Onyx & Ivory Page 10

  “I doubt it.” She took another quick swallow of wine. And I certainly don’t want to see him. Now that she knew he would live, her anger at him had returned in force. Go to Fenmore, her father had said. Was it because of the danger she faced as a traitor’s daughter? Or was there some other meaning in the message? Try as she might, she couldn’t come up with an explanation.

  Dal smiled but didn’t press the issue, allowing her to finish her meal in silence as he set the revolver down once more and resumed cleaning his sword. He seemed to be doing it out of either boredom or compulsive habit. The sword was already immaculate, the steel smooth and glistening. The ivory hilt, carved in the shape of a hawk with two rubies for eyes, glowed white.

  Kate turned to look at the soldiers near the fire as one of them began to sing an old, familiar song. “The Ride of Adair,” the story of the first king of Norgard. Kate’s father used to sing it to her every night, trying in vain to settle her down for sleep, but the story the song told was far too exciting for that. It made young Kate want to jump up and down on her bed while she slew invisible dragons atop her warhorse.

  As she listened now, older and far different from that little girl, longing for the past filled her chest, squeezing the air from her lungs. She drew a deep breath and tried to tune the song out. It was like trying not to feel the wind on your face at full gallop.

  “Tomorrow,” Dal said, his voice breaking into her thoughts, “Master Raith and I will return to where the caravan was attacked. We need to learn more of these daydrakes. I know you’re eager to get back, but would you like to accompany us? It shouldn’t take long, and your experience with them might offer some insight.”

  Kate bit her lip, uncertain if this was a request or a command veiled as one. She didn’t know him well enough to tell. She had never heard of Thornewall but guessed it was a minor house and holding.

  “You don’t have to if you don’t wish, of course,” Dal continued in her silence. “I imagine the visit will be unpleasant.”

  “You’re right about that.” She didn’t want to guess what a day left out in the summer sun had done to those corpses. “But I must decline. I have to get back to Farhold as soon as possible. The Relay riders need to be warned of this new threat.”

  The thought chilled her. Signe would have left for her next ride already. What if she was attacked? Would the Relay even be able to continue if these daydrakes proved as big a menace as their nighttime kin? It was a possibility too horrible to consider. Kate needed this job. There was nothing else she was fit for, nothing else she wanted to do. She stood little chance of marrying, and she couldn’t fathom a life where she didn’t get to ride.

  “If you’re finished eating now,” Dal said, resting his sword atop his crossed legs, “please tell me more about this remarkable pistol.” He picked it up and rotated the cylinder. “I’ve never seen its like before, but if I’m not mistaken, it can fire multiple rounds without reloading.”

  Kate nodded, her lips pressed together. She tried to come up with some passable lie, but failed. The partial truth then.

  “It’s called a revolver. My friend made it. He’s a blacksmith in Farhold. Gunsmithing is his hobby.”

  “Indeed.” Dal turned the revolver over in his hands, examining it with a strange intensity. For the first time, Kate noticed the scars on his arms, several long, thick lines, surely the result of some battle. She wondered where he’d gotten them. He was far too young to have fought in the Sevan Invasion, the last war on Rimish soil. And there was the magestone in his ear as well, the kind that usually held spells to hide disfigurement.

  Dal looked up. “Does it work as well as a pistol?”

  Kate hesitated, but only for a moment. “For the most part.”

  “Your friend must be truly remarkable,” Dal said with a note of awe in his voice. He began to slide the bullets back into the chamber. “There are gunsmiths who’ve spent years trying to create something like this. I would like to fire it and see how it works for myself.” He made as if to get up.

  Kate felt herself pale. “Excuse me, my lord, but now doesn’t seem the best time. It’s late and guns are loud.”

  Dal made a face, the gesture turning his handsome features boyish—although no less handsome. “You’re right, I suppose. And I wouldn’t want to disturb Corwin. He can be quite grumpy when woken up early.” Sighing, he handed the revolver to her.

  Kate smiled, relieved to have the gun back in her possession—now if she could just get Dal to forget that he’d seen it. “When the prince was small, his mother called him her little bear for that precise reason.”

