Chapter 14
Elegy doesn’t sleep.
Outside these walls, Rava’s soldiers are searching the streets of Valla for her imaginary coconspirators, and the idea of them on an impossible errand would amuse her, if she wasn’t in so much pain. Her shoulder. Her jaw. Her entire body, really.
She doesn’t understand how she did it. How she fooled him, this man that no one surprises, according to Rava. Theren Forint, who apparently reads hearts, didn’t recognize her, and didn’t even come close to the truth about her. It seems impossible.
She listens to the footsteps in the hallway.
The changing of the guard comes at regular intervals.
In between, there are quick, purposeful feet—-servants working into the night, if it’s even night at all.
She tips her head back to look at the chandelier.
A few of the lantern wicks have run out of fuel now, and the flames are sputtering out one by one.
She counts the disappearing ones like shooting stars.
Four, then seven, then nine. Soon she’ll be in total darkness.
She waits for the next changing of the guard, and it doesn’t come.
Instead, there’s a long silence and then running footsteps. Another flame flickers out above her as the lock to the interrogation chamber shifts. The door opens, and Theren Forint lopes in.
At first, all she sees is red. Red, wet palms. Red streaks on his arms. Red dots on his face. A knife dripping red on the floor.
He’s covered in blood.
“Your Grace,” he says. He drops a bag at her feet.
She stares up at him, her mind blank. She tries to remember if she saw any hint of recognition, any suggestion of her true identity during that interrogation. But there was no sign.
Whatever else he’s become, Theren Forint is now an excellent liar.
“You know who I am?” she demands.
He nods, and limps around her. She hears him fall to his knees, and he heaves a breath against her back as he eases the wet blade under the ropes that bind her to the chair. He saws at them until they break, and then moves on to the ones across her chest.
“My shoulder is dislocated,” she says.
“Okay. Stay there.”
He moves around the chair so he’s crouched in front of her.
His eyes are full of tears, but he doesn’t seem to be aware of it.
He takes her wrist in hand, and carefully brings her arm in front of her, then rotates it so her elbow is out.
His other hand falls heavily on her shoulder.
Their eyes meet. He breathes in, and so does she.
As she exhales, he presses so hard it makes her scream. She feels her shoulder shift back into its socket. The relief is instant, the feeling of wrongness resolved.
“Better?” he asks.
“Yes.”
He opens the bag he dropped earlier and takes out a pair of boots with socks stuffed inside them. She stalls his hands as he starts to unroll the socks. He’s shaking.
“I’ve got it,” she says. “Gather yourself.”
He sets the boots down, but stays crouched there as she puts the socks on, and then picks up the left boot.
There’s something etched into the leather—-a design.
It’s a circle of vines, continuous, like an ouroboros.
The same vine is tattooed between his thumb and forefinger, not circular but following the curve of his hand.
His eyes are closed, his head bowed.
There’s no time to wonder. She shoves her feet into the boots and pulls the laces tight. They’re big for her, but the socks are thick. She stands, and so does he.
“Let’s go,” he says. He seems steadier now.
He leads the way out of the interrogation room, knife in hand. As she passes the open door, she looks back to see the key in the lock, metal, the size of her fist. She wonders how he got his hands on it.
She trips after him, shocked by how painful it is to walk. At the end of the corridor is the body of a guard, his arms sprawled out in front of him, his legs tangled. He must have been mostly dead before he hit the ground. The floor is wet with his blood.
Theren moves on quiet feet up the stairs, sidestepping the guard’s lax fingers. He’s more graceful than he has any right to be, at his size. She moves in his wake, holding her ribs with one hand to steady them as she breathes, and skimming the wall with the other, to keep her balance.
Theren moves faster than she can, so she trails behind him. Sometimes darkness swallows him, and sometimes moonlight stretches through the tall, narrow windows on the other side of the hallway, and lights up the bloodstains on his arms.
They pass another body, this one leaning against the wall, like the guard was only sleeping on the job. She looks away from it as they pass.
This is why they haven’t run into anyone yet: Theren cleared a path for them in blood.
She thinks of the man—-boy, really—-that stared up at her during the Knight ceremony, pale with fear.
They pass half a dozen rooms, built with wide windows that show the mountains and the city of Valla below.
