It’s got to be the wind.
A shadowed figure appears in the window, knocking insistently, and my hand flies to my heart.
“Shh!” I exclaim, realizing belatedly that he—or it could just as easily be a she, I suppose—can’t hear me through walls that separate us. My voice is too low. “Ready to wake us all up for a pint of ale,” I mutter, moving forward. Candlestick in hand, I call loudly. “Tavern’s closed! We open again at dusk tomorrow.”
“What a disappointment.”
I recognize that voice. An icicle runs a malevolent caress up my spine.
“We were so hoping to make ourselves at home.”
Three
Why? I resist the urge to scream in frustration. I haven’t said a word, not to anyone, so why has the nightmare trio followed me home?
“We’re closed,” I repeat. This time, my voice quavers. I hope they don’t notice. I want to sound confident and firm, someone not to be trifled with. It’s hard to give that impression to someone who’s done their best to choke the life out of me, but I’m determined to try.
“Let’s not play games.” The Rider’s voice seeps into the room. It’s soft and shouldn’t carry through the heavy wooden door, but it winds its way through the thick slats and grazes my ears. I flinch away instinctively. “I trust you understand that we are able make our way inside with or without your assistance. Should you wish to avoid a considerable scene, I’d suggest you unbolt the door.”
I raise my arm and scoff at myself in the same heartbeat. What do you think you’re going to do? Wave at them? I bring my hands together to clutch at the candlestick as if in prayer instead. They need something to do.
Maybe they only want lodging. Elementals have to sleep, same as anyone, right?
I dismiss the thought. The coincidence that they’ve sought me out again for simple lodgings would be too easy. They’re here for something else, though only the Makers know what.
But the woman’s right. They’ll be coming in one way or another, so I might as well pretend they’re entering on my terms. Before I can change my mind, I flip the latch and slide the bolt aside. I open the door with the haste of a lover awaiting her beau and a dread that I sincerely hope is misplaced.
The moonlight illuminates the three on my front stoop, and the soft glow does nothing to lessen the impact of seeing them again. It’s a vision I hoped would only visit me in nightmares. I pinch the soft skin of my underarm and it stings. I’m most assuredly awake.
The shadows under Piggy’s eyes are darker now, making him seem all the more menacing. Tregle’s eyes are a little sharper, the color in his cheeks a bit fuller. He looks recovered from his beating earlier today.
The Rider’s hair is threads of silver and gold, unspooled. Her blue eyes are vibrant and her age difficult to determine. Older than me, that’s for certain, but by how much, I can’t say. Twenty years? More?
“I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced,” she says, stepping inside. Feeling instantly crowded, I step back. The backs of my knees bump against a table bench. “It’s terribly rude of me. I am Lady Katerine du Eirya, Countess of Saungri.”
She’s looking at me expectantly, but I can’t do anything but stare back, flummoxed.
“Ugh. Country folk,” she mutters. “And you are?” The question is pointed. I guess this is information that I should have volunteered.
“Bree. Breena,” I correct myself. Somehow, I sense that the short form of my name won’t do here. “Breena Perdit. Um, barmaid.”
“Charming.” Katerine’s lips draw tight in a facsimile of a smile. “Now, straight to the point: are you an Adept, Breena Perdit?”
I’m thrown by the question. I don’t know what an Adept is, so I highly doubt that I am one. I look at her in confusion. “No?” I ask.
A clatter from the bar makes me turn, and I frown at the sight of the brawny Torcher pawing through the tankards Da and I collected from our customers only hours ago. “Oy! Piggy! Knock that off!” I say, without thinking.
A startled laugh bursts out of Tregle. It surprises me as well. If he finds my short-name for the other Torcher entertaining, maybe he’s not as closely aligned with them as I thought. But a glare from Katerine abruptly silences him.
“I suppose I didn’t introduce my companions. The oaf at your bar is Baunnid.” At his name, Baunnid sneers an acknowledgement. “This is Tregle.” Katerine flips a careless hand toward him. “Now, again, to the point: are you an Adept, Breena Perdit?”
