Bloodkin (13 page)

I could imagine how busy this place might be when full. Now it was utterly quiet. Once Marcel bid us good night and left us on our own, Vance started to build up the fire, and I removed an extra set of blankets from the chest. It was warm enough here in the village that I didn’t need any bedding beyond the soft ground, but when Vance slept in human form, he always liked to be so covered he was practically sweltering.

If he thought we were ready to sleep, though, he was mistaken. We needed to talk first. I wasn’t going to let him run off alone again. I was willing to give him a little time to think, and let him bring up the subject first, but we weren’t going to close our eyes until I had spoken my mind.

WE WERE HALFWAY
through dinner before I lost patience and asked, “Are we going to talk about why you stormed out of here earlier?”

“I didn’t storm out. I …” He avoided looking at me as he said, “I wouldn’t have come here if I knew what the Shantel would ask of us. Maybe that makes me a coward. I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to go,” I said, though I had begun to feel obligated to the Shantel. “We can meet up with the others, and I’ll go with Farrell or Malachi—” I broke off as I remembered Malachi’s last trip to Midnight, when Jeshickah had locked him in a cell and held him hostage until we brought back a cure for her trainers.

“Not Malachi,” Vance said before I could amend my words. “And not Farrell either.”

I wondered if he was thinking about Lucas’s warning:
Watch your back
. “Then we’ll go—together,” I said firmly.

“I saw the look in your eyes,” he said. “When I asked what they were offering, you turned to me, and it was like I had just slapped you.”

“You asked the questions that needed to be asked,” I said. “I’m grateful for that, because I want to help the Shantel, and I know I can’t do that on my own. If I looked horrified, it’s because I
am
, by this situation. The Shantel can be arrogant, but they do not deserve to burn for daring to stand up to Midnight.
That
is what horrifies me—not you.”

Vance still looked skeptical. “The funny thing is,” he said in a tone that suggested there was nothing funny about it, “you and Lucas both act like I know what I’m doing. I knew there were slaves when I lived in Midnight, of course, but I didn’t ever witness the trading. Everything I know about negotiating comes from seeing Lady Brina or Lord Daryl argue with merchants or witches about the price of painting supplies, or the spells on the greenhouse. I never thought I would apply those skills to
people
.”

I reached out, and he let me take his hand and lean against him. I could feel the heat of his body, so much warmer than any serpent, even through our clothes. His heart was pounding.

“I don’t want to take you into that place,” he said. “I’m doing this because … well, because I’m probably an idiot,
but I think it’s the right thing to do. It’s the only option we have that doesn’t involve running away like cowards from a problem we helped create. But I don’t want to show you the people I used to know. The ones who knew
me
.”

I let out a dismissive huff. “You don’t need to
take
me anywhere. I’ll go on my own—my choice.”

Vance shook his head, so his long hair tickled my cheek. “Child of Obsidian,” he said, with a good deal more fondness than any outsider. “You take that more seriously than most of the guild.”

“I can’t speak for everyone, but I learned it all from Farrell. Shkei told me about the Obsidian guild when I was still living among the serpiente, but it was like a fairy tale. Farrell made it real for me.”

Vance shrugged off my attempt to credit the founder of our guild. “When you and Malachi first brought me back to the Obsidian camp, I think Farrell would have kicked me out if he had been willing to break his own edict against taking charge. He obviously didn’t trust me.
You’re
why I joined, and why I stayed. You made me believe we really could be free. We could make our own decisions, and didn’t need to decide between ruling and being ruled. It isn’t easy, but it’s
good
.”

It isn’t easy, but it’s good
. That was what I needed to hold on to.

We passed a restless night. The morning felt like it dawned too early, yet when we went to the Family home,
we were informed by the older sakkri and Lucas that Shane had already gone to the temple.

As we entered the temple, Shane and the younger sakkri were in the back room. Their murmuring voices reached us.

“We have had this conversation a thousand times,” Shane said. “It’s the only way. If Midnight—”

“Midnight doesn’t have the power to burn this forest!” she protested. “We are safe here.”

“We don’t know that,” he replied. “Even you have said you do not know what magic they may have at their disposal, and your sister says the danger is real if we continue to ignore Midnight.”

“This isn’t the
time
,” she insisted. “There is a moment. I cannot see it clearly yet, but it will come. The players are moving into place. But if you go now, Midnight will destroy you before the white queen rises.”

“We cannot delay anymore. I cannot risk everyone for—”

The sakkri’s words about a white queen drew me forward like lodestone, and my shoulder brushed the dangling tendrils of a chime hanging from the ceiling, sending it dancing. At the sound, Shane stopped. He reached to hold the curtain aside, and both of their gazes fell heavily on us.

The sakkri said to Shane, “I will do what I can to ensure you travel safely. I—” She glanced at Vance and me once more before she said, “Go. All of you. Just go.”

She turned her back to us until Shane grabbed my arm and Vance’s and ushered us both out.

“She does not seem entirely convinced,” I remarked as neutrally as I could.

The exchange also hadn’t seemed like a conversation between a prince and his spiritual advisor … but what did I really know about the royal family’s connection to the sakkri? Maybe that was how they always interacted.

Somehow, I doubted it.

