When Ash left the royal apartments, he headed straight for the stables. Though he was officially working full-time in the healing halls, he found that sometimes hard physical labor was the only treatment for the anger and frustration that accumulated at court. And right now he needed that sort of relief.
Grabbing up a pitchfork, he proceeded to pitch dirty hay out of the nearest stall and into the aisle, not particularly careful about where it landed. He mucked out a half dozen stalls, until the muscles in his shoulders and arms burned, and he was soaked in sweat.
All the while, his mind boiled like a mud spring. What could the empress of a faraway island realm possibly want with Jenna? All of the possibilities seemed bad. Besides, any Ardenine alliance with a realm known for powerful magic spelled bad news for the Fells.
“I thought you were out of the stables,” someone said behind him.
Ash knew without turning around that it was Lila.
“Every now and then, I get in the mood to shovel horseshit. You’re welcome to help.”
“We need to talk.”
“No. You want to talk. There’s a difference.”
“This thing—this agreement—can’t go forward.”
“Maybe it won’t,” Ash said, digging into the dirty hay. “You heard the king. Maybe he and the empress will never come to terms. Which is fine by me.”
“I think they will, eventually. Unless something happens to stop it.”
Ash finally turned around to face her, leaning on his pitchfork. “What do you care? There’s money to be made either way. Dragon harnesses, specialized clothing for dragon riders, dog collars for Carthian mages—the possibilities are endless.”
“The last thing we need is another army mixing in,” Lila said. “The situation is bad enough as it is.”
“We? I don’t know whose side you’re on, but I’m pretty sure it’s not mine. How do you think all those collars, talismans, and amulets are going to be used?” Ash’s voice rose. “I’m not interested in getting involved with any of your schemes.”
“Shhh,” Lila said, looking around. “I don’t think you want to share that with the entire stable yard.”
“We’re done here, anyway,” Ash said, resuming his forking. “Now why don’t you just go about your business, and I’ll go about mine. That was our agreement, remember?”
“You’re wrong about me,” Lila said. “I’ve not been straight with you, and that’s why we need to talk—someplace we won’t be overheard.”
Something about the way Lila said this caught Ash’s ear—and made him turn around again. She looked and sounded serious as plague. It was like the smooth-talking, hard-drinking, unscrupulous slacker he knew had been swapped out for somebody else.
“All right,” he said. “We can go into the tack room. Nobody will be in there this time of day. But I’m warning you—you’d better not be wasting my time.”
As Ash had expected, the tack room was deserted. Rolley would be at dinner, and it was too dark to be out riding this late at night at this time of year. Ash hung the lantern from one of the saddle racks and sat down on a trunk, arms folded, prepared for smoke and mirrors.
Lila settled onto the bench that centered the room, raked her hand through her cap of curls, and squared her shoulders. “First off,” she said, “my name is not Lila Barrowhill. It’s Lila Byrne. Amon Byrne is my father.”
As usual, Lila’s first move set Ash reeling like he’d been clubbed over the head. He didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t that. Amon Byrne was the captain of the queen’s Gray Wolf guard. The queen of the Fells, that is. His mother.
“Close your mouth, sul’Han,” Lila said, sounding more like herself. “You look like a beached fish.”
He scrambled for something to say. “I know Byrne’s a widower, but I don’t recall any children except for Simon.”
“Simon was the oldest, then my brother Silva,” Lila said. “My mother died in childbirth with me. Simon stayed on with our da, and me and Silva went to live with my mother’s relatives in the Southern Islands.”
When Ash took a closer look, he could see that it was possible. Captain Byrne’s wife had been a Southern Islander, with dark skin and curly hair. Lila had inherited that, but her eyes were gray like her father’s. Ash had guessed she was a mixed blood, but it had never occurred to him that it was this particular mix.
“I guess you could say that this apple fell pretty far from the tree,” Lila said with a crooked smile. “I never saw much of my da until I went to live with some cousins in Baston Bay when I was ten. They were smugglers, though they called themselves traders, and they had ships that ran up and down the coast. My da would visit my aunt Lydia in Chalk Cliffs sometimes, and I’d take a ship up and see him. Not often; I was kind of mad at him, to tell you the truth.”
“How come you were mad at him?”
“My mother was dead and he was busy saving the queendom, so he never paid too much attention to me until Simon died. Then he couldn’t figure out how to fit a square peg like me into the plan.”