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Chapter Twenty-Two

Oskar

Now that they’d left the Labenda Swamp far behind, he really should have been more concerned about the mercenaries. There was every chance that, if the group hadn’t picked up their trail already, they would at any moment stumble upon Oskar and Guinevere on the way to Zadash.

It was ill-advised to dawdle out here in the open. But that was just what Guinevere did—she burned away all of Oskar’s common sense.

After they’d toweled off and changed into fresh clothes, Oskar built a fire to dry his sodden boots and garments.

Then he stretched out on the red-gold grass, one arm behind his head, the other holding Guinevere close as she curled up next to him, pillowing her head on his chest. He stared up at an azure sky streaked with fluffy white clouds while the wind blew the scent of roses through the caverns of his heart.

“You’re a virgin,” he blurted out. There had been no mistaking that viselike grip on his fingers.

She nodded, nuzzling into his shirtfront.

“You’re not saving it for Lord Wangledumb, are you?” He hated that he even asked. But there was a grasping, feverish sensation rising up from the pit of his stomach, scouring the back of his throat with the bitter, blood-red haze of a sudden possessiveness.

Guinevere traced patterns over his ribs, gentling his harsher nature as only she could.

“There was a time when it didn’t matter to me,” she quietly admitted.

“Or…I didn’t let it matter. I set off on the Amber Road thinking only of my duty.

But now that I—now that you have happened—” She burrowed against him like the hedgehog that he’d once compared her to in his own musings, a shy little thing digging into the safe haven of the earth.

“No. I’m not saving it for him. I don’t owe him anything yet. I don’t even know him.”

Then don’t marry him, Oskar wanted to shout.

Instead, he tightened his hold on her. “You don’t owe me anything, either,” he heard himself say, and he meant it.

Admittedly, there was a part of him that wanted to roll over and claim her, right here and now, but he wrestled with the impulse and won, and buried it deep.

“This…can be anything you want it to be. It’s all up to you. You have my word.”

Guinevere lifted her head and peered at him with searching lilac eyes. “What do you want, Oskar?”

Ah, there was the rub. He wanted things he had no right to ask of her.

Gwen, he imagined himself saying, would you do me the very great honor of throwing your lot in with this penniless vagabond and living the rest of your life from hand to mouth?

Will you abandon your wealthy fiancé to travel the northward Amber Road with me, riding every day until the horses inevitably collapse and we must cross the dust-covered miles on our aching feet and sleep on the ground and wake in the morning to do it all over again—all so that we may spend a few weeks or perhaps months freezing to death in the wastelands of my mother’s home?

And when I decide it’s time to return to the embrace of the Empire, you will come with me, of course, and we will go back to Druvenlode, and those soft hands will work to the bone and those lady’s lungs will darken with soot, and would you be so kind as to never regret it, please?

He chuckled. It came out as bitter as the future he’d mapped in his head.

“At the moment,” he drawled, “I just want to get you to the Menagerie Coast in one piece. On that note, we should probably pack up and leave before the mercenaries find us here. I don’t even have my damn boots on.”

The horses trotted out of the forest and onto the Amber Road in the early afternoon, and Guinevere was perfectly polite to Oskar as they rode on Vindicator’s back the rest of the way to Zadash.

She spoke when spoken to, was solicitous of his welfare, and was overall the epitome of a pleasant traveling companion.

So why did he feel like he was being punished?

It was the distance in her eyes in the few moments when she looked directly at him.

It was how she no longer yakked his ear off about her life in Rexxentrum, or pointed out interestingly shaped clouds or peculiar trees.

He hadn’t realized how badly he’d miss that.

He didn’t know if she was mad at him or merely disappointed by his glib response to her sincere question, but he was resolute in his belief that he’d done the right thing.

There was no future for them, and he had better remember that the next time his cock tried to do the thinking for him.

He could never in good conscience sleep with her.

And, since it had already been established that he had no self-control where she was concerned, he needed to make it so that she didn’t want to sleep with him, either.

Fuck, but doing the right thing was a pain in the ass.

The Amber Road was fairly crowded that day.

Oskar, Guinevere, and their horses were joined by trade caravans, messengers, farmers and their grain carts, Crownsguard recruits on their way to their new posts, carriages of aristocrats and their servants, entire families piled into one wagon…

Everyone wore the fatigue of days spent traveling, but it was softened by eagerness at the sight of their destination’s most renowned landmark—the Tri-Spires—already visible on the horizon.

Zadash was one of the larger cities in the Dwendalian Empire, as much the commerce and entertainment hub of the Marrow Valley region as Rexxentrum was the glory of the Zemni Fields.

And all Oskar could think about was Guinevere’s silly friend falling into its sewers, and how Guinevere’s eyes had sparkled when she told him about that. She was probably never going to chatter at him about anything ever again. It was a depressing prospect.

The sun had begun to set when their motley procession of travelers reached the north-facing tip of the massive stonework triangle formed by the fifteen-foot-high city walls.

One by one, each group drifted in through the entry gate, flanked by Crownsguard in vermillion-and-bronze armor keeping a silent watch.

