Chapter 7 #2
I felt sick with guilt. Gray-green eyes flashed across my mind.
If I hadn’t revealed myself to Stig, then he and Fell would never have fought. Fell would still be ensconced in his role as Lord of the Borderlands. Those people would still be alive.
So much death. So much misery. So much blood … and it was all on my hands.
Vetr sighed heavily, as though weary of this conversation. “Have you heard any talk of matters that actually concern us?”
I looked at him reproachfully. He might as well have said: Because human matters do not concern us. At least not unless they directly affected us.
“Just that the Terror’s army is venturing more into the Crags than ever before.”
Vetr nodded, his brow furrowing. “Our patrols have already noticed this. Any idea why?”
Arran shook his head with a look of helplessness. He didn’t know why.
But with sinking dread, I did. I knew why.
They were looking for me.
Stig was looking for me.
We fell silent as our server arrived and placed platters of food on the table before us with heavy thunks. Long, sweaty strands of hair straggled across her flushed face as she looked at each of us with tired eyes. “Can I get you anything else?”
Harald motioned to our cups. “Another round, please.”
I was surprised to see I’d nearly finished my mead. After a year of imbibing verdaberry wine or juice, mead was unpleasant on my tongue.
The serving girl nodded and left us. We began to eat. I picked at the greasy meat, doubting, in these times of want, that it was the roasted pork we ordered, but trying not to think about what animal it might be.
I studied the tense expressions of my companions carefully as I chewed the stringy meat, wondering how to explain to them that I was the reason for the increase of soldiers in the Crags. Now did not seem the time. Not in the middle of this taproom, surrounded by the humans they deemed foes.
The taproom was busy, conversation at a steady hum, but all voices stopped abruptly when the door opened and in walked a fresh group of soldiers in the familiar vestment of the south. Their hauberks of chain mail rustled as they moved, the familiar scarlet capes swishing at their backs.
I stopped breathing, ducking my eyes, my heart beating a drum in my ears so loud I was certain everyone around me heard the clamor. I feigned great interest in my food, almost expecting to feel Stig’s shadow over me, his voice a dark caress in my ear.
But no. I risked a quick glance and confirmed they were only soldiers. His soldiers here without him. Of course—the Lord of the Borderlands wouldn’t slum it in a tavern.
Their heavy tread thundered across the wood plank floor, so much more strident now that no one in the room was speaking.
“What? Why so quiet? It sounded like a party from the outside,” one of the soldiers exclaimed.
“Don’t stop making merry on our account.
” He surveyed the taproom in a turn, his cape a splash of scarlet like the spray of blood on the air.
He looked to his comrades for agreement.
“We love a good party. Makes the hard work of the day so worthwhile, does it not, lads?”
Hard work of the day?
My gaze skimmed them, marking the blood spatter on their chain mail, and I felt it in my bones that these men had impaled the people outside town and that was the hard work mentioned. Nausea rolled through me. The sensation was starting to feel a part of me now.
The patrons inside the taproom remained silent. Eyes darted fearfully. Shoulders slumped as though striving to become smaller—invisible. Specks among giants. The serving girls vanished into the kitchen. These people were well-versed in the struggle to survive.
Was this everywhere in the Borderlands now? Everyone shrinking, trying to become invisible, clinging to what lifelines could be grasped to pull them from the devouring brushfire?
They call him the Terror, you know.
When I’d started the crossing north after my wedding, I had been shaken at the reality of life outside the protected gates of the City.
The wan and tired people, hunger evident in their gaunt faces and the bones pushing like knives at their skin.
In their eyes I’d read a despair that plucked at my conscience.
While I had lived in the comfort of the palace, the people of Penterra had suffered, eking out a meager existence.
Fell had been their only hope. He’d come to the City for the hand of a royal princess, seeking a seat at the table through a royal marriage.
So he could make decisions and bring about real change.
Instead, he got me.
He got me and that had sealed his fate—and that of the Borderlands. My fate, too, but that felt insignificant in comparison.
Guilt and shame ate at me for my part in all this—for the fact that Stig now had the north beneath his boot. My fate was less important when held up against an entire people’s.
I allowed myself to imagine life if Fell had married Alise or Feena or Sybilia. If I had not gone along with the scheme to trick him into marrying me.
