Chapter 11
Guards pursue us through the crowded streets, their wariness palpable. “Why aren’t they confronting us?” I murmur to Desmond.
He opens the door of a shop for me, not sparing the guards a glance. “They’re afraid.”
I sneak a look and see more than one hand resting on a sword pommel. They’ve realized the Hollowlands’ fae prince has been walking amongst them. One stray punch or strike of a blade is all it would take to shatter the delicate treaty that ended the War of Burning.
The guards linger as we retrieve our gear from the shop, which provides warded cabinets for daily storage. I balk at the fee, but Desmond doesn’t bat an eye.
As we approach the gates, the back of my neck prickles. Desmond stops and turns in a slow circle. His chin jerks up, and his eyes narrow at a rooftop behind me.
I whirl around and glimpse a hulking figure dressed head-to-toe in a cool gray that blends in with the sky.
A wisp of white hair escapes from the mask that hides his face.
It’s the same silent stranger who stopped me as I left the black market, the one seeking Desmond.
I don’t have to see him up close to recall the menacing silver of his eyes.
The man breaks into a run down the rooftop, hops to another, and is soon out of sight. “Looks like you have a secret admirer,” I joke to Desmond. It falls flat. We both know it’s not the kind of admirer anyone gushes over having.
No, this one makes me want to lock my door and sleep with an extra dagger under my pillow, and they’re not even after me. “I saw him in the black market,” I add. “He showed everyone a wanted poster—and you were on it.”
Desmond shrugs. “An occupational hazard.”
“Charming,” I mutter. “How did you avoid him?”
We reach the gate where a line has formed to leave Mythos. “People have a hard time sneaking up on me,” he says with a harsh edge, like he wants me to drop my questions. Too bad.
“You took a risk lingering there, just to chastise me about the relic and bandage me.”
“And you underestimate me. Besides, I could hardly stand back and watch you foolishly drip blood, giving anyone permission to tie you into—”
“A lethal bargain?” I cut in, narrowing my eyes.
He starts to object, but a scribe interrupts us. “Your paperwork, please.”
I dig mine out of my pack. The squat scribe studies them, his inspection prolonged by every glance he gives to the guards lurking ten steps behind us. He finally gives them back, then asks Desmond, “Your paperwork, sir?”
Desmond unshoulders his pack, takes out a bundle of crinkled parchment, and unrolls it before the scribe like it’s nothing more than a shopping list.
“D—Desmond Vale? The fae prince?” the scribe stutters as he takes the parchment. He stares up at Desmond, his eyes widening to saucers.
Desmond doesn’t lower his hood or deign to answer the scribe. He simply plants his feet, holds out his hand for the papers, and waits.
The scribe splutters. He hands the parchment back.
A wax seal decorates the document below his name, Desmond Vale, along with written permission to enter Avedor per the terms of the treaty.
And below that is the clause, I accept that violation of the Annexation Treaty will forfeit my life and all fae in my company.
His signature, a perfect cursive, lies beneath it.
Desmond rolls it back up.
The scribe ushers us to pass with a frantic wave, not unlike if we were carriers of a plague, and I follow Desmond to the stables.
His horse is a sturdy, white mare with a rose-pink nose. The horse’s dark eyes narrow. She snorts as if assessing me, tossing her shaggy mane. Even as she chomps on Desmond’s offered apple, she still warily regards me.
“What’s her name?” I ask.
“Enbarr.” He surprises me by helping me onto Enbarr’s saddle, then mounts behind me.
I’m too aware of his muscled thighs squeezing mine, the press of his chest against my back as he leans forward to take the reins.
“Ready?” His voice sounds deeper, softer when he’s speaking just behind my ear.
“As I’ll ever be,” I grumble.
He knees Enbarr’s flank and leads her outside onto the worn stone path. Every clop of the horse’s hooves shifts our bodies together.
“This is our last chance to rent a second horse,” I mutter, staring straight ahead at the distant forest. It’s a failed attempt to keep my face from heating. Even if I can’t see him, I still feel him. The warm puffs of air on the back of my neck. The cage of his arms around mine.
“Or you could volunteer to walk,” he says with enough bite that I sense the threat inside of it. No complaining. Got it.
Desmond leads the horse not south toward Nettlerock, but east. Soon, the city wall is just a thin line in the distance behind us, and the cobblestone road becomes patchy.
Every misplaced stone is a bump jostling us together, his crotch rhythmically grinding against me with an uncomfortable intimacy that has me gritting my teeth.
