I laid my hand against the fabric of the tent wall and closed my eyes. The fibers were fine woven and dense. Lifeless. I pushed through the haze of purple wine and sharp thorns still clouding my mind, seeking the spark, the life, thegrowth. Finally—a glimmer of green. A flash of pale sunlight between high rows of plantings. Comb-toothed leaves swaying in a damp breeze. Mud and rot and earthworms pushing between roots.
The hemp had nearly forgotten what it was to grow, tolive. It had been plucked and retted and combed and spun and woven. It had grown accustomed to being inert, being dead, beingcloth.
But nothing could forget what it truly was. Even those things that might wish to.
I latched onto the hemp, anchoring it to my own moss-stained blood. The fine-woven fibers burst to life. Green rippled along the canvas. It split apart, broad leaves waving us through. I dashed out into the chilly evening, Rogan close on my heels, then closed the gap behind us. Regret slid through me as the hemp reluctantly became cloth once more.
I let my hand drop, then glanced at Rogan. A trace of unease touched his face before smoothing away.
“Now what?” he asked.
I set my jaw and glanced up. Perched on the neighboring tent were a few curious starlings, their glitter-black plumage nearlyinvisible against the night sky. I signaled to them, and they dispersed with a trill.
Tonight was not yet lost. I might not have retrieved the darrig myself, but I wasn’t the queen’s only spy. After the offenses I’d done him, Connla would feel honor bound to pursue me if I ran. And with his fiann on my tail, his tent would be unguarded.
Cathair’s witch-birds would pass along my message.
“Now? I’ll lead them in a merry chase.” I smirked at Rogan, giving in to the pulse of new life shading my blood green and gold. “See if you can keep up, princeling.”
The fields below Rath na Mara were dominated by the vast hunching tents of the four under-kings of Fódla, their households, and their retinues. But theirs were not the only encampments. Despite plague in the south and famine in the north, many had made the trip to the capital for the funeral games—merchants, beggars, bards. Hopeful farm boys with their granddad’s rusted swords. Tents and lean-tos and caravans dotted the plain, with a cobweb of makeshift roads and pathways churning to muck between them.
It made for bad, slow going. And with every step we took, Connla’s men and dogs circled closer.
“It’s too far,” I gasped out. My bravado was beginning to leak away as we crouched down behind a makeshift privy reeking of shite. The high wooden palisade ringing Rath na Mara was barely a quarter mile away, but the improvised city hemming us in was like a maze. “What if you led them off? Connla’s looking for me, not you.”
I turned to Rogan. It was hard for me to look at him without staring—I reveled in the familiarity of him, even as I ogled at the changes. And there were a lot of changes. He’d filled out, for one—his arms, bare beneath his cloak, rippled with thick muscle, and the cut of his shoulders was far broader than I remembered.
“Me?” He huffed a laugh. “Fannon hates Bridei. If they catch me lurking in their camp, they’ll cut an eye out, then tell my king father it was an unfortunate accident.”
“Good point.” I looked at the eyes in question, which even in darkness shone a deep blue-green. “Although you only really need one of your eyes.”
“I would look dashing in an eye patch.”
A dog barked, too close for comfort. Some decision sparked on Rogan’s face, and he began slinking away.
In the wrong direction.
“Where are you going?” I hissed at his receding back.
He paused. “Have I ever led you astray?”
“Frequently.”
“Maybe I’ve changed.”
I opened my mouth to retort, but smoking torches flamed in my periphery and for a moment I felt the bite of phantom teeth. Following the prince who had broken my heart deeper into the camp of a man who wanted to kill me wasn’t my favorite idea. But I was running out of other options.
I crept after Rogan.
After what felt like miles—Connla’s men gaining ground with every step—the tents and lean-tos thinned out. The light of a bonfire rose up. A scattering of derelict outbuildings appeared—a crofter’s hut, long abandoned, and what looked like an old barn. Torchlight glittered from dilapidated windows ringing with loud laughter and song. Men and women stumbled drunkenly around the fire. Tapped barrels were stacked beneath the eave of the hut.
A makeshift tavern? “I don’t think—”
“Trust me.” Rogan held out his hand. I hesitated, then gripped his palm, even as I cursed myself for a fool.
He pulled me toward the hut, pushing through the crowd. A narrow alley cut between the hut and the barn—barely any light filtered through. He pushed me in first, then glanced back the way we’d come.
Connla’s fiann had cleared the last few tents and marched on the bonfire. Metal glinted red in the firelight. Huge dogs strained at collars. The rígfénnid stopped one of the drunks by the fire, who shook his head. The rígfénnid waved his men toward the ring of barrels. I swallowed fear and tugged Rogan’s hand, wanting to move deeper into the alley. He shook his head.