Everything would be different. Better.
For a start, Fell would not be dead. He and one of my sisters would be safely ensconced in the Borg, and the denizens of the Borderlands would not be living in terror—or skewered on pikes.
Regret wound through me, tightening as a turning screw.
If I had not revealed my dragon, if I had not so selfishly taken Fell away with me, then he would still be leading the north, protecting these people—his people.
A light holding firm, fighting against the dark, and I had taken it away, snuffed it out.
The screw inside me took another crushing twist.
This was my fault. My doing, and that sat like a boulder on my chest.
Boots thudded to a stop near our table, and I forced my gaze not to stray up, focusing my attention on the greasy mystery meat and the faces of my companions.
Unlike everyone else in the room, they appeared calm and unaffected—revealing none of the violence tucked away beneath their skin, none of the magic swimming below the surface, ready to surge forth at the first summons.
The moments ticked by, and the booted feet beside our table did not move. I finally looked up.
A soldier gazed down at me in an expectant way that told me he had been looking at me for some time—that I was the sole reason he had stopped at our table. He rubbed at his lip, drawing attention to the dark spaces in his mouth where teeth should be. “You look familiar.”
My stomach sank, and I resisted the impulse to touch my hair. It was a nuisance. The fiery red did not make me inconspicuous. Even if red hair wasn’t a characteristic of witches—of blood witches, to be exact—it had always marked me as different from others.
He assessed me. Not quite a leer, but something else. Something deep and probing and suspicious. The suspicion that these same men had impaled those people stayed with me. I did not want their focus on me and yet I had it.
I offered a weak smile. “I am sorry. We’ve never met.”
He cocked his head to the side. His toothless smile gave him an odd appearance, as though his mouth were a large, gaping maw. “Do I detect a hint of the south in your voice?”
I swallowed thickly. Yes. Of course he did.
I shot a helpless look at Vetr.
He didn’t know who I was. I winced inwardly. Or rather, who I had been. I’d never shared my roots with him. I’d told myself it didn’t matter anymore and that forgetting the past was part of moving forward.
He knew only that I had been Fell’s wife. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about me—he was wholly invested in me as a member of the pride. I did not doubt that. I was a fire-breather, after all. It was only that my life as a human held no interest to him.
He had no idea when he chose me for this rekon that I would potentially be recognized. If I had told him, I doubted I would be sitting here now.
“I spent a little time in the south as a child,” I quickly supplied. No sense denying the truth he heard in my voice.
“It’s nice to hear the sound of home on your tongue,” he mused, appraising me. “You live here now?” He flicked thick, sausage-like fingers around us. “In this shithole?”
I shot another quick glance to Vetr, seeking guidance.
Vetr stared back, his features schooled into a neutral expression, and I realized he would not be weighing in on my behalf. From the glacial glint to his eyes, I could infer he was not happy with the attention I had brought our little group, but he was waiting to see what I did … and said.
Well, I didn’t like it either. I could do nothing about it, however, except be as cordial as possible until this soldier moved on. “Hereabouts,” I said. “In the area.”
He wagged a finger close to my face. “You bear a strong resemblance to Lady Tamsyn. Does she not, lads?”
At the sound of my name, my stomach plummeted to my boots. The soldiers nodded in agreement even as the self-appointed speaker of the trio snapped his fingers and added, “Or, to be more accurate, Lady Dryhten, since you married the Beast.”
Since you married the Beast.
He was speaking as though my identity were decided and he could not be swayed. Dread climbed up my throat, mingling with the steam gathering there. I compressed my lips, trying to smother both.
I shook my head, pretending I did not feel Vetr’s ice-hard stare on me. “I’m sorry. No—”
“Uncanny.” He bent down, dipping his head closer and blasting me with breath that reeked of fish and sour ale.
I parted my lips carefully and attempted to speak again. “You are mistaken, sir.”
He peered at me so closely, I was certain he could count each individual pore on my face.
“Aye, it is you.” He nodded with growing certainty.
“I served in the palace for a time, had guard duty at the bailey gates. I used to watch you and the other princesses run all over the courtyard. Sometimes you would ride out for picnics, remember?”
I almost nodded, beset with that sweetly faded memory. Other princesses.