“I wronged you,” Hyacinthe says. Oak shifts on the stairs so he can see just a bit of him—his shoulders are slumped. “You have put aside your duty more than I have put aside my anger. But I—”
“You will never be satisfied,” Tiernan snaps. “Joining Madoc’s falcons and turning on Elfhame, spitting on mercy, blaming Cardan and Oak and Oak’s dead mother and everyone except your father.
“No vengeance will ever be enough, because you want to punish his murderer, but he died by his own hand. You refuse to hate him, so you hate everyone else, including yourself.”
Tiernan didn’t raise his voice, but Hyacinthe makes a sound as though struck.
“Including me,” says Tiernan.
“Not you,” Hyacinthe says.
“You didn’t punish me for being like him, for guarding her son? You didn’t hate me for that?”
“I believed I was doomed to lose you,” Hyacinthe says, voice so soft that Oak can barely hear it.
For a long moment, they are quiet.
It seems unlikely they are going to break into violence. Oak should go up the rest of the stairs. He doesn’t want to invade their privacy more than he already has. He needs to go slowly, though, so they don’t hear his hooves.
“Joy is never guaranteed,” Tiernan says, his voice gentle. “But you can wed yourself to pain. I suppose, at least in that, there is no chance of surprise.”
Oak winces at those words. Wed yourself to pain.
“Why would you want me after all I have done?” Hyacinthe asks, anguished.
“Why does anyone want anyone else?” Tiernan answers. “We do not love because people deserve it—nor would I want to be loved because I was the most deserving of some list of candidates. I want to be loved for my worst self as well as my best. I want to be forgiven my flaws.”
“I find it harder to forgive your virtues,” Hyacinthe tells him, a smile in his voice.
And then Oak is up the stairs far enough to be unable to hear the rest. Which is good, because he hopes it involves a lot of kissing.
CHAPTER
11
W
hen Oak was a child, he came down with fevers that laid him up for weeks. He would thrash in bed, sweating or shivering. Servants would come and press cold cloths to his brow or put him in baths stinking with herbs. Sometimes Oriana would sit with him, or one of his sisters would come and read.
Once, when he was five, he opened his eyes to see Madoc in the doorway, regarding him with an odd, evaluating expression on his face.
Am I going to die? he asked.
Madoc was startled out of whatever he was thinking, but there was still something grim in the set of his mouth. He walked to the bed and placed his large hand on Oak’s brow, ignoring his small horns. No, my boy, he said seriously. Your fate is to cheat death like the little scamp you are.
And because Madoc could not lie, Oak was comforted and fell back to sleep. The fever must have broken that night, because when he woke, he was well again and ready for mischief.
This morning, Oak feels like a scamp who’s cheated death again.
Waking to warmth and softness is such a delicious luxury that Oak’s burns and bruises cannot dent the pleasure of it. There is a taste on his tongue that is somehow the flavor of sleep itself, as though he went so deep into the land of dreams that he brought some of it back with him.
He looks at his little finger, bare now, and smiles up at the ice ceiling.
There is a knock on the door, shaking him out of his thoughts. Before he realizes he’s not wearing much in the way of clothes, Fernwaif bustles in with a tray and a pitcher. She’s got on a brown homespun dress and an apron, her hair pulled back in a kerchief.
“Still abed?” she asks, plopping down the tray on his coverlets. It contains a teapot and cup, along with a plate of black bread, butter, and jam. “You’re leaving with the tide.”
The prince feels oddly self-conscious at sleeping late, although lounging around at all hours is part of the self-indulgent persona he’s played for years. He’s not sure why that role feels so suffocating this morning, but it does.
“We’re leaving today?” He pushes his back against the headboard so he can sit upright.
Fernwaif gives a little laugh as she pours water into a bowl on a washing stand. “Will you miss us when you’re in the High Court?”
Oak will not miss the endless boredom and despair of his prison cell, or the sound of cold wind howling through trees, but it occurs to him that while he’s glad to be headed home, being with Wren there will be complicated in new ways. The High Court is a place full of intrigues and ambition. Once Oak returns, he will be at the swirling center of at least one conspiracy. He has no idea if it will even be possible to play the feckless, merry courtier while winning Wren’s goodwill.
And he is even less sure that’s who he wants to be.
“Fate may bring me again to these shores,” Oak says.
“My sister and I will look forward to tales of the great feasts and dances,” Fernwaif says, looking wistful. “And how you honored our lady.”
Oak can only imagine what Wren might say if somehow she found herself having to actually exchange vows with him. I pledge my troth to thee and promise to turn thy guts inside out if you deceive. Oh yes, this is going well.
What was it that Hyacinthe said? You deceive as easily as you breathe and with as little thought. Oak very much hopes that’s not true.
He doesn’t hear the turn of the lock as Fernwaif leaves. He supposes there’s no point in restricting his movements now, when they’re planning on his leaving.
Rising, Oak splashes his face with the water from the washing stand, slicking back his hair. He manages to pull on Lord Jarel’s pants before heavy footsteps on the stairs herald the appearance of five knights. To his surprise, they wear the livery of Elfhame—the crest of the Greenbriar line imprinted on their armor with its crown, tree, and grasping roots.
“Your Highness,” one says, and Oak feels disoriented at the sound of his title, spoken without hostility. “Grima Mog sent us. Our commander wishes you to know that the boat awaits you and that we will accompany you on your return to the isles.”
They have more appropriate garments for him, too—a green cloak embroidered in gold, heavy gloves, and a woolen tunic and trousers.
“Do you have anything here you wish us to pack?” one of the knights asks. She has eyes like those of a frog, gold-flecked and wide.
“I seem to have . . . misplaced my armor and my sword,” Oak admits.
No one questions the strangeness of that. No one questions him at all. A knight with sharply pointed ears and moonlight-colored hair passes over his own curved blade—a cutlass—along with its sheath.
“We can find some armor for you among our company,” the knight says.
“That’s not necessary,” Oak says, feeling very self-conscious. They are looking at him as though he has endured a terrible trial, even though they must know he’s betrothed. “You really ought to keep your sword.”
“Return it to me once you’ve found one better,” says the knight, crossing to the door. “We will await you in the hall.”
Quickly, the prince changes clothes. The fabric carries the scent of the air that blew across the line where it was hung to dry—sweetgrass and the salty tang of the ocean. Breathing it in fills him with homesickness.
Outside the Citadel, more soldiers of Elfhame wait, bundled up in heavily padded and fur-trimmed armor, their cloaks whipping behind them. They glare across the snow at the former falcons.
One of them holds Damsel Fly’s reins. His horse’s legs are wrapped against the snow, and a blanket hangs over her back. When the prince draws close, she frisks up to him, butting her head against his shoulder.
“Damsel!” Oak exclaims, stroking his hand over his horse’s neck. “Was there a messenger from the Citadel with her?”