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” I say truthfully.
Katerine seems far more reasonable now than when she was standing on my ankle. Really, the countess shouldn’t make an imposing figure. She stands a thumbs-length shorter than me, yet manages to look down her nose. She reminds me of the poisonous snakes I sometimes see at the river banks: tiny, seemingly innocuous creatures, but lethal. There’s power in their small size.
Forcing myself to relax, to pretend that she’s just another village woman, I ask, “What’s an Adept?”
Katerine sighs, and irritation rushes over me. So sorry that explanations are such a chore for you, my lady.
“Someone who can control air,” Katerine says, indicating herself. “Fire.” A grin from Baunnid and a small shrug from Tregle. “Water or earth.” She says the last two as though they barely warrant a mention.
I understand what she means now, but I’ve always known “Adepts” by a different name. “You mean an Elemental?”
She grimaces as though I’ve uttered a filthy swear. “I despise that word. It’s just so base. But essentially, yes. Our sources and searching have led us here, and we can only surmise that an Adept is inside your darling little…hovel.”
Ordinarily, I’d take offense at the slight to my home, but I’m so caught up with the beginning of her sentence that most of the tension leaves me. I slump with the relief of it. This is a mistake, that’s all. Their “sources” are wrong ,and as soon as they realize that, they’ll leave.
“Nope, no Adepts here,” I say cheerfully, stretching my arms behind my back. There’s a pop as my elbow cracks. “I’m only sixteen. Don’t even have the proper seventeen years it takes to be one. And we haven’t got any rooms let tonight, so if your sources brought you here for a guest, the last lad left about three days ago.”
“Interesting.” She scrutinizes me for a reaction. “Is there no one else? If I recall, you mentioned that we were on your father’s lands?”
“Da?” I falter. I can’t think of any real reason that Da couldn’t be an Elemental except… “I’d know if my own Da was an Elemental, wouldn’t I?” I dismiss her question confidently.
“Not necessarily,” Tregle speaks up. His shoulders straighten. “I didn’t know I was one. This lot just showed up and told me so.” He jams a finger toward Baunnid. “You can imagine my joy.”
I suppress an unwilling smile at his attempt with humor. I do not want to be this Torcher’s friend.
“Do call your dear father down for us,” Katerine simpers at me. “I must meet the owner of this charming establishment.” This gets sneered at the walls of the Bridge and Duchess like they’ve done her a personal offense. For a moment, I wish that the deer’s head mounted above the hearth would return to life long enough to charge at her.
I hitch my breeches up at the waist and scratch my thigh absently. “Sure.”
The sooner I fetch Da, the sooner the Elementals will be out of Abeline, on the road back to where they came from. They can report to the Egrian king that his hunting instruments need some seeing to. His sources are faulty.
Weariness sets in as I climb the stairs. Now that I’ve got little reason to fear consequences from the Elementals—sorry, Adepts—in our tavern, I’m just in a hurry to get through the process that’ll show them Da’s not the truant they’re looking for. I take the stairs two at a time, my mind already moving ahead to what it will feel like to sink onto my soft pallet, pull my thick quilts up to my chin, and drift away int
o temporary oblivion for the rest of the night.
I pass the second floor where any guests would sleep and keep climbing. My arm steadies me on the railing as I ascend the steep steps to the third floor where our rooms are. I fetch the brass key from inside my bodice and undo the lock on the landing.
“Da.” I rap sharply on his door. Light taps won’t do anything to rouse him; Da sleeps like the dead sometimes. A brief shuffling issues from inside the room before he’s blinking into the unexpected light of my candle.
“The inn had better be burning down,” he says, rubbing wakefulness into his brown eyes.
That’s not completely out of the question. I think fleetingly of the two Torchers I’ve left downstairs with a Rider who could fan the flames. Striving for nonchalance, I say, “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. I need you downstairs for a moment.”
He grumbles but pulls his quilt from his pallet without further protests, winding it around his body like a caterpillar in a cocoon to follow me.
