Chapter 62
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
AUDREY
Of course Xander brought one in. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s got you three more before this response arrives.
So tell me then, Victor, since I leant you one of my best trackers; what, if anything, were you able to learn about their mages?
—in a letter from General Dieudonné, Count of Black Borough to General Victor, Duke of La’Angi
La’Angi Keep
I woke to Elnyta shifting beneath me and tugged them back. Their laughter unsettled a little more my drowsiness. I looked up to find them picking a dried flower out of my face. “Go back to sleep,” they told me, their smile content.
But they weren’t asleep. I blinked sleep from my eyes, focusing on their features.
Worry.
“What’s wrong?” I lifted myself off them and fell onto the cushion beside them. A few flowers were left behind, crushed.
The rug was much more comfortable with Elnyta.
They shook their head, yanking up the blankets I’d fetched for us last night. “Nothing. Go to sleep.”
There was a definite note of something in their words. “You weren’t supposed to come back until after my father…”
The smile vanished from Elnyta’s face. “I know.”
This had nothing to do with the wonderful cock they’d found for us. “You need to leave. In the morning.”
They made an annoyed noise and attempted to yank the blankets up again. It had little impact on the bedclothes. “We’ll talk in the morning.”
I glanced at the window. Morning wasn’t far off. Elnyta had been up most of the night. The kick of my heart against my ribs and the rush of battle energy left me with no doubt that I wasn’t getting back to sleep. I sat up. “What’s happening?”
They groaned, falling back. “Can I just once look after you? Just once.”
“You looked after me more than six times last night. Now, what’s going on?”
“Your father will be here in less than three days.”
The words rushed at me like arrows. My mind ticked through all the options, same as it ever did. Three days was ample time to get the lion’s share of people out of the city, to close the deals, to see Elnyta safe onto the seas.
“Audrey?”
I glanced down at them. “Did you tell Isolde?”
“No. It’s your information, not mine.”
I added it to the list of things I needed to do, but none of it was urgent. If he’d been arriving today… “Are you sure it’s three days?”
“Might be four,” they said, sitting up. “I’m going off what the inn keep told me.”
I nodded. I wouldn’t expect him today, but I’d plan for less time, not more. It was safest. “You didn’t need to come back to tell me.”
They rested their head on my shoulder. “Is it worth it, Princess? All of this?”
“No.” The answer came without hesitation, but it was the wrong answer. “Not the balls and the parties. Not the money. But the people.”
They let out a frustrated noise. “Fuck the people.”
“He does. Whether they like it or not.” I kicked my way out of the blankets, my stomach clenching.
Focus on the tithes. Think about the families of those who’ve disagreed with him.
Easier to remember those than the truth of my words.
“I’m sorry, Elnyta.” I found a shirt and pulled it on. “You need to go.”
“Audrey—”
“No.” I lifted my hair out from the collar of my shirt with one hand. “I asked you not to come back.”
“I had the opportunity,” they said, quietly. “I took it. Empires come and go, Princess, but my love, it’s forever.”
My heart ached. I pulled on my pants.
“Come back and lay down,” they said, the words soft. “I’m not going now. I’ve already missed the tide.”
But I couldn’t. “I need to move.”
“Can we talk while you move?”
“Yes.” I grabbed my belt. “You can. I don’t know if I can.”
“Can I talk you into coming with me? And also leaving?” The joke did nothing for me. I led them upstairs and caught sight of myself in the looking glass, the tangled mess of hair that last night had been a woven masterpiece of vines and flowers.
Today, I was ripe. Mature. A complete mess.
Ready to fuck shit up.
I drew in a breath and reached for the comb.
Elnyta was there, their hands a little clumsy, but happy to learn.
“There’s a forgotten city, far to the south, past the furthest edges of Ltona in the jungle lands of the Maa Te’hey people,” they said, resolutely.
“It involves river sailing, which I’m no good at, but we could find a local guide, get ourselves an axe, and go and visit.
The ruins are bigger than the Citadel even, they say. ”
“What lands?” I asked. “Who are the Maa Te’hey people?”
“They’re,” Elnyta waved a hand. “That way, off your maps. Two weeks without sighting land, give or take depending on the wind and your current. Not so hard, for a decent crew.” They pressed a kiss to my head.
I’d never heard the name. I commenced brushing, wondering if Elnyta spoke truth. There was nothing south of Ltona. Nothing except sea.
“This city, it’s in the middle of big trees that look like they start growing in the sky, then sink down roots.
” They mimicked it with their hands. “Huge towers, shaped like nothing here, with big cloud-like tops and roads that are rivers, full of plants that grow in the water and flowers as big as your fist that float on the surface in pinks and yellows.”
I tried to imagine it. “What happened?”
“No one knows.”
I shook my head. “Someone knows.” It was impossible that no one knew.
Elnyta nudged me. “No one I’ve spoken to knows.”
“Have you seen them?” I asked, trying to keep the question polite.
“No, but I’ve spoken to so many people who have that I’ve no cause not to believe it.” They shrugged. “We could go see it together. They’ll be people nearby who need to buy something. There’s always use for an enterprising soul.”
That, I didn’t doubt. “It’s almost winter. Bad time to sail.”
They paused. “You’d consider it?”
I shrugged. If my father was dead and someone else was keeping La’Angi running… the idea of leaving, but not leaving anything undone… it felt as foreign as Elnyta’s impossible ruins. “The timing is all wrong.”
