Page 35 of Shadow Throne King
“They say he is the One Dragon reborn,” Lerolian said over the fire that night when we had left the city behind. He looked at another blood monk, lingering at the edge of camp. “The common people whisper that he should be at the head of the animalia. That is how he will unite the continent.”
I rubbed rough palms over my face but didn’t look at Tallu, didn’t look to see what expression was on his face.
The next two days were no more pleasant. We traveled so fast that we had to trade the horses twice.
Then we were at the location where the Kennelmaster had decided to split our party. Topi Bemishu paced around the camp, biting her thumbnail and watching the preparations with sharp eyes. Tallu stayed in his tent, acting for all the world as though he didn’t care about the outcome.
Naî seemed the only one truly unaffected. She ran up and down the riverbank, screaming in joy when she caught sight of fish leaping from the water.
“If she’s there—if Pito is still there—they know that she won’t be a threat? She doesn’t want to be there. She’s not there by choice.” Topi spoke quietly, her hand clutching my arm, her gaze fixed on mine. She dug her nails in, the sharp points of them pressing the fabric of my shirt deep into my skin. On her forehead, the scab from where she’d been hit with a rock had begun to flake off, and she wiped at it, rubbing too hard until it started to bleed again.
“They’re only there for General Maki,” I soothed. I didn’t tell her that they were trained as I had been. Anyone who tried to protect the general would be at risk, whether that person was a bodyguard or a young female courtier.
“My lady,” Coyome said as he was checking his weapons, his sword lying across his knees a whetstone in his hand. “Your sister is not in danger from us.”
Topi wet her lips, then bowed low, her face hidden by the angle. “I find myself thanking you again, Dog.”
His eyes had stayed fixed on the blade, not straying to her face, but still the slightest flush climbed his cheeks.
By early afternoon, Coyome led the six Dogs the Kennelmaster had chosen down the road toward Maki’s hideout. Topi continued her pacing, snapping at Naî when the girl came back from the river, holding a squirming fish.
Naî narrowed her eyes, opening her mouth to say something that I was pretty sure we would all regret when, to my surprise, the Kennelmaster stepped in.
“Come,” he ordered Topi.
She startled, dropping the leaf she had been shredding between her fingers. After one glance in the direction that the Dogs had gone, she followed him. He set her to work putting back everything that had been taken out of the wagons when the Dogs had been preparing for their mission.
As he watched her, he spoke quietly, and she relaxed into his assurance, his confidence. Topi turned toward him, a flower searching for the sun. She blinked rapidly, her eyes not quite spilling the tears there.
A cold suspicion anchored in my stomach, but I couldn’t quite put it to work yet, couldn’t quite name it.
I went into Tallu’s tent, stopping short when I saw him asleep on the bed. A thick maroon blanket covered him, sweat gleaming on his forehead. He breathed unevenly, and I sat on the floor of the tent next to him, watching.
I’d been so focused on my own trials during this trip that I hadn’t been able to see Tallu the way I had in our intimate time in his rooms. Except for those stolen moments in Naî’s frozen bubble, there was nowhere we could go here to be truly alone, nowhere he could let the mask of who he pretended to be fall from his face. We hadn’t even been able to recreate that bubble since we had encountered our first city because it had been too many people for Naî to control.
His bronze skin had paled, and brown dried blood circled one nostril. I felt the frown on my brow and raised a hand to wake him, about to demand to know what was going on, but Naî caught my hand.
She held out the fish, and I looked back at Tallu. No, he needed his sleep more than an interrogation. I shook my head, walking back into the camp and showing her how to clean and cook her catch over the fire. By the time it was done, Tallu stepped out of his tent, Sagam a half-step behind him.
I couldn’t say anything in front of anyone else, but when I looked at him, I raised a hand to my own nose. He shook his head.
The camp was even quieter than normal, no one willing to break the stillness, the uncomfortable pause as we waited for news. According to the Kennelmaster, it should take until theearly hours of the morning to get to the abandoned military outpost that Maki and his men had taken over.
Then they would have to come back.
I was still frustrated I hadn’t been allowed to go with them, even as I understood the façade we were all maintaining: that I was not an assassin, that my skills were no greater or lesser than an average Northern hunter’s. But if he admitted I was competent enough to go with them, then he would also have to admit what I was, and the Kennelmaster enjoyed his head on his neck too much to confront that reality.
We all went to bed early, the watches changed to account for the missing men. I thought about freezing time, about trying to use my will to get a few moments alone with Tallu, but I couldn’t make the magic work. I didn’twanttime frozen. I wanted to know what the Dogs were going to find, what they would learn about Maki.
“We are very far from the palace.” In the dark, Tallu’s whisper seemed loud. Naî was already snoring on her pillow, curled up under a spare blanket.
“Do you miss the luxury?” I asked him, thinking of his endless rooms filled with beautiful people, with their skin gleaming like precious metals. The excess and lavish expense for even the most minor details of his day.
“This reminds me more of my childhood,” Tallu said. “A sparse camp, men who live by their swords.”
“Sparse?” I nearly laughed. Tallu’s tent had a bed and a table that functioned as a desk. There was a brazier in the corner that kept the room warm all night, regardless of how cold his Dogs outside were. The fine silks of his sheets and the thick blankets were a far cry from the pelts and smaller tents that hunters used. A smaller space retained heat better, and hunters knew to stay close together and share their body heat. Borealis wolves made for excellent, if chatty, blankets.
“Compared to my rooms at the palace?” Even though I could barely see his face in the shadows, I could feel the smile on his face. “This is practicallyrugged.”