“Got a squad of Elementals here that say they’re on the trail of a truant,” I explain as we descend. “Figured you could put in an appearance and we’ll both get back to bed quick enough once they realize whoever they’re looking for isn’t here.”
He stops dead on the second floor landing.
I hold my candle higher. Maybe it’s just the flickering light, but I would swear I’ve never seen that look on his face before. He’s clutching his quilt tighter. His fists are clenched around the edge.
“What—” he croaks and clears his throat. “What exactly did you tell them?”
A tremor of anxiety runs through me, sending my weariness fleeing. Why does he look worried? “That it’s ridiculous,” I say slowly. “It is, isn’t it?”
Comprehension dawns over Da’s features. Dread hooks into my stomach with clawed talons. He doesn’t respond but sets his quilt down on the landing and thumps down the stairs, shoulders squared. He’s walking with a grim resignation. Like a man on his way to his own execution. A chill steals over me.
“Da?” I fly down the steps behind him, heart pounding, wings suddenly at my feet. He’s already taking the last few steps into the tavern when I catch up with him.
I take a worried look at the Elementals. Tregle looks to be practically asleep on his feet and Baunnid slides a tankard back and forth across the counter between his hands with a bored look on his face.
Katerine turns when we bang into the room. A slow predatory smile slides across her face, revealing gleaming white teeth that could rip skin from bone. “Hello, Ardie,” she purrs.
That’s Da’s name.
I look back and forth between the two of them as fear tears into me anew. It suddenly feels as if the ground beneath me has vanished and my stomach is plummeting as I fall.
Da nods once, stiffly, and raises his chin.
“Hello, Kat.”
Four
After greeting each other, Da and Katerine simply stare, competing to see who will break the silence first. I count the time by my pounding heartbeats, by the restless fidgeting I can’t seem to stop, by the number of times they blink at each other.
They know each other. How? We’ve lived in Abeline my whole life. Before I was born, Da apprenticed with an innkeeper in a village somewhere just south of here. So where would he know the king’s Rider from?
I have to ask. The words stick in my throat. It takes several swallows for me to clear a route for them. “How—how do you know my da?”
Baunnid crosses the room to force my head down in an odd approximation of a bow. “I’ve had ‘bout enough out of you. Hold your tongue. You owe her ladyship your respect.” He spits the word in a self-satisfied manner, crossing his arms across his chest.
Oaf. I grit my teeth but keep my head down.
“Oh, not so,” Katerine finally speaks up. “We’re near equals, this young lady and I. Peers! Isn’t that right, Ardie?”
“Peers?” She must be confused. I’m a barmaid. “We’ve got no ties to the nobility.”
A muscle in Da’s jaw works. He refuses to comment.
“But this is fascinating!” She turns her attention to me. The look on Da’s face, in his eyes as they move from me to Katerine and back again, seizes at my insides and twists them until I want to bolt out the door to spill my last meal onto the brittle grass outside. “I didn’t know that Corrine was with child when you left.”
Corrine. It’s hardly ever spoken in our home, but I know my mother’s name. Da’s face fills with grief whenever he mentions the mother who died birthing me.
“Left? From where?” Despite Baunnid’s instructions, my tongue refuses to be held. My head jerks up. “Da—”
The blow to my ears takes me by surprise. “I’ll not tell you again!” Spots dance in my vision as Baunnid rubs at his fist, looking disgruntled. I suppose I have my hard head to thank for that. Anger tugs at me, but I reel it in hard. My teeth grind together.
“I’m only trying to have a conversation with my father,” I say. I’m proud of how even my voice stays. Da takes a step forward at Baunnid’s sudden violence, arms outstretched.
Katerine tuts, looking amused. “Really, Baunnid. I hardly think that was necessary.” His shrug is unapologetic.
I lean back against a wall, rubbing my ear and glaring at Baunnid. I’d love to catch him with my chopping axe in hand. See how he likes a good thumping when it’s his turn.
Two warring winds are tearing at each other—despite the closed door and the fire in the hearth. That has to be my imagination. My father and Katerine have resumed their silent war, but Da can’t be a Rider, too. I’d know.
