“It’s only tea,” she said with a shrug.
He stared solemnly at her for a moment, his hands wrapped around the cup. He could feel the warmth through his gloves. He lifted it toward his mouth, glorying in the steam’s heat after so many hours of freezing cold.
If he hated Lord Blackfell for nothing else, he’d still hate the man for making Ayla think she was anything less than a wonder.
How can the world be worth burning down when someone like her exists in it?He thought for a moment, before crushing the foolish thought firmly down. He was being ridiculous.
He took a sip, warmth coursing down his throat to bloom across his chest.
“On a night like this,” Niel said carefully, his voice low, “a hot drink is as bracing as a good victory.”
Ayla shivered, her hands pale on the tray.
“If you say so.”
“I can bring that to the men,” he offered. “You belong in front of a fire, with furs around you.”
And what he wouldn’t give, to be in such a place with her, instead of out here on the wall.
“It’s fine. I won’t be out here nearly as long as you all are.”
Neil sighed and studied her face, but there was a determined look in her gray eyes.
“Go on, then,” he urged. “The sooner it's poured, the sooner you’ll be back in the warmth.”
He turned his back to her, his eyes sweeping back over the dark landscape below, tea an inch from his lips. Niel took another bracing sip.
Those fires. The ones flickering on the dark ground not so far away from the castle walls. They hadn’t been there before; he was sure. He’d spent the last few hours staring out at this terrain, and he knew it by heart.Thesehad been lit while he talked to Ayla.
The row of fires lay to the left of the village, and closer to the wall than the army tents. Three of them; twenty feet between each one. Niel stepped up to the wall, his own face brightened by the torch beside him. He squinted, trying to determine the nature of the threat. He was particularly concerned about ladders, which, unlike a bigger threat like a siege tower ortrebuchet catapult, could be built and hidden in the town without Niel seeing.
Blackfell’s walls were tall, but not too tall for an escalade. Corin’s men could do plenty of damage with a few sets of ladders.
As he squinted, trying to make out the dark shapes beside the nearest fire, something bright hurtled towards him.
Fire arrow.
“Attack,” he bellowed, and spun back. Ayla stood only steps from him, turning with a startled look on her face.
She wasn’t ducking down; didn’t seem to understand.
She’d probably never had arrows shot at her before.
No time to think. He slammed into her, tackling her down to the ground in the shelter of the wall’s rim. Ayla screamed, the tray falling from her hands. Pottery smashed apart as hot tea splashed on their clothes. She was in his arms, pinned beneath him to the frozen stone walkway.
The arrow slammed into the castle, two feet beside them, and fell burning to the stone walk. It was a heavy bolt, two feet long and thick, swaddled with burning cloth, the head sharp enough to punch plate armor. Or skewer a woman. Two other flaming bolts made their way over the wall to his left.
Arrows that short and heavy didn’t come from ordinary bows. They came from siege crossbows. They’d brought up fuckingsiege crossbows, the heavy equipment likely mounted to the back of carts.
Some day he was going to kill his fucking brother.
Down the wall, the other soldiers called the alarm. Bode raised a horn to his lips and blew two long, hard blasts, alerting the soldiers inside the castle to prepare for battle.
Beneath him, Ayla stared up in shock, her gray eyes wide, her braid half-loose and spilling around her head. It was far too dangerous out here. Fuck, what had he been thinking, letting herout on the wall at all, when it was too dark out to see what the army outside was up to?
“Get inside,” he barked. Ayla still lay trapped beneath him. He could feel the dampness of the spilled tea on his right knee. It already felt bone-cold.
“What—” she gasped.
