I smiled weakly at him. “Sure. I just got some new ones we could trade off practicing with.”
“What happened to your old ones?”
I told him of Father’s death and Renwell’s betrayal.
Ruru scowled. “I’m glad you scarred up his face. Maybe he’ll think twice before trying to hurt you again.”
I gestured at my cheek wryly. “A little late for that.”
“You fought him again? Where? This battle at the mountain no one wants to talk about?”
With a sigh, I told him about that battle as well. “That’s how I got my new knives,” I finished. “And a horse that I can barely ride. Him.” I pointed at Ozlow rubbing his shaggy coat against a fence post.
“He looks like a good horse. I bought mine off a Pravaran farmer who came to Aquinon and couldn’t afford to keep him anymore.”
I propped my chin on my hand. “Your turn to tell a story. How in the deep, dark, wandering hell did you get out of there?”
“You remember Sophie? Well, she does laundry for a family whose son is a courier. He delivers mail all over Rellmira. I paid him with some of your gold to take his place on his next job. I hid the whistler and Melaena’s letters in the lining of my bags, so when the guards at the main gate stopped me, all they found were the identification papers of the other boy and his legitimate letters.”
“Holy Four, who’s the spy now?” I teased him, tossing a bit of snow at him.
He shook the snow out of his hair, his cheeks red. “Yeah, well, not everyone bought it.”
I frowned.
“Everything was going fine for a while,” he continued. “I headed north, trying to steer clear of Calimber and offering to do odd jobs, like round up a stray cow, for the Winspere ranchers in exchange for food. But eventually that food ran out, and the only people I met were border patrols.”
I grimaced. “One of them figured out you were lying?”
Ruru nodded, his face tight. “The first just sort of shrugged me off after looking in my bags. The second took the rest of the coins I’d been saving to buy more food. The third... the thirdpatrol was ruthless. They stopped me and dug through my bags, trampling over the mail I meant to leave at a courier post on the border. They strapped me and my bags to my horse’s back and whipped him, so he’d run in circles while they shot arrows at us. ‘Target practice,’ they said.”
My blood roared in my ears at the shameful look on Ruru’s face.
I’d told Nikella I didn’t want to kill Rellmirans, but if we ran into that border patrol, I had a knife for each of those gods-damned cowards.
“How did you get away?” I ground out.
“My horse,” Ruru said with a sad smile. “He kicked one of them in the face and bolted. They chased us for a while, then gave up. I took Maz’s whistler out of its hiding spot in case they came back, but they didn’t. I also took off my messenger’s outfit, so I wouldn’t get recognized.
“I must’ve wandered into Dagriel eventually, because I kept going north until I saw mountains. Some days, I just seemed to go in circles in the woods, especially when clouds and trees hid the sun. I thought I’d be lost forever. That’s when I took out Melaena’s letters and tried to read them, hoping to feel less alone. But I couldn’t make sense of them.”
I stilled. “Did one of them have the People’s Council seal on it?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
I bit my lip, remembering my first mission and my desperate flight with Garyth’s wife and daughter. Melaena must’ve wanted Aiden to have the letters Garyth had been desperate to hide. Thank the Four that Helene, Isabel, and the letters were far out of Renwell’s grasp now.
“I saw them once,” I said vaguely.
Ruru shrugged. “Aiden left them in my bag, so I tucked them into his. He must’ve forgotten.”
Probably because he was too distracted by the pain I forced him to dig up. “I know he’s grateful you found us, Ruru. We all are.”
He nudged me with his shoulder. “I found more than I hoped for.”
“You certainly do have a knack for that.”
He grinned. “As do you, it seems. I’m surprised to find you getting along so well with the warriors you betrayed, the Teacher who shot you in the neck with a dart, and the man who... who, you know,” he finished awkwardly.
