If this tourney is anything like Worwick’s, the next hour will be spent cleaning up spilled ale, washing tankards, oiling tack, and locking up the weapons. There’s no sense in me lingering now.
But if I’m going to free Nakiis, I’m going to have to come back prepared.
I return to the inn, but not to sleep. I need food, and while I’m eating, I buy scraps of leather off some of the men there, then use it to lace my armor closed in spots. Several buckles are completely missing, and there are gouges everywhere, many that go down into the steel. I’m close to the Syhl Shallow border, probably a full day’s ride from the Crystal Palace, but that’s still a lot of ground to cover.
Guilt pricks at me. Rhen’s return letter to Grey and Lia Mara is still wrapped in leather and strapped to my chest, untouched. It’s not the most secret letter I’ve ever carried, but it’s a document that would’ve been uncovered if I’d been killed. I wonder if Grey would have faced Nakiis in the arena too, or if he would have considered it an unnecessary risk.
It’s hours past midnight now, and the common room in the inn has emptied, leaving no one but me and the barkeep and a dwindling fire.
“Will you be needing anything else, my lord?” the barkeep calls, his voice low.
“No. Thank you.” I pause. “I don’t think I’ll be needing the room after all.” I leave a coin on the bar and go to fetch Mercy.
By the time I return to the tourney, it’s dark and silent, nighttime cold pressing down around us. The moon hangs high overhead, a narrow crescent that doesn’t provide much light. Mercy’s hooves clop on the frozen ground rhythmically, her breath streaming in two long clouds. I don’t expect guards, so I’m not surprised when I find none. Outside of the weapons, which are kept locked in the armory, there’s generally not much worth stealing from a tourney, especially not one this small. I tether Mercy out of sight and find a rear door. Even that is unlocked. I slip inside and creep through the darkness.
I’ve come through on the side where the stables are kept, and one of the horses offers a soft whicker. I stroke a hand across its muzzle and ease down the aisle, my feet silent on the straw-littered ground. I’m not sure where they’d keep the scraver here, so I let stars flare in my blood and my vision as I send seeking magic into the ground. The power tugs at me, drawing me down the aisle, easing past horse after horse.
The space is small, and the scraver isn’t far, tucked away at the opposite end of the stables under a low overhang. I don’t make a sound, but his eyes flick open as if he sensed the magic. He’s in a cage, which I expected, nowhere near big enough. His wings are tucked tight against his back, but they still spill between the bars. He uncurls slowly from the ground to sit up and face me. In the dark, he moves like a shadow.
“You’re more foolish than I thought,” he says, and a cold wind slithers through the stable to make me shiver.
“Probably.” I step closer to the cage, but his hands flex against the bars. Something in his focus tightens, shifts.
I stop and lift my hands. “I can break the lock.”
“You can keep your distance.” I see the edge of his fangs.
I frown. “You don’t want to be freed?”
“Freed.” He scoffs, those fangs fully bared now. “I’ve had many offers offreedom, boy. None were true.”
“The king freed you once. He healed your wing and let you go.”
“I remember the magesmiths and their dealings,” Nakiis says. “He will collect one day. I have no doubt.”
I shake my head. “He won’t.” I pause. “I would offer you freedom, too.”
“You will nottrickme,” he growls.
“It’s not a trick.” I take a step closer. “I have no chain. No ropes. I’m not a magesmith. I’ll break the lock and you’ll be—”
He shrieks at me, and a cold blast of wind tears through the stables. I cringe. The horses pace nervously in their stalls.
“The king kept my father bound,” Nakiis snaps. “I saw it.”
“He wasn’t bound! Iisak was afriend—”
He shrieks at me again, and I shiver. His magic makes frost form along the knives in my bracers and the hilt of my sword. Ice crawls up the walls of the stables.
I glare at him. “You’d rather stay in a cage?”
“Their demands are few,” he growls. “I’m treated well. I cannot say the same of you or your magesmith king.”
“Your father once said that nothing in a cage is ever trulywell.”
Nakiis says nothing to that.
I sigh. It’s the middle of the night, and I’ve got a long day of riding ahead of me.
