Page 20

CHAPTER 20

T hey were lucky that Landon Moore hadn’t sent his soldiers roaring into the camp on horseback, or half the bandits would’ve been trampled.

It hurt to think of them as Landon Moore’s soldiers when they should be Callum’s. But there was no use in denying it to himself. Soon, he would have to admit it to Laena, too.

But first, he needed to save their allies. He owed them a debt.

He made his way to the center of the camp, where Moore was lording over Maynard, his chest puffed like a pheasant’s, sword primed as if he planned to dispatch the man without a trial. His gods-damned hair was arranged into a golden swoop that hardly even moved, as if he hoped the bards would sing of it with as much awe as they did of his deeds.

When Callum inserted himself between the two men, the look on Moore’s face would have captured the bards’ attention, for certain. His eyes went wide as moons, his lips parted in shock. He actually dropped his sword, the fool.

“ You ,” the general breathed. “We thought you’d been lost at sea.”

Another soldier coughed in the background, and Callum found Edmun in the crowd, his sword half-heartedly raised in Fizz’s direction. Young Godfrey stood beside him, looking bedraggled but alive. Huck and Archer, Reggie and Bertrand. His men were alive . Callum could have cheered.

Instead, he leveled his most hardened glare at Landon Moore. “Don’t sound so disappointed, General. And tell your men to unhand Mr. Maynard.” Callum wasn’t entirely sure whether Maynard was the man’s given name or his surname, but at the moment, it didn’t matter. “He and his fellows are helping us to Inasvale.”

“Us?” Moore glanced around, his lips already starting to curl into an insolent response when his gaze landed on Laena.

She was standing beside the sleeping pallet, her hands propped on her hips. Callum thought his own glare was a hardened one? Hers would have shattered diamonds.

And if Moore had held off his attack for one more minute, another blessed minute, he’d have been kissing her. Yet another reason to curse the man.

Though perhaps Callum ought to thank him instead. Laena didn’t yet know what he was, and she was about to find out. Better that Callum did not give in to temptation, kissing her before he was even sure it was what she wanted.

She’d seemed sure enough herself, truth be told.

“The Etran emissary,” Callum said.

Gretchen swore. “I knew they were important.”

Maynard was frowning. He hadn’t guessed it, and Callum didn’t think he’d have used it against them anyway. If anything, the man was probably insulted that Callum had lied to him.

“Lower your weapons,” Callum said, “or King Hawk will know why.”

Edmun and Godfrey followed the order, along with Huck and Archer. All the soldiers who’d accompanied him to Etra, in fact .

The rest waited for Moore’s nod before stowing their swords.

Callum didn’t want to look Laena’s way as Moore turned to her, but honor said he owed it to her to meet her eye. Whereas he’d avoided it after the incident in the cabin, afraid of what she must think of him, after seeing him shed so much blood, this time she met his gaze straight on.

And she was not happy with him.

Moore stepped between them, offering her a bow and dipping his head with almost regal grace. “I trust you are unaware, ma’am, that you’ve been taken captive by an imposter.”

Callum had the distinct sense that Landon Moore didn’t know who Laena was, and that he was covering his ignorance by avoiding her name. Well, she’d only just agreed to serve as emissary, had she not? It stood to reason that Katrina would not have named her to Hawk. And Moore had the sense to pretend he knew her.

He had access to the same records that Callum did. Why the mages had Hawk named him general if he hadn’t bothered to study?

Laena raised an eyebrow. “An imposter? Is this man not Callum Farrow?”

Moore, who had yet to sheath his own sword, though he held it casually at his side—as casually as one could hold such a thing—gave an ugly laugh. “He is, my lady. He is. But he’s no longer the captain of the King’s Guard, nor was he given charge over the expedition.”

Laena narrowed her eyes, as if she didn’t quite believe what Moore was telling her. “And yet he arrived in Etra with the delegation.”

“Well, my lady,” Moore said, “I’m sorry to say that he stole it.”

If the stew the bandits carried was excellent, the whiskey they carried decidedly was not. It was the type of stuff they only carried at Callum’s third-favorite pub in Vunmore, a place where he hesitated to even darken the door. It wasn’t typically necessary; the first two served him just fine.

Most places wouldn’t even use this stuff for medicinal purposes, unless pressed. Yet it did the job well enough, and Callum always found that if he sat with the bottle for an hour or more, its contents would begin to taste just fine indeed.

There’d been moments on this journey when Callum had nearly forgotten the mission didn’t belong to him at all. He’d nearly convinced himself that was the case. That Hawk owed it to him, that he’d declare all forgiven as soon as he saw how much Callum had achieved. How well he’d done.

Assassins. Shipwrecks. Kidnappers. That was how well he’d done.

And now Laena knew it all.

When Callum had taken up the bottle, she’d taken up a conversation with Moore, then with Edmun and Godfrey, working her way down the line and checking in with each of the men, as Callum ought to be doing. But he’d failed them, as Hawk had known he would. He’d lied to them, betrayed them, left them to drown.

It didn’t matter that Edmun had known from the beginning. It was a betrayal nonetheless.

