“And I was not gentle.” He’d slammed her to the stone ground with his full weight.
“Niel,” Ayla said. Her pale eyes softened and he found himself staring into them, all the desperate emptiness in him leaning forward. “You can’t apologize for saving me. I won’t accept it.”
She was staring at him like he was a good man, not a monster. Not a weakling, or a second son, or a traitor.
“It was nothing,” he said, his voice rough and low. “Though I must ask you not to step outside the keep without an escort anymore, for the sake of your safety.”
Her eyes lowered, then froze. Ayla stared at his arm.
“Yoursleeve,” she said with horror.
He looked down, exhausted and a little surprised. He’d forgotten about the burn. Anyways, it didn’t look bad. The top layers of fabric had burned away, a black-edged, ragged circle. There was still a layer of intact fabric covering his skin. The burn stung, but it wasn’t terrible. It would probably just be red for a few days.
“I’m fine,” Niel said gruffly. “It’s over. You should get some rest.”
He didn’t know what possessed him, but he reached a hand out towards her without thinking, and Ayla took it, placing her soft, cool palm into his filthy glove. Niel stared a moment at her hand. Her nails were clean and carefully shaped; her fingers long and delicate. A thin silver ring encircled her middle finger.
His mind raced.
He bent low in a bow and scraped his lips against her knuckles.
Then, wordlessly, Niel dropped her hand and abruptly strode off down the hall, feeling ten types of idiot, not wanting to see whatever damning look doubtlessly rested on her face.
The Cutthroat
Niel ran out to the wall, shortening his stride and swinging his arms out for balance as he hit the damned icy patches that had formed the two days prior. A day of bright sun had melted the thin crusts of snow which remained on the shoveled wall; evening had turned them to ice, and ice they now remained.
He could see the rider in the distance, just as Kerr had said. Niel stopped, tilted his head back, and lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the low afternoon sun. Two griffons approached with heavy wingbeats, a single rider perched on the back of one. The animals, large enough to bear riders in flight, had the bodies of lions and the head and wings of eagles.
Had the other rider fallen, or been shot down? Or was the messenger coming in such a hurry as to take a spare unladen mount?
Niel leaned one elbow on the ramparts and watched sharply, trying to make out each detail the moment it came into view. The rider was coming from the north, from the mountains.
Unlikely to be from anywhere but Mount Eyron, given the direction, and his father’s ability to stable the large beasts. Griffons weren’t entirely rare, but they were savage and particular: difficult to train, harder to keep. They hated captivity and they couldn’t fly long distances with riders. Making it from Eyron to Blackfell was probably about as much as one of the creatures could handle without multi-day breaks between the legs of the journey.
When the rider got close, arrows shot up from Corin’s warcamp, a flurry of dark bolts. They fell short. The siege bow that fired next, though, had range. A bolt streaked past the griffons, but the rider banked towards the castle. The griffons tucked their wings and dove for the courtyard. He still couldn’t tell the rider’s identity, bundled in leathers and furs as the figure was.
Niel quickly turned and strode down the steps to the courtyard, one hand resting on his sword hilt. The two griffons had landed in one of the deeper snowdrifts, which had not shrunk in the brief warmth. He was glad he’d had the men hunt through the snowbanks to collect the bolts that had lodged there. A griffon who’d plowed into one would have been immensely displeased.
The one that bore a rider was gold, the other copper. Both hung their heads, wings drooping with exhaustion.
The rider stood and swung one leg carefully over the saddle, balancing on just the left stirrup. He—Nielthoughtit was a he—looked around for a moment, then leapt out to the side to land on one of the pathways they’d cleared. The man straightened slowly.
“Show yourself,” Niel called.
“Why? You scared I might cut your throat?” a gravelly voice answered. He knew that voice, and his suspicions were confirmed a moment later when the rider unwound his scarf and peeled his fur-lined helmet off to reveal silvery hair braided back, and the thin-lipped face of a man in his fifties who’d become personal friends with death.
“No,” Niel said calmly. “Checking whether I should disembowel you.”
Vulmar, his father’s cutthroat and righthand man, smiled and narrowed his eyes.
“Bold words, dragon pup.”
“Blackfell doesn’t have a griffon roost. We’ll need to stake them to the wall to keep them from going after the horses.”
“They had a deer hours ago. They’ll be fine.” Vulmar took a few steps forward, hand out, and the nearest griffon came with unusual docility and lowered his sharp-beaked face. The cutthroat was moving stiffly.
It’s just the cold,Niel told himself.That, and the long ride. He’s not gettingthatold.
