“I suppose we’ll find out,” Petur said. “Just make sure everyone knows, alright? Tell them we don’t expect anything for this.”
“Of course. I’ll start with Bekkon.” She smiled briefly. “You just missed the prince consort, actually. He was carrying a message from his wife for your sister.”
“A message? Hmm.” Petur wasn’t aware of any pressing need for Tania and Melisse to be talking. Eh. He’d get it out of them later. “Work fast,” he said instead. “I want to be out of here before the day is done.”
Thatplan, at least, was easy to put into motion. By the time the convocation came to an end, everyone was always very ready to leave. Even Tania didn’t put up a fuss, only nodding her head as she directed the packing of her trunks into the coach that would carry her and Jemal back home.
“The sooner we leave, the better,” she said airily, then wrinkled her nose. “It’s like I can feel myself mildewing here. I don’t think I’ve been dry for ten days.”
“Even my fur feels wet,” Petur agreed. “And I’m not evenwearingmy fur right now.”
Tania smiled. “There, there,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. “We’ll have you dry again in no time, puppy.”
Petur grinned at her, and for a moment, he felt a surge of the camaraderie that had been theirs for so much of their youth. Tania seemed to as well. She opened her mouth—to say what, Petur wasn’t sure—but her attention was diverted by her husband’s entrance as he complained of some minor thing. She went back to ignoring Petur, who shrugged and ignored her in turn.
Queens did not make camp by the side of the road. Tania had made that very plain to Petur. They were only leaving Volkow, Deloth’s capital, as long as they could make good time to the next city en route, where there was an inn of fine quality waiting for them to fill it.
They set off at as brisk a pace they could manage on the muddy road, the royal coach’s wheels rumbling noisily. Petur, Deyvid, and the rest of the guards were on horseback, with the exception of two flyers high in the sky, watching out for any treachery. And treachery, Petur knew, was coming. He just didn’t understand the flavor of it quite yet.
But when Deyvid called out, “Hold,” an hour into their journey, he thought he began to see it. The driver brought the coach to a stop as Petur rode ahead to join his lover.
“What the—”
“I know,” Deyvid murmured. “Inconvenient, isn’t it?” The road ahead of them looked more like a lake than a well-traveled highway and continued that way for well over a hundred feet.
“Test the depth,” Petur said to one of their squad, who dismounted and moved forward. “I thought Harriers didn’t do magic,” he said under his breath to Deyvid as they watched Jaysen, one of the few other otter shifters in the Corps, step forward and immediately come to midthigh in the water. “How could they erode things so much without word of it coming back to the castle?”
“I don’t think this is magic,” Deyvid replied grimly. “I think they’re taking advantage of natural faults in the landscape. Knocking down a bridge is much easier than redirecting a river, and as for this …” He shrugged. “It’s been raining for days now, and I noted this dip in the road on the way here. It’s entirely possible that King Brin didn’t even consider this would impact our ability to get back to Riyale, either because it’s a common occurrence, or because he’s … well.”
“Why have we stopped?” Tania called from the coach. “We should be moving! Petur, get us underway!”
He turned back in irritation, just in time to watch an arrow strike the side of the coach. Only this arrow didn’t have a steel broadhead. It was thin, hollow wood, and where it struck it released a liquid, foul smelling and so pungent that everyone began to choke. Worse than that, they went completely nose blind.
“Defensive positions,” Petur called immediately. “Defensive positions around the queen, now!” He tilted his head back and bellowed into the sky, “I want eyes on the shooter!” Their fliers would be unaffected by the stench and more able to hone in on where the arrow had been released from.
Petur dropped his sword and shed his cloak as he swung down from his horse. A moment later, he shifted into his warrior form, and the world narrowed into two categories: threat and ally. Deyvid was already leaving him, moving swiftly on foot as he headed into the trees. Good. Deyvid would find them. All Petur had to do was make sure his sister stayed alive.
He kept his shifters clustered around the coach, ready to strike. They might be nose blind, but they were still blessed with incredible reflexes. That swiftness stood them in good stead as they cut projectiles out of the air: arrows, darts, even a dagger or two.
The temptation to run into the woods and confront this enemy head-on was strong, but Petur forestalled himself. He couldn’t act rashly now, not with Tania’s life on the line. “Ginnie, Herow,” he snarled instead and pointed to the woods. They obeyed, heading in to support Deyvid.
Not a minute later, the attacks tapered off, then died out completely. Petur waited, tense, barely able to hang on to his need to run and take vengeance himself. He heard Ginnie’s roar, the crunch of branches, and several screams.Perfect.They would have answers soon.
What they got was the last thing that Petur expected, and the only thing that could have made his heart feel as though it was going to stop completely. Herow emerged from the edge of the woods, Deyvid alongside him. No … not alongside. Herow’s grip was all that was keeping Deyvid upright.
Deyvid staggered as he bled from a wound above his left hip, a wound that, despite the hand he’d pressed to it, was steadily oozing blood. When his eyes met Petur’s, there was none of his usual confidence. Only the flint of a man who was actively suppressing everything he felt, but Petur could still read Deyvid. He saw not just pain, but fear—fear that this might be the thing that took him away from Petur for good.
“No,” Petur whispered, then broke rank and ran to collect his lover just as he began to collapse.
Chapter sixteen
Deyvid
Deyvid lay in the void between life and death for days. He was somewhat aware during it—not sharply like he usually was, not with senses honed by years of focus and necessity, no. But Deyvid was attuned to the things going on around him through the fever that ravaged his body and mind because healwayslistened for Petur. He couldn’t help it. His heart reached for him even when his hands couldn’t. And as he lay there, wretched with a dry and burning heat, the throbbing pain in his abdomen constantly on the verge of tipping over into agony, Deyvid lived through his lover’s crises of faith, confidence, and love. Not in Deyvid, but in his sister.
“We need to move on,” he heard Tania say as though from a great distance. “It’s been two days already. We can’t delay any longer. We both have duties and responsibilities waiting for us back in Riyale.”
“You and Jemal go, then,” Petur said, his voice almost wooden. “I’m staying here with Deyvid until he’s fit to move again.”
