“You can’t fight them with fists,” he says, in a tone that means no argument. “We need range. Magic. Please.” His eyes meet mine, dark and pleading. “Just stay inside.”
He doesn’t wait for an answer, turning to salvage what he can of the perimeter yet untouched by the spreading Burn. I stare after him, feeling lost. Useless.
Tobek steers the panicked horses into position as Bryn steps down from the wagon. “You’re hurt,” she says.
Tobek brightens at her attention, touching a thin trickle of blood along his temple. “It’s nothing,” he says with staged humility. It’s everything, if it means she’s looking at him.
“This is why you need to be paid,” she says, fingers grazing the edge of his temple. “You were as good as a soldier, you know.”
Tobek stands straighter, trying to look taller than he is.
Feeling sick, I drag myself inside, picking up Darjin and cradling him to my chest. Sinking onto the bottom bunk, I stare numbly toward the door before shouldering out of my damp coat. Within moments, we’re on the move and Bryn and North step inside. Bryn wears the quiver across her chest, holding the crossbow as if it’s an extension of herself, and I look away, envious. Still offended.
North doesn’t meet my eyes. “I’d like to put protective spells on both of you.”
Bryn scoffs. “Absolutely not.”
“I don’t think you appreciate what just happened. Baedan believes you’re Merlock’s daughter. Merlock,” he repeats, when she makes no sign of having heard him. “The king whose heartbeat feeds the Burn—whose heartbeat feeds the dead magic that keeps Baedan and the hellborne alive. Avinea’s kings cannot die by their own hand, and only someone with blood tied to the crown can perform the sacrifice. If I find Merlock, Corbin inherits. If Baedan finds Merlock, she’ll bury him somewhere I will never find him, and Avinea will be consumed with the Burn until only the hellborne can survive. And now that Baedan believes you’re a missing heir—a potential threat to that plan—she won’t stop until you’re dead.”
“Lucky for me, I have Faris to protect me,” says Bryn.
“Damn it, listen to me!” North slams his palm against the wall, hard enough to rattle the glass jars above the stove. Darjin wriggles out of my arms, bolting beneath the table. “You’re useless to me if you’re dead!”
Bryn stares at him, eyes wide. I doubt anyone’s ever spoken to her like that. No one would dare.
“I risked everything I had on a hope and a promise,” he says, lowering his voice, spitting each word between clenched teeth. “Merlock is my priority. Avinea is my priority. And if your kingdom has magic and you’re willing to offer that magic to Prince Corbin”—he takes a deep breath, ducking his head—“then you are now my priority. This is about more than just a binding spell, Miss Dossel.”
Bryn rolls her shoulders back, recovering. “It always has been,” she says.
I look away, prickly beneath my skin. Alistair withheld evidence and exploited my weaknesses to get what he wanted from me, so at the very least, I should be grateful that North tells the truth, that he doesn’t pretend I’m anything more than a footnote to his plans. A fail-safe to his priority.
But my priority is my sister, not Bryn and not Avinea. I’m not naive enough to believe a night in the rain and a poisonous flower will trump the desires of a man who sacrificed four years of his life to finding Merlock. North will not risk losing the magic he needs for me. He won’t risk losing Bryn.
Supply and demand.
“No protection spells,” Bryn says at last. “Not until we reach New Prevast.”
Of course not, I think bitterly. If her father finds us, she can’t be complicit in her own captivity.
North sighs, raking a hand through his hair. “I’ll take a horse in the morning while Baedan’s still limping, and ride ahead to Revnik. There’s a market there—I can buy the magic I need to get us through the Kettich Pass. We can only hope Baedan won’t try to attack until we’re closer to her territory by the Burn. Once through the pass, we don’t stop until we reach New Prevast.”
“Right on schedule,” Bryn says.
North stares at her before his eyes shift to me. Guilt briefly darkens his face before wordlessly, he takes his crossbow and quiver from Bryn and ducks back outside, joining Tobek on the running board. He slams the door behind him.
The stove belches in the silence that follows. I shove my coat off the bed and lie down, curled in a ball.
Bryn stares at her fingers tented across the table. “Where were you?”
“Nowhere. I went for a walk.”
“What if I thought you’d run away?” she asks, straightening, folding her arms across her chest. “What if I thought you weren’t coming back?”
“I’m not going to run,” I say. Not at the risk of losing Cadence. Doesn’t she know that by now? “I came back as soon as I heard you—”
“Twelve minutes and eighteen seconds,” she says. “That’s how long it took you to come back. What if they had broken through the ward?”
“I would be the one who died,” I say darkly.
“And what do you think happens to me after my safety is dead!? The next time I call for you, I want you here in three minutes. Do you understand me?”
I close my eyes, fingers tightening into knots against my stomach “I went for a walk,” I say, teeth clenched.
“Do you know how long three minutes is?”
“Bryn—”
She slams her palm on the table, startling my eyes open. “I have warned you how to address me! Three minutes, Faris! That is how long a soldier is given to report for his summons, and that is how long you are given to report to me! One.” She pinches the flesh of her arm and twists; a bruise blossoms on my own arm, dark yellow and cherry red. “Two”—another bruise—“three.”
Closing my eyes, I grit my teeth and swallow my cry. Every nerve in my body stands on end, rattling with pain as saliva floods my mouth.
Straightening, Bryn tugs down the hem of her bodice. “I thought you were committed to this,” she says, softer. “To me. Or if not to me, then to Cadence.”
I force myself to look at her. “I killed a man for you. What more do you want?”
Sighing, Bryn sinks onto the edge of my bunk. In the dim stove light, all her hard edges soften. “I’m not your enemy,” she says, plaintive. “We have the same end goal, Faris. Fighting won’t help either of us.”
I sit up, drawing my legs to my chest. “You wanted a fighter,” I remind her.
“We could try to be friends.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, inwardly snorting. Like Alistair Pembrough, friend is the last word I would ever bestow upon Bryn.
“Preparing an army takes time,” she says, taking my chin in hand, forcing my eyes to her. “War takes even longer. I threaten Cadence but that doesn’t seem to be enough to keep you focused. And I need you to understand how important this is. I need you to understand what your role will be.”
“I understand completely,” I say. I almost add your majesty, but withhold it; an unacknowledged act of defiance.