them.
‘I doubt Aranc even knows it exists. But last time I passed the place, some of the homes were still in fine shape, and if we’re lucky, they’ll forget to guard the old bridge, too – so we can spend the night in the village, then cross the Svala in the morning and ride the last few days to the Garnot border. Entirely unseen.’
A sensible plan.
Even I knew it was sensible, and yet Durlain didn’t move, knuckles white around the table edge, a flash of something ugly in his eye. ‘I’d prefer the Foxtail Falls.’
And that was all.
No reasons. No arguments.
The mask had never been so obvious before – not because it was slipping, but because it was too tightly in place when it should no longer have been.
He was too apathetic to be sentimental about his plans.
Too intelligent to cling to his pride when survival was at stake.
And yet here he was, making a fool of himself – knowing he was making a fool of himself, no doubt, and doing it all the same.
‘Why?’ I snapped.
His lip curled as though the question smelled of rot. ‘Convenience.’
It took me a moment.
Then the pieces clicked together.
‘You’re not talking about your little luxuries, are you?’ My voice grew explosively louder. ‘You’re not genuinely telling me that you’d rather risk both our lives by parading us around Aranc’s most dangerous people than miss out on your fucking hot baths for a day or—’
‘That’s not the point,’ he hissed, teeth clenched.
‘Oh, isn’t it?’ Loudness had rarely felt so good. ‘Then what is? Because you don’t seem to be in a terrible hurry to explain what exactly you are worried about, so if it’s not sanitary facilities, I’d love to know—’
‘For fuck’s sake.’ His nostrils flared as he averted his gaze, tilting back his head as if to beg the ceiling for mercy. ‘Yes, it is the hell-cursed baths. Yes, it’s a longer story. No, it’s none of your nosy business.’
‘It is my business if I’m about to die for it.’
‘That— Flames alive.’ He dragged in a deep, barely restrained breath that made the bulge of his pale throat bob in alarming ways. ‘Fine. That’s a decent point. Go to hell.’
I blinked at him.
He closed his eye for one high-strung moment, then opened it again, sucked in a last bracing breath, and lowered his gaze to meet mine.
The shadows of his features still betrayed a trace of something tight, some restless darkness in him – but the restraint was back, that familiar steel-chain self-control that turned his every look and gesture into some calculated move. With it came an unexpected glimpse of …
Hell.
Grudging approval?
I forgot about the birds downstairs for a sliver of a moment.
‘Nettle Hill it is, then,’ he added before I could recover from the shock, and from his matter-of-fact voice and the resolute way he pushed away from the table, I wouldn’t have known he’d ever even objected to the plan.
‘If we leave Brainne through the north gate, will you be able to get us off the road and back to the south in some inconspicuous way?’
Oh, shit.
Now it was my responsibility, wasn’t it?
‘We … we could also still aim for Maresse?’ I heard myself stammer, shrinking in my chair as he whipped back around to face me.
Anger had been easy when I’d been sure he’d simply ignore me.
Now I was the one who had to keep us away from Jay’s poison knives and Rook’s brutal strength, and suddenly stubbornness no longer sounded nearly as glorious. ‘If you think that’s the safer option—’
His exasperated sigh could have cut through solid rock. ‘And what would you think of me, if I thought it the safer option?’
I went still.
He held my gaze, almost tauntingly so, his one purple-flecked eye smouldering with impatient anticipation.
Mists take me. Six-feet-something of infuriating Averre arrogance.
A mind as sharp as his horns, a heart as cold as his scars.
His approval should be the last thing I cared about; there was nothing personal about his sudden change of mind, nothing that would make him change his mind about me.
I’d be a fool to look for anything of the sort.
And yet it was hard to overlook the dare in that piercing gaze – the glint that said, I’ve seen how you fight back.
‘I’d think you an idiot,’ I said, because it was true.
‘There you go.’ He gave a short shrug as he turned back around, making for the pile of bags by the covered mirror.
‘I’ll go get food – you shouldn’t come anywhere the birds might be.
Take the back door to the stables, prepare the horses, and stay out of sight until we’re ready to leave.
I’ll meet you in front of the inn in twenty minutes exactly. ’