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  “Owl, what are your plans now? You know you don’t have to stay out in the caves,” Myah said.

  “Oh, well, I,” he hedged, “I think my time in Nordlin might be coming to a close.”

  “You don’t want to try to recruit more men?” Skye asked. He raised his arms, locking his fingers behind his head. He had at least thought Owl would try to rebuild their band.

  Owl shrugged and then pushed up his spectacles. “Most of the refugees are women and children, and the people here feel safe behind the wards. They don’t have a reason to fight, not really.”

  “They’ve become complacent under Edgar’s protection,” Skye noted.

  “Because they know they are safe,” Myah reminded.

  “But we have a reason to fight, and that’s a start at least,” Cal said, returning to the table. He dropped four tankards on the table and then slid three of them toward Skye, Myah, and Owl.

  Owl cradled the wooden cup in his hands. “Revolutions cannot be won with four people.”

  Myah lifted her drink. “Yet, one man can make a difference.”

  “Or woman,” Cal added. He winked at Myah, earning him a smile.

  Skye rolled his eyes. “Smooth, Cal. Smooth.”

  Cal leaned back in his seat, brushing back his cloak. “I’m serious. My is brilliant with a bow.”

  She sighed. “Just not so great at the rest.”

  Skye nudged her arm, grabbing her attention. “We can fix that. Whenever you want.”

  “That assumes my mother will let me learn how to use a sword. She only agreed to archery because she considered it genteel. Believe me when I tell you, she would not have let me learn if she knew I was going to use it to go hunting.” She twisted the features of her face, making the most disgusting expression, before she uncoiled the muscles. Her annoyed face.

  “Give her time,” Owl countered. “But perhaps my leaving would be the best thing for you.”

  “But not for Nordlin,” Myah argued. “Please, Owl. Don’t leave yet. Give it some time. Allen … Allen wouldn’t want you to give up. You know how much trust he had in you.”

  Owl hunched forward. “I … I will consider it.”

  Owl’s tone was off, but Skye couldn’t place how. It was almost as if he were lying, but the old man had no reason to lie to them about something as simple as staying in Nordlin. He understood Owl’s wanderlust, though. If it weren’t for Myah and his family, he would be out there, in the kingdoms, fighting the Ostens, and Cal would follow, like he always did, if only to keep Skye safe.

  Maybe if Skye left, he could keep her safe—the way he hadn’t at the City of Kings, the way he hadn’t kept Allen safe.

  He put the thoughts aside and drank his ale, listening to his friends’ laughter and stories, honoring their dead with joy. It wasn’t until hours later, when the foursome stumbled out into the lantern-lit streets of Nordlin City, the fresh snowfall dusting the cobblestones, that Skye placed a hand on Owl’s shoulder, stopping their leader. He had not been able to shake the thoughts of leaving that had surfaced no matter how much he drank.

  Cal and Myah sang as they walked ahead of them. He waited until they were out of earshot.

  “If you leave,” Skye whispered, his tongue thick in his mouth. “I’ll go with you.”

  “I will keep that in mind, Skye.” Owl patted his shoulder and headed for the city gates.

  ~FOURTEEN~

  Garrett tossed his horse leads to a groom as he dismounted in the bailey. His boots sank into the mud churned up by soldiers and horses, making a sucking noise as he stepped. The white stone of the Osten castle rose up around him, and its gilded columns shimmered in the flickers of torchlight. He could feel eyes on him, from above, watching his return with curiosity and intrigue.

  He had always been the subject of gossip. To everyone here, he was a houseless whelp who had defeated the former master of the guard. Elysia’s right hand. They were afraid of him, and yet it did not stop them from watching his comings and goings. No doubt the two weeks on the road to and from the Namirrian coast hadn’t done him any favors in his appearance, but it had at least given him time to plan his entrance into Nordlin.

  Garrett couldn’t be certain Elysia would agree.

  She was tricky that way.

