Chapter 30
By sundown, we still hadn’t seen a glimpse of either Belloc or the birds.
We checked the surroundings of that night’s hut extensively and didn’t find anything out of the ordinary – no bottles, no footprints, nothing that my quick spell of sowilo and mannaz could pick up on.
Vision, body. The faint smudge of light flickering from my hands pointed out only Durlain and our horses.
Which did suggest we were safe.
My nerves refused to believe it.
My skin prickled with the awareness of danger as we clambered up the ladder of the hut, as we made our fire and ate our quiet dinner, as we checked on the horses one last time, then locked the door behind us.
My thoughts were tense and jittery. It seemed impossible, really, that there wouldn’t be an attack – that we’d be allowed to sleep through the night safe and unharmed.
A matter of when, not if. There was no unwinding with that prospect hanging over me, and I fussed around with my blankets long after Durlain had tucked himself in on the creaking wooden floor – blankets tight around him, fire blazing by his side.
For once, I was grateful for his deathmade scars and his desperate need for warmth. The light of the flames at least allowed me to see my knives as I took them off one by one; easy to count, no need to keep checking them by touch in the darkness.
I put them next to the bunched-up tunic that served as my pillow. Ehwaz, Uruz, Isa. Kaunan, Wunjo, Eihwaz.
All there.
I breathed in. I breathed out.
I counted again, just in case my eyes had accidentally skipped over something that was missing – in case I’d run through my check so habitually I’d forgotten to actually check.
No, six knives. All here. And yet the restless ache in my stomach wouldn’t settle, the low itch of dread seeping into every muscle and tendon – a sensation like eyes burning on the back of my neck, like indistinct whispers, like the wide-open emptiness beneath a rickety bridge.
Like undefined, unescapable doom.
Maybe I just needed to check the lock one more time.
I scrambled up from my blankets, uncomfortably aware of Durlain’s gaze on me as I made for the low wooden door once more. The handle turned. The door didn’t budge. The key sat on the inside of the lock; when I tried to turn it farther shut, it wouldn’t move.
Locked.
Really very much locked.
I scurried back to my makeshift bed, trying to breathe calmly and slowly, to loosen the knots of muscle at my shoulders. I’d checked, damn it. I’d checked. The door hadn’t opened; the key hadn’t turned—
Perhaps I hadn’t used enough force.
What if it was a little rusty? Should I have turned harder to actually close the lock?
And just like that it was back, that irrepressible urge, dragging at my limbs like the waters of the Svala had dragged me down – because the door might still be open.
Belloc might be out there, and the door might be open.
Jay might slip into the hut like Hawk had slipped into my room all those years ago, and I would be sleeping like I had been sleeping then, and—
Oh, hell, I had to check again.
Just once. Just once. Except that I had already been at that door two minutes ago, and Durlain was still awake – so I couldn’t go take a look now, could I?
He would probably be asleep soon, I decided with a sensation that felt like despair and deep relief at once.
He always slept easily. By the time I counted to a thousand, he’d have dozed off, and then I could get up again and check the lock a last time with no one considering me a ridiculous fool.
No one but me, at least, but nothing to ruin there …
I counted to a hundred. Two hundred. Three hundred.
No sound came from Durlain’s direction. I didn’t dare turn and take a look, because what if he was just about to fall asleep and I woke him up again?
Four hundred. Five hundred. My body was a buzzing beehive, not a still fibre left as I lay on the hard wood and vibrated with tension. Six hundred, seven hundred, and now Durlain’s breath was definitely slowing, wasn’t it?
Did I dare move yet?
No, better to play it safe and give him a little more time to drift off.
So I quietly counted to eight hundred, painfully aware of every crackling ember and creaking beam around me, bracing myself for the inevitable sound of voices or the alarmed whinny of the horses outside.
Nine hundred. Just a minute and a half to go now, and then I could sleep – then I would sleep, because hell below, how hard could this be …
One thousand.
I turned my head on my tunic pillow, as slowly as I could make myself move. By the fire, Durlain lay curled up under the woollen blankets, looking strangely peaceful with his lips half-parted and his visible eye closed.
Time to move, then.
The wooden floor creaked as I sat up – curse it, but at least Durlain didn’t stir. I signed naudiz and ansuz at the floorboards, then rose and tiptoed to the maybe-locked door. Quickly and quietly. No questions, no mockery, just—
‘Where are you going?’
