It was sealed at the bottom with an imprint of the roaring sphinx of Els.
“They made you pay in heartstones?” I asked.
“Aye. We were to deliver them to a courier from Lithosmith Row.”
“Did you know the courier?”
“No. She was just a girl, Leyda’s age, maybe, and I don’t think she knew anything about it. Just another message to run. That’s not all. Turn it over.”
I did. It took a moment to find the postscript, smudged as the paper was with soot and ink stains.
When the time comes, you must stand aside. Do not fight, and you will live. These are the final terms. You will not hear from us again.
A chill ran down my spine. The ghastradi of the lithosmith in Hatch Ford had said something similar. “Stand aside and live—or fight us and die.” Els, the Shadow Minister, debts around the kingdom, war, ghastradi, heartstones, the Silent King . . . they were all connected. This confirmed it. But how? And perhaps most important, why?
“What do you make of it?” Gwyn asked.
“I honestly don’t know.”
She drew in a shuddering breath “Tonight, with the hagsprites. Maybe I’m losing my mind, but I couldn’t help but think it was a warning.”
“What?”
“Perhaps they’d seen I’d written to you, that my letter was my way to fight back, and they sent them to frighten us . . .” She covered her face. “Oh, gods, Aliza, what’s going on?”
A tap at the door curtailed my attempt at comfort. We looked up to see an abashed Curdred in the doorway, his son squalling in his arms. “I’m so sorry to intrude, my dear, but I’m afraid he’s been rather inconsolable.”
She sighed and took the baby, whose cries settled at once to happy cooing. Curdred chuckled and rested a hand on her shoulder. Suddenly unsure of how much Gwyn had shared with her husband, I tried to slide the letter out of sight, but Gwyn saw and shook her head.
“No need. He knows.”
Curdred’s gaze landed on the paper. “Ah. I see.”
“I was telling her about the terms,” Gwyn said.
“They were paid. Gwyn and her father are free and clear of this, Lady Aliza.”
The protective, almost desperate way Curdred said it made me repent of every time I’d judged him in the first days of our acquaintance. This man, for all his oddities, was fiercely devoted to my friend, and for that he had earned my respect.
Still, I had to know. “One hundred dragonbacks in heartstones is a small fortune, Master Curdred.”
Gwyn looked up at her husband.
“It is,” he said simply.
I smiled and stood. “You’re a good man, Wynce Curdred.”
“You’re kind, Lady Aliza, but every marriage comes with debts,” he said thoughtfully, taking his wife’s hand. “Perhaps we were fortunate. Ours had the luxury of a ledger.”
Fortunate indeed. Understanding the look they exchanged, I thanked Gwyn again and bid them goodnight. After the events of the evening, they had earned some well-deserved time alone.
In any case, I had a debt of my own to settle.
Chapter 12
City of Kings and Queens
Alastair, Akarra, and I left soon after sunrise the next morning, the wind at our backs brisk and biting cold. Despite the fond farewells of family and friends, I climbed into the saddle in a bad mood that Alastair didn’t share. Half an hour’s search had not turned up even so much as a glimpse of Tobble, and Alastair had finally had to cut short my efforts before I could say goodbye.
Leaving wasn’t the only thing that left a bad taste on the back of my tongue. The sweetness of victory soured with the dawn, which put our fight with the Tekari firmly in its rightful place: a mere skirmish, a troubling of supply lines to the true battle. We’d sweat and bled, and our real work hadn’t even started.
The journey from Merybourne to Edonarle took a full day and the better part of a second. We might have made better time if Akarra hadn’t refused to land until we found a suitably hospitable town, but with images of the Tekari attack fresh in my mind, I wasn’t about to make a fuss over the diversion. Even Alastair seemed eager for an early night. For all his buoyancy after the battle, the flight and the memory of our errand seemed to sober him until he was as grave as he had been at Pendragon.
Akarra touched down outside a walled town on the frosty banks of the River Meryle just over the border of County Nan. The town was a small one, and we shuffled through the now-familiar motions at the door of the nearest inn. So far every innkeeper we’d met had a similar routine: first came the greasy-eyed appraisal of our clothes, weapons, and the dragon crest, followed by mumbled flattery or perhaps, if the innkeeper was tired too, simply an outstretched hand. This innkeeper was one of the latter. Coins passed from purse to hand and a harried servant showed us to our room, which was on the whole indistinguishable from every other we’d seen since our journey through the Old Wilds, save this had the luxury of a dead fire and an absent washbasin. I tossed our panniers onto the floor by the cold hearth and fell face first onto the bed.
There was a faint squeaking sound from the hearth. Alastair looked up from unlacing his boots. “What was that?”
I rose on my elbows and peered at the fireplace with bleary eyes. Whatever it was did not sound again. “Mice,” I muttered, rolled over, and, without bothering to undress beyond my boots, promptly fell asleep.
There is an art to sleeping in one’s clothes. Waking up with a knot in my neck and deep imprints in the skin at my forearms from sleeping with my sleeves bunched up, I realized I’d not yet learned it. Alastair had. The dark circles beneath his eyes were the only visible signs of a restless night. He went through his morning exercises without a single mistake, though there was a slight sluggishness to his movements that troubled me. I watched him out of the corner of my eye as I prepared our panniers to leave, keeping well away from the drafty fireplace as I did. Mice had pattered through my dreams all night and I had no desire to meet their counterparts in the daylight.
“How’s your shoulder?” I asked when he finished.
He rolled it a few times before easing into his leather jerkin. “Sore.”
“It didn’t seem to give you any trouble with the direwolf.”
“It was an old wolf.”
“Do you want me to mix something for it when we get to Edonarle?”
He picked up one of the panniers and slung it over his shoulder. His left shoulder, I noticed. “No need. It’s fine.”
“Alastair—”
“It’s fine. We need to get moving. Akarra will be waiting for us.”
It was difficult to tell when the city began and the countryside ended. Akarra flew south over the River Meryle, then banked west before the waters divided into the eastern Wash and the narrower, deeper River Nan. We followed the latter. Wild lands grew tame beneath a bridle of lanes and fences and the roads widened, showing the pale streak of paving stones under a layer of mud. We passed more towns and villages, some with only short walls, some without walls at all. Farms and homesteads grew thicker around the towns until we no longer flew over a patchwork of fields interrupted by the occasional settlement, but a patchwork of buildings interrupted by the occasional field. The air was still cold, but the sun was bright, and by noon the sweat was starting at my temples.