Chapter 51
Chapter Fifty-One
Stellen
The buzz of sound within the city was already dizzying from behind the second wall.
Now, it’s overpowering.
My ears are assaulted by chatter, footfalls, swishing material, objects thumping surfaces, metal clanking, doors opening and closing, distant arguments, nearby conversations…all of it a churning mess of sound.
Thyra’s hand finds mine.
She draws my right arm around her waist and leaves her arm wrapped across the back of mine.
I brace for a reaction from the fae busily working and traveling alongside this main path while Nara moves cautiously forward, her head raised.
I remind myself that soldiers come and go from the second circle all the time, so the mere opening of the portcullis hasn’t alarmed anyone.
What’s more, they know to stay off the main path, which stretches straight ahead, in case soldiers leave in a hurry, so it’s not as though we have to actively clear the path.
As Thyra said, I’ve trained my people to watch for my signal. Without it, astonishingly…
They’ve barely looked up, let alone registered that Nara isn’t just another white wolf passing by.
Nara picks up speed, taking us past a blacksmith, an apothecary, and a seamstress who specializes in mending. All trades the soldiers patronize. A tavern next, then a bakery.
Separate walkways run parallel to both sides of the main path, and both are busy with fae hurrying about their errands.
We make it an astonishing fifty paces before anyone notices us.
A little lowborn boy freezes on a spot on the walkway to our right, his pale-blue eyes widening.
I isolate his whisper from the noise around us.
“Mama, look.”
Without taking his eyes off us, he reaches for the hand of a woman standing at the bakery’s shop window.
She tugs him to her side without looking up. “Come away from the path. Stay clear of the soldiers.”
Nara glides on by.
Thyra’s head turns, her focus on the boy.
She gives him a smile, as if he were in on some secret with us.
His jaw drops as he watches us go, glances up at his mother, and then gives me a gap-toothed grin.
A surprising moment of peace.
My tension only rises.
As Nara proceeds farther along the path, I count her paces, focusing on every step she takes, narrowing the breadth of what I can overhear to what’s happening in the nearest buildings, where any threat is most likely to originate.
With every passing second, I expect the worst.
Up ahead, again on the walkway to our right, a young woman plods in our direction carrying a heavy-looking basket covered in a cloth. She’s wearing a fur coat, but it’s threadbare and she doesn’t have mittens.
She glances up. Puffs. Keeps going. Takes a second glance.
Her pale-blue eyes are suddenly pinned on me.
The basket drops from her fingers. I expect her to scream, but her throat has visibly closed up.
The basket hits the ground, the cloth falls to the side, and five precious plums bounce out from it.
Thump, thump, thump…
One splats directly in Nara’s path, causing her to stop.
Thyra’s hand twitches on mine and my mind whirls with every possible action she and I might take, along with all the potential consequences. None good.
Thyra’s instinct will be to help pick up the fruit, but she shouldn’t. The young woman will have to refuse the return of the food since she caused me an inconvenience, but if she refuses, she’ll insult Thyra, and if she insults Thyra, then I’ll have to punish her.
My arms tighten around Thyra’s waist as that heartbeat of calamity passes through my mind and we come to a standstill.
Thyra’s head turns slightly and then seems to lock in position.
She speaks barely above the volume of an exhalation, and the sudden, immense power in her voice is as clear to me as a chiming bell.
“Whispers weaving… Listen. Listen…”
It’s the first Oracle vision she’s had in a week and now it’s happening at a moment so fraught that every other fae on the street has stopped to look at us and has fallen into a tense silence.
“Careful axe cleaving. Whispers weaving,” Thyra whispers, her hand again twitching on my arm. “Listen. Listen…”
I calm my thoughts, keep my focus on the frightened young woman trembling on the path only five paces away, remaining aware of any sudden moves from any fae around us while I extend my hearing past the immediate hush and beyond…
Through the buildings one street over.
To the buildings three streets over…
Where fae have continued about their business, completely unaware of my nearby presence.
I seek the sounds Thyra described: the thud of an axe against wood and a whispered conversation.
I stiffen to hear Lilis’s voice, not away in the north as she said she would be. I picture her standing, tense and ready to strike, beneath the shadowed eaves of what must be a carpentry.
“What do you want with me?” she asks.
In response to her question, a responding voice sounds, a male voice whispering close to her. “I’m here to warn you.”
I recognize this voice, although I heard it for the first time only days ago. It’s Iker’s illegitimate son, whose name is unknown to me.
“Why?” Lilis snaps. “We were never friends.”
“We weren’t allowed to be friends,” he says. “Lilis—”
Her sharp inhale tells me he might have tried to touch her, confirmed when she hisses, “Move an inch closer and I’ll strike you down.”
His voice hardens. “Iker has decided how his heir will be chosen.”
Lilis is less snappish this time. “How?”
“Whichever child brings him the Oracle—alive—will live to reign.”
She huffs. “Of course he wants the Oracle.”
“The challenge is far more complicated than it seems,” the nameless man continues. “Your king has challenged Iker to come for the Oracle himself. For every assassin Iker sends in his place, your king will kill one of Iker’s heirs.”
“So…for every heir who fails to secure the Oracle, another heir will die?” Lilis gives a laugh of pure, icy joy. “Iker will quickly lose all his successors this way.”
