Chapter 18
It was like being on the run with Lark again.
Only when I stepped out of Durlain’s room and into the perfumed, wood-panelled corridor did I realise it – that I’d been a fugitive since Svein’s Creek, but a nameless fugitive, just another witch trying to escape her inevitable fate.
Now, with a flock of birds in the main hall downstairs, I was suddenly painfully myself again: Thraga Gunnsdottir, soldier, survivor.
Kjell’s little princess. Lark’s witchling bird.
The king of Estien’s knife-wielding toy.
My skin felt like a poorly fitting garment, a chafing husk I couldn’t wait to shed.
I ought to look natural as I hurried across the first floor and towards the back of the building – calm and composed, like a woman with nothing to hide.
Durlain would no doubt have managed it. But I wasn’t Durlain, and the only face I had was my own frightened one.
Every sound made me want to jerk around; every echoing footstep stole my breath.
Kestrel, that little voice in my mind whispered again and again. Don’t forget to look behind you …
Innocent women didn’t look behind them.
I did it anyway, at every bend and doorway. No birds emerged from the labyrinth of polished wood and velvet carpet, and yet the feeling of watching eyes never left me, prickling my skin in cold itches of discomfort.
It’s your guilty conscience, witchling.
My hands wouldn’t stop brushing the hilts of my knives as I hurried along the balustrade where Valern had assaulted me last night, every muscle in my body bracing itself for the shouts that might rise from the main hall below.
Fuck. It wasn’t mine anymore, that world – the grimy barracks, the grimier training fields, the glares and whispers of the proper soldiers.
Aranc’s anger, Aranc’s orders. I’d left all of it behind and fled halfway across the kingdom to get away from it, and now I was closer to Mount Estien than I’d been in weeks – geographically, yes, but I hadn’t felt the court’s nearness so keenly until this morning, as if the ever-present fumes from the belching volcanoes were already slithering back into my nostrils.
I’d run.
I was not going back.
The problem was I would only ever be a bird or a corpse to Aranc.
At last, I reached the servants’ staircase at the rear of the building – narrow and poorly lit, the steps creaking thunderously beneath my boots.
The only person I ran into on my way down was a skittish-looking scullery maid.
Then there was the back door, standing ajar, and just like that I was out of the place – passersby scurrying down the street, none of them bothering to grant me the briefest of glances.
The stables were next to the inn itself, a bustling place full of majestic thoroughbreds.
I slipped in through a low side door, informed the head groom I was here to take care of Lord Givron’s mount, and was promptly taken to see Smudge and Pain.
The two of them welcomed me so happily no one bothered to further check my identity – a small blessing, and yet my heart still rattled ahead at full speed as I checked whether the horses had been properly groomed.
Twenty minutes, Durlain had said.
Ten had passed – fewer, perhaps, if my fear was distorting my sense of time. At least ten more to go. The thought alone made me want to look over my shoulder again, or check—
No.
I was not going to check my fucking knives.
Saddle. Bridle. The horses were far too compliant, as if they felt my panic and were determined to be helpful for once.
Even slowing down toward the end, I finished the job with at least five minutes to spare – which would have been good news on any other day yet felt like a death sentence on this cursed morning.
Around me, stable hands were hurrying back and forth between boxes, taking care of the steeds of other guests planning to leave soon.
Would it be odd for me to just stand here and wait until the minutes had passed?
I definitely couldn’t go out onto the street and wait for Durlain there, because with my luck, no doubt Belloc would arrive just as I led the horses outside …
so staying it was, despite the crawling sensation of eyes on the back of my neck with every pair of footsteps passing behind me.
I had my bags.
I had Lark’s blood.
I had my knives – yes, I did have my knives – and then I was checking anyway, once and once more. Were they tied correctly? Were they really tied correctly? Had I not accidentally untied one of the sheaths in my hurry to check the knots?
How much time had gone by?
Shit. Too much, probably.
Gritting my teeth, I ran the whole routine one last, last time – letting my hand rest on every single hilt for two heartbeats, imprinting the feel of them deep into my palm.
It wasn’t enough to put the fear to sleep.
