Chapter
Thirty-Nine
Sebian Present Day, Sage Passage
he Sage Passage was as cold as a widow’s heart, gnawing through our down. Beneath us, sleeping trees spread out, bare as bone, arms reaching up to the dreary gray sky. Our eyes cutT through the heavy snowfall, sharp and unerring. The wind was a bastard, its icy bite never letting up, forcing us to work our wings harder, driving old pain into marred skin and damaged joints.
Where was this damn convoy?
Ahead, the road snaked through untamed land, marked deep by cart and wagon wheels, the muddy grooves slowly drowning beneath a new layer of snow. Then we spotted them, a line of slow-moving figures trudging along the path. Finally!
Beneath us, hidden daggers and chainmail glinted, standing out starkly against the white landscape. Even from this height, we could count at least seventy men, each puffing plumes from heated lungs after a day’s worth of marching alongside those carts. To do what, exactly? Protect turnips and sacks of barley from thieves? In a Raven-controlled area where harvests had been plentiful?
The number of Lord Taradur’s soldiers accompanying those carts and wagons was enough to guard a treasury—not food, no matter the desperation in those villages surrounding Tidestone.
Something was more off than a three-legged stool with Malyr’s story. What was he keeping from me?
And why?
With a final powerful flap of our wings, we descended upon the rear of the last wagon in the long procession. The cold air whooshed past us as we swooped down, landing with a gentle thud on the worn wooden tailgate. Plumes of shadows engulfed us, allowing me to shift into my human form, the transition greeted by gasps and curses from unsuspecting soldiers.
One of them, a boy barely past his sixteenth summer by the looks of it, jumped back with a yelp, his spear clattering to the frozen ground. His wide eyes flickered between me and the piece of iron he’d dropped.
“By the bloody gods!” he shouted and scrambled for his weapon, scooping it up and leveling it at me with shaking hands.
“Easy now.” I held one hand up, squatting to reach my other hand to the tightly-woven burlap that covered the goods. “Just going to peek under this—”
The blade of his spear clanked against the fastener of my bracer, shoving my arm away. “Get away from the cargo, Raven!”
“Raven?” I asked, not liking how his shout had drawn the attention of too many other soldiers, letting some of them hurry down with their hands on the pommel of their swords. “It’s the Raven prince who keeps you and your family fed, so I suggest you stop throwing around that word as if it’s an insult.”
His brows furrowed, clearly thrown by my words, and he defensively sidestepped while following the wheels’ squeaking turns. “Human or Raven, I am to guard these wagons with my life, and not let anyone near them.”
“I’d feel fucking insulted if my life is worth a mere sack of grains and a cured ham.” And none of the things hidden beneath the heavy, snow-covered canvas smelled like either. “All I want is to take a quick look beneath—”
A thud of hooves and the jingle of tack drew my attention to the man trotting along the convoy toward me. Lord Taradur sat astride a chestnut horse, which he reined around the tail of the wagon to follow behind it, the man cloaked in snow and a haughty expression.
Great, just what I needed.
“Sebian…” he grunted, brushing the flurry from a beard as red as his daughter’s tresses. “Come to rob the wagon of its wine?”
His comment brushed me the wrong way, but picking a fight probably wasn’t the way to go about this. “I was sent to ensure myself that the transport was going as planned and to inspect the wagons.”
Squinting his brown eyes at me, Lord Taradur scratched his chin, the sound harsh in the cold air, his gaze filled with doubt and suspicion. “Sent by whom?”
My muscles tensed. Good question. Who sent me? Malyr? Taradur knew full well that the prince and I were friends, so the answer seemed feasible. But the way Taradur’s eyes narrowed the longer he stared at me? If Malyr had kept this from me, chances were that this man knew.
I flared my nostrils, trying to take in whatever distinctive smells coming from the wagons might provide me with hints as to what was beneath the damn, oil-soaked burlap. “Captain Asker.”
His gaze turned as icy as the wind that bit at my face. “Turn around and fly back to where you came from, Sebian. Prince Malyr’s orders were clear; nobody is to touch these wagons, and that includes you. I will see to it that these orders are carried out as given.”
The collective unsheathing of swords and tight thrumming of bowstrings that followed hung heavy in the air, a clear warning echoing along the winding passage. This had just become a whole lot more interesting. Because Asker didn’t know, either, did he? Malyr had kept both of us in the dark,
scheming behind our backs alongside humans for who knew how long.
I raised my hands in a gesture of surrender. “Fine. I’ll be back with a scroll carrying Malyr’s new orders.”
I shifted faster than the soldiers could gasp, lifting into the air once more. I could feel Taradur’s eyes on me, but as the distance grew, the convoy blurred into inconsequential smudges. He could go fuck himself. No way was I flying back with no idea as to what was going on here to watch Galantia fawn over that fucking liar of a friend, Malyr. How could he betray me like this?
We fought the harsh breeze blowing down from the north until we managed to glide into the safety of a nearby tree line. There we waited, roosting in the skeletal canopy of a gnarled old pine, our eyes never leaving the line of wagons as it trudged along the horizon. The sun was going down, bringing with it that damn cold that pricked and itched my marred skin. Silence fell over the Sage Passage soon enough, just like expected. Pfft… humans. No skill at navigating through the night… When the creaks of wagon wheels made room for the laughter of the soldiers and the thuds of whatever they unloaded from one of the carts, we silently glided from branch to branch. Not a single beat of a wing fluttered through the quickly approaching darkness, allowing us to sneak up on the resting convoy.
The soldiers busied themselves around their hastily made campfires, their laughter and jests melding with the crackling of flames. Their coarse laughter punctuated with crude jokes and the occasional belch. Some relieved themselves right beneath us, but we stayed still.
Once near enough to the road, we glided to the ground, hopping over the blanket of snow as we neared one of the central wagons, silent as shadows. There we waited, and waited.
A laugh.
Loud and rolling.
In a single, communal flap of wings, we hopped onto the tailgate of the wagon. From there, our beaks poked and prodded at the canvas. Our primal shook a crown of snow off its head. Then we slipped beneath the burlap, our sharp vision slicing through the dark.
The first touch of talons on the stacked cargo sent a wave of confusion through us. There was no texture of sacks filled with grains, no piles of shifting potatoes or bundles of carrots, and not a trace of salt from cured meats.
Instead, the interior was crammed with wooden posts, an array of planks, and cold iron fittings.
Rough ropes coiled like sleeping snakes around it all. Glinting hooks lay here and there, along with
enormous… arrows?
Yes, arrows.
For a ballista.
Realization slammed into us like a blizzard as this came together, cutting deeper than the winter’s chill. Malyr wasn’t going to feed Tidestone; he was going to attack it. And what in the name of the goddess had he promised Taradur to gain him as a trustworthy ally?
