She might sacrifice me.
No. I’m too close for a change of heart, too close for cowardice. Three more days is all I need. Somehow we’ll convince Prince Corbin that Brindaigel exists, that there’s magic enough to save his kingdom. She’ll get her alliance and I’ll get my freedom, and as much as the idea makes my skin crawl, helping Bryn win is the only chance I have of winning too. I need her to save Cadence and I need North to get us to New Prevast. Neither one of them can know how close Perrote is.
“It’s nothing,” I say, crushing the feather beneath my palm, guilt aching in my veins.
Tobek lifts his eyebrows. “North said to bring some oil.”
I nod, too quickly, before I rummage for the matches on the shelf above the stove. Soot cakes my hand and I resist the temptation of wiping it on my skirt.
“In the box,” Tobek says, giving me another frown.
I force a shaky smile and find the small silver tinderbox worn smooth from use. I don’t look at the table, grabbing a canister of lamp oil in my other hand before I rejoin Tobek.
Bryn stands by the cellar, a stack of books at her feet. North emerges from the house moments later with even more books in hand, along with the map from above the desk, rolled and tucked in the crook of his arm.
More unspoken conversations.
I can’t meet his eyes. He should be warned that Perrote is almost here, but is a binding spell worth being hunted by a king when he has his own king to catch? Or would he simply cut his losses and leave us behind? Can I risk taking that chance?
Tobek douses the bodies with oil before I strike a match and drop it. North murmurs a prayer before all of us but Bryn gather a stack of books and move to a safer distance at the edge of the road. Within seconds, the smoke turns black and acrid; the air thickens with the smell of soured milk.
A bird cries in the distance, spinning overhead, and although it is not a shadow crow, it raises the hairs on my arms all the same. Bryn sees me flinch and lopes her arm through mine.
“Does it remind you of home?” she asks softly, as flames spread to the farmhouse and chew up its walls, hungry for the dry, unprotected wood.
I frown, bemused. “What do you mean?”
“The night my father burned your house down,” she says, tipping her head against my shoulder, snuggling closer into my arm. “Did it burn the same way?”
I stare ahead, soot-stained fingers clenched in a fist, and don’t answer.
Fifteen
THAT NIGHT, I TEACH TOBEK how to throw a punch, desperate to keep my mind preoccupied and away from the growing paranoia that Perrote is simply playing with me, waiting for the right moment to strike. When we stopped to make camp, I was the one to protest, arguing both the campfire and our position in open field—under open skies—to no avail.
“We don’t travel at night,” North had said, with utter finality, and guilt—greed—had kept me from telling him the truth.
Three more days, I tell myself, as my eyes track the skies. Tobek exploits my distraction and lands a blow across my shoulder. Grunting with triumph, he backs up and grins, raising his hands to his chin.
“Don’t do that,” I say, dragging my attention back to him.
“Why not?”
With one short strike, I hit his hand and he hits himself square in the jaw. “That’s why not.”
North pretends to ignore us, praying with his palms flattened against the earth and his neck exposed to the sky. But his eyes cut toward me from under the fringe of his hair, and I toss my own hair back, out of my face, fully aware of his attention.
“Try again,” I say.
“Where’d you learn to fight like this, anyway?” Tobek asks, ducking my next swing.
I fall back and reposition myself with a halfhearted shrug. “Previous life,” I say. Bats somersault overhead and I freeze, exhaling softly once they’ve passed.
“Sounds like a tragedy.”
“Give me a kronet and I’ll make it a comedy.”
“I’m an apprentice,” says Tobek. “I don’t get paid.” An eyebrow arches, mirroring the curve of his mouth. “Play you cards for the story?”
“I’m not playing cards with a boy who admits to cheating.”
Tobek dives for my stomach and I barely sidestep a punch to the gut. “That was a previous life,” he quips, breathless. His thick hair sticks to his forehead and he rakes it back with dusty fingers. “And anyway, the skill is in cheating.”
Snorting, I adjust my coat. “I’ll bet.”
He lunges again and I easily knock him to his knees. Tobek bows his head, annoyed, touching his forehead to the earth in an eerie mimicry of North.
“Good god,” says Bryn, “again?”
Tobek’s head snaps up with interest as she emerges from the wagon with a blanket clutched around her shoulders. She looks pale, drowsy; she slept all afternoon, which gave me a chance to search through North’s books for any information on Avinea’s allies and enemies during the war, but the books were as useless as his maps.
Beyond our own borders, Brindaigel doesn’t seem to exist.
She pulls the blanket tighter, eying North with open disdain. “I don’t think anyone’s listening.”
“I don’t think it matters,” I say.
“Then what’s the point?”
Tobek pushes to his feet, brushing grass off his trousers before flexing his hands, itchy for a chance to show off. He begins bouncing on his heels, fists at his chin again. “The point is to thank the gods for another day we didn’t die,” he says with a tentative half smile: He’s serious if she is, but he’s joking if she’s not.
North kisses the backs of both his flattened hands before sitting back on his heels. “It’s an act of gratitude, Miss Dossel.”
She scoffs. “For what? You’re killing yourself to save the world while Corbin waits for his crown to be handed to him. Do you think he’ll thank the gods before he rips out his father’s heart? Will he thank you?”
Tobek stops bouncing, aghast at her sacrilege.
“Pride breeds arrogance,” North warns.
“And a thrifty man becomes parsimonious. Pay your apprentice,” she says.
North rocks back onto his feet and stands, dusting off his trousers. “Tobek, do you want a wage?”
Tobek hesitates, torn between the open desire to do whatever Bryn commands, and a deeper loyalty to his master. “I—I don’t . . .”
“Stand up for yourself,” says Bryn. “He takes advantage of you. You pitch tents and drive wagons and make dinner. That’s not an apprentice, that’s a servant. You’re no better than Faris, and that,” she says, eyes cutting toward me, “is a tragedy.”
“This afternoon—” Tobek starts.
“And yet you trust your servant with your life,” North says.
Bryn smiles. “She was compensated for that trust because I appreciate the value of her skills. As I appreciate anybody for the skills they have that I do not.” She steps down from the wagon and joins us by the fire, eyes on Tobek. “Which is why I want you to show me how to shoot a crossbow.”