Maddek grinned. His bride had claimed he only saw a person’s weaknesses, and he thought it fair to say that Yvenne’s stomach was her greatest one. “We will hunt a millipede only after you have had more practice.”
She shot him a curious look. “Are they a danger to us? I thought they only ate vegetation.”
“They do. But they are not defenseless. Jaws that slice through grass can slice through flesh. And some millipedes emit a foul musk that burns the skin,” he told her, frowning as for the first time since their lesson had begun, Yvenne glanced distractedly behind them.
She faced forward again as Kelir called out, “I would not object to millipede this night, if she would observe the hunt instead of joining it.”
All of the warriors had been invested in her lesson this day, though they had not interrupted Maddek’s teaching. Now she looked to Maddek hopefully, clearly wanting to watch them hunt, before her brow furrowed and she turned again.
“What is it?” Maddek asked, suddenly caring nothing of hunts and millipedes. “A chill?”
“Not a chill. I . . .” Her uneasy gaze searched the road behind them. “I know not what it is. As if . . . something comes.”
He held up a fist and the others immediately halted, falling silent and listening. Maddek heard nothing but what he expected to hear. He looked to Fassad, who was studying his wolves.
The other warrior shook his head. The dogs sensed nothing. Yet they had not at the ruins, either. His bride was more sensitive to magics than they.
“How near, my lady?” Banek asked her softly.
Unneeded apology filled her reply. “I am no good judge of distance. But it does not feel close. Only . . . coming.”
“Then we will put more distance between us,” Maddek said grimly. For he had ignored Yvenne’s instinct once. Never would he again.
* * *
• • •
They rode hard until nightfall, when Yvenne said she could no longer feel the presence behind them. Maddek knew not if that meant they had merely outpaced it or if it no longer followed—and it mattered little either way. No more easy nights could be had. Even if the magic Yvenne had sensed was no threat, if her brother’s soldiers had taken this southern route along the river, they might soon be.
When they came across a copse near a stream, Maddek called a halt. The trees provided better shelter than the long grasses did and could be climbed for a better vantage—and the monkeys that chattered and screeched overhead suggested that whatever stalked their party had not yet befouled this spot.
While the others made camp, he and Kelir rode a wide perimeter, searching for any threat. Beyond a long-toothed cat, which the wolves would alert them to if it approached the copse, there was little.
Still Maddek knew Kelir was as unsettled as he. Yvenne’s vague unease was something they’d both heard from others before, during the campaign against Stranik’s Fang, when dark priests used their foul magic from afar. If so, they had much to be worried about. Yet he would not assume that was what she sensed. It might have been like the wraiths at the ruins—dangerous, yet well behind them now. And if dark magic stalked them, they would face that threat when it came.
He saw the same remembrance upon Banek’s and Ardyl’s faces when he returned to camp, as well as the same determination not to make early assumptions. And he saw that a hunt had been completed, after all. A small millipede roasted over the fire. Brought down by Toric, he quickly learned, when Yvenne happily recounted that young warrior’s victory, and that he’d shown her how to pester the millipede from a distance until it rolled into a ball, then safely pierce the creature’s segmented carapace with a spear.
The jealousy that roared through Maddek then was fierce and fanged and as foul as the magic that stalked them. He knew Toric had taken a sweet liking to his bride, yet never would the warrior act upon it. Maddek believed that Yvenne never would, either. Her ambitions were too great and she would not risk their marriage with an idle flirtation.
And Maddek himself had encouraged her to seek affection from anyone but him. She’d befriended all of his warriors. He should not resent Toric hunting a millipede for her, or Ardyl receiving her smile, or Banek sharing in her laugh.
Yet he did resent them all. Furiously.
Wordlessly he left again to care for his horse, hating the unworthy emotion burning in his chest. Hating the frustration that put it there. Because with him, Yvenne built walls. And as far as he could see, she had raised none between herself and his Dragon.
It should matter not at all what she did. Such turmoil should not be raging within him. She was but a vessel. A tool for his vengeance.
And he was a thrice-cursed fool, to feel such resentment and jealousy and fury. None served him well.
But his Dragon guard did. And Yvenne did, too. From nearly the moment they’d met, she’d guided him toward becoming a better king. Now she might serve as warning against a danger that none of their eyes could see.
A piercing shriek sounded as he returned to camp, yet the shrill noise—and Yvenne’s startled scream in response—only made him grin. That horrible shrieking signaled that their dinner was ready, as steam whistled from the millipede’s carapace. His warriors’ laughter greeted him at the fire, and they each screamed in turn to match Yvenne’s. She sat giggling, facing the flames with her saddle bracing her back, as the others did.
Dropping his saddle onto the ground, Maddek took his place beside her. She glanced at him, the warmth of the fire reflecting in her pale eyes, but when she spoke it was directed to Toric, apparently in response to one of the endless questions he always had for her during their meals.
“You have seen the Tower of the Moon in Ephorn?” she asked him, and the young warrior nodded. “It is much the same.”
“What is the same?” Maddek accepted the bowl of water Fassad passed to him, then quickly tore off a few of the millipede’s spiky legs and dropped them in.
“She is telling us of Syssia,” Toric said.
Eagerly she watched the legs hiss in the water before looking to Maddek. “Have you been?”
“Only through the outlands. Never to the queen’s city.”
“Only I have been,” Banek said. “The Syssian tower resembles the Ephorn tower in appearance, but the Syssian is much larger.”
“Because we knew the tale of Ran Bantik stealing the pearl from the Moon tower,” Yvenne said, grinning. “My foremother would not risk the same, so she built hers much taller.”
“Do you also keep your treasures at the top?” the old raider asked.
Yvenne shook her head. “It is the chamber where I was imprisoned. Where my mother and I were.”