“The mind can be convinced by rational arguments,” Shane answered. “The heart and soul are not as easy to sway. I wouldn’t say my heart is entirely convinced I want to do this either.”

I wanted to ask about the sakkri’s reference to a “white queen,” but Shane turned from us to lead the way and, I suspected, to hide the tears in his eyes. One thing had been clear: the Shantel prophet was convinced that, no matter what might happen to Midnight, this was the end for Shane. He was sacrificing himself to save his people, not to save himself.

“You two ride, correct?” Shane asked as we reached a small stable with a half dozen horses. I nodded in response to Shane’s question. Vance asked, “I thought it wasn’t safe to ride in the Shantel forest.”

“It usually isn’t,” Shane answered. “We can. Our horses were bred and raised in this forest, like any Shantel woman or man.”

At that point, it seemed like anything that would get us to Midnight faster would be a relief to me.

The thought made me cringe. I did not want to die with
the Shantel when Midnight took its revenge, and getting out of this forest and to Midnight seemed like the best way to save ourselves—and possibly them. But the notion of wanting to not only get to Midnight, but get there swiftly, was disturbing.

I did not know the breed of the horses that Shane saddled for us, but the prince himself brushed each one down and greeted it by name before introducing them to us. Vance responded as if meeting a dear friend, and cheerfully offered a treat to his horse, Yarrow, when Shane provided one.

When he swung up into the saddle, I saw him the way Midnight’s people must have seen him: handsome, strong, and casually confident on horseback. He could have been a centaur instead of a quetzal. If he was nervous about the task at hand, he hid it well.

I regarded my own horse, Sadie, with less enthusiasm. I had learned to ride at the serpiente palace, but that had been long ago, and I hadn’t much enjoyed it. This horse was a mottled gray-brown color, like the leaves that fell to the forest floor, and seemed to look at me with more intelligence than I had ever seen in an animal.

“Let’s go,” Vance said.

Shane led the way, and I could not help but look at the people who had gathered to bid us farewell. They lingered at the edge of the Family Courtyard, outside the stable, and on the first path we traveled. The eyes that were dry were steely and angry.

Shane did not meet anyone’s gaze, but I could tell from his posture that it was a struggle not to turn back. How much of their despair was ringing in his head despite his efforts to block it out?

Only after we had left the Family Courtyard behind did I hear his breath hitch, just once.

I pulled up beside him, though I didn’t know what I could possibly say that would be comforting at this point.

The day was long, interrupted by few breaks and even less conversation. As dusk fell, Shane directed us to a campsite, where he demonstrated a higher level of competence than I would have expected from a prince. Apparently even Shantel royals knew how to live in the wild.

We fed and watered the horses before sitting down. The Shantel had provided us with supplies, which Shane turned into a meal that in other circumstances probably would have been quite pleasant. If it had been shared by friends around a midsummer fire, it surely would have been accompanied by lively chatter, and maybe singing.

“How many days will it take us to get to the edge of Shantel land?” I asked. I did not ask how long it would take to get to Midnight, but the question was surely implied.

Shane paused and closed his eyes. I wondered if he had a map of the land in his head, which he could consult that way, before he said, “We should reach the edge of this land by midday tomorrow.”

“Do we need to post any kind of watch, or are we safe to sleep?” Vance asked.

“We’re safe,” Shane answered.

So we all prepared for bed. The Shantel prince changed form and chose to sleep as a tawny-colored cougar stretched out on the bare earthen floor of the forest.

Vance pulled me aside to ask, “Do you think we should keep watch over
him
?”

I shook my head. “Maybe once we’re outside of Shantel land, but there’s no point here. If he decides he wants to get away from us while we’re still in his land, setting a watch won’t make any difference.”

If Shane wanted to get away, we would turn around and find him gone. We wouldn’t be able to track him, and even if Vance lifted into the air a single breath later, he wouldn’t see any sign.

“Do you think the sakkri was talking about Misha?” he asked. “The white queen?”

“I don’t know.” I remembered what Marcel had said about how prophecy always came true, that there was no point in working toward or against it. Even if the Shantel did believe Misha would be influential in the fall of Midnight, they wouldn’t do anything to help her. “I don’t have the heart to ask Shane,” I admitted.

Vance nodded his agreement. How did one have a conversation about hope for the future with a man who clearly didn’t have any?

SOMETHING WOKE ME
, jerking my eyes open and tensing my muscles. I sat up, instinctively reaching for a weapon, and found Shane sitting in human form by the fire, looking at me with alarm.

“Nightmare?” he asked.

Maybe. I nodded, though the truth was, I didn’t remember and was glad for that. My mind held too much material for nightmares lately.

Nearby, Vance was still sleeping peacefully. Whatever sound had disturbed me must have been in my own dreams, or he would have been awake as well.

“Did you sleep at all?” I asked Shane.

He shook his head and admitted, “I don’t dare try.”

I couldn’t fault him for that, and what harm could missed sleep do him now? Maybe, by the time we
reached Midnight, he would be too exhausted to be scared.

“Do you trust him?” he asked softly, nodding to Vance.

“What do you mean?” I asked. Of course I trusted Vance. Maybe not quite unconditionally, but I didn’t trust
anyone
that much. I trusted Vance not to hurt me intentionally, or to betray our guild if he had a choice.