Chapter 15
Ididn’t get to indulge in more of Harthon’s experience that night. He was so occupied, I never even saw him.
And I didn’t care about it one bit as I hugged Merelda in the torchlit stables the next morning, the scents of sweet hay and horse enveloping us.
“You’ll need to let go eventually,” she remarked, rubbing my back.
This was the longest hug in existence, but I didn’t care. Harthon and the others would have to wait.
“I don’t like leaving you.” My voice was muffled by her hair.
“It’s what you must do.” She forcibly drew away and cupped my face. “Besides, I have Marsik here to keep me company and Callen to protect me.”
Behind her, Callen nodded in reassurance. “Merelda and I are going to have a grand old time while you’re gone.”
While I was nervous about how few men we were bringing with us, I was glad that Callen wasn’t one of them.
Though I’d never admit it, I was also reassured by North staying behind, too.
He was terrible, but he was damn effective in a fight.
Between the two of them, Merelda would be safe in the Citadel.
It also helped that I was leaving, taking any future threats to my life with me.
Frankly, she was better off here without me.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I told her, my breath forming a cloud in the cool air.
“No.” She gave me a surprisingly strong shake for her age. “You’ll be back when you’ve done what you need to do, even if it takes longer than expected. And you won’t feel guilty about me in the meantime.”
I wouldn’t allow it to take longer than expected.
Merelda knew me too well to think that her statement had convinced me. She shook me one more time. “I mean it, Etarla. You are the key to saving this world. Don’t come back until you’ve done just that. Promise me.”
I didn’t want to.
But I couldn’t say no to her.
“I promise.” Then, because I couldn’t stand to leave on such a tense note, I added, “As long as you promise not to fondle Callen’s muscles or bat your eyes at any soldiers while I’m gone. I can’t return to that kind of embarrassment.”
She laughed, the sound beautifully melodic. “I suppose I can make that sacrifice for you.”
I laughed a little, too, though it was more of an effort to prevent myself from crying.
Merelda pulled me close for one more hug, and with a strained exhale, stepped away before I could keep her there forever. “I love you, Etarla.”
“I love you, too.”
Callen stepped in and patted my shoulder. “Hey, Fish Eyes, get that worry off your face. You’re hurting my very delicate feelings, implying that she won’t have a good time here with me.”
I half-heartedly batted his hand away. “I’m not concerned about her having a good time. I’m concerned for her sanity.”
“You’ve been spending lots of time in my company, and your sanity is still intact.”
“According to who?” I was only half-joking.
He laughed, then leaned close to my ear. “I’ve got her, okay? But I need you to have him.”
That him was busy preparing his horse behind me, giving me a generous amount of privacy and time to say my goodbyes. “I’m pretty sure Harthon can take care of himself.”
“In a fight, yes. But remember the whole ‘just a man’ and ‘Harthon has feelings’ speech I so eloquently gave you? Every person needs someone to have their back. And since I’m not coming, you need to be his person.” It was a genuine request layered in concern.
It’d become apparent long ago that Callen, North, and Ana weren’t Harthon’s subordinates.
They weren’t even partners. Rather, they were like a sort of family.
They bickered. Callen had once tried to kill Harthon.
Things had gotten complicated with him and Ana.
North was always defying him. But they were like siblings nonetheless, and now, Harthon was setting out without any of those siblings.
Just with me, who was his…I didn’t even know.
Callen’s request wasn’t one to be taken lightly, and the fact that he trusted me to watch after Harthon spoke volumes. Fully aware of the responsibility I was accepting, I nodded.
Callen pulled back, only for me to jolt because North’s bald, bearded head was right over his shoulder.
Every muscle locked as I prepared for a fight. North had hardly spoken two words to me since the tense conversation after we returned from the battle against Koerlyn. Based on the scowl darkening his grizzly features, he wasn’t about to shower me with kindnesses.
With one massive, threatening step forward, he bore down on me. “This better not be for nothing.”
“Do you think I want to leave Merelda and gallivant through First because I’m bored?” I snapped.
Closing the remaining distance, he snarled, “No. What I think is that the people here believe in you far more than they should, because we all feel a little desperate.”
