Despite my dagger, I look around me for something heavier, deadlier—a contingency plan. North is not a large man but he looks huge, with that kind of power. A single touch could destroy Bryn’s mission—and my life.
“If I was going to steal it, I would have done it by now,” he says ruefully, noticing my unease. “Look, I can’t enter the Burn unprotected. I’d be poisoned within hours, either dead or hellborne within days. Clean magic—enough of it—could be used to pave a path, giving me the chance I need to search for Merlock.”
He takes a step toward us. Both Bryn and I tense and he freezes, startled by our reaction. “Tea,” he explains, eyebrows furrowed, pointing to the samovar.
“Boundary line,” Bryn says, drawing an imaginary line through the air before gesturing him back over it.
He straightens with a slight frown. “This is my wagon.”
“This is my magic,” she counters. “And you were going to pay that man five hundred pieces of silver for it.”
Tobek chokes. “Five hun—I told you no more than one! One thirty at the outside! That silver’s got to last us another two months!”
North ignores him, frowning at Bryn. “So then name your price.”
She smiles, savoring the shift in power. “A man who carries five hundred pieces of silver isn’t just looking for Merlock and strange spells to buy off girls in the marketplace. You have a patron.” She tents her fingers against the table, appearing to study her chipped nails before her eyes cut toward North. “Prince Corbin.”
I’m grateful she has experience in negotiations while my experience is more in hitting until it hurts. I wouldn’t have even considered wondering where the silver came from, only where he might have hidden it.
North does not look nearly so impressed with her conclusion; he looks annoyed. “Yes,” he says, “my search is being funded by New Prevast, but that is not—”
“Here’s my offer,” Bryn says, flicking a hand to silence him. North closes his mouth, eyes flashing. “Take us to New Prevast, introduce us to your prince, and then, and only then, I will release this spell to anyone his majesty so chooses.”
North cocks his head, forcing a tight, humorless smile. “As I said, New Prevast is seven days in the opposite direction. I’m not the only one looking for Merlock, and after tonight, my biggest competition has just become my newest enemy.” He points beyond the wagon, back into the woods. “I need more than just a maybe that I made the right decision in burning that bridge by saving your lives.”
“It’s the strongest spell you’ve ever seen and your prince is getting desperate,” says Bryn.
“My prince.” North’s eyes narrow, a slash of black against his olive face, the distinction simmering between them. “Who are you?”
“Avinea’s last chance,” says Bryn.
Snorting, North runs a hand through his hair. “Humble as well as cryptic.”
“There’s no shame in knowing my worth.”
“And there’s no shame in gratitude,” Tobek says, with a flash of indignation. “Baedan and her men would’ve eaten you alive!”
“You only saved our lives because you wanted something from us,” Bryn says. Scorn colors her voice and her expression shifts, so subtle as to be almost imperceptible, and yet, it transforms her from a pretty girl in a muddy dress to a queen without a crown. “I’ll kiss your feet when it’s actually warranted.”
Tobek’s features darken like a summer thunderstorm but North shakes his head. “Dinner,” he suggests tightly. Scowling, Tobek spins on his heel, slamming his way outside.
North waits a moment, biting his lip before he looks back at Bryn, studying her with a slight frown. “Are you Merlock’s daughter?”
“What? Good god, no!” Bryn laughs scornfully. “My father is a king, not a coward.”
North’s brow furrows. “So a princess wants to go to New Prevast to see a prince,” he says slowly. “But the prince doesn’t entertain everyone I drag to his door. I need names. Places of origin. Who sent you, and why now?”
“My name is Bryndalin Dossel.” Bryn tosses her hair back, chin raised high. “And where I’m from is irrelevant to you, as is my purpose.”
“Not good enough, Miss Dossel.” He shakes his head. “After twenty years of being ignored by every country within reach, what could you or your father possibly hope to gain in Avinea?”
“I am not here for my father,” she says with a warning tone. “And if you can’t help us, we’ll just find our own way to New Prevast.” She turns, sliding her arm through mine and pulling me toward the door. We’re halfway down the stairwell before—
“Wait.”
Bryn flashes a grin of triumph to me, but immediately sobers before she turns to face him, haughty. “Yes?”
“If I take you to New Prevast, that binding spell is mine,” says North, dark eyes blazing. “I won’t wait for Prince Corbin’s leftovers.”
Bryn tips her head back, considering. “Agreed.”
He extends a hand. “Will you shake on that?”
“I will not,” she says. “And if you ever try to touch me, I will kill you.” Releasing me, Bryn pulls a small ring from her finger and drops it on the table. It spins before settling. “It’s gold,” she says. “Consider that as good as my word. Take us to New Prevast and the spell is yours.”
My breath catches. I know that ring. It belonged to Thaelan’s grandmother and would, he had confided one night beneath the stars, one day be his wife’s. I had held it toward the moon, my insides as green as the stones nestled between the tiny diamonds, wanting the impossible so badly I couldn’t breathe. He never mentioned it again and I always believed he’d given it to Ellis, the girl his father chose for him.
“Where did you get that?” I whisper.
Bryn shrugs, indifferent. “From Pem,” she says.
My chest cracks along the scar tissue and floods with bile. The only way for Alistair to have gotten that ring is to have taken it from Thaelan. Stolen it.
And then he gave it to her.
Dropping the dagger, I lurch down the stairwell, out into the field. Tobek looks up from the fire, rotating something on a metal spit. He calls out a warning regarding the stones around camp but I ignore him, breaking into a run.
The ground is hard, unfamiliar beneath feet so long accustomed to cobblestones and the furrows of our farming terraces. Mountains chew the horizon and I run for them, drawn by the only symbol I have of home and Cadence, but the mountains stay just out of reach. Even the Burn is too far away, no more than a ribbon of fire that colors the horizon gold.
Hopelessness overtakes me and I feel the first warning edge of pain reminding me that the last two days have not come easy. Gasping for breath, I fall to my knees, crying for Cadence, for Thaelan, for myself—for believing a girl from the Brim could rise as high as the castle, as far as the stars.
The stars.
There are thousands of them, an entire ocean overhead. Tipping my head back, I raise my hands and frame a span of sky—two hands’ worth and no more, the most we ever saw from the roofs of Brindaigel. It settles me with its familiar view.
Footsteps approach behind me. I don’t have to look to know it’s North; Bryn would never deign to follow me. I lower my hands, my cropped hair falling forward, past my chin.