Page 36 of Betrothed to the Emperor

Tallu’s face went still, except for a twitch of pain on his cheek. He nodded. “My Dogs were fighting them.”

“The Dogs inside the cavern were fighting them. Two were left outside.” I needed him to understand, even as part of me wondered why.

We didn’t have time to wait. I felt the pull of his weight on my shoulders. His good leg was getting weaker, either from blood loss or exhaustion. His knees trembled under him, and we began another limping walk, following the stream.

After a while, he said, “Let us hope that they died.”

“You hope your own soldiers died protecting you?” I kept my voice steady, even as the anger built in my throat. How very like the Imperium. He was exactly his father’s son.

“It is better than the alternative!” Tallu snapped. “That my own guard has been corrupted from within.”

“Oh, far better,” I murmured, and Tallu was either too tired or too distracted to hear the sarcasm in my words.

We walked for hours until the sun set, the last light reflecting orange around us. Then the dusk dimmed until finally we only had moonlight to guide us.

“We cannot keep going,” I said, wincing after I rolled my ankle on an unseen rock.

“I am not sure I can start again if we stop.” Tallu’s words were slurred, his eyes sliding to the side and his chest trembling as he gasped for air. The blood loss was getting to him.

“We need water,” I said, the dryness in my throat painful. Each time I swallowed, the sensitive skin inside my throat seemed to catch on itself. “I need rest.”

“I thought northern men were trained to go days without food or water, to carry their kills on their backs?” Tallu asked. Normally, I would have seen his words as a provocation, but his eyes were closed, although he still managed to put one foot in front of the other.

“Are you suggesting that I carry you on my back like a buck I killed with a bow and arrow? Or perhaps you think that we lie in wait under the snow and tear out the throat of our prey like wolves?” I shook my head. “We have pack animals carry our kills. And if we brought no pack animals, we have our wolves. And no one can survive without food or water for days. When they go on hunting trips, the men might not take much melted water, but they have the snow—they melt that for water.”

“The men?” Tallu asked. “You never went hunting?”

Not that sort of hunting. My blades and bows had been sharpened for a different sort of prey.

“My job has always been to guard Eonaî. You pointed out that the marriage was our key to peace. It was too much of a risk for me to go hunt.” It wouldn’t do for some bear or wolf to take me out, not when my job was so important.

“Well, hopefully, I weigh less than a bear anyway,” Tallu slurred.

“Not by much,” I muttered, adjusting the fall of his arm across my shoulders.

“I’ll have to speak with the royal chef,” Tallu said, his words a struggle. “If I weigh as much as a northern bear. Too many heavy foods.”

“Oh yes,” I said. “Do speak to them. I demand a husband who’s as light as a bird. Who can float like an air mage.”

“An air mage. Now you demand too much. I have seen how Velethuil eats, and I crave sweets too much to let myself eat his diet of leaves and berries.” Tallu stumbled, and I grabbed him tighter around the midsection, pulling him close. “I like cake.”

“What kind of cake?” I asked, desperate to keep him awake.

“The kind my mother used to make. Do you think if I die, I will see her? I barely remember her face anymore. I remember her hands in my hair, the song she would sing to me.” Tallu’s words slurred, and no matter how much I prodded, he couldn’t say more.

“I have killed men,” I said, more to say something, to block some of Tallu’s gasping, impossibly harsh breathing. “There was a pirate whaling ship. From the Tavornai islands, but they flew a pirate flag. It had been plaguing our waters for weeks. Our whales give birth only once every few years so if they killed any of the new calves, the population would be damaged more than it already has been.” The war with the south had not been kind to our whales. Although, even in good times, a whaling shipwouldn’t have been tolerated in northern waters. “I was told to take care of it.”

Tallu’s breathing was still rough, but he seemed to be listening, his breath calming, although there was still a dangerous drag, as though each inhalation was a struggle.

Yorîmu had told my mother that the first time I killed a man couldn’t be when it mattered the most, when any hesitation would mean the failure of all those years of training and planning. So, rather than warn the whalers off, my mother had sent me after them. The elves of Tavornai were stronger than most men, but I was faster, and I had trained for that sort of hunting.

“It was night when I arrived and night when I finished. My father and the person who trained me in swordplay arrived when I lit a torch, signaling it was done.” Yorîmu had been proud. My father had been something else. The expression on his face wasn’t horror, but it was closer to that than pride. “I think he was surprised I was that capable, as I had never been out on the ice to hunt. He’d never seen me kill anything. In the north, we feed our dead to the sea serpents. They feasted that night.”

Tallu’s arm was a slack deadweight on my shoulders.

Above me an owl let out a low, cautious sound.

“Sister?” I called up.