“Help us, helpherget her father, do whatever you need to do to Adella, and then I will deliver you Ulvarth. And should his head not satisfy your need for justice—if I do not keep my word and do right by you and your people—then at that time, you may have me.”
No!Everything in Vi screamed at once. She didn’t care if it was justified, or righteous, for Arwin to seek Taavin’s life. She didn’t care if it was Taavin’s right to make this deal. She didn’t want to see him harmed. That was the sole thought in her mind.
Yet thanks to the blade at her throat keeping every breath shallow, nothing escaped her lips.
“How do I know you’ll keep your word?”
“You’ll have to trust me.”
Arwin snorted. “Trusting a Faithful? That never worked out well for anyone. Just look at the spot I’m in now.” Her eyes swung back to Vi. “Her.”
“What?” Taavin asked and Vi let out something of a whisper to the same effect.
“If I so much as think for a moment that you will go back on your word—if I evensuspectit—I’ll kill her on the spot.”
“That’s too high a bar. You will be suspicious of my breathing.”
“Then you should make an effort to breathe less,” Arwin snapped at him. “It’d do wonders for my mood, at least.”
Vi searched the woman’s face for any sign of warmth or familiarity, but there was none. This was the same woman who had accused her of being Faithful in the throne room. No, this was worse. This was a woman who had proof of the careful tapestry Vi had been weaving around her.
Vi didn’t have the right to hope for anything from Arwin.This was business, her mind insisted. It always had been. Friendship was a luxury she could no longer afford.
“Do we have a deal?” Arwin asked neither of them in particular.
“I said—”
“You have a deal,” Vi interrupted before Taavin could say something well-intended but foolish. “Help me get my father. Taavin will give you Ulvarth. And if at any point, you think we mean to harm you or the morphi, or that we will go back on our words… You have my life.”
Chapter Eighteen
The next hour was uncomfortable,to say the least.
Vi looked to Taavin. Taavin glared at Arwin. Arwin watched her. None of them said anything. It was silence the entire walk through the forest. An uncomfortable, deafening silence of Vi’s own making.
By the end of the day, Vi nearly wanted to scream just so she’d hear something in the too-still woods.
“We should make camp here.” Arwin came to a stop just when the forest’s edge was in sight. Through the trees, Vi could see a clear dividing line—not unlike where the jungles of Shaldan ended at the Waste. She wondered if this, too, was a scar left on the earth by the ravages of man’s squabbles. “Get one more night of sleep somewhere that the only enemies we have to worry about are each other.”
“We’re not your enemy,” Vi said tiredly.
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“Suit yourself.” Vi held up her hands as Arwin took a few steps backward.
“Where are you going?” Taavin asked cautiously.
“I’m going to find dinner for myself, and perch somewhere you two don’t know of so you can’t slit my throat while I sleep.” Arwin pulled her mass of golden hair back with a line of cord. “But don’t think I won’t be watching you.”
“How do we know you won’t go back to the Twilight Kingdom and return with an army?”
“I guess you’ll just have to… how did you put it?Trust me,” she said with a mocking smile.
The air around Arwin pulsed. Magic rippled in several equidistant rings, distorting the forest around her as though it were the surface of water. Arwin took a small step, then jumped into the air, slipping between the rings. Vi saw the outline of a bird taking her shape, identical to the dark fowl she’d seen when she’d first emerged from the cave nearly two weeks ago.
Before Arwin’s feet could touch the ground again, she was gone, and there was just the flap of dark wings as the animal soared away. Vi and Taavin watched her leave, until it was impossible to see her outline from the deepening darkness between the trees.
“We should consider leaving,” he murmured. “She could go back and—”