No doubt General Moore would have found a way to keep the ship from sinking. The way the man was strutting around the camp’s perimeter, nudging the nervous bandits in the ribs by turns and earning himself a hard stare from Gretchen—who, given a chance, would surely skewer the man through his own ribs—he would no doubt be spinning this tale to make himself the hero who’d intentionally discovered Callum, rather than by pure accident .

What was he doing, raiding random camps in the forest, anyway?

“Is this seat taken?”

Callum was tipped just far enough toward drunk not to jump at the sound of Laena’s voice. A bit drunker and he’d have fallen off the log. Luckily, he maintained his dignity. “Not sure why you’d want to sit on it, but it’s free for the taking if you care to.”

Laena sat down beside him so her side was flush against his. As close as they’d been on the pallet. Closer even, though thigh to thigh was not quite as desirable as their previous position.

“I’m surprised you don’t wish to avoid me,” he said. “I lied to you.”

“Please.” She plucked the bottle from his hands and took a swallow, grimacing before handing it back. “I can hardly be angry at a fellow outcast. One, I think, who did what he did with good intentions?”

Callum couldn’t help it; he stared at her. “Perhaps,” he said carefully, half afraid she’d stand up and laugh, call him a fool, and head off to make friends with Moore.

Instead, she leaned in closer, her arm flush with his. It took a concerted effort not to tuck her in closer and resume the activities Landon Moore had so rudely interrupted.

“You could have arrested me the moment you saw the way I…” She trailed off, but he noted the way she twisted her hands, fluttering her fingers. A mild approximation of the movements she’d made back in that cabin. The movements that had sent deadly icicles flying into walls, and men’s shoulders. That had barred the doorway.

Again, the liquor saved him. Without it, he would have startled. He would have flinched.

If Hawk discovered that Callum had been escorting a woman who could do magic, and without clapping her in chains… well, he’d add it to the growing list of Callum’s crimes. What was one more.

“Arrest you for what?” he said, trying to keep his voice light. “Unprovoked teasing?”

She held his gaze, obviously not buying the casual act. “You put your trust in me, Captain. It’s only fair I return the favor.”

Did he trust her? He wasn’t sure. He’d never seen magic such as hers, had not even heard of such a thing.

But he knew this: she smelled of crisp winter mornings, of sweet spices baking over a fire. She did not smell of evil. The opposite, in fact.

Callum had seen too much to believe that everything was black and white. Magic or no magic. Evil or not. It was never that simple.

“Also,” she whispered, leaning in closer to his ear, “Landon Moore is a bullheaded fool. I’m relieved not to have been stuck surviving a shipwreck with him.”

Callum swallowed, trying to ignore the way his body responded to the heat of her breath against his skin. “And pretending to be married to him?”

Laena grimaced, as if the idea were worse than the whiskey. “I’d rather be robbed.”

Mages, but the woman was beautiful. With the firelight flickering across her face, she looked like a promise out of the depths of his dreams. He’d kiss her right now, if Moore weren’t here to be his audience.

But who was he kidding? He wanted to do more than kiss her. He wanted to bury his nose in her hair, run his hands over her body. He wanted to feel her writhing beneath him, to savor every gasp of pleasure as he touched her.

Once again, it was a good thing that Moore was here.

If he kept repeating it, he might even begin to believe it.

“Why did you lie?” Laena asked .

Callum drew in a deep breath, steadying himself. A cold shower would have done better, but he doubted she’d appreciate him abandoning the conversation for a dip in the stream. The whiskey was putting improper thoughts into his head, and he owed her an answer. Truly, he did. “Hawk relieved me of my post,” he said.

“And you thought you’d prove your way back into his good graces.”

Callum took another swallow of whiskey. The stuff was beginning to grow on him. “Something like that.”

“By stealing the job?”

“In my defense,” he said, “I wasn’t entirely sober.”

She studied him for a long moment, her expression unreadable in the dark. “Yes,” she said. “We might want to work on that.”

Damn the reasons he’d concocted for not kissing her. If she kept looking at him like that, kept pressing her side to his, kept smelling like snowy days and cinnamon… he was going to pull her into his arms. To the Miragelands with Landon Moore, and whatever he’d think of it.

Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on which of Callum’s body parts was making the argument—Landon Moore chose that moment to sit down on Laena’s other side. “Nice friends you’ve made, Farrow,” he said. “They do match the descriptions of the band of robbers that ambushed Lord Finneas’s coach not two days ago.”

“Funny,” Callum said. “You match the description of a dung-eating weasel, but I’m polite enough not to mention it. Until now, I suppose.”

Laena raised her hand to her mouth, coughing, and he’d bet the last of this deceptively fine whiskey that she was covering a laugh.

“Quip all you like, Farrow.” Demons, but the man’s voice was smug. How could Hawk not see it? “You know what the king will have to say when we reach Vunmore. You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t throw you in a cell.”

Hawk was his friend, close enough to be a brother to him—or he had been, once—but he was King of Aglye first and foremost.

Landon Moore was a fool and an ass, but he might very well be correct.

“We’re not going directly to Vunmore,” Laena said. “I have reason to stop at Inasvale first.”

To Callum’s surprise, Moore inclined his head in agreement. “Some of the soldiers you abandoned after the shipwreck—excuse me, my lady, that was meant for ex-captain Farrow over there—require medical attention.” He stood, offering her another bow. “For now, I must suggest you take your rest. We ride at dawn.”