Nesryn smiled. “Any bed is better than that, I suppose.”
Borte smirked. “I meant what I said. You need a bath. And a comb.”
Nesryn at last raised a hand to her hair and winced. Tangles and knots and more tangles. Just getting it out of the braid would be a nightmare.
“Even Sartaq braids better than that,” Borte teased.
Nesryn sighed. “Despite my sister’s best efforts to teach me, I’m useless when it comes to such things.” She offered the girl a wink. “Why do you think I keep my hair so short?”
Indeed, her sister had practically fainted when Nesryn had come home one afternoon at age fifteen with hair cut to her collarbone. She’d kept the hair that length ever since—in part to piss off Delara, who still pouted about it, and partially because it was far easier to deal with. Wielding blades and arrows was one thing, but styling hair … She was hopeless. And showing up at the guards’ barracks with a pretty hairstyle would not have been well received.
Borte only gave Nesryn a curt nod—as if she seemed to realize that. “Before you fly the next time, I’ll braid it properly for you.” Then she pointed down the hall, to a set of narrow stairs that led into the gloom. “Baths are this way.”
Nesryn sniffed herself and cringed. “Oh, that’s awful.”
Borte snickered as Nesryn entered the hall. “I’m surprised Sartaq’s eyes weren’t watering.”
Nesryn chuckled as she followed her toward what she prayed was a boiling-hot bath. She again felt Borte’s sharp, assessing gaze and asked, “What?”
“You grew up in Adarlan, didn’t you?”
Nesryn considered the question, why it might be asked. “Yes. I was born and raised in Rifthold, though my father’s family comes from Antica.”
Borte was quiet for a few steps. But as they reached the narrow stairwell and stepped into the dim interior, Borte smiled over a shoulder at Nesryn. “Then welcome home.”
Nesryn wondered if those words might be the most beautiful she’d ever heard.
The baths were ancient copper tubs that had to be filled kettle by kettle, but Nesryn didn’t object as she finally slid into one.
An hour later, hair finally detangled and brushed out, she found herself seated at the massive round table in the great hall, shoveling roast rabbit into her mouth, nestled in thick, warm clothes that had been donated by Borte herself. The flashes of embroidered cobalt and daffodil on the sleeves snared Nesryn’s attention as much as the platters of roast meats before her. Beautiful clothes—layered and toasty against the chill that permeated the hall, even with the fires. And her toes … Borte had indeed found a pair of those fleece-lined boots for her.
Sartaq sat beside Nesryn at the empty table, equally silent and eating with as much enthusiasm. He had yet to bathe, though his windblown hair had been rebraided, the long plait falling down the center of his muscled back.
As her belly began to fill and her fingers slowed their picking, Nesryn glanced toward the prince. She found him smiling faintly. “Better than grapes and salted pork?”
She jerked her chin toward the bones littering her plate in silent answer, then to the grease on her fingers. Would it be uncouth to lick it off? The seasonings had been exquisite.
“My hearth-mother,” he said, that smile fading, “is not here.”
Nesryn paused her eating. They’d come here to seek the counsel of this woman—
“According to Borte, she will be returning tomorrow or the day after.”
She waited for more. Silence could be just as effective as spoken questions.
Sartaq pushed back his plate and braced his arms on the table. “I’m aware that you’re pressed for time. If I could, I’d go look for her myself, but even Borte wasn’t sure where she’d gone off to. Houlun is … adrift like that. Sees her sulde waving in the wind and takes her ruk out to chase it. And will whack us with it if we try to stop her.” A gesture toward the rack of spears near the cave mouth, Sartaq’s own sulde among them.
Nesryn smiled at that. “She sounds like an interesting woman.”
“She is. In some ways, I’m closer to her than …” The words trailed off, and he shook his head. Than his own mother. Indeed, Nesryn hadn’t witnessed him being nearly so open, so teasing with his own siblings, as he was with Borte.
“I can wait,” Nesryn said at last, trying not to wince. “Lord Westfall still needs time to heal, and I told him I’d be gone three weeks. I can wait a day or two more.” And please, gods, not another moment after it.
Sartaq nodded, tapping a finger on the ancient wood of the table. “Tonight, we will rest, but tomorrow …” A hint of a smile. “How would you like a tour tomorrow?”
“It would be an honor.”
Sartaq’s smile grew. “Perhaps we could also do a bit of archery practice.” He looked her over with a frankness that made her shift in her seat. “I’m certainly keen to match myself against Neith’s Arrow, and I’m sure the young warriors are, too.”
Nesryn pushed back her own plate, brows lifting. “They’ve heard of me?”
Sartaq grinned. “I might have told a story or two the last time I came here. Why do you think there were so many people gathered when we arrived? They certainly don’t usually bother to drag themselves here to see me.”
“But Borte seemed like she’d never—”
“Does Borte seem like a person who gives anyone an easy time?”
Something deeper in her warmed. “No. But how could they have known I was coming?”
His answering grin was the portrait of princely arrogance. “Because I sent word a day before that you were likely to join me.”
Nesryn gaped at him, unable to maintain that mask of calm.
Rising, Sartaq scooped up their plates. “I told you that I was praying you’d join me, Nesryn Faliq. If I’d shown up empty-handed, Borte would have never let me hear the end of it.”
30
Within the interior chamber of the hall, Nesryn had no way of telling how long she’d slept or what hour of the morning it was. She’d dozed fitfully, awakening to comb through the sounds beyond her door, to detect if anyone was astir. She doubted Sartaq was the type to scold her for sleeping in, but if the rukhin indeed teased the prince about his courtly life, then lazing about all morning was perhaps not the best way to win them over.
So she’d tossed and turned, catching a few minutes of sleep here and there, and gave up entirely when she noticed shadows interrupting the light cracking beneath the door. Someone, at least, was awake in the Hall of Altun.
She’d dressed, pausing only to wash her face. The room was warm enough that the water in the ewer wasn’t icy, though she certainly could have used a freezing splash on her gritty eyes.
Thirty minutes later, seated in the saddle before Sartaq, she regretted that wish.
He’d indeed been awake and saddling Kadara when she’d emerged into the still-quiet great hall. The fire pit burned brightly, as if someone tended to it all night, but save for the prince and his ruk, the pillar-filled hall was empty. It was still empty when he hauled her up into the saddle and Kadara leaped from the cave mouth.
Freezing air slammed into her face, whipping at her cheeks as they dove.
A few other ruks were aloft. Likely out for their breakfasts, Sartaq told her, his voice soft in the emerging dawn. And it was in pursuit of Kadara’s own meal that they went, sailing out of the three peaks of the Eridun’s aerie and deep into the fir-crusted mountains beyond.
It was only after Kadara had snatched half a dozen fat silver salmon from a rushing turquoise river, hurling them each in the air before swallowing them in a slicing bite, that Sartaq steered them toward a cluster of smaller peaks.
“The training run,” he said, pointing. The rocks were smoother, the drops between peaks less sharp—more like smooth, rounded gullies. “Where the novices learn to ride.”
Though less brutal than the three brother-peaks of the Dorgos, it didn’t seem any safer. “You said you raised Kadara from a hatchling. Is that how it is done for all riders?”
“Not when we are first learning to ride. Children take out the seasoned, more docile ruks, ones too old to make long flights. We learn on them until we are thirteen, fourteen, and then find our hatchling to raise and train ourselves.”