CHAPTER 34
Turn your wrist a bit more,” Gort suggested, raising his head from the map he was drawing.
I stabbed the straw dummy, twisting my wrist, straightened, and exhaled.
Gort nodded at me from his seat at the laundry table. “Better.”
“It’s really difficult to cut through packed straw,” I said.
“A human leg is thick. Lots of muscle,” Gort said.
Kaiden, who sat cross-legged on the table next to him, mimicked my stabbing with his hand.
I stretched my shoulders.
In the past seventy-two hours, I had stabbed such a wide variety of humans and objects, I had dulled my dagger and had to learn how to resharpen it. Sharpening knives wasn’t my strong suit. I had ended up dulling it more and had to have Shana help me.
My arm hurt, but cutting things was helping with my stress. There had been no word from Darotha. She hadn’t found Isadau, Solentine hadn’t found Cai, and I could feel time slipping away. Stabbing random crap was better than pulling my hair out.
The straw dummy was the latest target for my self-defense adventures.
It had been made with packed straw, tightly wrapped with cords, set on a wooden base, and dressed in old rusty chainmail.
I had no idea where the brothers had gotten it, but they had presented me with it yesterday and were so proud of themselves, I told them that it was the best gift ever.
Soon I would have to switch back to producing soap.
The Garden had sent a messenger. They had loved it so much, they wanted to buy some.
I sent Clover to negotiate. The Garden found our prices agreeable—Clover was sure that they thought we were suckers who were selling our soap to them dirt cheap.
They ordered so much that we made a whole gold grest on the sale.
Clover had presented the gold coin to me in the courtyard in front of everyone and then did a little dance. But now our inventory was running low.
Also, Solentine had sent two large chests with various items selected to convince anyone that I was a Demarr, including two paintings, several lacquered crests, and other silliness. I had to sort through it at some point.
A bell rang inside. Will exited the house and went to the front door.
Now who could that be?
“Where is he?”
That sounded suspiciously like Solentine.
A moment later my cousin emerged, with Will right behind him rolling his eyes. Solentine wore his incognito outfit, a plain brown jerkin and dark pants with a worn cloak, and he still looked elegant. And pissed off.
Solentine marched across the yard, holding a large wooden scroll case like a club.
“I told him. I said—” He saw me and stopped. “What are you doing?”
“Learning to stab straw people with a dagger.” I showed him my knife.
“Why in the world would you learn that from them when you have me?”
Um.
Solentine motioned me away from the dummy. I joined Gort and Kaiden at the table.
Solentine set the scroll case on the table and extracted two small, slender knives from somewhere in his jerkin.
They had short blades, maybe four and a half inches long, curved like claws, with the inside edge sharpened.
Their handles were bone, carved to provide a textured grip, with a ring large enough to slide a finger through at their ends.
“Ooh, ooh, he’s going to do the two-dagger thing!”
Yessss. His signature fighting style from the books. Yes, yes, yes!
“His Grace doesn’t need two daggers,” Kaiden said.
“Hush and watch,” I told him.
Solentine spun the two blades in his hands and struck at the dummy, lightning fast and yet smooth, flowing like water.
His left blade slashed the dummy’s face, while his right hooked an imaginary arm and sliced through the inside of the elbow.
He spun around the dummy, sinking his knife into the kidneys, stabbing into the armpit, slashing across the spine, and finished with a wide, beautiful cut to the throat.
I reached over and pushed Kaiden’s chin up to close his mouth.
“Straw doesn’t fight back,” Will said.
Solentine grinned at him. “Do you?”
Will pulled his knife.
The door opened, and Everard stepped out.
“Will, don’t you have blades to oil? Solentine, do not debone my soldier.”
Will sheathed his knife, bowed his head to Everard, and went inside.
“You ruin all my fun,” Solentine said. He flicked the knives, and they vanished back into his jerkin.
“Do you have news?” I asked. If he had figured out the missing link, I needed to know it right now.
“Yes, but not the kind we wanted.”
Solentine picked up the scroll case from the table and lobbed it at Everard. Everard snatched it out of the air, pulled the scroll out of the case, glanced at it, and swore.
“I told you. I fucking told you there would be consequences,” Solentine said.
“What is it?” I asked.
“We need privacy,” Solentine said.
“Let’s go to my office.”
We went up the stairs into my office, and I shut the door.
“Um,” Solentine said.