  Tricky and manipulative.

  If she agreed, it would be because of her own motivations, and that would put his plan on shaky ground. Either way, he would know soon enough.

  His boots found stone as he climbed the stairs to the main doors of the castle.

  Malcolm, emerged from the carved, wooden entrance, and descended the steps toward Garrett. His second’s bulky frame reminded Garrett of a bull charging off intruders. The illusion was even more pronounced since he was flanked by two men. He recognized them well enough to know they were both members of the Elite Guard, but he usually kept his distance from the guardsmen. He didn’t have to socialize with them to command them, although sometimes he questioned whether it would help if he did. What attempts he had made had been met with derision, and so Garrett had decided early on that it was safer if he didn’t try.

  Every muscle in his body went on alert as the distance was cut between them. Garrett palmed a knife, but his swords were easily in reach on his back should he need them.

  “Where have you been?” Malcolm demanded as he stopped in front of Garrett.

  Garrett skirted right past them on the wide staircase. “You are not my superior officer or my mother, Malcolm. Try to remember that,” he said evenly. He had technically defied the queen by not returning to Turris immediately. Instead, he had sent Malcolm with the Elite Guard and sneaked away on his errand to meet Oren.

  They were following him. Garrett could feel their presences shadowing his steps.

  “Queen Elysia—” Malcolm bellowed.

  Garrett spun around, forcing all three men to stop two steps below him. He hovered above them like a lightning-filled thunder cloud waiting to unleash its fury. “Queen Elysia will understand once I speak to her.” He flashed Malcolm a smile. “Now, thank you for the welcome, but I have business to attend to with the queen. I expect a report from you in the morning.”

  Garrett spun back around with a swish of his black cloak, daring Malcolm to follow him again as he marched into the castle. He secured his knife, and then pulled off his gloves one by one.

  “Please have the servants bring water for a bath to my chambers, and let the queen know that I’ve returned.” One of the servants, a middle-aged man, with a thick, puckered scar running across his cheek, bowed, and then disappeared into a panel in the wall—a hidden staircase lay behind the panel and the private passageways used primarily by the servants to quickly access different areas of the maze of a castle.

  He would bathe, and then … he would see if the trek to the Namirrian coast had been worth the effort.

  ~*~

  Garrett had hardly had a chance to bathe and shake off the dirt of the road before the queen summoned him to her private chambers in the eastern wing. He smoothed a hand across his jaw, checking for any spots he missed when he shaved, and combed his hand through his black hair, pushing the wet strands back from his face. A guard bid him enter before he even reached the duo standing before the double doors to her suite of rooms. He breezed in without a pause and stopped inside as the men shut the doors behind him.

  The room was decorated in blues and gold filigree, silks and satins, to indicate the softness of femininity, but one could also see the hard lines of the décor that matched the twisted nature of the queen. Swords, knives, maces, and axes decorated the walls. They were all ornate, showpieces more than functional, but they were all lethal in the right or wrong hands.

  “There you are,” she purred. She sat at a low table in the middle of her sitting room. Cushions in dark blues, reds, and beiges circled the table. On the wooden tabletop sat a chessboard. She gestured to it. “Care for a game while we speak?”

  Garrett shrugged a single shoulder and then rounded the m
ound of stuffed fabric to take his place opposite of her.

  Her dark hair cascaded over her shoulder, banded by golden clips into a single, thick tail. Her face was mostly clear of makeup, save thick black eyeliner that gave her eyes an exotic angular appearance and the blood red tinting her lips. Her red gown was as crimson as the décor and wrapped her body loosely. The low-cut fabric exposed the tops of her breasts, where her green weaver stone lay against her chest.

  “I thought I asked you to return with the guard,” she said, the sweetness of her voice only belied her annoyance with him. Her fingers toyed with the stone.

