Yrene blurted, “I’m not—it’s been a while since I rode one.”
“If I can let four men help me onto this damned horse,” he said simply, the color still blooming in his cheeks, “then you can get on one, too.”
From the tone, she knew it must have been—embarrassing. She’d seen the expression on his face just now. But he’d done it. Gritted his teeth and done it.
And with the guards helping him … She knew there were multiple reasons why he could barely glance at them. That it was not just the lone reminder of what he’d once been that made him tense up in their presence, refuse to even consider training with them.
But that was not a conversation to be had now—not here, and not with the light starting to return to his eyes.
So Yrene hitched up her hem and let Shen help her onto the horse.
The skirts of her dress hiked up enough to reveal most of her legs, but she’d seen far more revealed here. In this very courtyard. Neither Shen nor any other guards so much as glanced her way. She turned to Chaol to order him to go ahead, but found his eyes on her.
On the leg exposed from ankle to midthigh, paler than most of her golden-brown skin. She darkened easily in the sun, but it had been months since she’d gone swimming and basked in any sunlight.
Chaol noticed her attention and snapped his eyes up to hers. “You have a good seat,” he told her, as clinically as she often remarked on the status of her patients’ bodies.
Yrene gave him an exasperated look before nodding her thanks to Shen and nudging her horse into a walk. Chaol snapped the reins and did the same.
She kept one eye on him as they rode toward the courtyard gates.
The brace held. The saddle held.
He was peering down at it—then at the gates, at the city awakening beyond them, the tower jutting high above it all as if it were a hand raised in bold welcome.
Sunlight broke through the open archway, gilding them both, but Yrene could have sworn it was far more than the dawn that shone in the captain’s brown eyes as they rode into the city.
It was not walking again, but it was better than the chair.
Better than better.
The brace was cumbersome, going against all his instincts as a rider, but … it held him firm. Allowed him to guide Yrene through the gates, the healer clutching at the pommel every now and then, forgetting the reins entirely.
Well, he’d found one thing she wasn’t so self-assured at.
The thought brought a small smile to his lips. Especially as she kept adjusting her skirts. For all she’d chided him about his modesty, flashing her legs had given her pause.
Men in the streets—workers and peddlers and city guards—looked twice. Looked their fill.
Until they noticed his stare and averted their eyes.
And Chaol made sure they did.
Just as he’d made sure the guards in the courtyard had kept their attention polite the moment she’d run in, huffing and puffing, sun-kissed and flushed. Even with the stain on her clothes, even wearing yesterday’s dress and coated in a faint sheen of sweat.
It had been mortifying to be helped into the saddle like unruly baggage after he’d refused the mounting ramp—mortifying to see those guards in their pristine uniforms, the armor on their shoulders and hilts of their swords glinting in the early morning sunlight, all watching him fumble about. But he’d dealt with it. And then he found himself forgetting that entirely at the appreciative glances the guards gave her. No lady, beautiful or plain, young or old, deserved to be gawked at. And Yrene …
Chaol kept his mare close beside hers. Met the stare of any man who glanced their way as they rode toward the towering spire of the Torre, the stones pale as cream in the morning light. Every single man swiftly found somewhere else to gape. Some even looked apologetic.
Whether Yrene noticed, he had no clue. She was too busy lunging for the saddle horn at any unexpected movements of the horse, too busy wincing as the mare increased her pace up a particularly steep street, causing her to sway and slide back in her saddle.
“Lean forward,” he instructed her. “Balance your weight.” He did the same—as much as the brace allowed.
Their horses slowly plowed up the streets, heads bobbing as they worked.
Yrene gave him a sharp glare. “I do know those things.”
He lifted his brows in a look that said, Could have fooled me.
She scowled, but faced ahead. Leaned forward, as he’d instructed her.
He’d been sleeping like the dead when Nesryn returned late last night—but she’d roused him long enough to say she hadn’t discovered anything in regard to potential Valg in the city. No sewers connected to the Torre, and with the heavy guard at the walls, no one was getting in that way. He’d managed to hold on to consciousness long enough to thank her, and hear her promise to keep hunting today.
But this cloudless, bright day … definitely not the Valg’s preferred darkness. Aelin had told him how the Valg princes could summon darkness for themselves—darkness that struck down any living creature in its path, draining them dry. But even one Valg in this city, regardless of whether they were a prince or an ordinary grunt …
Chaol pushed the thought from his mind, frowning up at the mammoth structure that grew more imposing with each street they crossed.
“Towers,” he mused, glancing toward Yrene. “Is it coincidence you bear that name, or did your ancestors once hail from the Torre?”
Her knuckles were white as she gripped the pommel, as if turning to look at him would send her toppling off. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “My—it was knowledge that I never learned.”
He considered the words, the way she squinted at the bright pillar of the tower ahead rather than meet his stare. A child of Fenharrow. He didn’t dare ask why she might not know the answer. Where her family was.
Instead, he jerked his chin to the ring on her finger. “Does the fake wedding band really work?”
She examined the ancient, scuffed ring. “I wish I could say otherwise, but it does.”
“You encounter that behavior here?” In this wondrous city?
“Very, very rarely.” She wriggled her fingers before settling them around the saddle’s pommel again. “But it’s an old habit from home.”
For a heartbeat, he recalled an assassin in a bloody white gown, collapsing at the entrance to the barracks. Recalled the poisoned blade the man had sliced her with—and had used with countless others.
“I’m glad,” he said after a moment. “That you don’t need to fear such things here.” Even the guards, for all their ogling, had been respectful. She’d even addressed one by name—and his returned warmth had been genuine.
Yrene clenched the saddle horn again. “The khagan holds all people accountable to the rule of the law, whether they’re servants or princes.”
It shouldn’t have been such a novel concept, yet … Chaol blinked. “Truly?”
Yrene shrugged. “As far as I have heard and observed. Lords cannot buy their way out of crimes committed, nor rely on their family names to bail them out. And would-be criminals in the streets see the exacting hand of justice and rarely dare to tempt it.” A pause. “Did you …”
He knew what she’d balked at asking. “I was ordered to release or look the other way for nobility who had committed crimes. At least, the ones who were of value in court and in the king’s armies.”
She studied the pommel before her. “And your new king?”
“He is different.”
If he was alive. If he had made it out of Rifthold. Chaol forced himself to add, “Dorian has long studied and admired the khaganate. Perhaps he’ll put some of its policies into effect.”
A long, assessing glance now. “Do you think the khagan will ally with you?”
He hadn’t told her that, but it was fairly obvious why he’d come, he supposed. “I can only hope.”
“Would his forces make that much of a difference against … the powers you mentioned?”
Chaol repeated, “I can only hope.” He couldn’t bring himself to voice the truth—that their armies were few and scattered, if they existed at all. Compared to the gathering might of Morath …