  “Did she now? I didn’t know that. Little bear.” Dal laughed. “Maybe it’s time to resurrect the moniker.”

  “Please don’t,” Kate said quietly, her eyes dropping to her lap. “I shouldn’t have told you that. Corwin can be touchy about his mother’s memory. Or at least he used to be.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t repeat it. He’s still that way about her.” Dal shook his head, smiling again. “It’s so strange to be around someone who knows him better than I do.”

  Kate frowned. “I used to know him, my lord. But not anymore.”

  There must’ve been something more in her voice than she intended, for Dal’s expression turned apologetic. “I’m sorry, Miss Brighton. I didn’t mean to stir up bad memories. Please forgive me.”

  She shrugged. “It’s fine. I shouldn’t be so sensitive about it. The past is the past.”

  Dal gave a skeptical cough, as if this was in doubt, but he didn’t comment on it.

  They passed a few minutes in silence, listening as one of the guards began to sing a new song, this one a crude ballad that Kate had only ever heard since becoming a Relay rider.

  Finally, she worked up the nerve to ask, “Where is your home? I’ve never heard of Thornewall.”

  “That’s not surprising,” Dal said with a snort. He picked up his sword and returned it to its sheath. “It’s a small freeholding on the eastern cliffs overlooking the Penlaurel River. My father is Baron of Thornewall. Thankfully I am not the heir. One of the many advantages of being the sixth-born son.”

  Kate didn’t quite believe him. His tone reminded her of the way Corwin used to sound whenever they discussed the long-absent uror sign.

  “How is it you know the high prince?” she asked, curiosity getting the better of her.

  “Ah, now that is a story.” Dal leaned back on his bedroll, head cocked toward the night sky. “But sadly, not one I’m permitted to tell.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I met him on my travels. Or his travels, as it were.”

  “Oh.” Kate’s eyes widened in surprise. “You mean during those years he disappeared from Rime.”

  Dal cracked his knuckles. “It’s a secret every newsman would give his right hand to print.”

  As if I would tell, Kate thought, crossing her arms. She had no love for newsmen. She knew she shouldn’t be offended—Dal didn’t know her, after all—but part of her irritation was from disappointment. She would like to know what Corwin had been doing in those missing years. She remembered the hawk and shield tattoo and once again felt she ought to have recognized it, but still she couldn’t.

  “Not that I believe you would tell,” Dal said, sounding somber now. “But it’s not my right to share his secret. Corwin might never forgive me if I did, and his good opinion matters more to me than anything else in the world.”

  Kate stared at Dal, her curiosity mingling with a hint of jealousy. She’d once felt the same about Corwin, and the reminder of that lost friendship stung. All their lives, they’d been the best of friends, comrades in mischief and mayhem. So many times they’d gotten caught running midnight races on the training fields or filching sweets from the kitchens the night before some important ball. Once, they’d even set fire to a castle storeroom on accident, both refusing to tell the truth about what happened for fear of getting the other in trouble.

  I am not that carefree,
reckless girl any longer, she thought, trying to bury the memory deep inside her. She wondered if the same was true of Corwin. Given the way Dal talked about him, she thought it must be.

  “Have no fear, though,” Dal said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Corwin tells you all about it one day soon. Just make sure you listen with a skeptical ear to anything he says about himself that makes him seem less than heroic. It’s not true, and I will enjoy explaining why once I’m allowed.”

  Kate raised her brows at this cryptic message, her curiosity spiking even higher. Then the implication of what he was saying struck her, and she shook her head. “I doubt very much I’ll ever speak to him again.”

  A smirking and altogether irritating grin rose on Dal’s face. “We shall see, my dear Kate. We shall see.”

  9

  Corwin

  “IF YOU DON’T GET OUT of that bed soon, I will surely expire from boredom.”

  The voice, amused, lighthearted, and familiar, called out to Corwin through a haze of sleep so deep he thought it was a part of the dream. But then a loud, obnoxious yawning sound reached him next, and he knew it was real. Slowly, the prince opened his eyes and blinked against the light.

