CHAPTER 5
The warmth inside the inn wraps around me so quickly that my entire body aches in response.
For days, the cold has settled into my bones making me forget what it feels like to be warm.
The moment I step through Otto’s door, heat rushes over my face and hands, sinking into my frozen fingers until they begin to sting.
I revel in it, enjoying the fact that I’m no longer in danger of losing fingers or toes to frostbite. I’ve never been so grateful for pain.
The inn is larger inside than it looks from the road.
Low wooden beams stretch across the ceiling, darkened by years of smoke and age.
A massive hearth takes up most of the far wall, its fire burning bright enough to turn the room gold.
Tables fill the open space, crowded with villagers, traders, and travelers whose cloaks hang from pegs near the door.
I take it all in, letting the easy atmosphere warm what the heat can’t touch.
Otto takes one look at me and frowns beneath his thick beard. “Gods, Onyx. Did you drag the poor girl through a bog?”
I run my fingers through my hair self-consciously, looking down at my clothing. His guess is not entirely wrong.
“I did not drag her.” Onyx crosses his arms across his massive chest, glancing over at me.
I shoot him a sharp look. “That depends entirely on how loosely you define the word ‘drag’.” I make air quotes with my fingers, practically feeling the annoyance rolling off of Onyx in waves. It makes me want to smile… but I show a little restraint.
Otto barks out a laugh. “Ah! She has wit! The charming kind. You could take notes, Captain.”
“She talks too much,” Onyx mutters.
“And he broods too much,” I reply sweetly.
Several nearby villagers turn toward us with interest, but no disapproving stares. Onyx looks as if he regrets every decision that has brought him to this exact moment. Good.
Otto’s grin widens. He’s broad in the shoulders and thick around the middle, the kind of man who looks as if he’s spent most of his life hauling barrels and breaking up tavern fights.
His hair is more gray than brown, his beard even grayer, but his eyes are bright and warm in a way that makes me want to trust him, which immediately makes me suspicious.
“Come on, then,” Otto says, waving us farther inside. “Sit near the fire before she collapses on my floor and ruins the mood.”
“I’m not going to collapse,” I snap.
I flush the color of a cherry tomato, embarrassed that my condition is very obvious. I’m sure I look as though I’ve been through the seven veils of hell right about now.
My legs choose that exact moment to nearly betray me. Onyx’s hand catches my elbow before I stumble. His grip is firm and steadying, then gone almost as quickly as it came. I hate that he notices, but I’m grateful and give him a tight-lipped smile in thanks.
Otto notices too, of course. His eyes flicker between us, far too observant for a man I’ve known for less than five minutes.
“Near the fire,” he repeats, this time with less teasing.
I want to argue on principle alone, but the fire calls to me with a tenderness I’m too exhausted to resist.
Onyx guides me toward a small table tucked close enough to the hearth that my damp boots begin steaming almost immediately.
I lower myself into the chair with as much dignity as I can manage, which is very little.
The wood beneath me feels blessedly solid.
I’m eternally grateful to be sitting on something that’s not saddle or frozen earth. I nearly sigh.
Across from me, Onyx removes his cloak and drapes it over the back of his seat.
Without it, he looks broader, all dark leather and quiet danger, as if the shadows have shaped themselves into a man and given him a sword.
Several people in the room glance his way, but none with fear. Some nod, and a few smile our way.
Otto returns before I can let my thoughts wander any farther down that dangerous path, balancing two bowls in one hand and a loaf of bread tucked beneath his arm as though feeding half-frozen strangers is something he does every evening before bed.
The smell reaches me before he does, rich and savory enough to make my stomach clench so hard it nearly draws tears to my eyes.
He sets the bowls down in front of us with the self-satisfied air of a man who already knows he is about to be appreciated, then tears the loaf cleanly in half and hands one piece to me.
“Eat first,” he says, lowering himself into the chair beside our table with a groan that suggests his knees have been arguing with him for years. “Then you can ask questions with enough strength behind them to make the rest of us uncomfortable.”
I would like to say I maintain some semblance of dignity, but the first spoonful of stew makes that impossible.
It is thick with root vegetables, bits of tender meat, and herbs I cannot immediately identify, and it’s so warm that it feels less like food and more like mercy.
