Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAY
When actions speak, believe them.
—Raider’s Ban proverb
14th Day of Winter’s Wife Moon,
Age of the Locways, Year 271
La’Angi Keep
I woke after the watch called midnight. I was sure of that, at least, because I’d been staring at the bottom of the bunk above me when I’d heard the shouts ripple through the city, assuring everyone that all was well.
It was, of course. We’d rid the city of Dwain and managed to save a majority of his men.
I’d wished for Audrey and her bow only briefly.
Death was a messy process. At some point, we’d need to deal with the group of rebels holed up in the old whitesmith’s.
Three Leaves. Kaelson had asked me again about it.
He knew I’d had the help of someone. He had not the slightest idea that someone was the lady they all whispered about with such gratitude.
Exactly what had woken me from my doze I wasn’t sure, though I suspected a cool breeze as the door was eased open. But I was sure, immediately, of who it was standing by my bed, a dark blot in the night.
A knot of tension eased out of my belly as I lifted the covers. Audrey slipped in beside me. The bed creaked and she let out a small, pained noise. I tried to wrap her in blankets, but one of her hands had coiled around my bicep and she was tugging gently.
I let myself be guided until I was half lying on top of her. She shivered, but she wasn’t cold. Her breath came in quick, short gasps.
I hadn’t exactly let Thomas take me earlier that day. But I sure hadn’t gone into that fight intending harm.
Next time, mayhap I would.
I pressed a kiss to her jaw, and another shudder went through her. Her arms had found their way around me. It was a knack of hers I’d enjoyed often.
Are you well? I didn’t ask, because in the darkness speech seemed inappropriate. She’d had a stampeding day and had ridden it out with grace. I knew why she was here and quivering. I just didn’t know what I could do to make it better except be here too.
I breathed the smell of her in, her hair tickling my face.
She turned into me, rubbing against my cheek like a cat, and my body responded to that touch as if we’d had years of learning one another’s preferences.
I shifted, trying to hide my arousal, but her hands turned to vices and I submitted gladly, pressing myself closer as her gasps slowed and her breathing deepened.
Wasn’t it strange that I loved hearing her breath quicken when we moved together, but I loved just as much to hear it settle?
The thought sat uncomfortably somewhere behind my ribs as I felt her softening beneath me. Her hands gentled and she rubbed against me again, sleepily now, tucking her nose in close to my neck so I could track every calming breath. I rested my chin on her hair so it didn’t tickle me constantly.
“Sleep well, Embers,” I murmured.
She made a contented noise at the back of her throat, shifted her hips just a little, and the last of the tension bled from her.
I wanted to stay like that, half atop her, her breaths lifting me up and then lowering me gently.
I wanted to stay like that, helping hold her together when she was shaking apart.
I wanted to remember every moment of that heavy contentment, the warmth in my chest and the wonder of being able to soothe her. But sleep claimed me too.
* * *
Mayhap it was the late hour she slept to, or mayhap it was from sleeping together, but Audrey’s eyes were clear and smile lingered on her lips the next morning.
As had become our routine, I joined in with her training sessions with Isolde, adding some sword-specific exercises. We focused on the physically demanding options to maximize the short time we had, and I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t enjoy watching Audrey practicing lunges.
Thomas was waiting in the common room when I went back down to prepare for the day. His eyes raked over me with fatherly disappointment. The flash of rage that swept through me was exactly what I’d expected.
I breathed it out and paused in front of him. “Don’t look at her like that,” I said, keeping my voice down so it didn’t carry to where she was dressing upstairs. “She’s had decades of that from the Butcher, Thomas. She doesn’t need it from you too.”
He caught my arm in his hand, shadows under his eyes. I locked down hard the urge to snap out my captured elbow, drive it into his jaw, and win free. Strength flooded my system. I stood, shoulder to shoulder, trapped by my own desire for peace rather than his hand on me.
“What do you think will happen when the Duke hears she’s taking the coin from his drinking buddies?” Thomas asked, quietly. “They’re going to get his attention quick-smart, boy.”
The derogatory boy set my teeth on edge, but I refused to acknowledge it. Keeping my voice calm, I said, “If you think she’s overlooked that, you don’t know her. Take your hand off me, Tom.”