  “You did, but I had business to take care of. I can either do my job as master of the Elite Guard, or I can flit back to Turris whenever you would like a private conversation. Lady’s choice,” he said, once settled on the mound of pillows. He always played with the black figures, while she claimed the white. White always went first, but he spoke of more than the chess pieces. She wouldn’t replace him as master of the Elite Guard without cause; he was too good at his job.

  And he was betting on that favor now.

  It would also give him a chance to test her trust in him.

  Any other man who defied her would be tortured with her magic, and then she would have him executed.

  “I heard your ambush was successful.” She tapped her cheek, scanning the board, and then made her first move. Her dark eyes lifted from the board. “But you didn’t bring me any prisoners.”

  Garrett reached for a piece without looking and moved it to counter hers. “This from the queen who orders ‘nothing left’ on a routine basis.”

  She arched a perfectly trimmed brow at him. “You sound like your father.”

  Garrett fought the urge to bristle. “My voice isn’t deep enough.”

  Elysia laughed. “Yes, definitely like your father. You hide your sense of humor behind that façade of anger and indifference.” She turned her attention back to the board, and then plucked another piece up and put it back down. “But how am I supposed to ferret out these traitors if you don’t bring me someone to interrogate who knows where they are hiding?”

  “You don’t need to interrogate anyone to know that.” He grabbed another piece, pairing it off with her last move. “I already know where they are coming from.”

  “Oh?”

  “Malcolm didn’t tell you?”

  “He told me his theories, but I would prefer to hear your assessment.”

  “The group that attacked the convoy was from Nordlin,” Garrett said evenly.

  “And what, might I ask, gives you that impression?” She toyed with a figure but didn’t lift it from the board. It rocked back and forth as her fingers twitched.

  “Edgar brought the ward down to let in refugees. Those that escaped met up with the refugees and went into Nordlin.”

  She picked up the piece she played with and finally moved the thing. “That was a one-time occurrence. Two, if you count when he let in a group two years ago. People cannot just slip in and out through the wards.”

  He picked up a piece and dropped it on the board without looking. “Check.”

  Her eyes narrowed at the board, and he fought to keep from smiling at her perplexed face. Elysia knew what he had done. He didn’t doubt it. After all, his father had taught her to play. The move was child’s play.

  “They can if they have a spellweaver who knows how to access the wards.”

  She picked at her nails, which were painted red and filed into points so that it looked like she had claws. “Clever.”

  He wasn’t sure if she meant Edgar Leicht or Garrett’s move with the chess piece.

  “So, all we need is a spellweaver adept at ward magic,” she mused.

  “There isn’t a weaver left in the four kingdoms that can counter Edgar Leicht’s magic at wards, but I might have a better solution.”

  She reached for a piece—

  “I will have checkmate in one move,” he said.

  Her fingers withdrew. “Your father would have taken the victory.”

  “My father would have done many things, but since he’s dead, clearly there was a flaw in his thinking.”

  Elysia smiled, like a cat about to devour a mouse. “A pretty woman tends to make the weaker sex weaker,” she countered. “What is your solution?” She moved a different piece.

  “We make peace with Nordlin.”

  “Peace, with the specimens of humanity that executed your father?”

  “No, peace with the one kingdom you can’t possibly hope to conquer, not while Edgar Leicht lives.”

  “And then?” she drawled.

  Garrett picked up his piece and dropped it on the board unceremoniously. “Checkmate.”

  He stared at her for a moment, assessing the quirk of her lips and the angle of her jaw and the saccharine of her smile. She liked to feign ignorance, but she was always thinking, plotting, moving. He had to angle this discussion just right.

  “The goal of your campaign is to reunite the four kingdoms. If you cannot conquer Nordlin to accomplish that, then the next best solution is an alliance—peace. What’s the best way to solidify peace?”

  “That’s not a hard question, Garrett.”

  “Indulge me.”

  “The houses used to solidify alliances through treaties … and marriage. The Esparrow kings would order a marriage between the families that couldn’t get along.” She flicked one of the kings with her finger and toppled it over.

