Chapter 6 #2
“Isn’t it? Mother was kidnapped once, and my father and his bloodwitch tracked her with golems made of her own blood and had to spit all over a peace treaty and slay an army of wargs and their mad leader to breach the tower she was kept in.
It was all very dramatic. So now I carry a bit of them everywhere just in case…
see, this one is my mother, this one is Father, here’s my brothers, Tiarnan and Lorcan—they’re twins, though they look nothing alike, hardly anyone believes it—and both my aunts, and all my uncles, and now you, of course. ”
Fel Arron smiled at Marrion, and right on cue, she stabbed me in the back. “Lord Wroth, it really couldn’t hurt to have another bloodwitch with us.”
“There will only be one,” I rumbled, disgruntled at how quickly Marrion had charmed her. “The fewer people, the better. And I will not leave my home undefended. You can have your sabbatical in my throne room, if you must.”
“So…Bram will defend it?” Marrion flicked through her glass charms. “You’d be doing me a favor too, Uncle.
I also left home for some time to think and gain perspective.
There have been talks with Crown Prince Demyan.
I’m of age to marry, and although I rather like the idea of being the tie that cements our alliance with Foria…
marriage is nothing to rush into, as you know. ”
Fel Arron’s smile had grown somewhat fixed. She toyed with a turnscrew on the table, back stiff as though she were debating backing away.
I wondered why. She was half Forian herself…perhaps she had national pride in Prince Demyan?
Or perhaps she had aspired to marry him herself. Never let it be said a woman wouldn’t claw for the most she could get.
The Artificer excused herself quietly, tucking tools into a roll and tying them in tight bundles.
Why did I have to keep pulling my gaze from her back? It was like she was a lodestone, and my eyes were iron filings.
I exhaled a deep sigh. Marrion solved a problem for me.
Bane wouldn’t be happy I’d cavalierly led his youngest child Below, and there was a good possibility Cirri would stab me in the eye with a pen, but Marrion was of age, and I knew without Wyn’s input that she was well beyond competent.
Wyn herself had specialized in using Fae leftovers and relics, turning them to her own purposes, the knowledge of which she had passed on to her apprentice.
That training could only be a boon in the depths.
And Bram, who was better with defensive sanguimancy than offensive, could keep my throne warm and the lais out of my coffers, without needing to lay eyes on his children's graves.
Besides…everyone needed to be tested with fire before they knew what they were truly capable of.
“Bram.”
My sanguimancer, leaning on a table with his arms crossed, had a studiedly neutral expression as he nodded.
“You will remain here. Paint the protective sigils on the mules and knights, remove lai Auvray from the premises, and allow no humans in or out during my absence.”
He didn’t heave a sigh of relief. His expression didn’t budge an inch. But not even he could hide the loosening of his shoulders, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes smoothing out. “At once, my lord.”
Marrion smiled like a cat who’d been in the cream, clapping her hands once with satisfaction.
“We leave at dawn.” A knight accounting for provisions looked up, and immediately began ordering the men out, each loaded with a crate or heavy sack.
“Marrion, go to the quartermaster and collect blood from everyone on the expedition. I want multiple defensive and offensive sigils ready for activation at a second’s notice, and for the love of the gods, send a letter to your parents tonight. ”
“As you wish, Uncle.” She grinned and strolled out, leaving me alone with fel Arron.
“Fel Arron. Do you have all you require?”
She looked up from the bundled rolls stacked neatly within oilcloth travel bags, her gaze roaming over the golem, and finally it came to rest on me, her magnified eyes blinking once.
“Will we have oil lamps?”
“Ah…” I thought of Silvain and his list, and the fact that I had likely been staring at fel Arron’s ass in those snug breeches while he went over the camp provisions. “I’m sure we will.”
She tapped the table with her short nails, frowning as she thought. “I need oilcloth to keep my shot and powder dry. And if you would be so kind as to provide the black powder, I’ll load the cartridges tonight.”
“Black powder, of course,” I muttered. Was black powder on the list?
“And I do hope you accounted for your own…needs.”
“My needs?” I stared into her eyes. I almost wished she’d take off those spectacles so I wasn’t constantly lost in a haze of gold flecks.