A small green fish lay on my desk. I sighed, picked it up by the tail, and carried it to the plate I’d stolen from the kitchen. I put the fish on the plate and slid it under my bed.
“I’m not even going to ask,” Solentine said.
“It’s Sushi,” I told him. “You insulted her by calling her the guard vermin last time you were here. She keeps trying to feed me because I’m garbage at catching fish.”
Sushi decided to poke her nose out from under the bed, gave Solentine a warning hiss, and vanished back into the gloom.
I wiped my hands on a towel, threw the ruined paper into the wastebasket, and sat in the chair behind my desk. “So, what’s going on?”
“Sauven is throwing a joedurar,” Everard ground out. “My attendance is requested.”
Joedurar, pronounced jaw-doo-ruhr, translated to meeting of the brows in the Old Tongue, and by brow they meant forehead or mind.
Long ago, when Rellas was barely a kingdom and its monarchs were only slightly more powerful than their vassals, a joedurar was called to plan strategies in response to invasions and critical issues that threatened the stability of the region.
Since the lords trusted each other about as far as they could spit, each noble would arrive with a detachment of their forces.
While the lords met behind closed doors to sort out their problems, their troops would feast, drink, and dance. The hope was that having a good time would cut down on inevitable friction between different factions.
The modern joedurar wasn’t much different. There would be a strategy meeting behind closed doors, followed by a combination of a formal dinner and a ball. Attendance wasn’t optional. To defy the king’s invitation was to risk being accused of treason.
“This is what happens when you start throwing the Fatefire to and fro,” Solentine growled. “Sauven got tired of waiting for the Conquerors to find you, so he’s trying to flush you out.”
“What in the blazes does he want to talk about?” Everard growled.
Solentine shrugged. “The revolt in the north. The stirrings of the Empire. Who knows? He’ll find something.”
“When did the rider leave?” Everard asked.
“Two days ago, in secret. You must leave tonight.” Solentine shook his head.
If Sauven’s messenger arrived in the Selva Dukedom, and the Sleepless Duke wasn’t there, it would confirm Sauven’s suspicions that Everard had snuck into the city. There was no telling how he would react.
The only way to sidestep this would be to have Everard receive the messenger on arrival, as if he’d been in Selva the entire time. Sauven wouldn’t believe it, but he could hardly accuse Everard of breaking the Accords based on a weird scar in some random plaza without any other evidence.
At least ten days to Selva by horse.
“Can you make it?” I asked Everard.
“Oh yes.”
“How? I know Villain is a great warhorse, but the messenger is likely riding the Rellasian yarras.”
Rellasian yarras were a magical breed. The best horses back home could clear forty miles per day, if they were used to running.
Villain could easily cover fifty miles, possibly more.
But the yarra horses, big chestnut mounts with blond manes, would leave him in the dust. They were bred specifically for cross-country marathons, and they were fast and tireless.
You wouldn’t want to take one on a mountain path or into battle, but as long as they had a road, they would get you from point A to point B in record time.
“I’m not going to ride Villain. I’m going to ride a drezmur.”
Zmur was any large predatory bird, dre was probably from the Old Tongue dreog . . .
“Fear bird?” What the hell was a fear bird?
Everard focused on me. “Maggie, do you know what a drezmur is?”
There was zero chance he would believe me if I lied. “No.”
“So you’ve never seen one?” He looked like a cat luring a mouse to play with his claws. “Would you like to meet a drezmur?”
Solentine shook his head at me.
Are you kidding me? “Yes, I would.”
My cousin rolled his eyes.
“Does Sauven know about you riding drezmurs?” I asked.
“No,” Everard said. “If all goes well, I will be in Selva tomorrow, but it will take me at least twenty days to return.”
The messenger had left two days ago, so eight days to reach Selva, then about ten days to get back by normal means.
And Everard would have to arrive in Kair Toren in a very public manner, with his knights.
That meant they would travel as fast as their slowest horse.
He could take a ship, but that would take even longer.
“You will be alone for almost three weeks,” he said. “I don’t like it.”
“She will be well protected,” Solentine said.
“Right now Hreban doesn’t know that his crew reached the house,” Everard said.
“For all he knows, they were intercepted by Velpor, had some sort of disagreement, and then killed each other. However, that doesn’t mean he has forgotten that Maggie exists.
He wants to silence her at the very least. He will try again. ”