All thoughts of the bedpan vanished when Wido stepped into the room, looking for all the world like a specter with his billowing black cloak and wide, white eyes. “Sir,” she said, both a greeting and a question. She had feared the general only because she hadn't considered the other possibilities. “How did you—”
“Get free? That's neither here nor there, but let's just say that Knights have friends in every corner,” he said, shutting the door behind himself.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I'm here to make sure you remember your mission,” he said, and as he spoke, he drew a dagger from the folds of his cloak. He held it in the moonlight for her to see that it was one of her own, the very one that Tierri had taken from her earlier that day. Wido twirled it in his fingers, and while the gesture was not particularly menacing, the knife's presence was threat enough.
He stepped closer to her, and she did her best not to back away. “You can no longer launch an anonymous attack,” Wido said. “Your failures have made sure of that.” Failures. Of course he counted her capture as another thing in a long line of her mistakes. “Though perhaps we are looking at it all wrong. They'll never expect the threat to come from right under their noses.”
He still wanted her to kill Edlyn. The Knights had invested five years into her training, had put their rebellion on the shoulders of a traitorous princess. “But they'll know it was me…after…”
“Sacrifice one for the many,” he reminded her. “It will be a worthy death if it comes to it.”
Why was she even listening to him anymore? Once she was off of this ship, she probably never had to see him again. In fact, she could call out now, scream for guards, have him arrested. Prove that she had no allegiance to this man. For the first time since she decided to run away, she had a choice. She recognized that her father had to be stopped, but did it have to be because Wido told her to do it?
But he must have seen it on her face, because the knife twitched suddenly and he palmed it, lifting his arm and pressing the tip firmly to the hollow of her throat. She leaned back but he only pressed forward. Her hands itched to take it from him.
“Know this,” he said. “You will die either way. Perhaps Imeyna sees you as a sister, but to me, you are just a weapon. And sometimes, weapons break. I have no problem throwing you away.”
“Just like you've thrown away Imeyna?” she asked, working up the nerve to shove away his knife hand. He would not kill her now, not until she failed him again. He was giving her another chance, and she hadn't yet decided if he would regret it. “You're not going back for her, are you?”
“Imeyna has forged her own path,” he said, and he flipped the knife in his palm and offered her the hilt. “She'll have to figure this out on her own. Just as you will.”
The hilt was warm from his grip. She took it with practiced hands. He began to step away from her toward the door, but she stopped him with a question. “What about protecting your daughters?” Rayne asked before she considered whether or not it was pushing him too far.
But it wasn't anger she saw on his face behind the sharp shadows cast by the lamp. It was grief, even now, after all this time. It mirrored Rayne's own twisted heart.
“Fathers react differently to tragedy,” Wido said, his hand reaching for the iron handle. “Your father locked Edlyn up. I set Imeyna free.”
“By leaving her in chains?”
He did not respond, instead slipping through the door and leaving it wide open behind him. Whether or not he meant to, Rayne couldn't be sure, but she took the opportunity, sliding the knife into the sheath below her skirt and sneaking out behind Wido into the dark underbelly of the ship. There was no sign of Wido, but the ladder was nearby, and she climbed it to the deck.
She knew there was nowhere for her to go, but she wanted to breathe the fresh air and at least taste freedom before she was found and tossed back into her room. Every choice had been taken away from her, but she could at least decide to walk through a door when it had been left open for her.
The deck was quiet except for the howling wind. It seemed out of place—there were no storm clouds in the sky and the small trees lining the banks were still. But on the ship, the gale whipped the sails tight against their lines, dragging them forward against the current. There was a familiar tug in her gut but it didn’t feel menacing or hurried. It felt cozy, like she had swallowed a cup of warm cider on a cold day. It was the only warning she got before a gust of wind swirled around her, lifting her skirts and twirling them around her legs. The wind wove through her hair and pressed against her cheeks, and it felt warm somehow, even in the middle of winter.
The hair on the back of her neck prickled and she raised her eyes to the quarterdeck. The general was there, lit by the light of the moon, his hands clasped behind his back and his impassive gaze on her.
“I could have sworn I locked that door,” he said, giving no indication that he had sent the breeze to her.
Rayne gripped the railing beside her, ready for a fight. “Not all princesses consent to being locked away,” she said.
Something softened on his face and there it was—the smallest hint of a smile. It wasn't cruel or mocking, either, but surprised. Rayne almost smiled back but turned away quickly, her eyes on the dark waters of the Tor. The sails filled once more with air, the rigging groaning. She braced herself on the polished wooden handrails and turned her face south, toward Hail, toward her new home.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sibba
Sibba held her breath and ducked beneath the frigid lake water. The icy rain had stopped, the clouds drifting away to harass some other town. The sun had warmed the surface of the water, but as she sank to where its rays didn’t reach, it didn't take long for the cold to seep beneath her skin. Cheeks puffed out with air, she ran her fingers through her short hair, imagining the current carrying away the blood. Gabel's blood. Vyion's blood. How did Fieldings do this? Take lives so carelessly? She would never be able to rid her nose of the sharp smell of a dying body.
She had wanted nothing more than to lie down and rest, and told Estrid as much when the girl had led her away from the trial circle. They had not stayed to watch them hang Vyion’s body from the sutvithr tree. It would be hard and gruesome work with a man that size, but it had to be done for the sacrifice to be received by Domaris, the goddess of justice, who would decide Vyion’s fate in the next life. Her father had done nothing to acknowledge her or her victory, and Sibba had made no move toward him. She wanted only to get away. She didn't care where she went—she would have slept in a barn or beneath an overhang—but instead, Estrid had dragged her to the lake. It had once been part of the Rata River but had been cut off hundreds of years before as the river shifted and changed its course. It was small but clean, surrounded by a copse of trees at the edge of town.