I had needs, certainly, needs that hadn’t been met in what felt like a thousand years, but this woman, this recklessly brave little human who had no qualms about demanding things right to my face, seemed like the kind of person who could handle—
“Your thirst,” she said bluntly. “Unless you were planning to suck us all dry?”
I ruthlessly crushed the first thought that sprang to mind, but there was no crushing the surge of chagrin.
“There are provisions made for my kind,” I said, my voice rough. “I wouldn’t touch a drop of your blood.”
Fel Arron raised her eyebrows, granted my wish and took off her spectacles, and began to polish them in a way that suggested she was straining to hold onto her temper.
The lack of magnification didn’t help much at all. She still had big doe eyes fringed with black, and the brown of her irises was as deep and smooth as velvet.
“Is that a crack about my mother?” she asked, and her tone was suddenly cool and distant. “I thought you’d be above thinking someone a filthy half-breed, Lord Wroth, but I’ve been wrong before.”
“I—no. I’ve got preserved blood in the provisions. Bloodpowder tea.” I was stumbling. I, Lord Wroth, Soulbreaker, Eater of Bones, was stumbling over my own tongue. “Who…?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She shrugged stiffly, but at least the coolness had faded from her voice.
“Everyone. Surely you’ve noticed the nobility of the Rivers are a little particular about their bloodlines?
Anyway, my apologies, I won’t mention it again.
I just wanted to be prepared if we were expected to donate to the cause. ”
She smelled so delicious, any donation to the cause was appreciated from the bottom of my heart, but…
A knight strode into the kitchen. I pointed at him, snapping my fingers. “You. Black powder. Now.”
When I looked back at her, Fel Arron’s spectacles were perched on her nose once more, and she was examining me with an inscrutable expression. Without another word, she turned back to her packing, wrapping a strange little device in heavy padding.
It was circular, like an overlarge pocket watch, but there was no face on it to tell time. Gold and platinum wove an intricate border around its interior, where a multitude of tiny gears spun and whirred with balletic precision. Bits of crystal winked like stars.
“What is it?”
Fel Arron’s hands paused in the midst of wrapping, and she mumbled, “It’s a thing.”
“A thing for…what? What does it do?”
She wrapped it securely, and tucked it inside her waistcoat. “I don’t know yet.”
“So why build it?”
Fel Arron glared at me, red spots burning on her cheekbones. Her heartbeat, usually a steady beat in the background of my hearing, was picking up speed. “Because I could.”
Oh, I wanted to prod this sore spot. To poke it with a claw, in fact, maybe dig in under the skin a little.
But she had tucked the thing away and yanked a box towards herself, spilling empty paper cartridges for her black powder across the table. Her lush lips were pressed into a flat line.
I changed the subject, unwilling to examine why I couldn’t bring myself to tear that mind of hers wide open.
“This will be a small crew. The more people we bring, the more we risk calling what lives Below to us, and to find this man we will need a certain level of stealth. I’ll be the first to admit there’s not much stealth about fifteen clanking knights and a herd of braying mules, but we’ll be operating independently, the three of us—you, me, and Marrion.
The knights and porters will hold and defend our camps while we move on ahead. Have you any tracking ability?”
Fel Arron might’ve been quick to anger, but to her credit, she let it go just as easily. The red was already fading from her sun-kissed cheekbones.
But at least she didn’t notice my flimsy ploy at changing the subject, or my clumsy question, and if she did she was too polite to comment on it.
“I could track in a forest if hard-pressed, but beyond that…no,” she admitted. “If you want a device to find a path, or black powder mines, I’m your woman, but I have no great hunting or tracking skills myself.”
Humility in a noblewoman. How refreshing.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, already planning to drag an extra ration of black powder to the wagons tonight. Explosives might be useful. “My nose will be almost all we need. Is there any way to store the explosives ahead of time?”
Fel Arron finally looked at me again, her eyes bright. “Will it be damp? I assume since we are traveling under the Rivers…”
“You assume rightly.” And thank the gods for that, because any further sumac powder traps would be ruined by the moisture. I was in no hurry to experience the flaying of my sinuses again.
“Then no. All we can do is keep the powder as dry as possible. I’ll make them as needed.”
“Clockwork and explosives.” I chuckled. “What else did those old men teach you?”
Fel Arron’s faint smile faded, and she prodded the black lungs of chthonium, lobes unfurled, that lay before her. “The better question is, who the hell taught Alvar lai Orros?”