I close my eyes for half a heartbeat, letting the heat spread down my throat and settle somewhere deep inside me where cold has been living for far too long.
Across the table, Onyx says nothing, though I catch the briefest flicker of amusement in his expression as I all but inhale my second bite.
How embarrassing.
Otto leans back in his chair and folds his arms over his broad chest. “Lycar doesn’t have much,” he says after a moment, and there is no apology in his tone, only plain truth.
“What you see is what we’ve managed to keep.
What we couldn’t grow, we learned to trade for.
What we couldn’t trade for, we learned to live without.
It isn’t easy, but the people here are stubborn, and stubbornness has kept more of us alive than comfort ever would. ”
I glance around the inn again, taking in the patched sleeves, the worn boots drying by the hearth, the cups that have clearly been mended instead of replaced.
He is right. There is nothing luxurious about Lycar.
Even the warmth feels hard earned, bought with chopped wood and steady hands and people who keep showing up because no one else will do the work for them.
Yet there is something in that stubbornness that makes my throat tighten.
In Elvora, survival has become such a lonely act that I had almost forgotten what it might look like when people chose to endure together.
“You all seem…” I hesitate, because saying hopeful aloud still feels dangerous, as though naming a thing might curse it. “Less afraid than people where I’m from.”
Otto’s mouth curves, though the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Fear doesn’t stop winter from coming, girl. It doesn’t fill a grain bin, mend a roof, or keep a child warm through the night. We have our share of it, same as anyone. We simply don’t let it run the village.”
That answer pleases me and irritates me in equal measure, because it sounds wise and infuriatingly incomplete. I tear off a piece of bread, dip it into the stew, and try not to look as ravenous as I feel while failing entirely.
“And the king?” I ask, because of course I do. The question slips out between one breath and the next, quiet enough that it shouldn’t draw attention, though somehow it does anyway. “Does Lycar not fear him either?”
The change is so slight that another person might have missed it.
Otto’s eyes flick toward Onyx for the span of a heartbeat.
Onyx does not turn his head, but I feel the shift in him from across the table, the way his shoulders seem to settle into something more guarded.
A small silence falls between the three of us, and in an inn as loud as this one, that silence rings like a struck bell.
Otto clears his throat and reaches for his mug.
“You’ll find,” he says, taking a deliberate drink before setting it back down, “that villages survive best when they spend less time speaking of kings and more time speaking of practical things. Broken fences. Short rations. Whether Mila at the bakery is ever going to stop pretending she doesn’t water down her soup stock. ”
I blink at him.
He raises a brow, perfectly innocent. He changed the subject so smoothly that if I weren’t already irritated, I might admire it.
Beside me, Onyx lowers his spoon into his bowl with maddening calm. “Mila does water it down.”
Otto grunts. “See? Useful conversation.”
I narrow my eyes at both of them. “You are avoiding my question.”
“Absolutely,” Otto says, not even bothering to deny it. “And because I am a generous man, I’m going to do you the courtesy of pretending not to notice how offended you are.”
I open my mouth to press further, but he is already pushing back from the table with another long-suffering groan, as if his joints themselves have decided this conversation is over.
“There’s a room available down the hall,” he says, scratching at his beard while looking between the two of us with a far too mischievous glint in his eye.
“Only one left, and before either of you starts complaining, I’ll have you know it’s one of my better rooms. Bed’s large enough to fit the both of you. ”
I choke so violently on a sip of stew that it goes down the wrong way and leaves me coughing into my hand like a dying woman. Otto has the audacity to look delighted. Onyx, infuriatingly, remains composed.
By the time Otto finishes informing us that there is, unfortunately, only one room left in the inn, my appetite has nearly vanished out of pure irritation.
Nearly. Nothing could make me lose my appetite entirely, especially not after days of surviving on half-burned game and Onyx’s increasingly offensive attempts at pretending that travel food qualifies as a meal.
“All right,” he says.
I turn toward him so fast my chair nearly tips. “All right?” I repeat between coughs, my voice coming out hoarse and scandalized. “That is your response?”
His gaze drifts toward me with insulting calm. “Would you prefer the stable?”