“The timing has never been better.” They pressed another kiss to my head. “Vanish in the middle of the crowd. No one would ever know. We’ll take Isolde. She’s a good sort.”
Chay could go with Kadan, but what of Thomas and his family? I couldn’t take them all. “Seas are bad in winter.”
“You’re with the Home Star, Princess,” they murmured. “Anyhow, I’ll take you north, first, to my lands. You can meet my uncle. We can weather in the sea of endless grass. I can propose to you like a good bryy’lk.”
“A—” I shook my head, causing the combs to yank on my hair. “Hold on a moment.”
“I can hold on for all of them. For you. You can meet my friends in other ports, and I can cook you some ishnyta va thiaa.”
My heart was too big for my chest. I stopped what I was doing, turning to take hold of their hands. “Stop. Wait.” I took a breath, holding back against the panic. “I can’t go anywhere until my father’s dead, Elnyta.”
Their jaw was set in a stubborn line. “I need saving too, Princess.”
I blew out a breath. “This is my home.”
“You can have mine.”
“I…” Crying probably would’ve been an appropriate response, but as I looked at them, I felt dead inside.
“I can’t change course now,” I said slowly.
“I don’t have the ability to think or plan.
I can’t properly assess the cost. It’s too close, and I’m too exhausted from,” I waved a hand toward the tourney grounds.
“This isn’t fair, lover.” I held back the rest of what I wanted to say.
Nothing was fair.
I hated them for offering me something I couldn’t take.
I wanted to dream, but I couldn’t sleep for long enough to enjoy it without the nightmares creeping in.
They ducked their head, squeezing my hands. “I never fight fair,” they said, but their voice shook. “I had to ask. I had to try.”
There was hurt, deep in my throat, at the back of my skull, seared into the tiny, delicate little bones that kept my head fused to the rest of me. I could feel the heat of it, the way it radiated out into my jaw and up beneath my hair, the vice of it across my forehead.
“I don’t care about La’Angi,” they said. “I care about you.”
“La’Angi’s the reason your boots fit.”
“And it’s the reason you got a specially made cock. We can live without both, Audrey. Luckily, they’ll last for years, so we don’t need to. We can have our boots and our cocks and our freedom, too.”
“I can’t just run.”
“Why?”
“He’d never let me.”
They snorted. “Let him come. I’ve heard of no tales of the Butcher’s prowess on the waves. I’d have his sails up and his anchor down before he could even load a cannon.”
The words couldn’t conjure an imagine in my mind. Instead, they moved across my eyelids as if Elnyta was writing them, the ink bleeding into the edges of my vision.
I drew in another breath. Throwing out Luca had been easy. He’d practically taken himself out.
Throwing out Elnyta might break me.
“I’ve been working toward this for years,” I told them, the words coming from my lips but feeling like they belonged to someone else.
“I’ve lived and breathed this for so many moons I’ve lost count.
When I say I don’t have time to think properly, I really mean my mind can’t work on it.
I’m struggling as it is to keep all the names, faces, alliances, topics of conversation, and economical concerns straight. I really can’t do this.”
Their head was bowed. They were still half naked. From far away, I realized they were almost as vulnerable as me.
“How can I help?”
“Trust me.” I squeezed their hands. “Please, Elnyta. Trust me.”
They let out a short, bitter laugh, wiping a tear with the sleeve of their shirt. “I do, Princess. And I trust the locways to do what it’s built to, too, which is break down beautiful souls like yourself.”
I drew in a breath. “I’m the weakest link in the chain, Elnyta. It’s my job to break. It’s how I do it that’s important.”
“Fuck.” They let out a laugh. “Fuck. Fine. Fine, I’ll go. But I’ll have you know if he kills you, I’m expecting you to come haunt my ship and keep me company all the same.”
The surface of my skin was cold as I felt myself slipping back into my body. I didn’t like the sensation. I could have flown back up to the ceiling, pulling away from reality.
“Hold me,” they said.
The comb dropped onto the ground. The wooden spine broke. Elnyta’s arms were wrapped around me, strong arms that could hold course through the roughest storm. I clung, diving back down to my own flesh, to my body.
I needed to be here.
“Thanking you,” they said.
They pressed their lips to my hair again, rocking me. I was short on air, so I tapped my hands, and they tapped theirs, too. I rocked aggressively in their hold, and they stayed with me, our sinews creaking like rigging, their kisses coming in short, rhythmic bursts.
Terror exploded in my heart. I knew it was a risk.
I held my own against Chay.
Chay obliterated every man on that field.
Would I?
“My uncle wants to meet you,” they said, eventually. “If not now, later. I told him you would.”
The urge to promise Elnyta anything was strong. The desire to tie myself to them in a way no one could cut was there, burning behind my ribs. “I’m not going to die,” I told them, but I shook my head. I couldn’t promise that. “I’ll do everything in my power to keep myself safe.”
“Except flee.”
My heart twisted. I pulled back to look at their face, their gorgeous, tattooed, scarred, weathered face. “I’m done running from him, Elnyta. I can’t keep doing it. No—I won’t.”
I imagined I could see when the last little bit of their resistance crumbled. “I’m sorry I ever called you princess,” they whispered, half naked and entirely vulnerable. “I’m sorry. I’m a selfish bastard, and a coward, too. Can you forgive me, my Queen?”