Isca sat sidesaddle for the beginning of the journey. Each time she wobbled in the unfamiliar position, my magic caught her before she could slip.
“It seems I’m still not the best rider,” she murmured, steadying herself a third time. Then, with a sideways glance that was far too deliberate, she added, “Since you’re in good spirits, now’s the time to explain what happened with Anwen.”
I’d spent the entire day without my emotional barriers, so she saw right through me.
“You trust her now?” I asked, sharper than intended.
“No,” she said simply. “But I think she’s trying to survive, just like we are. And I think she might be the only way to stop the Assembly from controlling everything.”
As the miles passed beneath our horses, she told me of Anwen’s precarious court and the vultures circling the dying king’s corpse. “Half of them want her married to her cousin, who is working with the Assembly,” she muttered, disgust sharpening every word.
I coughed, almost choking on my own disbelief. Gelida’s fear of magecraft had clearly rotted its reason. I’d already suspected the Assembly of deeper treachery after speaking with that druid, butthis…
The curse stirred to alertness, heat pooling in my veins until the air around my hands burned and I had to drop my horse’s reins. I called on my own magic to fight it with a flood of ice. And somewhere behind us, a crack appeared in the dry earth.
I did what I could. I fed the curse images of tearing down the fortress at Caervorn, of ripping Maeron apart with my bare hands. And, finally, I stifled its thrashing for violence with a question, gritted out through clenched teeth, because thinking of her always helped to steady me. “And what politicking did you do,cariad?”
Her scoff was soft, but her lips betrayed the smile she was trying to hold back. “I spoke with her about options.”
“Options?”
“Anwen is fighting Maelric,” she said, her voice catching, a flare of remembered pain sparking from her magic. “Taking me was a consequence of that. The problem is that Gelida’s court won’t let her rule alone. They want her bound to a palatable male.” A pause, then: “So I named two.”
“Two…?” The world went silent around me, even the curse holding its breath.
Anwen had askedmefor a response…
This couldn’t be happening. Had all of this been about Isca giving up on me, a farewell? My heart was hammering so fast that I feared even the curse couldn’t hold it together. It was a miracle I wasn’t exploding into a ball of flames.
“Owain,” she said quickly. “He’d tolerate a woman being at the forefront, but Gelida’s warrior classes would try to make him the figurehead.” She shook her head, seeming unconvinced. “Or Nisien…”
I went still, drawing in a slow breath to compose myself. Anwen hadn’t wanted me. She’d wanted me to speak with Nisien.
“She’s a mage, Emrys. A powerful one.”
I turned fully in my saddle toward her. “She’swhat?”
Isca nodded. “She can keep me out just like you. I felt her magic building in the throne room when you seemed ready to attack her. But you were…distracted.”
By the gods, I had been distracted—by wanting to pull her castle down stone by bloody stone. The curse shifted uneasily at the thought.
Isca was trying to save Gelida even after they’d kidnapped her. And I’d just slaughtered hundreds of their countrymen. I wasn’t fit to be in the same room as her.
“Anwen also said they keep a few trusted mages on retainer, but the one who put me to sleep for the journey was hired from the Assembly.”
“I know,” I said gruffly.
It was clear from the look Isca settled on me that she knew more than she was letting on.
“The man who did that to you is dead.”
Her voice was a quiet murmur amidst the horses’ clomping. “Anwen said you kept none alive.”
Cursed gods, she was disappointed in me—a sentiment she wasn’t alone in.
“That’s not entirely true.” I was as offended as a child caught with his hand in the honey jar. “I brought a man to Tir Gelida on horseback!”
That look from her again. “Just one?”