He did, and the area he’d grabbed felt like it was being stabbed by thousands of needles as the sensation returned.
I held all my rage in my chest, felt it pulsing in my limbs and locking my muscles tight. Things I could say and do rushed through my mind, but none of them were smart, and none of them were helpful. With my heart beating too heavily, I walked out of that room.
Kadan, my first and best friend, would’ve been proud of me for walking away from that paternal bullshit.
I suspected he would’ve been proud of me for removing it forcibly, too.
With impatient hands, I pulled my bedding into place again, disguising that it had held two people and not just one, then tugged on the gambeson that was my day-to-day armor before pulling on the tabard that was Audrey’s in my mind, declaring my allegiance for all to see.
That woman owns me, I thought, and the heat of that knowledge tangled up with the rage in my chest. Until my heart no longer beats. That’s what I’d sworn—willingly.
But it wasn’t Audrey’s sigil.
It was her father’s.
By the time I’d done all the buckles Thomas was back out in the entryway. I heard the noise of him settling into his post.
He thought he knew so much, and yet he’d hurt her, multiple times, while she was vulnerable.
Audrey’s head poked into my room, her hair perfectly arranged, the dress a sensible deep brown with nonsensical but delightful ribbons she’d already tangled around her fingers.
She’d passed by Thomas to get to me, but her smile was testament to how Isolde and I had limited his harm. My shield wasn’t my only method of protection.
“I’m meeting Kaelson, Bernadette, and Ettie in the kitchens to break our fast,” she said.
“Coming.” I settled my sword belt over top of my tabard and scooped up the shield on the way out the door.
The weight of it reminded me of that brilliant smile she’d met me with, though it had faded to leave a quiet contentment as I fell into step beside her.
On her right walked Isolde. They both moved with the measured grace of women with formal training and the heart of a predator.
Through the big, open arches the sun felt warm, though the wind still held the bite of snow.
Thomas walked behind us, and I cared not a whit if he felt excluded.
* * *
“We’re going to be moving about more,” Audrey said as she rejoined us after the meeting dispersed. “Brian is taking over cataloguing and leaving us to oversee.”
“What’s Brian’s story?” I asked her, frowning.
“He’s a legal advisor for EACo,” she told me, falling into step with me as we left the kitchens. “His partner is Xander Turnbulle.” At my blank look, she smiled. “Of Turnbulle Trading Company? Wainwrights?”
It clicked, then, the name I’d seen stamped on every cart ever crafted. “He’d be worth a pretty penny,” I acknowledged, wondering exactly how wealthy the man who’d taken over from Audrey last night must be. He’d buy and sell me a time or two, I had no doubt of that.
“Xander is a distant cousin of the Turnbulles,” she said, reaching out to rest her fingertips on my arm to steer us around some people approaching with barrels on their shoulders.
“And he isn’t employed within the business, but it does seem rather like a choice to not work.
” Which meant money. I pretended I didn’t see the people glancing at her hand on my elbow but gently eased away.
She didn’t appear to notice, her eyes bright in a familiar way.
“Kaelson says Brian is in it for the puzzle. And also he likes what we’re doing, because he’s had people sniffing around his place.
He’s donated everything he has and moved into the castle. ”
“Sounds like a useful man,” I offered.
“I think he really might be,” she agreed. “Kaelson suggested he join the core group so we’ve got representation from all levels of the city.”
I was pretty sure there was a middle layer or two she was missing, but mayhap Kaelson had more social standing than I thought before the plague. Regardless, I had been wondering how they’d go with four. “A tiebreaker on votes would be good.”
“Exactly. But anyway, we’ll see how he does.” She let out a long sigh. “I’m glad I don’t have to do it all. He’ll probably go when it thaws to join Xander in Ltona, but until then, I hope to learn what I can.”
We went and met up with said rich bastard, who had a bound book with columns, a weight scale, and a measuring string before him.
He barely glanced down as he wrote neat figures in the columns.
Thomas and I stayed back while Isolde and Audrey approached the distressed widow whose son’s belongings were being weighed and measured.
The desperate edge of yesterday was gone, and by early afternoon we’d returned to our tower.