I set my jaw, even as I internally flinched.
Speaking at a volume only I could hear, he continued, “Harthon is a bad motherfucker. But his mind is muddled when it comes to you, and you could very well get him killed. He supports you when you haven’t done a damn thing to earn it, except show up here with those eyes you stole and cause problems.”
My internal flinch became an external one.
“If he dies because of you, I will kill you myself. Do you hear me?”
Hatred leaked from every pore, nearly swallowing me in its potency.
I returned the sentiment, but my hatred wasn’t as strong as his, because his mean, targeted words had just ripped into that dark, shadowed place where I’d been carefully storing my doubts.
I wanted to shove his words in his face, to tell him I was not the liability he thought me to be.
But I couldn’t, because I didn’t fully believe it.
I was a burden on a battlefield. I was still learning how to navigate politics.
All I offered was a nugget of knowledge that would lead us into the Domus, and nothing more.
So all I hissed through my teeth was, “Do right by South. That boy thinks you’re the damned sun in the sky. It’d be a shame for him to turn out like you.”
I walked off before I could see my words land. Harthon sent me a shrewd look as he passed me. I gave an unbothered smile in return. He needed to say goodbye to his brothers, and my animosity with North wasn’t going to ruin that moment.
My horse had already been prepared, but I went over every buckle and saddlebag anyway.
We were traveling light. The ship we were taking to Sixth would be stocked with provisions, and we wouldn’t need much when we stayed with Princeps Aric.
After that, our journey into First demanded we be light and nimble, making due with the bare necessities.
“All good?” The question came from Stefano, who was already mounted.
I jiggled one last buckle. “My stuff is good. Are you?”
He appeared sturdy and strong on his horse, but I knew it was a show. He was supposed to be recovering from his wounds for at least another few days, not accompanying us on a dangerous quest.
But he’d gone to Harthon yesterday and demanded to come along anyway.
With Harthon away for such a long time, and us still not knowing if Koerlyn was dead, North and Callen had to remain at the Citadel.
Harthon had chosen two of his best soldiers to journey with us in their stead.
The small group was a tactical decision: the fewer of us there were, the easier it would be to hide from anyone who might want to kill us, both in First Territory and the Domus.
Stefano petitioned to replace one of those men, and because he was a damned prodigy at fighting, Harthon agreed.
Sutures were still holding Stefano’s injuries together. The healer had to spend time yesterday teaching him how to remove them, so he could do it himself while we traveled.
“This might be the seventh time you’ve asked me that,” he remarked.
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I’m fine. For the next two days, we’ll be riding horses within our own Territory. Then we get on a boat, and there’ll be nothing for me to do but sit and watch the sailors do their work. I’ll be in perfect condition by the time we arrive in Sixth.”
As long as everything went smoothly—which never seemed to happen with me around.
“I can’t believe Harthon agreed to this,” I grumbled, even though I absolutely could. Stefano was both unusually skilled and incredibly trusted.
I eyed the other soldier, Joris, who was coming with us.
I remembered him from when Harthon first took me.
He was one of the men who’d been with Harthon long before he became Princeps.
With gray-speckled hair, he was older than all of us, a family man.
It was no easy sacrifice for him to join us, but there were few Harthon trusted with a quest like this, or the truth of what I was here to do.
Jangling metal drew my attention behind Joris, to where Jac was mounted on his horse. Thick, rusted chains linked his wrists together, while his hair hung in scraggly tangles. He didn’t look well, but he wasn’t dead. And he’d been given his own horse to ride.
He caught me looking and dipped his chin.
I returned the gesture. Then I wondered if I should have. I didn’t want him to be executed, but if not for him, I may have never gone to Koerlyn.
Shaking my head, I mounted my horse just as Harthon returned.
Coming to his saddle with far more grace than I could ever muster, he asked, “Are you ready?”
Am I ready to rub shoulders with another Princeps? Navigate a hostile Territory? Enter a city no one has seen in twenty-five years? Leave Merelda?
Such a deceptively simple question.
The heat in my chest flared as I said, “Ready.”
* * *
It took us two days to trek to the coast, and not once did I think about what the ocean might really look like.
After all, it was just water.