  Dal sat on a chair beside the bed, his feet propped up on a lace-covered end table. His expression looked far from bored when his gaze met Corwin’s. “He lives!” Dal clapped his hands. “Alert all the maidens in the land and let them rejoice. Or maybe just one maiden in particular.”

  “What are you going on about?” Each word felt like gravel in Corwin’s throat, and he started to cough.

  Dal slid his feet from the table and stood to pour a glass of water from a nearby pitcher. He held the glass out to Corwin. “Don’t you remember?”

  Corwin stared at his friend, his thoughts clouded at first, then slowly parting into clarity. “The caravan was attacked by nightdrakes, only it was in the day.” He sat up, his aching body barely a match for the thick, soft mattress that seemed to drag him down again. “Kate was there.”

  Dal tsked. “You’re sorely behind the times, my friend. We’re calling them daydrakes these days. And that attack was more than two weeks ago.”

  “Two weeks?” Corwin gaped, his dry, cracked lips protesting painfully.

  “Just drink this already.” Dal shoved the glass toward Corwin again. “You sound like a toad.”

  Corwin accepted it and took a long drink that burned down his throat and into his belly.

  With his duty accomplished, Dal resumed his seat. “The green robes have been keeping you asleep with some potion or other. They claim it was necessary for your recovery. Something about the way drake venom lingers in the blood. It made no sense to me.” Dal shrugged. “But then again, I’m not a healer. How’s the shoulder?”

  It took Corwin’s sluggish mind a moment to catch up to Dal’s rapid chatter. Then he remembered a drake had bitten his shoulder. He raised his left arm and felt the twinge of flesh not quite healed beneath a thick bandage.

  “It’s more bearable than your nattering. How did I get here, anyway?” Giving the room a glance, Corwin recognized it as the same one he’d stayed in before when he visited Farhold. Green curtains trimmed with golden tassels hung around the large canopied bed, all drawn back at the moment to let in the breeze coming through the opened window across the room.

  “Nattering indeed.” Dal huffed, then launched into a story about Kate coming upon the caravan not long after the attack and rescuing him. Images, broken and confused, spun through Corwin’s mind. He remembered her being there, and how his fear for her had surpassed the pain of his injuries. And yet, she survived.

  She saved me. More memories came to him, of the bleary journey to the tower. Then of the way she had tended his wounds, her fingers on his skin. Tingles rippled down his body at the recollection.

  “Where is Kate now?” Corwin said, cutting Dal off in the middle of another rambling sentence.

  A sly grin slid over his friend’s face. “In the city. I’ve been keeping an eye on her for you. She’s been grounded from making any Relay runs. All the women riders have been, with the threat of these daydrakes.”

  Corwin frowned. “I bet she’s not happy about that.”

  “My informant tells me she’s as friendly as a half-starved rattlesnake.” Dal assumed a deep, gruff voice. “‘It’s a very good thing that young lady doesn’t have sharp teeth or she might bite someone.’ That’s a direct quote.”

  “Yes, you can see my surprise, I’m sure.” Corwin took another drink, hiding a smile. Perhaps Kate hadn’t changed so much after all. “Tell me the rest. I remember the Relay tower, but little beyond that.”

  “Well, after your sweet damsel rescued you and carried you off to safety, she went for help. I was already out looking for you, thanks to Master Raith, who, gods be good, managed to escape the attack with his life. We came upon her around midday. She led us back to the tower and the magists got to work fixing you. We brought you back to Farhold, and you’ve been stuck in this bed ever since.”

  The notion turned Corwin’s stomach. It reminded him too much of his sickly father. Despite the fatigue weighing him down, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, determined to get up. Just not yet, he thought as a dizzy spell struck him. He squeezed his eyes closed until it passed.

  “How did Master Raith escape?”

  “He’s a wily one, that one,” Dal said. “He used something called flash stones. They’re newly sanctioned, apparently. They blinded the creatures long enough for him to get away.”

  Corwin scooted to the edge, planting both feet on the thick carpet. “Have there been other attacks?”

