Page 23

CHAPTER 23

T he sun had absolutely no business being as bright as it was. It beamed harsh rays across Laena’s face, and when she cracked an eye open, she could see there were no curtains to pull, no shutters to clap shut. The morning of a monk, up with the dawn.

She felt as if a monstrous serpent had seized her head between its coils, squeezing mercilessly. Demons, but it hurt. Her throat was dry, and the aftertaste of wine lingered on her tongue.

She rubbed her eyes, half hoping Callum had slipped out in the night. She’d been drunk—very drunk, obscenely drunk—but she remembered every last wanton detail of their encounter. Had she truly asked him to bed her?

The shame of the memory brought heat to her cheeks. It was almost worse that she’d asked him to stay and comfort her. She would not blame him if he’d left. The door cracked open and Callum appeared, juggling a carafe of water and a fistful of herbs in one hand, a packet of sausages in the other. At least she thought that’s what they were, judging by the smell—and judging by the fact that Brin had come racing out of her hiding place at the foot of the bed and skittered up to the tabletop, where she ran in eager circles like a miniature dog awaiting a treat.

Callum nodded, giving her a hint of that half-smile he liked so much. It didn’t quite touch his eyes, though. Maybe he was afraid she might throw herself across the room and attempt to drag him into bed with her. Again.

She’d spent the night in his arms. She’d kissed the man, for demons’ sake.

Of course, he had kissed her back. For a moment, before his honor had stepped between them. So perhaps she needn’t be quite so mortified. Maybe.

“I brought sausages from the town,” he said. “Turns out the monks are vegetarians, and you need grease in your stomach if you’re to ride today without falling ill.”

She ran a self-conscious hand through her hair, then made herself get up and go to the table, inspecting his gifts. The water was self-explanatory—she could have guzzled the entire jug, had she not been afraid her stomach would revolt and throw it back up—and she took a moment to study the herbs.

“Byflower leaves,” he said. “Should ease the pain in your head.”

She raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t know that.”

“Thaddeus’s suggestion.” He raised a hand, as though anticipating her objection. “I told him they were for me.”

Brin hopped onto Laena’s fingers, running a loop around her wrist, then leaping back onto the table. “All right, greedy thing,” she said, laughing as she opened the packet. Her stomach turned at the smell of it, delicious though it was, and she broke off a piece for Brin. “I hope you didn’t have to endure a lecture.”

Callum grunted, taking the seat across from her. The wooden chair looked reluctant to hold his weight. “Thaddeus knows I’m a hopeless case.”

A hopeless case who’d risen before the sun to procure breakfast and herbs to ease her pain. Her head was murky with the aftereffects of the wine, and her stomach was most displeased with her, yet she couldn’t help wishing she could kiss him again. The feel of his lips against hers, strong and sure—and all too brief—warmed a pool of desire beneath her belly. One she’d thought, quite honestly, she might never feel again.

Her wits might be foggy, but they knew what they wanted.

“Drink some water,” Callum said. “It’ll do you good.”

Laena shook herself and obeyed, taking slow sips. “I want to apologize,” she said, setting the jug down. “For propositioning you last night.”

What a sentence. She very much wished to crawl beneath the table and disappear forever. Embarrassment and lust were a strange combination, but here she was.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” he said. “You were upset.”

“And drunk.”

“And that.”

When she met his gaze, there was no judgment in it. Just those ice-blue eyes, a touch of a crinkle at the brow that she thought might be concern. Or—he had returned her kiss last night, for the barest moment—was it desire?

Having finished her breakfast, Brin leapt onto the back of Laena’s hand and skittered up her arm, startling her out of a most inappropriate thought of what they might do with the time they had before taking to the road.

Callum cleared his throat. “The poisonkeepers sent a change of garments,” he said. “Gretchen insisted on trousers, and I was able to procure some for you as well.”

Clean clothing, herbs, and breakfast. The man was nothing less than a hero. “The bandits are traveling with us?” she asked.

“The poisonkeepers have agreed to house them in Inasvale for a few weeks. Perhaps they’re hoping to perform.”

So the master had no trouble offering accommodations to thieves, then. It was only disgraced princesses he objected to. Laena had difficulty imagining the man enjoying any kind of performance from Maynard and his crew. Perhaps a very pious one. Or an angry one.

Callum rose. “We ought to be going.”

Before Landon Moore had figured out her identity, before the master had tried to—before the humiliation and the wine and the kiss, gods that kiss —Thaddeus had revealed his suspicions about the barrier, the Vales, and the Miragelands. He suspected it might be thinning.

Which meant he must suspect that the mages intended to return.

And she’d spent her evening drowning her sorrows over personal trials. She was as selfish as Kat always said she was, self-absorbed in a way a queen should never be. Could never be.

She’d been tired, a voice in the back of her head reminded her. Tired and sad, and so very sorry for everything. She might be able to work magic, but she was still only human. And so was Katrina.

“What of the thinning barrier?” Laena asked. “What of the crystal?”

Callum ran a hand through his hair, reminding her of Thaddeus for a moment. “Thaddeus has agreed to keep it here and study it.” He raised a hand, as if anticipating her objection. “And we will discuss it with King Hawk, as you planned.”

In truth, Laena had no objection to the plan. The crystal had been growing ever heavier, a burden she wanted to be rid of. It seemed to burn in opposition to her magic, and so she would not protest its absence.

Her instinct said Thaddeus could be trusted. She hoped she was right. Thinking of Ben, she supposed she had room for improvement when it came to character judgment, but there wasn’t much to be done in any case. She doubted the master would let her steal the crystal back, even if she demanded it.

Laena gathered Brin into her pocket and took one last bite of sausage. Her stomach protested, but Callum was right; it would help.

