I sigh. “Yes.”
“I didn’t follow all of that,” he says. “She thinks we’re lying?”
“She thinks we stole uniforms and we’re trying to sneak into the palace.”
“Through the main gates? How is that evensneaking?”
He sounds so exasperated that it makes me laugh.
Malin snorts in response. “No wonder she thinks we’re stupid.”
I smile. Over our days of travel, I’ve come to really like him. I have my close friends in the palace, people I’ve known for so long that they’ve grown into a family of sorts, but none of them have ever really felt likepeers. Even when I was in the army here in Syhl Shallow, I never had many friends. Some of that was due to my closeness to Grey, the new king who bore magic. Some of it was due to the other soldiers’ prejudice against Emberfall.
And some of it—likelya lot of it—was due to my past.
But maybe my growing closeness to Jax has allowed some of my instinctive barriers to fall. Maybe opening one door to trust has allowed others to unlatch, just a little.
Beneath me, Mercy paws at the cobblestones, and I murmur to her to settle. “I told the captain to wake one of the generals,” I tell Malin.
“Do you think they’ll make us wait long?” Malin says.
I glance at the guard house again. The remaining guard is glaring at us. They might have agreed to wake General Solt—but it’s clear they still don’t believe me.
“Yes,” I say.
And they do. Eventually, the remaining guard sits down, still glaring at us from inside the guard house, so we dismount from the horses and lean against one of the gate pillars. Mercy’s head hangs low, her muzzle pressed against my hip, blowing warm breaths against my thigh. I begin to wonder if the captain’s goal is to make us wait here until dawn, just to prove a point.
I really don’t want to fight my way through the palace gates.
I keep reminding myself that they’re just doing their job.
“I’m going to fall asleep standing up,” Malin says. “You might need to tellmea story.”
I smile. “But I’ve never hidden anyone’s uniform.”
“Come on.”
“I suppose I owe you.” I rack my brain for something silly, somethingclever, but no memories are suitable. I grimace. “I was too close to the king for anyone to trust me with pranks.”
Malin rolls his eyes. “Well, that sounds horrible. Anything, then. Your childhood?” he suggests. “How you found yourself here?”
Neither of those things would make a good story. My childhood certainly wasn’t fun. And I found myself here after Prince Rhen flayed my back open at fifteen, chained to a wall alongside Grey. We escaped to Syhl Shallow, and I swore fealty to the future king days later. A month after that, I was a soldier myself, swallowing my fears because I didn’t want to disappoint him.
Malin must watch some kind of emotion play across my face, because I’m silent, frozen against the pillar, and the teasing glint vanishes from his eyes. “Silver hell, Tycho. As soon as I earn a day of leave, we’re finding a tavern, and I’m going to buy you adrink.”
That makes me laugh, a little. I’m somewhat abashed—but rather touched, too. “All right.”
He makes a disgusted sound and pushes upright, running a hand across the back of his neck. “Or maybe we should find one right now. How bad would it look if I laid out my bedroll right here?”
But finally, we hear hoofbeats from somewhere beyond the gates. “Wait,” I say. “Someone is coming.”
I truly hope it’s more than just the guard captain who forced us to wait here, because I really might draw blades.
I peer between the bars of the gates to see if I can identify who’sriding through the shadowed early morning darkness. More than one horse, for sure. It sounds like a lot—and when I finally see movement, itlookslike a lot.
“She did wake the general,” I say to Malin, and I’m surprised.
“He’ll recognize you?”