Oskar hopped off Vindicator’s back, clutching his reins in one hand and Pudding’s in the other, and he guided his party through the bustling streets.

Zadash was infamous for giving newcomers a subtle sense of vertigo.

The city had blossomed around the Tri-Spires, a trio of venerable towers that loomed high over a sea of asymmetrical streets and arched interior walls and the buildings that had been crammed into every available inch on and between them.

These were soaring buildings, layers of shops and dwellings and offices piled atop one another, slumped together and leaning toward the pavements.

Oskar barely spared a glance for the odd architecture, though. He was too busy scowling at everyone who was either calling out to Guinevere, trying to catch her attention, or just simply staring, dumbstruck, at the beautiful silver-haired lady on the magnificent black stallion.

Not that he could blame the poor sods. By now he was more or less resigned to the fact that Guinevere would cause a stir everywhere she went.

At least she didn’t seem too bothered by the scrutiny; she was looking around, drinking in this new place with her trademark wonder.

A wonder that she was no longer sharing with him, and it cut like a knife.

Living conditions seemed to become more affluent the farther in from the entry gate they went.

Upon reaching the Innerstead Sprawl, a central, circular district that was respectably middle-class, Oskar steered his party west, searching for the Song and Supper, a decent inn that boasted relatively cheap rates for Zadash.

He’d been tipped off to its existence by one of the peddlers at Berleben’s small marketplace, where he’d bought the salve.

Oskar stopped walking and absentmindedly patted Pudding’s nose while he scanned the mess of buildings for the inn’s signpost. It was a moment of stillness that allowed him to become aware of a weighty sensation on the back of his neck, which, the longer he assessed it, gained a prickly current.

He had the instincts of a lifelong hunter and tracker.

In this case, the difference between a predator lurking in the undergrowth and a danger hidden in the crowds was minimal.

He and Guinevere were being watched. And not only by the people gawking at her.

This was a different kind of gaze—intent and calculating.

He stopped looking for the inn and started looking for whoever it was, his eyes narrowing from one cluster of strangers to the next.

There were some drunks slouched outside a tavern, a woman haggling with a fruit peddler while her children clutched at her skirts, a group of men loudly arguing over a broken cart…

“Guinevere?”

The cultured accent broke through the Sprawl’s hubbub. A carnation-skinned infernal was swanning over, for there was no other way to describe how she walked, all fluttering arms, piles of jewelry clanking together with each light, skipping step.

“Lila!” Guinevere cried, and the absolutely hilarious thing was that she began swanning, too, her arms fluttering even more vivaciously as she squirmed in the saddle.

Oskar had to hurry to help her dismount before she fell off.

Once she was on solid ground, she gripped her cloak tighter around herself—to cover, he realized with a peculiar twist to his insides, her humble dress.

She beamed at Lila, and they exchanged airy cheek kisses and then held each other’s hands and emitted squeals of such high pitch that they surely should not have been audible to the humanoid ear.

“Fancy seeing you here!” Lila tossed back her horned head, a curtain of sapphire hair spilling down one silk-clad shoulder.

“Foxhall is checking in on some investments and I thought I’d tag along—fascinating city, isn’t it!

Do you remember Lunete telling us about the time she fell into the sewers?

” She and Guinevere giggled, then the infernal looked around expectantly.

“I suppose your parents aren’t too far off. ”

“They are, rather,” said Guinevere. “I’m to meet them on the Menagerie Coast.”

“How perfectly titillating. Where on earth is your chaperone, then? I should like to greet—” Lila’s mouth snapped shut as it became clear that there was no mobcap-wearing spinster in the immediate vicinity.

Her ruby eyes fell on Oskar, who had been standing there for the last few minutes with his presence going about as acknowledged as a potted plant.

Guinevere swallowed. “Oskar,” she said in a quiet, stricken voice that gnawed at him, “permit me to make known to you Lila, Lady Foxhall. A neighbor of my family’s, from Rexxentrum. Lila, this is Oskar, my…”

She trailed off, at a loss on how to describe him. Embarrassed to be seen with him, more like. Him and his threadbare clothes and his cheap boots.

“I’m the chaperone,” Oskar said curtly.

Lila’s features twitched. She sucked in a sudden breath, as though remembering something, and turned to Guinevere with none of the righteous condemnation that Oskar had expected. Instead, her expression was filled with pity.

“Chin up, my dear. Things will get better,” Lila told Guinevere.

“It’s only a temporary slump, isn’t it? I’ll talk to my husband about opening some shares to your father on his next venture.

Foxhall will give Master Illiard a friendly price, never fear.

In the meantime, why don’t you stay with us while you’re in town?

We have the most darling house in the Tri-Spire district, with a lovely view of the Constellation Bridge. ”

“Thank you.” Guinevere’s small hands balled into fists. “But Oskar and I are in no need of charity just yet. It was nice to see you, Lila. Please give my best regards to Lord Foxhall.”

With that, she spun on her heel and walked away, leaving Oskar no choice but to follow with the horses while Lila blinked after them in confusion.