“He doesn’t care.”
Lilis’s laughter dies. “Of course he cares. His lineage means everything to him. You know this well.”
I imagine the nameless man shaking his head. “He’ll give up anything to speak with the Oracle. He needs her. Desperately.”
“But…why?”
I’m near frozen where I sit, taking in every whispered word between Lilis and the nameless man in the distance.
At the same time, I’m aware of the scene playing out in front of me.
For extended moments, the young woman has taken glances at us. The longer we remain stationary, the more anxiously she glances around, and the more dismayed she appears about the pieces of fruit that rolled across our path.
Precious food.
Indeed, others are now eyeing the plums, too.
She had her basket covered for good reason.
On the other side of the street, a young man has paused at the edge of the walkway, his focus darting from the fruit to the young woman.
It seems he’s more daring than anyone else.
Keeping his eyes on us, he dashes onto the main path.
Within seconds, he’s scooped up the fallen plums, but instead of running away with them, he sprints to the young woman’s side.
Offering her the fruit, he speaks barely above a whisper. “These are yours, Mariann.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “Yes, they are.”
She sweeps them out of his arms and back into the basket, quickly covering it again.
Her focus drops to the final piece of fruit, half-squashed, resting on his open palm.
“I’ve seen you salvage worse,” he whispers, keeping his eyes on us.
She tips up her chin as she accepts the mangled piece and places it carefully on top of the others. “I’ll use it for jam.”
At that moment, a broad-shouldered man appears in the doorway behind her. “Mariann, what’s keeping—” His focus lands on me and his speech strangles. “Fuck.”
Meanwhile, the whispered conversation between Lilis and the nameless man has continued with the nameless man delivering a warning.
“Iker’s dying.”
Lilis’s whisper carries disbelief. “What?”
“The healer called it carcinos and said the sickness is in his blood. Nothing has helped. Iker believes the Oracle can foresee a cure. He’ll do anything to get a hold of her.”
Lilis gives a heavy sigh. “Even sacrifice his heirs.”
It doesn’t surprise me to hear this. If it’s true that he’s dying—and I can’t take that information at face value—Iker will kick and claw against his doom, no matter how much blood is shed.
“Iker will use every lever at his disposal, Lilis,” the nameless man continues. “Including coming after you so he can force your king’s hand.”
While I listen to that conversation, back here on the street, fae are starting to shuffle where they stand.
Thyra and I have remained unmoving. We haven’t threatened anyone. Haven’t said anything or made any startling moves. The opposite, in fact.
A perplexed crease has appeared between the broad-shouldered man’s eyebrows.
More bravely than I would have anticipated, he raises his voice to the fae along the street. “Back to work, the lot of you! Leave the king be.”
At his shout, motion resumes around us, although conversation remains hushed.
The young man gives the broad-shouldered man a quick nod and then hurries to the other side of the street.
Thyra has remained tense in my arms.
While her Oracle vision seems to continue, my focus shifts to Mariann as she follows the older man inside the building.
“Father—” she begins.
“Yes, yes.” The man huffs from within the front room. “If that boy can keep his cool in front of the king, then he might be worthy of you. I’ll give him permission to court you—oomph! Okay… No time for hugs. Get back to work.”
I picture Mariann squeezing her father for another second before her footfalls skip toward the rear of the building. Then back again, because she clearly forgot the basket she’d put down when she hugged her father.
“Back to work,” she sings, her voice fading again.
In the distance, the whispered conversation comes to an end.
Lilis snarls at the nameless man, “I don’t need your protection. Don’t come near me again.”
Her footfalls pound away from him and the subsequent sounds indicate she’s alighting onto her wolf. Despite the nameless man’s warnings, she heads in the direction of the city gate.
Thyra’s shoulders slump, but her question is urgent. “Did you hear it?”
I press my lips to her ear. “Not here.”
She nudges her cheek to mine, then focuses on Nara. “Nara, take us forward. Slowly, please.”
My wolf resumes her casual pace, but it seems word of my presence spreads quickly because the path ahead of us clears completely, every fae suddenly disappearing into nearby buildings or darting down alleyways.
Soon enough, word will reach Lilis that I traveled through the city, and she’ll know that I overheard her conversation with the nameless man, but it won’t matter. She would have reported the news to me, anyway.
The question is how quickly she’ll inform me.
We reach the outer gate without incident. The guards bow and the portcullis rises.
Moments later, we leave the city and head out into snow-filled fields. In the far distance, I make out Lilis’s wolf heading north as she said she would.
As we ascend the first slope that will take us east in the direction of the Sacred Stone Temple, my ears finally clear of all chaotic sounds.
Thyra’s question breaks through my whirling thoughts. “Stellen?”
I’m slow to respond, listening now to the increasingly heavy beat of her heart.
A war between strategy and need rages in my mind.
She interprets my silence in the worst possible way.
“You’ll give Iker what he wants,” she says, as if it were a foregone conclusion. “You’ll take me to him.”
My throat tightens. “Why do you believe that?”
“Because if you want him dead, it’s the best strategy.”
She’s right. Iker is finally vulnerable.
I have what he wants, and with a few clever moves, I could annihilate him and his entire family.
But only if I’m willing to risk Thyra’s life.