Then, without warning, Theren doubles back and pushes her into an alcove she didn’t even see.
He stands so close to her she can feel heat coming from his skin, but he doesn’t touch her. He puts a finger against his lips.
Then she hears them. Footsteps, coming their way. She clenches her jaw. Theren steps out of the alcove.
She sees only impressions of what he does then. His tall, rangy body grappling with another. Grunts and moans. Theren turns, fast, throwing his opponent against the stone and then—-a sickening gurgle as the knife goes in.
Theren steps back into the alcove and flicks his fingers. Come.
She stumbles after him, stepping over the body—-no, not a body yet. The man is still alive, dark blood spilling from a tear in his throat.
She keeps moving. Up, past three more rooms before Theren takes a sharp left. He shoves his way through a door, and cool air washes over her, smelling of cedar. They’re outside. The moon shines above them—-a half--moon—-crowding out the light of the stars.
Rava’s house follows the ridge of a mountain, and built into the small valley behind it is a long, low building. She knows by the smell that it’s a stable.
And in front of that stable is the man with the C-shaped scar on his cheek. Ranos.
Ranos tosses a knife from his left hand to his right. Despite this showy display, he looks troubled, his mouth pinched.
“She thought you would go down, to the road,” Ranos says. “You kept everyone busy searching the city.”
“I’d rather not kill you, Ranos.”
Ranos snorts. He tosses his knife again, so it’s in his left hand instead of his right. Theren’s knife is in his left hand, too.
“You know I can’t let you leave.” Ranos’s voice echoes. Everything else is silent, even the wind. “Not with everything you know.”
“You can. You just don’t want to.”
Ranos shrugs. “Whoever that is . . .” He points at Elegy with his knife. “. . . I hope she’s worth it.”
Theren laughs, a little hysterical, and then lunges.
It’s a quick, artful move, but a half--hearted one—-no sooner does he move toward Ranos than he’s moving away, light on his feet.
Ranos thrusts anyway with his knife; Theren dodges, and they face each other, weapons held ready.
For a moment they’re at a standstill, shifting forward and back by inches, each movement aborted before it can take shape.
“You think I don’t know your tricks?” Ranos says.
“I know you know them. But that doesn’t mean they won’t work.”
Ranos grits his teeth and pounces, slicing down.
Theren is already moving, somehow; he holds up his forearm, and the blade cuts through his shirt, carving a red line on his skin.
Ranos strikes again, and Theren’s other arm goes up, this time closer, to block Ranos at the wrist. Ranos strikes again, and is blocked again.
Elegy doesn’t know how Theren is doing it, how he isn’t so much reacting to Ranos’s movement as moving with him, like the choreography was long set and he already knows the steps.
Ranos screams into his teeth, frustrated; he takes a swipe at Theren, and the other man lurches away from the knife, his back arched. But he isn’t fast enough this time—-the knife plunges into his side.
Ranos grins with brutal pleasure, and Theren dances back, hunched but undeterred.
Elegy watches as his eyes sharpen and he stumbles around Ranos, turning his opponent in an uneven circle.
He reminds her of a mountain lion—-patient, muscles bunching in anticipation of movement, and then—-uncoiling, sudden.
Ranos stabs again, and this time, Theren catches him by the arm.
With his other hand, he stabs toward Ranos’s neck.
Ranos pins Theren’s wrist against his shoulder, the blade inches from his throat, and they struggle against each other.
Theren is taller, but Ranos is thicker, stronger. Sweat shines on his forehead.
Then Theren drops the knife that’s in his left hand, and catches it with his right, waiting below. He stabs Ranos in the gut.
Ranos screams as Theren yanks the blade out, and he crumples, coughing blood on the ground. Theren drops to his knees, clutching his own side, where blood is already soaking the top of his pants.
The two men look at each other.
“You know what she’ll do to me,” Ranos says. “It would be more merciful to kill me.”
Theren lifts the knife between them, and holds it over Ranos’s throat. His body shudders. Heaves.
The knife clatters to the ground.
“I’m sorry,” Theren says. “I can’t.”
They have to move. Elegy limps toward him, and touches his shoulder, making him flinch.
“Let’s go,” she says. “Now.”
Theren presses a hand to his wounded side and staggers toward the stable.