  Dal shook his head. “Fortunately, no. There haven’t been any sightings of these daydrakes.”

  “None at all?” Nothing about this made sense. Looking back, Corwin didn’t think there’d been more than nine or ten of the beasts that had attacked the caravan, less than in a typical nightdrake pack, and yet it had been more than enough to destroy them. We weren’t ready. They hadn’t restocked the enchanted arrows before setting out that morning. Corwin hadn’t believed there was a need, and he’d been impatient to get moving.

  “I’ve not even seen one yet.” Dal crossed his arms and gave a huff.

  “What?” Corwin clutched at the bedpost as he tried to summon the strength to stand.

  Dal stepped forward and offered him a hand. “It’s true. Master Raith and I visited the remains of the caravan. All the drake corpses were gone.”

  “Gone?” Getting to his feet, Corwin swayed a moment, gripping Dal’s hand hard for balance.

  “Yes, gone. And that hurts, by the way.”

  Corwin let go, locking his knees into place as Dal continued.

  “All we found were signs of something heavy having been dragged away. It didn’t even look like a drake attack. All the dead horses and men were still there, just lying in the road.”

  Uneaten, Corwin heard the implication. He shuddered, guilt twisting his insides as he pictured Master Barrett, Captain Morris, Stormdancer, the guards. All dead. He was their prince. And I failed them. Corwin glanced down at the tattoo on his wrist, the hawk and shield symbol mocking him, as always—reminding him of the other men he’d failed.

  “Don’t you do that,” Dal said, catching him in the glance. “How many times do I have to tell you that what happened wasn’t your fault? There’s no way you could’ve—”

  Corwin cut him off with a raised hand, uninterested in the old argument. “Will you please fetch me a robe?”

  With a loud grunt, Dal spun away to grab the robe from the wardrobe just beyond. He returned a moment later and helped Corwin into it. Corwin would’ve preferred to get out of the dressing gown he was wearing, but he didn’t feel up to it just yet, and he had no wish to call for a servant. In the two years he’d been gone from Rime, he’d learned to live without such things. He preferred it that way, finding freedom in simple tasks.

  Fastening the cord around his waist, Corwin turned and walked over
to the sitting area, where he dropped onto one of the sofas. The effort left him panting. Parts of his body hurt that he didn’t even know existed.

  “I’ve been wondering,” Dal said, following after him, “if the attack on the caravan is connected to what happened at the Gregors’.” He took the chair opposite Corwin.

  “Why would you think that?” Corwin slowly rotated his neck, bones popping and muscles screaming.

  “Because of the disappearing drakes. That Andrean miner was burning a drake corpse, presumably to hide its presence. We assumed it was a nightdrake, but what if it wasn’t? And surely whoever removed the daydrake corpses had similar motivations—to hide their existence.”

  Corwin drew a deep breath, confusion muddling his thoughts as he tried to make sense of it. Drakes were wild beasts, deadly and unpredictable. But Dal’s speculation made it seem as if the attack on the caravan had been deliberate, same as the attack on the Gregors, as if someone was controlling these drakes and using them like weapons. Highly effective weapons. The Gregors were all dead, or presumed to be. Perhaps someone wanted him dead as well. But why? As it stood now, Edwin would become high king and not Corwin. He hardly mattered by comparison.

  Corwin waved the thought away. “I think that’s a bit of a leap at this point.”

  “Perhaps.” Dal stretched his hands high above his head, yawning. “I suppose it doesn’t matter anyway considering we’ve been relieved of all obligations to investigate these daydrakes. Oh, and your peacekeeping tour is officially over. We are to return to Norgard as soon as you’ve recovered.”

  “Let me guess,” Corwin said, rolling his eyes. “Is that another direct quote? From my brother?”

  “Indirect. The word came signed from the high king.”

  “Of course it did.” Corwin leaned back on the sofa and rubbed his temples. He should be relieved, thrilled actually—he was finally free to do as he wished, and the gods knew he had no desire to deal with such evil tidings. And yet, he didn’t want to just let it go. The mystery nagged at him, demanding to be solved. And the dead avenged.