51 #2
My attention slid toward Aspen, who deviated between admiring the scene and marshaling her resolve. But as she sensed my gaze and found me staring, dread sunk its talons into my chest. We knew what must be done.
Breathless, the jester and princess dragged their mouths from one another. Poet mashed his lips to Briar’s forehead, inhaled her scent, then let go.
Rounding on me and Aspen, the jester tapered his eyes. In the earlier years, before Nicu reached adulthood, Poet would have made a deal with Jeryn to disembowel me for enabling Nicu. To the same extent, he would have strung Aspen from the tower by her wrists.
However, the man inclined his head, silently thanking us for keeping Nicu safe. Briar echoed her gratitude, nodding as well.
I bowed my chin, indicating there was no need. The clan guarded one another. That was how we lived and breathed. As Briar’s note declared when Nicu found it hidden in a tree, none of us ever truly survived on our own.
In the interim, the trees had ceased their onslaught, boughs relaxing enough for daylight to trickle through. Against its will, we had turned this landscape into a battlefield.
For the next few hours, our clan atoned for the invasion and transferred the dead to a funeral pile beneath a maple tree.
Because they hadn’t been given a trial, Briar showed mercy.
With the immeasurable grace of a sovereign who represented her nation’s actions, she draped a leaf over every forehead and murmured the same words she had uttered during Merit’s death long ago.
Poet was less charitable, his expression murderous. Yet out of respect for his wife, the man checked his fury.
My joints shook. Rhys had anticipated his legion would be sufficient to decimate our clan. On that score, he’d been wrong.
But however manipulative His Majesty had been to the troop, and however much they opposed equality, I bore the brunt of their passing with the responsibility of a commander. Perhaps I could have done or said more to sustain their allegiance.
Or perhaps not. From across the grass, Aspen’s resilient expression tacked to my own, communicating what I needed to hear.
Once, I would have laid down my life for them, and while I still held myself accountable for their dissent, I’d once served these warriors with the utmost loyalty.
From there, the choices of my brethren had been their own.
The dead faded before our eyes. Beneath the maple, nature spirited them to the afterlife, a breeze sweeping by in their wake.
At one point, Flare materialized to report Jeryn’s progress with his patient. Lyrik’s wound had been deep, but his condition was stable. Only time would tell if it remained that way.
Poet and Briar cast their son uncertain glances. Nicu had kept his feelings to himself until Flare appeared. At which point, the young man’s stricken features sat plainly on his face.
Well-versed in Nicu’s enthusiastic nature and visceral love for people, naturally his father and mother would misconstrue this as purely a source of overt friendship, particularly since the alchemist forsook himself for Nicu’s sake.
Although their son had wept to the heavens, so much had happened in the span of an hour, the incident occurring too rapidly to distinguish anything beyond that.
Given time, that impression would inevitably change. But not this soon.
After giving my liege a reassuring hug, Flare dashed back to the alchemy chamber.
Another hour passed as we drank from the creek, bathed our wounds, and processed the destruction while clearing debris.
Mopping blood from the higher platforms would take longer; therefore, that task must wait.
Many of the watch hawks had participated in the combat, while others had disbanded at some point.
At last, the remaining portion returned. Flapping their voluminous wings, the fleet sailed over The Lost Treehouses. Cutting through the dome of leaves, they executed a synchronized circular formation, a coded message they’d been trained to deliver.
My head whipped up, along with everyone else’s. “The traitor camp,” I announced with a heavy heart.
“After your tidings arrived, we set out with them,” Briar conveyed, swiping dust off her mantle. “Unaware of what we’d find by the time we reached this forest, I ordered one hawk unit as backup for us, the other as aerial surveillance of the camp.”
That made sense. Our missive had included the camp’s new location.
The princess and jester supplied the rest. Not wishing to publicize the traitor camp and instigate a civil uproar, they’d departed in secret with a legion of trusted avians instead of risking broader military forces.
The latter had been essential, given they still didn’t know the identity of Rhys’s supposed spy or if any of the troops at court might be involved.
Aspen had conveyed to me that Rhys harbored an unknown secondary informant. In that regard, the clan’s rationale still held weight.
To remain inconspicuous among the court, Queen Avalea remained behind, along with Eliot and Briar’s ladies. As we spoke, they awaited a missive confirming the knight camp and the clan’s next move. Once given the signal, they would join everyone here.
Before they faded, I’d done a recount of the fallen. As I surmised from the onset, no more than half of the traitorous warriors were accounted for. Again, fewer participants could be the result of death and a host of sustained injuries from the camp explosion.
Nonetheless, that logic didn’t sit right with me.
Lifting my arm in summons, one of the hawks swooped down. Angling its body at a steep degree, the avian circuited around me before launching skyward again.
My palm traced the draft left behind. What I felt chilled my blood.
“Rhys,” I stated, his name slithering through the enclave like a deadly omen. “He dispatched this troop, retaining half in case the attack failed. The rest have fled with him, possibly to Summer.”
Briar reasoned, “If Summer was here, then he must have discovered you taking up residence in the enclave.”
I nodded. “He did.”
“But…” Her freckles shifted in deliberation. “But invading at the same moment we arrived is too much of a coincidence.”
Aspen swallowed. “It wasn’t a coincidence.”
No, it wasn’t. Yes, cornering Aspen after the explosion verified Rhys was monitoring us from then on.
So although there had been no sign of him during our follow-up quests to the camp, the king could have established an alternate outpost for himself, then seen us dispatch a messenger avian to the castle.
Thus, he would have made the vital connection, suspected Aspen’s double-agent motives, and waited for the moment to strike.
“Rhys must have stationed members of his cult to scout the forest until we appeared.” The princess’s chin crinkled. “He knew we’d come.”
“Moreover, he knew we would show up without an entourage,” Poet hissed. “But in the first place, how the fuck did he trace the clues back to this enclave? Why the devil would that pissant even think to check here? Much less dare to step past the treehouse border?”
Shrewdly put. Rhys was as superstitious as many others in The Dark Seasons. But he was also reckless when the payoff was worth the effort.
Of all people, the female to my right knew this intimately. A tremor shook Aspen’s wrist, spurring me to bind our hands firmer together.
Half of me longed to heave the woman over one shoulder and race her out of here. The other half would stand by Aspen, regardless of the consequences. Her treason had become my treason. I would never abandon her or regret my choice.
For a terrifying moment, Aspen’s head swiveled to mine. Her sad grin sundered me to pieces, breaking past the boundaries of my heart.
Our grim silence did not go unchecked. Briar’s frown deepened as she scanned Nicu’s wary features, then transferred her attention to us. Skilled in the art of deception, Poet’s dark gaze cut a perceptive line from one person to the next.
“Someone had better speak the fuck up,” he requested in a fatally calm timbre.
On instinct, I moved to block Aspen. But she sidestepped the attempt, held fast to my hand, and erected her chin like a convict on the executioner’s block.
Then she dropped the truth like a firebomb. “I’m a spy.”