Page 22 of A Court of Truth and Thorns (Royal Scout #2)
KALI
“ S tars, I’m weary.” Raza sinks to the ground, rubbing the back of her neck. “Won’t someone offer me water?”
“No,” says Rune.
Wil, who’s taken Raza’s mount, swears loudly. “He’s exhausted. And going lame.”
Raza rolls her eyes. “He’s a horse. There are others.”
I swallow a growl, my body as frustrated with the interruption of its dance with Rune’s as my mind is with the princess’s presence. I take deep breaths and lean against a tree, struggling to calm my aroused senses before I do something to Rune’s little sister that he cannot forgive.
Then again, he’s glaring at Raza with enough fury to send any sane person groveling. “Why did you follow us?”
“I’ve come looking for my betrothed, of course,” says Raza. “Now that I know what you and Father planned for me, that is.”
A flicker of guilt shimmers through my wall of fury. I’d spared not one thought for how Owain’s plan would affect the second half of his proposed arrangement.
Rune, however, gives Raza no quarter. “Who saw you leave?” he demands.
“Everyone. I announced I was going for a ride around the estate and told each set of guards that the other was coming with me. They will be conferring with each other and searching the bridle paths for at least a day. Now, Prince William.” Pulling herself straight, Raza strides to Wil and plucks the currycomb from his hand.
“Let Rune care for the beast—he enjoys playing commoner. You’ve been so difficult to track down this past week.
But now we have the chance to get to know each other. ”
“I think I know everything I need to know about you, Your Highness,” Wil says.
“If we are to be married—”
“We aren’t.” Wil grabs a pick and tends to the horse’s hooves, each movement taking him farther from the princess.
Raza follows. Wil walks around to the other side of the horse.
“I’m not marrying you, Raza.” He bends around the horse’s neck to get a direct line of sight to Rune.
“Correction, the gelding isn’t going lame, he is lame. Shouldn’t be ridden.”
“Then Raza will return on foot,” Rune growls.
“No!” She spins around to face him. “Or I’ll tell Father that your whore kidnapped my beloved Prince William at sword point and you went after them. When Father gets his hands on her, she’ll miss Camp Vanguard.”
Before I can utter a word in response, Raza is knocked to the ground, Rune’s kneecap digging into her upper belly. The girl’s good eye widens, her mouth working to draw denied breath. Rune’s flushed face towers over her. Raza claws the dirt.
I’m moving before I know it, my fingers finding a tender spot on Rune’s neck and gripping hard. “Enough,” I shout. “You’ve made your point. Are you twelve? Get the hells off your sister.”
Rune twists to me, his nostrils flaring.
I lean my face closer to his, biting off my words. “You want to fight someone, fight me.”
With a snarl, Rune pulls his knee from his sister’s belly and storms away.
Raza, still on the ground, curls in on herself and sobs.
And some stupid, irrational part of me actually feels bad for her.
By my count, Raza has not a single person in the world who gives a damn about her existence, with the possible exception of Queen Maria, who is more puppet than person.
Then again, with what Raza did to me at the camp, I’m not altogether surprised that no one wishes to share her company.
I find Rune at the edge of our camp, as far as one could get shy of being reckless. Something dark and wet glistens on his knuckles, and identical marks mar a nearby tree. Tension rolls off his body like a lightning storm.
“What the hells was that?” I demand, stalking up to him.
The warrior flexes his fingers. “I don’t want her here.”
“I don’t want many things. What’s your point?”
“You of all people will defend her?” Rune snaps.
I put my hands on my hips. Between finally getting to spend time with Rune and now Raza’s appearance, this whole trek is becoming very complicated very quickly—and that’s before even figuring our destination and mission into the equation.
“Whoever that man was back there,” I tell him, “the one who attacked a defenseless girl because she dared disobey his commands, is not the man I want at my side.” Turning my back to him, I start toward camp.
“We are going into battle,” Rune says behind me. “People follow orders or others die.” When I turn my head, Rune is looking into the darkness. “We are here to save kingdoms,” he says. “Raza is here for herself.”
I don’t slow down all the way to camp.
By the time the sun has set fully, Raza’s sobs have become background noise, constant and familiar.