Wouldn’t I?
My nose prickles, and I sneeze. Katerine’s emotionless eyes remain trained on Da, but they miss nothing. “By the ether, Ardin. Your daughter’s cold. Fetch her a coat.”
“I feel grand.” I don’t want a coat. I want answers. This woman, a countess, knows my father. And knows him well to call him Ardie. “Ride—er, your ladyship, may I ask again how you came to know my da?”
She smirks, and my stomach sinks. Somehow I know that I won’t like what she’s about to say. “You really don’t know, do you?” She turns to Da. “Well? Would you like to tell your daughter who she really is? Who you really are?”
He straightens, meeting my eyes. “She knows exactly who I am. In all of the ways that matter.”
A shaky breath rattles out of me. Not exactly comforting, Da.
“Enough, Ardie,” Katerine says. Her next words are for me. “We were correct. The truant is here. But I could not have hoped for such a bounty as this.”
If she’s hoping I’ll question her, she’ll be disappointed. I won’t be toyed with like this. Not when it’s obvious that she’s eager to spill Da’s secrets.
“The king will be so glad to have you home, Your Grace.”
Your Grace? Can’t be. “Your Grace” means a title. It means nobility. It means…
“Have you not heard of the missing Duke of Secan?” She phrases it innocently, genuinely curious, but it pierces me like a barb.
Thing is, I have heard of the duke before. The Duke of Secan was one of the king’s most loyal servants before he vanished. His legend is spread all over Egria. Most assume there was foul play by one of the king’s enemies involved somehow. Others say he dissolved into the air he commanded. Rare is the whisper of someone voicing suspicions that the duke left of his own accord.
And rarer still is the whisper of someone claiming to have seen him.
I never imagined he still lived, nor would I have cared if he did. I would have laughed if someone suggested to me that my da was nobility.
But his face is impassive and I know that what Katerine says is true.
I’m paralyzed with shock as she motions Tregle and Baunnid closer. The shackles are snapped over my wrists before I can think to run. Da allows them to truss him up like a present for the king, face swept clean of any emotion.
If he’s the Rider they say he is, why isn�
��t he fighting back?
“You always could play a part well,” Katerine says.
The words smack into me, an echo of what I’d thought only hours earlier. She really does know Da. He really is the duke. As they push me toward the door, it drives the point home, a nail boring into my chest.
We’re marched outside like common criminals. The air is frosty. The stars blink out at me from their stations in a sky painted black with night. My breath huffs out in small clouds.
At Baunnid’s prod, I stumble. Gravel rips into my knees, and I hiss against the pain.
“It’s freezing,” I say, struggling to get to my feet without the use of my hands. “I’ll take that coat now.”
Da’s heavy overcoat sails through the air and crashes into me. Unable to don it, I clutch it close. The fur warms my hands but does nothing for the ice freezing through my heart.
“Come, Ardie,” Katerine says. “It’s time to go home.”
“We have a home,” I spit. The Bridge and Duchess is cloaked in shadows. I can still see the flickering flame of the hearth through the window.
Katerine turns, regarding the building as though she’s forgotten it. “That does present a problem,” she agrees. “One can hardly have two homes.”
What does that mean? Foreboding strums through me. I feel it etch itself across my features. And she can tell. Satisfaction spreads Katerine’s lips in a malevolent grin.
“Burn it,” she says.
“What? No!” Burn the Bridge and Duchess? It’s unthinkable. I catapult myself forward, running toward the open door of the tavern, but a strange arm hauls me back.
Sixteen years. I scrabble against Baunnid’s hold. Sixteen years I’ve lived there. My entire life.
Da’s stoic—a statue standing in my father’s place. Why isn’t he fighting back? He can’t be willing to just let them destroy our home.
Tregle kneels beside the doorway. Is he hesitating? I stop struggling for a moment, trying to see. I can’t tell—can’t see his eyes. Maybe he’s not the coward I thought. If he’s going to fight them on something, Makers bless, please, please let it be this.
Threats of Sky and Sea Page 3