Chapter 20 #2
He gave me a flat stare, unimpressed by my vagueness. “And what are conditions likely to be?”
I looked at the sky. Flat gray, no movement, the kind of stillness that in Crystallese meant one of two things: clear weather holding or something building that hadn't committed to itself yet. “Unclear,” I said honestly.
He made a sound that wasn't quite an acknowledgment or a dismissal. It was somewhere between the two. I think I was frustrating him.
Oh no.
We stood in silence for a moment. It had a different quality to most of our silences — less loaded and less like two people calculating who’d draw first. This was more like two people standing in the same cold, looking at the same horizon.
“So the soldiers are warming to you,” he said.
“Apparently.”
“They think you handled the situation with Vorn and his men well.”
“Did they,” I murmured, refusing to fight with him. Again.
I turned to look at him. He was still watching the north, his face in profile, expression giving nothing. “And what do you think?” I asked him. “Without the slurs against my virtue.”
“Your virtue?” He sounded amused. He turned just slightly, enough to study me sideways. “I’d say you're more versatile than I initially assessed.”
I held his gaze for a moment, those eyes holding so many secrets. I thought about the conversation I wasn't supposed to hear — I won't lose the best trailfinder in Crystallese — and about the word “assessed.” I wasn’t sure they complemented each other, but it was clear they held some value.
“How reassuring,” I murmured. “My sleep will be undisturbed tonight.”
The corner of his mouth moved upward. “I thought you’d appreciate it.”
He walked away, back toward the front of the group, back to his position at the head of things that he'd never officially been given and never seemed to need permission for.
I watched him go.
Baxley came and stood beside me with the quiet efficiency of a very large man who had learned to move without announcing himself. “You were awake,” he said. It wasn't a question.
I looked at him. “I slept for a while.”
“You were awake,” he said again, pleasantly, with a tone that said he wasn't going to argue about it and didn't need to. He looked toward Nicco's retreating back. “He's not wrong, you know. What he said.”
I said nothing.
“About you being the best.” He glanced at me sideways. “He's also not telling you everything.”
“Is anyone ever telling someone everything?” I asked.
Baxley smiled that small, genuine smile that changed his face briefly into something warmer. “No,” he said. “But with him, the gap between what he says and what he means can be more interesting than most.”
I turned to look at him, my eyebrow raised. “So you tell me what Nicco won’t.”
Baxley laughed. “You may be pretty, Amarya, but I’m not falling for that trick.”
He thought I was pretty?
He walked away before I could answer.
I stood alone in the middle of the camp, surrounded by soldiers who were beginning to trust me, mercenaries who puzzled me, and a horizon that promised nothing except more cold and more north.
I stood where he'd left me for longer than was dignified.
The gap between what he says and what he means is more interesting than most.
I turned that over. Baxley said things plainly. I'd noticed that from the first morning. He didn't embellish, didn't deflect, didn't waste words on politeness when directness was available. So when he chose to be oblique, it was deliberate.
Which meant he wanted me to think about it.
Which meant I was already doing exactly what he'd intended.
I was beginning to find Baxley almost as irritating as Nicco.
I moved back to where I'd left my pack and crouched beside it, occupying my hands with checking the straps and buckles I'd already checked twice.
I stood and shouldered my pack.
Across the area, Nicco was speaking quietly to Captain Marson, his hands moving in brief, economical gestures that indicated direction rather than emphasis. Marson was listening with the full attention of a man who had quietly transferred his operational trust with no resistance.
Two weeks ago, I'd have found that amusing. The captain deferring to a mercenary, and the mercenary assuming authority he hadn't been granted.
Now I watched it and felt something closer to pragmatic relief.
Nicco looked up and caught me watching. He said nothing, just held eye contact for a moment with that unreadable steadiness before turning back to the captain.
I pulled my hood up.
The gap between what he says and what he means.
I knew what he'd said. Useful. The best trailfinder in Crystallese. A resource he didn't want to lose.
What he meant was something Baxley had left deliberately unfinished, probably just to piss me off.
I was not going to think about it.
I was absolutely not going to think about it.
“Trailfinder.” Nicco's voice wasn’t loud or close. It just carried exactly as far as it needed to and no further. “When you're ready.”
I looked at him, ready to snap at him, but he was already facing north, pack on, waiting with the patience of a man who already knew that the time he spent waiting would cost him less than the argument would.
I hated that he was right about that too.
“I'm ready,” I called out, pretending to sound bored with all his dickish ways. I was bored with his dickish ways.
I focused on the trail.
North. To the unknown.
I pulled my cloak tighter, looking forward to the normal solitude of the trail because overall? This was a very strange day.
It was time to walk.