Griffin and I exchange a look. Apparently, we found it.
“We’re on the West Road,” Kaia says, brightening. “Piers finally gave up. We were leaving for Sinta City, but I convinced him to turn around and try again. I had this…feeling.” She wrinkles her nose, scrunching together the few sun-induced freckles she must have picked up over the last couple of weeks.
A feeling? Like the sight? Or a nudge from a God?
With Griffin’s immunity to harmful magic, Carver’s incredible skill with a sword, and Kaia’s “feeling,” I have to wonder if this family is as Hoi Polloi as I’ve always believed. Sometimes magic is a sort of intuition, and their instincts are usually spot-on.
I dismount next to Kaia, feeling stiff and heavy and kind of out of breath, even though I wasn’t really moving. All that seems to be a permanent condition at the moment. It started a few days ago, along with the copious vomiting.
“You did the right thing,” I tell her. “You should always listen to your gut.” I loop my arm around Kaia’s waist and squeeze, attempting a casual display of affection. It goes well, I think.
Joining us on the ground, Griffin plants his hands on his hips and gives Kaia a stern look from under lowered brows. She immediately starts shifting from foot to foot. I squeeze her again in encouragement and then drop my arm, stepping back.
“And what, exactly, are you doing here?” Griffin demands, his eyes narrowing on his sister. “And why in the name of the Gods were you at the Agon Games?”
Griffin is nearly old enough to be Kaia’s father and just as authoritative. She moves closer to me and hangs her head, duly intimidated and apparently mute.
“She followed me,” Piers says tightly, dismounting as well. “I don’t know how she got out of Castle Sinta—dressed like that and with a horse—and I only realized she was on my trail when I was nearly to Kitros.”
Resourceful girl. I nudge her arm, smiling a little. And good for her for not giving Piers her secrets.
With a quick flash of a grin, Kaia smiles back, her head still ducked.
If Piers could kill me with the evil eye alone, he would. Griffin doesn’t look happy, either, but I don’t know if it’s because of my nudge and smile, or because Kaia spent time on the road alone.
“I didn’t have time to take her back,” Piers says in grudging explanation, “so I took her with me.”
“To the bloody Agon Games? What were you thinking!” Griffin explodes.
“I didn’t know what they’d be like!”
I snort, and Piers has the good sense to try again.
“I didn’t know they’d be quite like that. It was more horrible and violent than I ever imagined.”
I stare at him in disbelief, the fear and pain still fresh in my mind and muscles. Horrible and violent doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Piers swings his gaze back to me again. “And then there was your victory visit to Castle Tarva. That worked out well for you, didn’t it?”
There’s a snide undercurrent in Piers’s words again, as if confronting dangerous enemy royals and taking over Tarva were just to satisfy some little whim of mine.
I cross my arms, mainly to keep from reaching out and smacking him. “Would you rather it hadn’t worked out, and we’d all died?”
His jaw clenches hard, a muscle bouncing out on one side. “That’s not what I said.”
“Just what you implied.”
He shakes his head, his features tightening in anger once again. “There were other, less dangerous ways to go about it.”
“Like what? Throwing nameless, faceless soldiers at Galen Tarva instead of ourselves? He would have opened up a chasm in the ground that swallowed them whole, which is exactly what he tried to do to me in his own throne room. Who’s expendable, then? Anyone you don’t know?” I glare at Piers, disgusted now. “That’s leadership for you.”
“Cat…” Griffin’s voice holds a hint of warning, urging me to back down. I understand. Soldiers have an important role, and I shouldn’t forget it. Griffin knows what armies can do. He’s led them.
“Leadership is making wise decisions based on rational thought,” Piers snaps.
“Leadership is actually leading, not using others as a shield while you shout orders and hop around in the back.”
Piers’s eyes widen in obvious shock. Ha!
Griffin grips my arm above my elbow, squeezing lightly. “Piers fought alongside me. Alongside us.” By us, he means Carver, Kato, and Flynn. My friends. My team. “And there was no hopping around in the back.”
His censorious tone rankles, but I guess I did just shoot my mouth off about something I wasn’t there for and didn’t really know about.
Frowning slightly, I extract my arm from Griffin’s hold. “I know Piers rides out on patrol. I know he can fight.” And that’s as much of an apology as he’ll get.
“How do you plan to hold on to Tarva?” Piers asks. “Taking over a realm isn’t the same thing as keeping it.”
If you ask me, we’ve already done the hard part.
“The army you’re building might come in useful.” There. Another concession.
I hear the sarcasm that creeps into my voice, though. So does Griffin. He looks at me sharply, probably disapproving of my hostility.
I almost roll my eyes. If Piers weren’t his brother, Griffin would have knocked him senseless by now for speaking to me the way he has.
For Griffin’s sake, I attempt a more neutral tone. “Honestly? I don’t think it’ll be much of an issue if all the Tarvans cheering at the castle gate are any indication. Then again, their last Alpha was a mass-murdering megalomaniac, so it’s hard to do worse.”
Piers laughs a little—dryly. Does he think I’m worse? Please. Galen Tarva leveled an entire neighborhood in his own backyard just to send a message to my mother. He scared her enough that she offered up my unique skills—and me—just to keep him off her back. And when one psychotic monster is frightened of the other… Well, that’s saying something.
Piers breathes deeply, the long inhale making his chest expand. His slate-colored eyes meet mine. “Can I speak with you for a moment? Alone.”
Wariness tingles up my spine and then sweeps down my arms, making my knife hand twitch. I glance at Griffin. His brow furrows, but he nods, not seeming overly worried about Piers’s request. I have no idea what Piers could have to say to me that he can’t say in front of Griffin and Kaia. Their presence hasn’t exactly been holding him back.
“All right.” My reluctant agreement comes with a quick and automatic inventory of any magic I could use to defend myself—none. The magic I absorbed during the Agon Games was lost to injuries and exhaustion afterward, and Piers already knows I can detect lies and turn invisible, so popping out of sight won’t even surprise him.
There are always physical weapons. I’ve got my knives, and a sword, but I doubt Griffin would appreciate my taking a blade to his brother, no matter how annoying Piers might get. Betrayal and backstabbing just aren’t done. Not in his family, anyway.
CHAPTER 2