Unfortunately, they opened the door to find a courtyard full of soldiers preparing to take to the road. An audience. Including General Moore.

“Her taste turns to disgraced captains.” Moore’s laugh was ugly, his mouth stretched wide as he looked around, clearly hoping to share smiles and snickers with his men.

The other soldiers, however, did not join him in his mirth. Not a single one of them, even those Moore had brought with him directly from Vunmore. In fact, they were looking to Callum with such identical frowns that the expression might have been part of the King’s Guard uniform.

Callum walked over to Moore. “I will remind you a final time that Princess Laena is a designated emissary to Aglye, and will be afforded the respect she deserves. Or King Hawk will know why.”

Moore’s lip twisted. He stepped away from Callum, gave Laena a shallow bow, and mounted his horse, taking off into the city without another word.

“Well,” Laena said, “this is going to be a fun journey.”

“Don’t worry. If he bothers you, Edmun and the men will set him straight.”

“Oh? And what about you?”

Callum grinned. “I’ll set him crooked, my lady.”

“I’m not sure I want to know what that means.”

Inasvale didn’t have enough fresh mounts for the entire company, but Laena didn’t mind walking. There were still injured and exhausted soldiers, and she couldn’t shake the restless urge to move, to walk. To do something with herself, even if it was just a matter of moving arms and legs. Thaddeus’s herbs had eased the headache, with a gentle aftertaste of mint and basil that she was certain continued to soothe her stomach. Byflower leaves. She would have to research that later .

She kept thinking about ‘later’ as if it would involve her returning to her cabin, her garden, her life on the outskirts of the village. But the more this journey progressed, the more she thought that was unlikely to be the case.

Laena would not have been surprised if Thaddeus was kept too busy with his duties to see them off. Nor would she have been surprised to learn that the master had intentionally assigned extra tasks to prevent it. To her surprise, though, Thaddeus caught up with them as they neared the city’s outer gates.

He was breathing hard, his dark hair springing in every direction, and he gripped his robes in his fists.

“What’s the matter?” Callum asked. “Are you coming with us?”

Thaddeus gave him an odd look. “No, I’m here to warn you.”

Callum’s gaze sharpened, and Laena could practically feel his fingers itching to reach for his dagger. “About?”

“Hawk.” Thaddeus’s chest still heaved with the effort of his run. “Hawk is here.”

The last likeness Laena had seen of King Hawk had been a freshly painted portrait of him at seventeen. Her age at the time, in fact. She could remember the way Katrina had run fingertips along the side of the picture upon its addition to the collection, remarking on the strength of his jaw, the straightness of his nose, the laughter in his gaze. “He looks like he would play a good prank on Declan,” she had said at the time. And Laena had agreed.

Now, as both parties returned to the monastery courtyard to greet one another, Laena was not sure she would have recognized King Hawk of Aglye. He was handsome, certainly, with that sun-blond hair falling across his forehead just so. But shadows darkened the skin beneath his eyes, and he looked pale enough to have spent the summer in a cave rather than a palace.

There was no laughter in his gaze now.

He dismounted smoothly, and to his credit, he approached her first. While the rest of the assembly bowed to him, he came straight to her. “The princess of a foreign nation needn’t curtsy to me,” he said. “Well met, Princess Laena. Though I wish it were under better circumstances.”

His voice was low, with a rasp that hinted at bone-deep fatigue. She could feel Callum stiffen at her side as Hawk took her hand in greeting.

And she nearly gasped at the contact as her magic stirred in her gut, as if drawn toward the young king. She held it back, trying to coil it, but she could feel its response.

It felt like how the magic had leapt to investigate the crystal in her garden.

It seemed impossible that he would not feel it, too. She glanced at Callum, and though the captain’s gaze was locked on where her hand met the king’s, he didn’t look alarmed. He didn’t see anything amiss.

She shook away the sensation as Hawk dropped his hand. He didn’t bring the aura of a heart-tithe with him, or that overwhelming smell of rot and ruin that had overtaken her garden. He didn’t look at her strangely, or demand that she be dragged away to the dungeons. If Inasvale had such a place.

And yet, she couldn’t quite convince herself that she’d imagined the sensation.

“I trust you are well, after the trials of the journey?” Hawk asked. She thought she discerned true concern in his gaze, though certainly the king would be well practiced at arranging his face into appropriate expressions just as she was.

“Well enough,” Laena said. “Thank you.”

He inclined his head. “I’m glad to hear it. We will meet formally in Vunmore, as planned.” He glanced at Callum, and his eyes darkened. “You’ve had a trying journey, to put it mildly. You should take your rest. It is but a few days’ trip to the capital. We will talk there.”

The resonance of magic aside, she found herself returning his smile, though the one that curved his lips could barely be classified as such. And though she typically withheld her judgment on the character of foreign dignitaries and monarchs, she found herself inclined to like him.

And she found herself wanting to insist that the king meet with her now, that he examine the crystal she’d left in Thaddeus’s possession and hear what she had to say about the threat to Etra. To all their lands. Surely he would have some idea of how to deal with the assassins, the kidnappers, the strange storms. The rotting gardens.

But no monarch would respond well to being pushed in front of such an audience. So Laena repressed her impatience. “There is much to discuss.”

He gave her a short bow. “If you’ll excuse me, I need a word with Callum Farrow.”

Judging by the roughness of his tone, and the way Callum shifted his weight, his energy alive with tension, it would not be a gentle word.

Before she could stop herself, Laena stepped forward and lay a hand on King Hawk’s arm. “Your Majesty?”

He turned back to her, tilting his head in surprise. “Yes?”

Laena lowered her voice. “Just remember that he has had a trying journey, too. I owe him my life many times over.”

Hawk blinked, then gave a curt nod. With that, he turned on his heel, gesturing for Callum to follow.