If they were destined for heartbreak, she would steal as many nights as she could along the way.
* * *
It took two days, but on the afternoon of the second, Toris at last came into view.
The town was set aside a small inlet. Cliffs stood tall toward the sea, but they gradually sloped down as they wrapped around the sloping hills to the valley where Toris proper sat. A winding dirt path connected the town with a larger stoned road that ran from the Twilight Forest out into the great plains beyond—plains mottled with dark brown patches that looked alarmingly like decay.
“Grim little place, isn’t it?” Arwin muttered. She was still barely on speaking terms with them.
“I suppose,” Vi agreed purely for the sake of not starting an argument. She didn’t see anything that grim. It looked like any other town.
“It’s been a sheer delight to patrol these past few days,” Arwin continued. She’d spent most of her time ahead, rather than with them. The scouting served a purpose they hoped to capitalize on, but Vi also suspected it had given Arwin an excuse to get away from them. “But the pirates haven’t moved since I first flew in; they’re on the ship in the morning, wreak havoc in town, drinks at the brewery, back at night.”
“You’re sure they haven’t seen or sensed you?” Taavin asked.
“I’m certain I would know if they had. One of them would’ve been after me in an instant if he’d known.”
“Who?” Vi asked.
“Another morphi. He’s been flying the edges of the Twilight Forest relentlessly.”
“Fallor?”
Arwin rounded on Vi the moment she said his name. “You know him?”
“He’s been after me.” Vi watched Arwin closely. There were emotions Vi couldn’t quite put her finger on in Arwin’s reaction. Fallor was obviously an exiled morphi who had betrayed his people, but there was more than that in Arwin’s expression. This felt personal. “Do you know him?”
“He’s an exile of the Twilight Kingdom.” Arwin backed away from Vi, looking to the cliffs.
“I know that. But what I mean is, was he anyone… significant in the Twilight Kingdom before he was exiled?” Vi clarified. “Anyone important?”
“Not to the masses.”
“But to you.” Taavin keyed into the unspoken implication.
“Back off, Voice,” Arwin snarled. “Whoever he was to me is none of your business.”
Vi’s lips parted as her jaw relaxed. She put all of Arwin’s past actions, statements, reactions together in a second.
“He’s Sarphos’s brother.” The family likeness was undeniable, now that she saw it. “He’s the one you were engaged to.”
Who else would make a woman like Arwin leave her home and her post as guard to her father? Who else would have committed such a deep betrayal? Vi knew firsthand how hard it was to crack through Arwin’s callous exterior. If she let someone in, and that person betrayed her, they would be forever dead to her.
Vi could relate.
Arwin’s grip on her staff tightened. Her eyes were glued on Toris.
“What of it?” she muttered.
“We don’t need personal feelings getting in the—”
“I will not haveyoulecture me, Voice.” Arwin glared between him and Vi, a look that said she had seen them waking side by side more than once. “This is personal. All of it is.”
So much for being just business, Vi thought grimly.
“Yes, Fallor was my betrothed. Yes, I was young and didn’t see him for what he was. I made the mistake of trusting him. Those are the faults I’ve had to live with for years since.”
“He was the one to set up the shift around the Isle of Frost, wasn’t he?” Vi asked.
