As one, Safi’s and the Hell-Bards’ postures deflated. Their breaths collectively whooshed out.
Vaness, meanwhile, dragged her gaze over each Hell-Bard in turn. Zander, Lev, then Caden. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank us yet.” Caden inched aside the curtain, squinting into a sliver of sunlight. “The alarms are still clanging, and we’re surrounded on all sides. It’s only a matter of time before they start searching carriages.”
“What about the Red Sails’ territory?” Safi asked. “Couldn’t we go there? Hide until this passes?”
Though Safi directed her question at Caden, it was the Fareaster woman who spoke. “They are united now.” Her voice was a husky, rounded thing. “The Baedyeds and the Red Sails have allied under the Raider King’s banner. He has promised them all of Nubrevna and Marstok in return.”
Caden glanced at Safi, but there was nothing she could do beyond nod—for the grandma’s words shivered with truth.
“Hell pits,” Lev muttered at the same time that Caden groaned.
Vaness scooted forward, steel in her posture. “Why do you tell us this?”
“It is bad for business.” The old woman’s nose wrinkled and her tone turned frosty with condescension. “If the two sides become one, then trade is no longer controlled by supply and demand.”
“You mean the arena is no longer controlled by it,” Caden countered, and the woman simply bounced a single, unimpressed shoulder. As if to say, Same idea.
All the while, the carriage trundled on.
“Do you go there now?” Lev asked. “To the arena?”
The woman’s nod sent Caden slouching back. “Good enough.” He flashed a Chiseled Cheater grin at Safi and Vaness. “Our men are at the arena. Once we free them, we’ll leave this festering swampland far behind. Together. Just as promised.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
It took several hours to descend the cliffs beside the Amonra Falls. The humidity and heat were suffocating, rising up from the gorge below.
Iseult never uttered a word about it, and of course, Aeduan didn’t either.
He walked in front now, as if Iseult had passed whatever test he’d issued the day before. Or perhaps he’d just forgotten not to trust her. She suspected both. He’d also given her the salamander cloak and reclaimed the bland coat she’d first found him in.
It meant something—giving her that cloak for a second time. And though Iseult didn’t know what precisely, she did know it felt good to be back beneath its thick fibers.
Especially since something fundamental had snapped inside her.
Hours after the fact and miles away, she finally understood it must have been her heart. That when Aeduan had told her she was not the Cahr Awen, she had felt a grief so rough, it had bowled her over and dragged her down. But at the time, all she had known was that this was her confirmation. This was her proof.
She was broken. She was useless. She was the pointless half of a friendship. The one who would live forever in shadows, no matter what she did. No matter whom she fought. Never had Iseult asked for anything. Not since learning as a little girl that rusted locks on a door were the best she could ever hope for.
Then she’d met Safi, and secretly, silently, so deep no one would ever find it, Iseult had started to hope that her life might turn into something. Little dreams weren’t so bad. Iseult could brush against them from time to time, and no one would ever be the wiser.
Only now, now that she couldn’t have this one huge dream that she’d been whispering to herself couldn’t possibly be true … That she was part of the Cahr Awen. Only now did she realize how hungry she’d actually been for it.
All along, since she was a little girl.
Fanciful fool.
Attacking Aeduan had felt good. Too good. Iseult had lost herself in the sparring. In the grappling. In the bright bursts of pain each time Aeduan landed a blow.
She’d been soaked in sweat by the end, her chest heaving long before her body had given up; Aeduan had been too. Though Iseult’s form had grown ragged, erratic as the sparring went on, and though he’d thrown her, strangled her, blocked her every punch, the Bloodwitch had never eased up or backed down.
Then racing him through the forest—that had felt even better. More fun than Iseult had had in a long time. A long, long time, and she was grateful for it. Even now, with welts and bruises and aching calves. Perhaps, once the sore muscles fully took hold and she was too stiff to walk, Iseult would change her mind. But she suspected not.
After all, pain was her lesson for dreaming too big.
The valley beyond the Falls was blessedly cool. Ferns shivered on the breeze here, along with white- and yellow-petaled asphodels. Trees were rare, replaced by massive stone pillars that grew up from the earth, chiseled and striated by a river’s changing course. The columns were all widths, all heights, all colors.
And always silent. No men traveled here.
Eventually, Aeduan led Iseult outside the narrow gorge, where the land opened into flat floodplains. Oaks reappeared, as did full shade against the sun.
Signs of humanity reappeared as well, but not of the living men who waited ahead. These were battlefields from a time long past, long forgotten.
Rusted helms and chest plates. Swords, spears, arrowheads. Signs of death were everywhere Iseult’s gaze landed, some pieces so ancient, the earth and ferns had laid claim. Iseult would discover them only when they crumbled beneath her feet. Other remnants were new enough to shine, untouched where they’d fallen, left to cook beneath a boiling sun.