Chapter 38
It was far too risky to leave the barbican by the door, so Zennia lowered me, with surprising, wiry strength, from the lowest window at the rear of our tower.
I fell half the distance, jarring my ankles, pressing myself against the stone once I was down.
Zennia passed Kielty’s rapier to me, then hung expertly from the ledge and dropped lightly to the ground.
She looked at me. “Are you absolutely sure about this?” Her eyes were wide, reflecting the pink sunrise.
I nodded. I wasn’t sure I trusted myself to speak.
She still looked unhappy, but she’d agreed we had no choice. None save hiding and waiting this out. Leaving the siblings to the same fate as their father. Leaving House Crake to sweep up the spoils and escape unharmed—with the Cage taking the fall.
“Kielty will agree,” I said, “when he hears Crake’s plan. If he doesn’t…”
I didn’t want to think about that.
“Okay,” Zennia muttered, more to herself than to me. “Let’s do this.” She took a deep breath.
“Remember,” I said, “watch for their retreat. And tell the Mudmouths—”
“I remember,” she cut in, smiling. She pulled me into a fierce hug. “Be careful. Okay?”
“And you,” I said, my voice little above a whisper. I tried to commit the warm feel of her to memory.
A noise off in the yard made us jump, pull apart. And with that, I watched as my friend—my sister—turned and disappeared into the haze like a shadow.
—
For a moment, as I stood there, frozen, I recalled the sick, fleshy slicing of the greatsword. The thud on the platform. Vercha’s high-pitched shrieks. I went dizzy, swayed, pressed a hand into the stone. Then I blinked and sucked in a breath of cold air.
Pull it together. You have work to do.
I sidled along the barbican wall, keeping to the shadows, tugging up my cloak’s hood.
In the distance I saw dim figures in the mist, the to-ing and fro-ing of soldiers, of horses.
As I watched the activity, I bit my lip until it was bloody, steeling myself, feeling my heart thump painfully.
I knew what it was I needed to do. Knew what it would mean, and what would happen after…
Doing it, however, was another matter entirely.
Finally I straightened, pulled my hood down lower, and strode brazenly away from the wall, circling the barbican. Making for the inner ward.
Voices echoed off the lofty stone, beneath them the ever-present rushing of the ocean. The cloying dampness in the air clung to my clothes.
“Hoi! You there!”
I’d known this would happen, but that didn’t stop the unpleasant knotting of my insides.
“Yes?” I snapped, forcing my eyes to narrow. I drew myself up, ran my eyes over my accoster.
He was young—good—and fair haired, his armor gleaming.
He looked taken aback by my cold reception but planted himself in front of me anyway. “Speak your name. Your business.” He touched his blade.
“I’m not one of the Shearwaters, if that’s what you’re insinuating.
You think I’d be walking around out here if I was?
” I tried my hardest to channel Vercha. And Nemaine.
“As for my business—isn’t it obvious? I’m preparing to leave this hells-cursed island, just as your dear leader has ordered.
” I inclined my chin toward the inner ward behind him.
“I’m Ebba, the Cormorants’ Floodmouth. Let me pass. ”
A handful of soldiers strode past us, leading horses. A few hauled the battering ram that had splintered the door. Their eyes passed over us, fleetingly curious. If enough of them saw him let me go, maybe they wouldn’t bother questioning me again.
He fingered the rough laconite hanging around his neck. It was ringing faintly, backing up my story. He took in my cloak, the set of my mouth, then waved me on. “All right. Hurry, then.”
I fought to keep the relief off my face. Instead, I said brusquely, “Crake’s Orha—where are they? I’ve been told to liaise on positions for the march back.”
He was already stepping away, distracted, and glanced back at me with an impatient frown. “The inner ward. West side, I think.” And then he was off, jogging to catch up with the other soldiers.
Legs shaking, I strode in the direction he’d indicated, avoiding anyone else’s eyes. But no one was paying attention to me now. There was something to be said for holding yourself confidently.
I was grateful for my hood as I entered the inner ward, slipping in just as a gaggle of soldiers marched past. The space was thronged with people and mounts, with piles of weapons and banners in Crake colors.
Nearby, a horse munched meditatively in a nosebag while a burly woman inspected its hooves.
I walked past a wagon being loaded with valuables and recognized an ornate clock from the keep; the Shearwaters’ silverware; an engraved fencing sword. As well as seeking the family’s hoard, they were clearly looting everything they could from the castle.
Though the sight made my throat burn with indignation, I forced myself to look away. Time was short—I could be stopped again at any moment.
Carefully avoiding the east side of the ward, where the Cormorants were busy preparing their mounts and the Shearwaters were huddling, closely guarded, I moved through the hubbub to the western end, where I quickly identified House Crake’s Orha.
They were the ones with little, if any, armor.
Though Iovawn Crake was his father’s general, and Mudmouths and Sparkmouths could be useful on the front lines, most of the time, Orha were kept to the rear.
We needed quiet, concentration; to be away from the harrowing anxiety of battle.
Otherwise any speaking we attempted wouldn’t work.