It’s almost sensual, provocative in a way that I would enjoy with a different man.
Just not him. Of all the princes I could be straddling a horse with, why did it have to be a terrifying, surly fae Prince of Death? It doesn’t matter how enjoyable it is to stare at his strong hands on the reins, nor how nice it feels to have his arms around me.
Gods, does he know I’m thinking all of this? Is the soul bond that powerful?
I shudder.
Eventually, the stone path transitions to dirt. The sun bears down on us, the breeze offering a small relief. We’ve been silent for some time, the clop of Enbarr’s hooves a rhythm to birdsong and rustling leaves.
On the southern side of the path, forested hills rise and fall, the worn descendants of mountains from a time before Avedor. Many have beautiful talus slopes, stray waterfalls tumbling into shallow pools rife with dragonflies. Desmond slows Enbarr and dismounts.
“We’re stopping here?” I ask him.
“The woodlands are easier for her to traverse without riders.” He points ahead to the forested valley between two of the rocky slopes, then offers his hand to me. I don’t take it, instead sliding off Enbarr’s back on my own. I learned my lesson when he seared that tattoo onto my wrist.
We stand for an awkward beat of quietness.
Then Desmond clicks his tongue and leads Enbarr off the path and into the valley. The farther we walk, the more the twisting canopy of leaves and branches makes me feel distant from Mythos.
“Before we meet the crew, feel free to come up with a moniker for yourself,” he says.
A crew. I dare to imagine what it’ll be like working alongside other tomb raiders. How did he meet them? What other tombs have they raided? And why do I need a moniker? “Aren’t we sworn not to kill each other?”
“Only you made a vow with me.”
Figures. “I’ll go by Cyn.” I don’t want to deal with the hassle of getting accustomed to a new name.
Silence ensues. No insult? No snappy comeback? I turn to look at him, but he’s watching the forest with a grim focus.
“Are you worried that the masked person followed us? There was no one within sight when we left the path.”
He straightens as if I’ve startled him. “Someone is always watching,” he says ominously.
We progress deeper into the forest and toward the talus slope on our right. Then a sudden, overwhelming urge to turn back claws through my mind. The sensation screams this hill is dangerous; I have to leave.
My feet swivel, and I make several hurried steps down the hill before Desmond grabs my arm, halting me. “Hey! Let me go!” I try to twist away, desperate panic writhing within me, but he doesn’t relent.
“The guild has a ward-maker who specializes in repellents,” he says. “Once we’re through the barrier, the fear will dissipate.”
I resist as Desmond spins me around, and he drags me step by step toward a wide gap between trees. “The ward around the royal dais shimmered. I don’t see one here!”
He fixes me with an agitated grimace. “That’s because the guards wanted everyone to know it’s there. Do you trust me?”
“No,” I reply immediately.
His laugh is almost too quiet to hear. “I shouldn’t have bothered to ask. Now put one foot in front of the other, Cynthia. We’re almost there.”
The order was filled with far more patience than I would’ve expected. It calms me enough that I grit my teeth and force myself to march ahead. As soon as we pass between the two trees, the repulsion vanishes.
Desmond gestures ahead. “We’re here.”
Here is a steep hunk of rock in the hillside, ivy and gnarled roots hanging off the spindly trees vying to grow on its crest, far above us.
I look around for tents but see nothing. “You’ve got to be kidding. Are we roughing it? Sleeping in bags around a campfire?” But I don’t even see a damn fire pit.
“Is that what you would prefer?” He brushes the ivy aside and reveals a narrow cave. There’s a water-filled trough inside of it and stacks of hay bales. No beds, no paltry rations, or even the embers of a fire. “Wait until you see the washroom,” Desmond teases. He beckons Enbarr inside the cave.
I follow, sniffing the fusty air. It’s accompanied by an odor of manure. The horse looks unbothered as she shakes her mane and munches the hay. “I bet she’s a great cuddler,” I murmur.
He huffs a laugh. “Better than you.”
Enbarr bares her teeth at me in response to this apparently grave offense.
He beckons me to follow him outside again. Then he raps on the stone between the gnarled roots, and we wait.
And wait.
I’m about to ask him why he enjoys messing with me when the stone rolls back. A secret entrance? I’m excited to look inside already.
A wizened face peers at us with eyes like black beads of coal. “Prince Desmond,” the creature croaks. “Welcome back.”
He sighs. “I’ve told you not to call me that.”
“As you wish, Pri—” the creature coughs, but it sounds like a death croak. “As you wish, Desmond.” She steps back to let us in.