He’d flog me with his belt if I stepped out of line of his command. He was already in a piss-poor mood since I snuck away to join his march.
“You look thirsty. Have you been lost in the wood?”
My stomach backflipped. I whirled around, yanking a small whittling knife from my belt. I was met with dust-covered cheeks, messy soil-brown braids, and dark eyes with the faintest slash of silver carving through the centers.
“Sentry Ashwood?”
I blew out a rough breath when the memory faded and met Lyra’s befuddled gaze.
She arched a brow. “Are you all right? You looked to be in pain.”
I swallowed thickly and snatched the horn from her hand, taking a brisk drink, and gestured a rough,Fine.
Lyra pinched her lips. “Hmm. Pity.”
In the center of the tavern, a Skald was calling for the attention of the crowd. The woman’s arms were draped in vibrant linens, her head topped with a flat cap, and a spike of bone pierced through the center of her nose.
“Gather round, ye kin of the king. Hear this, a tale of a wicked queen.”
My chest tightened, but I’d learned long ago not to show disquiet. Not to anyone.
“I always loved listening to the Skalds at House Jakobson.” Lyra’s mouth raised in a smile, but when she seemed to realize it was me she’d addressed, she cleared her throat and took a step away. “They always have good tales.”
I didn’t respond and listened to the Skald go on about the saga of a vicious queen who lost it all after she tried to take from a good and honorable king.
“A cruel woman she was,” the Skald sang out. “Sent the heir of her throne to take the first king’s spoils, a place a young princely boy ought to avoid, he should’ve known.”
Stay down. Go. I closed my eyes, barring out the phantoms of a night I hardly recalled.
“What is this tale?” Lyra’s whisper drew my attention. “I feel like I’ve heard it before.”
The Skald barreled on when the crowds chanted and cheered with her. “And oh, what screams rose when the young princely boy lost his pretty head. Raiding he went when he ought to have been in bed. Bloody waters marked the shore, and the queen was sent to the pits of the ravines forevermore. Lost her heir without a care. But everyone from vale to sea knows there is no heart in those who master souls.”
The tavern bellowed with cheers and harsh words leveled at the enemies across the ravines when the Skald ended her tale with a flourish of her hands.
Lyra cast an uncertain look my way. “They should not speak so foolishly in front of you.”
I faced her.Foolishly? Where was the lie in the tale?
“I-I don’t know,” she stammered. “Is that true? Did the prince of Dravenmoor die in the raid looking for me?”
Many souls died that night.
Lyra’s face paled. “I hate that so much death came because of the curse of my blood. I want to go back to not knowing all the truths.”
She blamed herself? Then again, I had done the same thing for seasons.
As Emi often told me, I might’ve been a bit of an ass.
With a rap of my knuckles on the table, I drew her attention.Lust for power spilled blood that night.Not a girl.
“Well, it hasn’t stopped you from hating me for it.”
For a long, drawn-out pause words died between us, as though her tongue had gone as silent as mine.
She cleared her throat and looked back at the crowds. “All the same, I don’t think it’s fair to Emi or…or you to have folk speak so harshly of your people.”
By the frosted hell, she was befuddling.