Enough to suck in a deep breath and turn around, though, to grab Smudge’s reins in my left hand and Pain’s reins in my right hand and start walking like a normal, innocent woman.
Like a traveller who wouldn’t soon be fleeing the city for her sorry life.
Someone stepped out from a stall ahead of me.
Short, blond, horse at the reins – ready to leave, judging by the bulky woollen coat around his shoulders.
Two steps in, he stood still in the middle of the aisle and reached up to adjust something about his horse’s tack – not noticing me with his back towards me, and blocking my way out entirely.
Damn it.
I was already running late.
‘Excuse me?’ I said, like a normal, innocent woman. ‘Would you mind—’
He started turning.
And only then did I see the flash of green beneath that coat.
Recognition hit like lightning, too late for me to act.
I could only freeze as alarm exploded into every fibre of me.
Could only hold my breath and stand there paralysed, for what felt like an eternity, as he turned, turned, turned and met my gaze – then stiffened like I had done, staring at me as I stared at him.
Wide blue eyes. Upturned nose. Rosy cheeks of the sort one would expect on farm maids, not on vicious little knife-throwers with a penchant for arson.
Jay.
Standing five feet away from me, looking utterly dumbfounded.
He hadn’t been searching for me. The conclusion percolated slowly, trickling into my brain like meltwater – he hadn’t stepped into the stables because he expected to find me here.
He’d been leaving. He’d asked around for the one-eyed fireborn mage Belloc had met and not heard of one, and he’d have left, and now—
That small, almost girlish mouth opened.
Instinct acted on my behalf.
Drawing a knife would have taken too long.
Killing him would have drawn too much attention.
But my hands snapped into motion as if they’d never done anything else, not a shred of good sense and caution left in them – shaping their runes, hidden between the horses on either side of me. Naudiz. Ansuz.
Lack. Sound.
Jay’s lips moved.
His eyes widened.
And only then did I realise what I’d done, because even if no one else had seen my hands, he very much had – he knew, and I’d be lucky if the spell held for even five whole minutes.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I burst forward with a panicked jolt, and Jay shrunk back as if I’d drawn a knife – lips parting without sound once more.
I didn’t bother to read their shapes. Dragging Smudge and Pain along, I bolted past him, my heart thundering so loud in my ears that it almost drowned out the horses’ clatter – no time to look back, no time to slow my pace. Please, please let Durlain be waiting …
There he was.
Tall, dark, and insufferable, and I could have cried at the sight of him.
‘My lord!’ I snapped, interrupting whatever jovial chat he was having with the constipated-looking nobleman by his side. At the double-door entrance of the inn, shocked heads jolted up – the least of my problems. ‘My lord, we’re leaving now.’
He blinked.
For an almost imperceptible moment, two people existed on his face at once – Givron’s proud, brazen cockiness and a sharpness that was entirely Durlain’s own, sliding over his features like the shadow of a circling hawk.
Then he rolled his eyes, all traces of vigilance gone, and began on a whiny drawl, ‘I told you those creditors wouldn’t—’
‘You can have that discussion with your father,’ I bit out – a shot in the dark, but it sounded like something that might get a spoiled noble brat moving. ‘Who, as you may recall, is the one paying my monthly wages. Have the inn bills been settled, at least?’
Durlain sucked in a breath, as though in outrage. Behind me, in the stables, a voice suspiciously like Rook’s deep bass began to shout.
Shit.
‘Lord Givron?’ I repeated sharply.
The eyes of the constipated nobleman had grown wide as saucers.
By the door, the collective shock morphed into whispers, then into giggles.
But Durlain moved, with a sneer of such furious inflated pride on his face that I almost shrunk back and apologised – mounting Smudge with a speed that managed to look decidedly nervy, as if an army of creditors may indeed storm from the stables any moment.
I wasn’t too worried about creditors.
I was worried about just about everything else, though.
‘Wonderful,’ I ground out, stepping into the saddle myself and sending Durlain’s conversation partner what I hoped looked like an apologetic grimace rather than an expression of pure fright. ‘After you then, my lord.’
Behind me, Rook was yelling for a doctor.
Durlain spurred Smudge straight into a canter.