  “The Leichts are an ancient house. They follow the old traditions. Edgar will respect offers of peace and trade agreements.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Send an envoy to discuss terms with Edgar—a cease in hostilities in exchange for timber, coal, natural resources that are hard for us to get our hands on, and in turn, we offer them food, medicine, anything they may need.”

  “And why would they agree to that? They are perfectly protected behind the wards.”

  Why, indeed? Garrett mused. He silently thanked Oren for the next bit of information. “Because they’ve just taken in thousands of refugees, and the supplies they were expecting from the Stone Isles … won’t arrive before the spring thaw.”

  Elysia’s brows arched. “And how did you come by that information?”

  Garrett smirked. “Doing my job … as master of the Elite Guard.”

  Elysia threw back her head and laughed, clapping her hands. “Oh, Garrett, you can consider your absence absolutely forgiven.” She settled deeper into the cushions. “Do you think Edgar will agree to these terms?”

  “Well, I doubt he’d sell his niece to you, should it come to that, but—” He lifted his right hand. “Swift end to the war.” He lifted his scarred left hand and then moved them both up and down like a weight scale. “Slow starvation and death.”

  “I like the way you think,” she commended.

  As long as it got him into Nordlin, he didn’t care what she liked.

  ~FIFTEEN~

  Ahh,” Myah screamed and then rubbed her shoulder at the collarbone. She was going to be covered in bruises by the end of the day.

  She reached down and picked up the small leather ball filled with rice and lobbed it at Master Griffith.

  He stood with his arms crossed and a smile touching his mouth. Just before the ball would have struck him, an icy blue shield formed in front of him. The ball hit it and fell to the floor. A second later, the shield evaporated with only a faint glow of his weaver stone and the glitter of magic in his eyes. He picked up the ball and tossed it in the air, only to catch it as gravity pulled it down.

  “You’re not concentrating,” he said, and then threw it at her head.

  Her breath caught in a second of panic before a faint glimmer of magic formed in front of her. It flickered and died right as the ball passed through and struck her in the face. She shouted again, wincing, and then rubbed her nose.

  “You have an unfair advantage,” she shouted. Her eyes watered, leaking tears down her cheeks.

&
nbsp; “No, I have years of practice.” He leaned against his worktable, half-sitting on the surface. “You are getting better at forming the shield, but you need to focus on maintaining it.”

  Admittedly, Master Griffith was correct. In the two weeks they had been practicing, she had gone from making faint sparkles of pink magic, to creating something with form. It was something, but it was about as useless as her pink fireworks when that Osten had thrown the blade at her.

  She grimaced and shook her head clear. She didn’t want to think about the soldier today. It would only distract her.

  Myah picked up the ball and threw it as hard as she could, a little yell escaping her throat as she arched her hand above her head. It went straight for Master Griffith. This time, though, he didn’t bother to raise a shield; he simply stepped to the right. The ball struck the wall and broke at the seams, raining rice down on the floor and the table.

  Her teacher arched his brows. “Perhaps we should focus on healing magic for our next session.”

  “I’m not going to get this,” she muttered and brushed her hair back from her face. She hadn’t braided it that day, and already she regretted not having it tied away from her face. She let out a breath and blew a few lingering strands out of her eyes.

  “You won’t with that attitude. Practice the shield on your own. It has to be thick enough to deflect, Myah, or it won’t protect you.” He glanced back at the cog clock on his mantel. “You better go now. You are late for the council meeting.”

  Myah’s eyes snapped to the arms of the timepiece; she cursed under her breath. She was a half hour late.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said quickly, then picked up her cloak and rushed out of Master Griffith’s workroom.

  ~*~

  The doors were barely cracked when the cantankerous cursing settled slightly, and then it silenced as Myah entered the great hall. Her face flushed as the lords all followed her movements. She walked steadily through the center of the room and marched up to her uncle as if she hadn’t interrupted whatever they were discussing.