I froze.
Wood creaked behind me. Blankets and cloth rustled around a moving body.
‘I very much hope you weren’t planning to run off in search of Belloc and company,’ Durlain added, not sounding drowsy in the slightest. ‘Tackling people with a full stomach is not a preferred evening activity of mine, but I can assure you that wouldn’t stop me, should the necessity arise.’
Death’s bloody arse.
I was tempted for a moment to tell him I was in fact about to ride off and find my fellow birds, because at least it sounded better than insanity …
but I was also in trousers and undershirt, my tunic folded into a pillow on the floor, and there was no way in hell Averre’s former spymaster would overlook that clue if push came to shove.
Instead, I turned and tried to look perfectly normal, perfectly unconcerned – as though I hadn’t just spent a thousand impatient counts waiting for him to fall asleep.
‘I wanted to check the lock on the door,’ I said, like a normal, unconcerned person.
He'd come up on his elbows, curls tousled, blankets slid halfway off him. ‘You checked it fifteen minutes ago.’
Shit.
So much for the normalness.
‘Did I?’ I tried, hoping against my better judgement I might at least pull off the unconcern. ‘That’s good to—’
He glared at me. ‘Is this like your knives?’
My jaw snapped shut.
Socks. Trousers. Undershirt. Every inch of skin from my soles to my shoulders was covered by fur or leather or linen, and yet I felt suddenly, painfully naked under his gaze – standing in the muted firelight with nowhere to hide, nowhere to look, and not the slimmest chance of escaping his sharp-eyed scrutiny. Like your knives.
Crisply, ruthlessly accurate. It hadn’t even really been a question.
‘Something like that, yes,’ I said numbly, wondering how much he really understood of my knife counting itself. ‘It’s just— I just like to be careful.’
‘You told me that before, yes.’ The pointed pleasantness of his tone added a silent and I didn’t believe you the first time, either. ‘So how many times would you need to examine that door before you’d have been careful enough?’
Straight to the point.
A mind like a bloody flaying knife – I’d thought it before, this week, and it no longer seemed as fun anymore.
‘Depends.’ I swallowed hard. ‘Two, on the good days. On the bad days … well. More.’
His eyes were dark. ‘Yes. I see.’
There was a small, tense pause. The rush of the sea seemed suddenly louder, the crackles of the fire deafening. I contemplated turning around and checking the lock anyway but decided against it; it felt somehow impolite.
‘Sit down,’ Durlain said.
His tone wasn’t unfriendly, although not particularly gentle either.
But there was a core of tempered steel beneath the surface that didn’t leave room for protestations – a hint of princely authority shining through – and my legs obliged before my mind caught up, plunking me down into the heap of blankets I’d left behind.
The door still gaped behind me. Pulling at my mind like a magnet pulling at iron nails, occupying three-quarters of my thoughts even with my back turned toward it.
My heart was hammering.
‘Very well.’ Durlain sat up as well, ankles crossed, a blanket snugly around his shoulders. If he had ever been asleep, all traces of it had evaporated from his face so thoroughly one could think he’d never closed his eye in his life. ‘Tell me what happens in your mind. I’d like to understand.’
‘There’s nothing to understand,’ I said bitterly. ‘It’s insanity. I—’
‘Insanity doesn’t exist,’ he impatiently cut in, with something that might have been an eyeroll on a man of lesser refinement.
‘Only apparent insanity, but people always have reasons in the end – the very first rule of court intrigue, in my humble yet well-informed opinion. So tell me about the door. Why isn’t it enough to try it once? ’
‘I don’t know.’ There was a crack in my voice, but there was no resisting that tone in his.
No holding back when he was looking at me like he cared.
‘I just keep doubting. I can’t stop second-guessing.
I see something, and then I’m afraid I haven’t really seen it – I touch something, and then I’m afraid I haven’t really touched it. If that doesn’t sound like insanity—’
‘Oh, it doesn’t,’ he said absently.
I blinked at him.
He returned a mirthless smile. ‘I suggest you stop trying to draw my conclusions for me. Just give me the facts – I promise I have plenty of opinions for the both of us. Has the door ever turned out to not be locked in between tries?’
No.
Yes.
Oh, hell. He was going to have plenty of opinions.
‘Just once,’ I said hoarsely. ‘A couple years ago. When Lark unlocked it behind my back.’
Durlain’s eyebrows shot eloquently up his forehead.