That was why they made good use of us in the navies—Floodmouths and Gustmouths sinking ships from afar.
But a battle-hardened Mudmouth, impervious to stress, was a real asset if an army could get one.
Which was perhaps the only reason Uirbrig Crake valued his son.
The Crake Orha were garbed in dull greens and browns, some standing around talking, others loading up supplies. I spotted their packs on the ground against the walls, and I sidled among them with an outward confidence I didn’t feel.
A stone here, a stone there…I ducked and rummaged among the belongings. With all the soldiers moving around us, no one was paying me any real mind, but I tried to look as though I was searching for something.
The laconite beads Avrix and I had stolen vibrated in my fingers as I slipped them into the packs, sliding them secretly into loose hems and stitching, pushing them deep down below bedrolls and clothes.
I didn’t know which packs belonged to the Floodmouths, but it didn’t really matter. I had plenty to go around.
I even managed to drop some into pockets, deep into the heavy folds of their cloaks.
At Arbenhaw, the rare times we’d been allowed into town, Zennia and I had practiced slipping hands into pockets.
It was easy, among the throng, to go unnoticed.
To stumble against someone and mutter, “Sorry,” under my breath.
But a moment later, before my pouch was empty, a viselike grip enfolded my upper arm.
“You.”
A chill prickled down my neck. Turning, I found myself looking upward. At Nemaine.
“What are you doing, skulking in the shadows?” She was limping, a dark stain near her hip where I’d stabbed her, but her face betrayed no sign of the pain.
Raising her voice, she hauled me roughly along with her. “Who let this traitor wander freely out here?”
By now the fair-haired soldier I’d duped was back in the inner ward, loading valuables onto wagons. He and a few others glanced over. His face dropped.
“She–she told me she was Cormorant,” he stammered.
Nemaine glanced back at me, her blue eyes flashing. Was it all bitter anger, or was there surprise there, too? Almost as though my daring had impressed her. “Perhaps not a mouse after all but a weasel,” she murmured, tugging me to the east side of the ward.
I struggled for effect. Though I’d predicted this would happen, it didn’t stop my heart hammering dully against my ribs. What if Uirbrig changed his mind? Decided, in the end, to lop off everyone’s heads?
“Another prisoner,” Nemaine intoned as we reached the east wall. “Managed to give us the slip until now.”
In front of me, Tigo, Mawre, and Rhianne were trussed up and gagged, sitting sullenly on the ground.
At the sight of them, warm relief flared in me, but that quickly dissipated as I took in their expressions. They were glaring, murderous, their eyes like blades. Above her gag, Rhianne’s nose wrinkled in a scowl—the siblings must have told her, or she’d figured it all out.
Once I’d been relieved of Kielty’s rapier, I was thrown down beside them, gagged and shackled. Guards loitering nearby watched over us.
I looked at Rhianne. Surely she should understand? The girl she loved had rebel sympathies. She herself had said she understood their cause, even if she didn’t approve of their methods. In my gaze, I tried to say, wordlessly, I’m sorry. But Rhianne only shook her head. I knew what she was thinking.
It wasn’t so much that I was working for the rebels. It was the fact that I’d tried to sabotage the Shearwaters. To prize out their secrets and use them against the family. And who knew what Kielty’s group would’ve done if it hadn’t worked?
In any case, I thought, it was too late now. Rexim was dead, and the siblings were about to be…unless my reckless plan somehow worked.
Hollow-eyed, I avoided Rhianne’s accusing gaze—
Only to find myself staring into the face of Llir Shearwater.
Now that he’d been identified as Orha, he’d been separated from his bloody and beaten brother and from his sisters, who huddled pale faced across the ward, to await Iovawn Crake’s eventual return.
Llir now sat with his chained-up ankles in front of him, his back against the wall, his wrists tightly bound.
I winced to see his gag drawn tight under his cheekbones. Somewhere along the way, he’d lost his doublet, and he sat now in grimy, baggy shirtsleeves, his collar hanging open, his head tipped back.
We held each other’s gaze for one long moment, my stomach jumping queasily as I remembered last night. The tableau we’d held, the stir of his breath, how close I’d been to that curve of pale neck that now stood out sharply against the castle’s dull stone.
And after, in the stairwell, before everything had gone awry: the glint of his eyes through the holes of his mask, those stretched-out seconds when his lips had met mine, the feel and taste of him, warm and wine tinged and too brief.
But the memory was already blurring in my mind. Had that really only been a few hours ago? Had it even happened at all?
Now, rather than those smiles on the tower roof or his surprised, slightly teasing look after the play, his expression was closed, his stare a stony challenge. He looked deliberately away, flicked his eyes around the battlements; closed them, after a while, resting back against the stone.
I, in turn, hunched down on the cobbles, burying my head in the gap between my knees. I didn’t want to meet any more ice-cold stares, see the judgment in the faces of those I’d deceived.
I told myself I shouldn’t care what the Shearwaters or their Orha thought of me. I wouldn’t be seeing them again after this. Even if all of us made it out of here alive.
Alive.
That was what I needed to focus on.
I stared hard at the ground and waited for Crake to give the order.