“As you wish.” I keep my voice neutral, giving her restlessness nothing to rebel against. “After lunch, we’ll take the road south and be there by this evening. You can visit with your old servants over some pints.”
A light flashes, like sunlight glinting off Myst’s polished saddle buckles—but then I feel an odd chill and realize Sabine’s fey lines are breaking out on the exposed skin beneath her dress sleeve, creeping up along her neck above her neckline.
She doesn’t seem to realize she’s dropping her glamour.
“Not the manor house.” She speaks in that deeper,oldervoice that sets my damn nerves jangling like an alarm bell. “We can bypass the village of Bremcote entirely, in fact. There’s nothing for me there. The only person who was kind to me was Suri, and she’s in Old Coros. I bear no ill will toward the servants—they had to obey my father’s commands. As for him, I can’t get revenge on a corpse.”
I choke a little on the word.Revenge? Who said anything about revenge?
“That’s one good deed to thank Rian for,” I jest, still trying to break the tension. “Killing the old bastard.”
It’s dark humor, but still lighter than her mood.
She doesn’t laugh. In fact, she doesn’t seem to hear me at all.
“It’s the Convent I want.” Her eyes are wild, glowing softly. “Matron White and the Sisters.”
With every word, her fey lines pulse brighter. Sabine is blazing now, lighting up the darkened shadows in place of the sun. Ranger tries to shy away. Even Myst is flicking her ears, on extra alert.
I mutter, “Going to rot all their apples on the branch?”
Her eyelids lower, a hint of a vicious smile on her lips. But then she seems to snap out of her dark mood and says in her normal voice, “Good plan.”
We ride on. Lunch is a quiet affair. We’re the only ones at the ramshackle little inn, and Sabine seems distracted, plucking at her travel cloak. My hoped-for beef stew is a long-lost fantasy. All we’re offered is rock-hard bread and boiled turnips.
When we reach the next fork in the road, I stop at the directional sign.
Every voice in me screams to keep riding, to follow the road straight to Old Coros. Gods only know what’s happening behind those walls—cloaked priests conspiring, Golden Sentinels smuggling Rian in through a bread wagon. The need to be there claws at me.
But the quieter Sabine gets, the more I feel her slipping away. And that terrifies me more than anything behind city gates. I need to talk to Folke once we get to the city. Gather my allies around me. Start making contingencies—not just in preparations against Rian.
Maybe—gods help me—against Sabine, too.
Sabine stares at the directional sign, chewing on her bottom lip. When I ride up beside her, she flicks me a smile that feels a little forced. She tries for a joke. “Prepare to rot apples.”
I smile back, relieved—but it doesn’t reach my eyes.
We pass a sprawling sheep farm dotted with windmills. It’s familiar. This is the same route I took when Rian first sent me to pick up Sabine to escort her to Duren. I might have lost my memories of her, but I remember my feelings before I arrived at Bremcote. Before I met her. I was furious to be sent to a backwater village after some pretty girl—I wanted to be at Rian’s side. Protecting him from enemies. Trying to get back in his good graces.
We pass through the few roads that make up Bremcote village, but all the shepherds are out with their flocks. The only people we cross paths with are a pack of children in burlap clothes, who chase after a wooden hoop with such glee that we’reignored. Once, a merchant steps out to stretch on his general store’s front steps, and he takes one look at Sabine—even in her human glamour—and pivots back inside to shut the door.
Chances are good he recognizes her. By now, surely gossip has spread about King Rian’s former fiancée, the godkissed girl from Bremcote who turned out to be a Volkish traitor.
There’s a chance he’ll send a message to Old Coros, but then again, we’ve passed dozens of travelers on this journey who have slid Sabine a wary look. Besides, Rian’s forces have to know it’s only a matter of time before we return.
Sabine takes the lead now that we’re on her home turf. She leans forward on Myst, eyes hungry as she scans the rolling hills outside of the village.
“It’s pretty here,” I observe. “Like a painting. Ponds and sheep. Willows.”
“I guess,” she agrees.
After the next rise, I try a more direct approach. “Want to talk about it? The Convent?”
Her lips press tightly together. She gives a sharp shake of her head.
I sigh inwardly.Great work, Basten.Like always, I’m not the best with words. Or feelings. Or especially putting them together. This is so far out of my wheelhouse I might as well be two kingdoms over.
But I try again.