She gets up neither to help with any of the camp chores nor to see after her own needs for food and shelter.
She can lie there all night for all I care—it’s tomorrow that frightens me.
We can’t send her back without her bringing the whole damn Everett army onto our tail, not to mention the logistics of how she would make it back to River Manor alone, without a rideable horse.
But keeping her with us . . . Stars.
“I don’t see that we have much choice,” says Wil quietly, coming up to sit beside me while Rune continues to take his frustration out on helpless trees.
At least now he’s channeling his emotions into chopping wood.
Wil tries for a smile. “The silver lining is that if she is here, we can tie and gag her as needed. Who knows what kind of trouble she can cause out of sight.”
My gaze rests on Rune, his muscles bunching and sliding with each hard chop of his ax. There is a thin sheen of sweat coating his skin and a distant set to his jaw. His body is here, but his mind is in some personal labyrinth of thought to which I’m not privy.
“Tell me more about Leaf.” Wil pokes the fire.
I bite my lip. “Leaf... Leaf is a whisperer. By now, she might—”
“She’s alive.” Wil nods to punctuate his decree. “Until proven otherwise, Leaf is alive, and I want to know everything about her. I’m not losing another family member to my personal stupidity.”
A lump forms in my throat and I suddenly understand Rune’s need to chop wood.
With nothing but the forest, the quiet, and the looming confrontation before us, escaping my thoughts is becoming more difficult by the second.
Wil is right; Leaf is alive. And I know that, while we are all heading to Dansil to reclaim the throne, I’m heading there to pull Leaf from the flames.
A rush of cold grips my spine. What if there’s a choice?
What if saving Dansil requires going left and saving Leaf calls for going right?
We are here to save kingdoms, Rune said. Raza is here for herself.
Am I all that different?
I realize that Wil is still waiting for me to speak, and so I start at the beginning, telling him about Lord Gapral’s estate and Leaf’s whispering and her brilliant mind until both our eyelids grow heavy and we make our way to sleep.
By the time I wake up to take my watch shift, Princess Raza has relocated closer to the fire. The hysterical paralysis must have lasted only until the rest of us disappeared from sight. Relieving Luca, I start my circuit to check the perimeter and horses.
All is quiet. Dark. Eerily peaceful.
When I return to the fire next, Raza is sitting up, her whole body shivering like a newborn foal’s. I sigh and dig out a pair of crabapples that I picked on our trek yesterday. Sour but edible. Before I can reconsider, I toss the fruit at her feet.
Raza snatches up the apple and bites into it. Her face contorts. “You call this dinner?” She spits out the food. “It’s disgusting.”
I thought I was too hard on Rune, but maybe not. Maybe I’m just being too easy on the one-eyed monster. Spinning on my heels, I start my circuit again.
“I hate you,” the princess murmurs hoarsely after me. “You ruined my life.”
I stop, turn, and march myself right back to her. Crouching to Raza’s level, I speak with cold, quiet cruelty. “ Stop kidding yourself, Raza. Rune left you before he ever met me.”
Raza’s emerald eye meets mine. “You think I don’t know that?” she whispers softly before turning away and curling up into a ball.
The following morning starts with Raza’s detailed complaining.
She doesn’t see why she should be the one to ride double behind Alexa; why someone else can’t collect the firewood; why Wil refuses to walk beside her.
Even Calvin’s patience stretches thin, though he channels the annoyance into fervently collecting willow bark and brewing a headache-easing tea when we stop to rest.
“This brew is revolting, Master Calvin,” Rune says with respect as he sips the offering. “It is well made.”
“Spoken like a healer,” says Calvin with a small chuckle.
I bite my lip. Rune engaging with Calvin, the Dansil questioner, is a bridge I hadn’t expected him to cross.
Dansil’s looming approach—and the gut-turning anxiety it heightens with each step—makes for new alliances, it seems. If Rune and Calvin can speak, maybe Rune and I are due for another conversation as well. Maybe more than a conversation.
Or maybe we should skip conversation altogether.
Getting off watch that night, I find myself heading for Rune’s bedroll instead of mine, my heart hammering in my chest.