“I know you prize it, but there’s no other way.”
He doesn’t understand. I don’t prize my hair, not in the slightest. In fact, my hair is the symbol of the binds that kept me imprisoned in the convent and my father’s house. I was forced to grow it out as long as possible to make me more appealing to a suitor.
Just one more way Adan is a stranger, and I am to him.
“Do it,” I say, tilting my head to give him the right angle. He seems surprised by my readiness, and he looks regretful as he saws through the thick tresses at my nape. I close my eyes, feeling the gentle tugs on my scalp like a thousand tiny fingers. Separating me from those shackles. Transforming me into something new, no longer the pretty girl able to fetch a high price.
When it’s done, and the rope of my severed hair is clasped in Adan’s fist, I run a tentative hand along the rough-cut edges that hang an inch above my shoulders. A part of me feels missing. Without my hair’s weight, my head feels too bobbly. And yet, at the same time, free.
Adan carefully stuffs my severed hair into the bundle. I suppose we can’t just leave it out loose in the boat.
One of his brothers shouts something down, and Adan squeezes my knee. “Stay down here. Don’t make a sound.”
Before he leaves, I snare his wrist as a shard of fear cuts into my chest. “Adan, everything’s going to be all right, isn’t it?”
He gives me a smile that, in the dark shadows, doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Everything is going to be exactly as it should, Sabine.”
And then he leaves me in the dark hull, uncomfortable on a pile of damp fish nets, crammed between reeking barrels, and all I can think is: This doesn’t feel like freedom.
Chapter 18
Wolf
“Folke?” I shake him. “Folke?”
He slumps further as his eyes roll back in his head. Cursing, I catch him before he falls and hoist him onto my shoulder, groaning from his weight. His lame leg hasn’t stopped him from training to be one bulky motherfucker.
Struggling under his heft, while my eyes water from the smoke, I stagger toward the door. The flames reach a pocket of fuel somewhere in the rubble, and explode with a blast of heat that singes my face. Glowering, I fight past the heat and finally lurch through the door.
The moment I’m out of the building, I suck in a breath of fresh air like I’ve been underwater. My legs give out, and I drop to my knees, letting Folke’s unconscious body crumple onto the street.
Maybe not the gentlest approach, but hey, he’s lucky I saved his ass.
Townspeople rush forward to help us.
I jerk my head toward Folke. “My friend—help him.”
The burly leader shouts for two men to pull Folke’s body to safety.
I totter on weakened legs to a lamppost near the bridge, and lean my weight against it while I try to catch my breath. With Folke out of the worst danger, my thoughts double-back hard on Sabine.
She must have made it to the stable by now, so she’s with Myst. That’s good. That damn stubborn horse will keep her safe. Sabine knows better than to try to escape again, but still, every fragment of my body urges me to get to her. Rian might have sent me on this mission to protect her, but I’m no longer doing it for him. Every last shred of me is dedicated to nothing but her safety. I’d rush into ten burning buildings for her. I’d fight every godkissed warrior in Astagnon. I’d slaughter anyone, man or woman, who so much as laid a finger on her in malice.
But there’s one more thing to do first—I have to find out who the hell the godkissed spy is.
Against the warning cries of the townspeople, I stride back into the burning inn. Raising my arm to protect my face from the wall of heat, I duck away from the worst of the smoke and pick my way over debris to the place where the spy fell.
I stop abruptly.
His body is gone. Only a streak of blood marks where he fell. Bloodstained bootprints form a line back toward the kitchen.
“Fuck.”
A cough claws its way up my throat, and I bend over and retch. Then, I stagger after the tracks, trying to scent him, but the smoke is too overpowering. I plunge through the kitchen, where flames have eaten half the ceiling, and escape through the open back door into an alleyway.
It slopes sharply uphill, where a staircase leads to a different sector of Blackwater.
Climbing the stairs with great effort is the spy.
With a growl, I race after him. He glances over his shoulder, eyes simmering with fury. His cloak hangs askew from his neck, the hood fallen back to reveal shoulder-length blond hair and rugged features. He’s got a decade or two on me, and his advanced age, paired with the critical wound in his neck, means he’s too weak to use his speed fully.
It doesn’t stop him from trying, though. He lurches up the stairs, moving with odd, short bursts of brief speed, then having to slow.
Rushing up behind him, I grab him by the arm and throw him against the nearest brick wall. He winces, clapping a hand on his bleeding neck wound. Folke’s crossbow arrow juts out from the tendon, squirting blood with every pump of his heart. Drawing my hunting knife, I hold it to his blood-soaked neck.
He can’t last long. He’ll bleed out in minutes, so I need answers fast.
“Who do you work for?” I demand.
Chest huffing with exertion, he bares his teeth. Then his lips purse and, to my surprise, he forms a sharp whistle.
A caw sounds from overhead. I pitch my head up as a massive bird swoops low over the alley, its wingspan greater than an eagle’s. Its feathers shimmer like stars against the moonlight, rich with iridescent colors that belong to no goddamn bird I’ve ever seen.
It opens its beak, and a burst of virulent blue dust blasts in my direction.
“Fuck!” I release the spy, rolling to the ground to dodge the dust. It’s comprised of midnight-blue particles like ash, and it reeks of sulfur and rot. An ashy flake lands on my cheek, and the skin swells and oozes. A few paces away, the spy slumps to the ground, more sprays of blood spurting from his neck wound. He tries to whistle again, but his lips are too slick with blood.
His body gives one final tremor before he stills.
Breathing hard, I watch the sky, but there’s no more sign of the bird. What in the name of the Immortals just happened? There’s no bird in Blackwater—hell, in all of Astagnon, with iridescent feathers like that. That can breathe fucking disease. I only know of one creature capable of such magic, and it hasn’t flown in these skies for a thousand years.
My mind spins as I crawl over to the spy’s body. He’s dead. Moving fast, I hunt through his pockets. Some coins, a key, a hunk of cheese wrapped in wax paper; not much, until my fingers snag on a piece of paper in his inside jacket pocket. I unfold it quickly.
The writing isn’t in the Common Tongue. It’s in a language I don’t speak, but I do recognize the alphabet.
It’s fucking Volkish.