There’s no judgment in his tone, but I bristle anyway. “Can it not beboth?” I demand.
He says nothing. It’s a good thing, because I’m not done.
“I love them, too,” I snap. “You rode heedless out of Ironrose. You haveno ideawho took Lia Mara. There could be hundreds of them. I may not be an officer anymore, but I still know you don’t send one man off to battle without a plan. You may just see me as a messenger now, but I’m not a liability or a hindrance. I’m not achild. Stop speaking to me as if I am.”
“I don’t just see you as a messenger, Tycho.”
I don’t want to be having this conversation. And honestly, we’re walking right into a trap. We’ll probably both end up dead and none of this will matter. “There are already rumors of rebellion and violence against you after what happened in the Uprising,” I say. “It’s one thing to protect the royal family from a palace invasion. If you level a town, there will be no quelling the rumors. No matter what they’ve done to the queen.”
“If they’ve hurt them …” He breaks off, and there’s no disguising the promise of violence in his voice. “I once had a conversation with Iisak about what he was willing to risk to find Nakiis,” Grey says. “I didn’t fully understand then.” He pauses. “I do now.”
I stop on the trail and look at him. “Iisak died.”
“He died trying to save his son.”
“No. He didn’t. He died because he crashed through a window to attack an enchantress. He died because he was blind with anger or fury or vengeance. He died because he didn’t take a moment to figure out what was happeningin that room, Grey.” I glare at him. “Just like you did, when you got on your horse without waiting.”
I’ve never spoken to him like this. He stares back at me in the shadowed darkness.
I make an aggravated sound, then turn to start walking again. But I stop short.
We’ve reached a crossroads. The road that leads to Briarlock. I let out a long breath.
I can almostseea dark light spark in Grey’s eyes. I grab hold of his arm before he can leap aboard my horse and martyr himself or stab Jax or set all of Briarlock on fire—or all three.
“I know my way through the woods,” I say. “Let’s get off the road. We can approach from the rear, where we won’t be spotted. They won’t be expecting you this quickly—and likely not alone. We don’t have much darkness left, but we’ll have the high ground, and we can assess the size of their force, if they have one.”
He glances at my hand on his arm, then back at my face. If he’s surprised now, it doesn’t show.
“Well advised,” says the king. “We’ll do as you say.”
CHAPTER 50
JAX
The bruise Da left on my jaw hasn’t faded. The ache in my gut promises to linger a bit longer, too. I think there’s a chance he bruised a rib.
None of that matters, because the resentment in my heart doesn’t fade atall.
“I’ve cleaned up your mess,” he said to me on the second day.
I didn’t answer him. I just gritted my teeth and kept working.
He smacked me on the back of the head. “You should be grateful. I’ve figured out what you were doing. Who you were helping. I turned it around for us, boy. You’re lucky you didn’t get us both thrown in the stone prison.”
“So lucky,” I muttered.
My weapons are gone. I’m not sure what he did with the dagger, but Da broke Tycho’s bow into pieces and fed them to the forge while I watched. Then the arrows, one by one. He may as well have been feedingmeto the fire.
He’s threatened to. More than once. “You try anything, and you’ll wish it was just your hand in the forge.”
I have no weapons. No silver.
No options.
I’ve thought about escaping. Sometimes late at night I imagine it. Easing through the house, making my way through the woods in the darkness. But I’m not fast, and I’m not silent. If he caught me … I don’t like to think about the repercussions.
Every time he and I are in the forge together, I think about clocking him in the face with one of my tools. I just haven’t yet found the courage to do it.
