I’ll talk to Rian in Duren, I tell myself. I’ll be her bodyguard. At least I can keep her safe.
When she stirs, I saunter off into the woods to take a piss so that she doesn’t realize that she slept against me. When I come back, she’s stoked the fire and already has a pot of water boiling. A clutch of wild duck eggs rests on the blanket.
“Where did you get those?” I snap.
She ignores my tone as she drops the eggs one at a time into the pot. Her chin tips toward a grove of maidenhair ferns. “There’s a nest over there. I left half of the eggs. It seemed cruel to take more than we needed.”
The more I see Sabine use her godkiss, the more I realize how valuable it is. At first, talking to mice seemed like a cute trick. But I underestimated how her power could keep her alive in the woods, help her forage for food, even break free of binds.
She’s fucking incredible.
Over the next few mornings, we fall into a routine. Sabine makes breakfast while I pack up camp. It’s no longer me providing for us while I order her to sit and stay. We’re more of a partnership now, though I don’t have any illusions that it makes us friends. After all, I destroyed her dream of escape. And she sent a fucking wildcat to kill me.
Yeah, we have a few issues.
“Here. Your shirt. It stinks, by the way.” Sabine gives me my shirt, and we continue the ride. The path passes a few gnarled apple trees that must have grown from an ancient traveler’s tossed-off apple core. Myst strains her neck but can’t reach the high fruits. I toss a rock to knock down some apples for her. As she munches them out of my palm, she doesn’t flinch at my presence like she used to.
Has this cranky mare started to trust me?
We pass only a few homesteads until midday, when we enter the village of Charmont. It’s the largest settlement within Mag Na Tir Forest, a sort of county seat. The spire of the Monastery of Immortal Meric rises like a knife blade over the rooftops. We pass washerwomen hanging clothes, children kicking a ball made of fabric scraps tied together. The children are too young to realize Sabine’s public nakedness is unusual, but the washerwomen gape. One woman catches a boy and whispers to him. He takes off down a dirt path toward the center of town.
Great. Spreading the word. Just what we fucking need.
And as soon as we reach a blacksmith’s forge, villagers are already lining up along the road. Men stare at Sabine with wolfish gazes. I bristle as protective instincts harden my muscles.
The longer this ride goes on, the more I question Rian’s motives. Was this about establishing his power not just to Sabine, but to everyone whose path we cross? If he is willing to force his own bride into such a display, people must say, imagine what he would do to enemies who crossed him. I’ve known Rian to devise some vicious spectacles, but this one simply feels cruel.
When we were boys, he wasn’t like this. I was eleven when he saw me in that fighting ring; he was thirteen. Jocki had tied a blindfold around my eyes to show off my godkiss power, and even without my vision, I’d knocked the other boy on his ass, off sound and smell alone. Halfway through the fight, I smelled aloeswood incense among the watching crowd. The only times I’d smelled it before were when the Valvere family paraded through the streets of Duren in full fae regalia as part of the Festival of Immortal Popelin.
So, I knew one of the Valveres was in the crowd, even before I won the fight and took off my blindfold. What no one anticipated was for young Rian Valvere to climb into the ring and take my fallen opponent’s place.
“Don’t go easy on me,” he commanded. “And don’t fetter yourself with the blindfold. I want to know the extent of what you can do.”
Well, fuck, I thought. This rich little lord has screwed me now. Jocki would skin my hide if I shamed a Valvere through defeat, but the boy himself was ordering me not to throw the fight. So what the fuck was I supposed to do?
I got lucky that Rian was a skilled fighter. He put up a good enough defense that no humiliation was necessary. The third time I knocked him to the ground, certain that each time he’d get up and scream for the guards to execute me, he simply stood back up with a serious set to his jaw and said, “Go again.”
Jocki’s nerves finally got the better of him, and he shut down the fight. That night, guards came to the old stables and dragged me out of the stall I shared with four other boys. I was certain this was the moment I’d be thrown in a dungeon for daring to win against the son of Duren’s high lord, but instead, the guards took me to the Valveres’ private soldier barracks. They shoved stew and bread in my hands. They gave me a cot and blanket. Clean clothes, too.
Basic necessities, and yet to me they were unthinkable luxuries.
I spent the next year with the Golden Sentinels, learning to soldier, and serving as Rian’s personal sparring partner. Day after day, fight after fight, we came to know one another like brothers. Rian introduced me to the Sin Streets that his family oversaw, ribbing me good-naturedly when I drank my first ale and lost my first hand of Basel and fucked for the first time. He taught me how to stay out of his father’s notice. Lord Berolt was—is—a devil in every sense of the word. Cruel, greedy, merciless, decadent. And eerily obsessed with godkissed. The Valvere vice houses are filled with godkissed fighters and whores. They employ godkissed servants in Sorsha Hall. Berolt likes to test them, display them, pull their strings to prove to the world that even though he isn’t godkissed, his power is greater than magic itself.
To me, Rian will always be that thirteen-year-old boy who took me under his wing, despite the fact that I belted him daily in the ring. And, yeah, it’s true that he’s changed over the years. Like a tree pruned to climb along a garden wall, there was only one path Rian would ever be allowed to grow into: A Valvere.
I’d bet my last coin that Sabine’s ride was Lord Berolt’s idea.
High atop Myst, Sabine nudges me in the shoulder with her toe. She nods toward a gaggle of market women lining the road. Their eyes fix more on me than on Sabine as they giggle to one another.
“You’re getting your fair share of attention,” Sabine points out wryly.
I could care less if some village women like the way I look. I know the effect I have on women. What interests me more is the little pinch of jealousy that puckers Sabine’s lips.
Despite my better judgment, I grin. It feels fucking incredible to see Sabine Darrow jealous.
“Imagine how they’d drool if I was naked,” I say, needling her further. “Maybe we should take a break in this town. I’ll disappear behind a shed with one or two of those girls for an hour.”
She lets out a huff and rolls her eyes. “By the Immortals, the end of this ride can’t come fast enough.”
I’m still smirking when a small group of red-robed men steps into the street, blocking our path.
The smile melts off my face.