“No, I will not! I’ve warned you over and over to keep that bastard under control, and this is what I come home to? This? My house in shambles? My family in disarray? And him without the courage to face me himself? Instead, he let you send him away to investigate in the city during my arrival?” She shook her head wildly. “No, I won’t have it. I won’thaveit. It’s time for heads to roll, and I’m starting with his. I demand—”
“Mother.” Arven stepped forward, his voice placating. “Mother, please. You’re not thinking right.”
“Howdareyou—”
“I’ll go,” Arven continued, and now it was Petur’s turn for his jaw to drop. “I’ll go, all right? I won’t put up a fuss about it. I’ll go on the sloop. I’ll stay away as long as you need me to.” He swallowed hard. “Even if it takes a year or more. But Mother, please, you can’t blame Deyvid for this. He’s had so many opportunities to hurt us, and he’s never taken a single one. He’s been part of our family for years. He saved my life once already.”
“He’s not part of this family,” Tania snapped, but some of the fire had gone out of her stance.
“He’s as good as an uncle to me,” Arven said, tilting his head in such a way that even though he was taller than his mother, it made him seem smaller, more deferential. “He taught me to throw a knifeandhow to speak his language. We’ve been alone so many times before. For him to wait for such a random opportunity? Mother, it doesn’t make sense. Please.” He pulled her hands close. “Don’t blame him.”
There was a long moment of silence, and then … “Fine.” All of a sudden, Petur could breathe again. “Fine. Perhaps you’re right although that’s more consideration than he deserves.” She kept hold of her son’s hands as she turned to face Petur. “But as long as he’s out hunting for the assassin, let him make a fulsome journey of it. If I see Deyvid back in the palace before the Harvest Feast, I will assume he’s not taking his responsibility to investigate this seriously, and I will have him removed. Permanently.”
“That’s three months away,” Petur said, aghast.
“Then he’ll have plenty of time for the trip north, won’t he?” Tania replied. “Go tell him now but return before the sun is down, brother. You are now your nephew’s bodyguard until he’s at sea, and I insist you take that role seriously.”
Petur couldn’t bring himself to bow, but he did manage to incline his head before turning on his heel and marching out of the audience chamber. His sister had never before angered him so deeply in all their years together.
I want to leave the palace. I want to leave it all.
Never before had Petur felt the urge to abandon his position so strongly. Oh, he’d flirted with the idea in the past, idly considering what his life might be like if he weren’t so beholden to the crown. But before, it had been nothing but the odd thought here and there.
Now, though? For the first time, Petur contemplated whether doing his duty was worth the price he paid for it. To be treatedso carelessly by Tania … to have his relationship of eight years disregarded so easily … to have to be saved by hisnephew. It was embarrassing. It was humiliating. It was lessening, and it hurt his soul.
He didn’t have to go far to find Deyvid, fortunately. The man was in their room in the barracks, and when Petur opened the door, he wasn’t surprised to find Deyvid already packing.
“Word travels fast,” Petur said, forcing himself into a level tone.
“Particularly when the volume is so loud,” Deyvid said, a soft and understanding expression on his face. “Lise couldn’t help but overhear, so she came to warn me. I was planning to go to the border anyway, darling.”
The endearment broke Petur out of his shell of indifference. He sighed, walked over to Deyvid, and pulled him into the embrace he’d wanted to hold him in earlier. “She wanted to say it was your fault. She was going to pin all of this on you. Arven stopped her, but—”
“We’ve always known your sister doesn’t like me. It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” Petur snarled. It was hard to speak around the fangs that threatened to erupt from his gums. “None of this is fine. She shouldn’t get to be the arbiter of anything concerning us.”
“I know.” Deyvid kissed him tenderly, and the fangs retracted. “I know. I’m sorry. I don’t want to leave you, but I do think this is worthy of investigation. I’ll do my best.”
Petur gazed into Deyvid’s pale eyes. It was amazing how much meaning could be found in there, even in the absence of color. “You always do,” he whispered. “You always, always do. I’m sorry, though, that you’re not extended any grace for your efforts.”
“You’re all the grace I need,” Deyvid assured him. “You’ve always been all I need.” They kissed again softly, once, twice. “I’llsend letters,” he promised. “At every outpost I can find. It’ll be all right. I promise.”
Petur wasn’t inclined to believe him, not when he felt so miserable, but he knew Deyvid was trying his best. The least he could do was respond in kind. “I’ll wait with bated breath, of course,” he said, pulling a smirk. “I’ll cast my eyes to the sky every day and pray to the Triad that I get a love note from you. I’ll be woeful and woebegone every second I haven’t heard from you. I’ll be—”
“Dramatic,” Deyvid said with a little laugh, “as usual. Good thing I love it.”
“Good thing I love you,” Petur replied. “Be safe.”
“You too.”
Chapter twelve
Deyvid
Deyvid went north with two of his fastest horses, switching off every hour to make the best time possible. He might not have the speed of many shifters, but he understood the animals that were the lifeblood of his people better than he understood his fellow humans. He knew their tells, when they were tired and when they had plenty of kick left in them. He knew to rub them down at night before letting them go to graze, how to check their hooves for damage and when not to let them drink too deeply too soon. He knew how to push them to get every mile out of them without damage, and so he was at the northern border of Riyale within ten days, hoping against hope that he was wrong about who was behind the attacks on Petur’s family.
The trip itself was nothing he hadn’t done before. Hell, he’d gone much farther, but it had been a long time since he’d traveled like this on his own. The distance was doable if a bit harder on his bones than he remembered it, but the solitude … that was what he found the hardest to deal with. Petur had ruined him for his own company.
