I nodded, swallowing hard and addressing the prince. “If you’re not going to explore the market, let’s go.” I didn’t wait for an answer before cutting back through the crowd to where a guard held my horse. Thankfully, Ericen followed.
We mounted and set off along the next wing, riding in tangible silence. I glanced down at the orange cake in my hand, and my stomach roiled in response. I let it drop to the ground.
The delicately crafted statues and intricate carvings of the Brynth buildings passed in a blur, my horse following the ones ahead on its own. In my mind, the scene in the Turren Wing replayed over and over again. The Illucian soldier’s mocking words, the Turren smith’s disappointment as she looked at me.
A shadow fell over me, and I blinked rapidly, clearing fuzzy vision I hadn’t noticed. My horse had stopped, as had the others, and Ericen sat merely a foot away, looking down at me from his massive stallion.
“I said, what are these?” He gestured to the rows of pure white statues on either side of us, carved into figures twice the size of a normal person. Each stood beside the black marble sculpture of a crow, or what was left of them. Several had chunks missing from their wings and bodies, and one of the figure’s hands was missing.
More damage from Ronoch shoved to the wayside in the face of bigger problems.
“Saints’ Row,” I responded. We’d reached the other end of the Brynth Wing already?
“The riders you worship.” He said the words with derision.
“Some people do.” The stories said the Saints were the first riders, gifted the crows by the Sellas. Together, they’d built Rhodaire, and when the Saints passed, they ascended into godhood. Before Ronoch, I’d believed that as wholeheartedly as anyone. Now I wanted to know why they hadn’t helped us. Why they hadn’t protected us.
At the end of Saints’ Row stood a building nearly as large as the castle. The citadel, a place of learning and research, where academics studied architecture and chemistry, crow flight patterns and the origins of magic. Before Ronoch, it’d been the earth crows’ unending project, slowly expanding upward and outward like a living thing. Now the unfinished upper level sat exposed like fractured bones, scaffolding slowly rusting in the humid air and tarps flapping in the wind like white flags of surrender.
“They certainly didn’t do much for the people that did,” Ericen said.
I scowled. “If you want to find your own way back to the castle, that can be arranged.”
He raised a single black eyebrow, the unspoken reminder echoing in the hot air.If you push me too far…I looked away, and in that moment, I felt the eyes of the Turren smith on me again, dark with disappointment and shame.
I’d begun this tour with renewed confidence, then let Ericen take it from me without so much as a fight. My whole life, I had fought: for my mother’s approval, for my place as a rider, for my skills and strength and knowledge. I’d pushed unwaveringly, and when I had met a wall, I’d shattered it.
When had I stopped fighting?
No more. I was done.
Forcing a sharp smile, I met his gaze. “You know everything, don’t you? Who I am, what to say to make me react, how to use my people’s history against me. But if you truly knew everything, you would know better than to piss me off.”
“Are you threatening me, Princess?” His eyes flashed.
I kept my voice low enough that only we could hear. “Do you feel threatened? You’re practically alone in an enemy kingdom filled with people who would line up for the chance to personally disembowel you.”
“If a single person here touched me—”
“Your mother would rain down upon us with the full strength of the Illucian army. Yes, I heard you the first time.”
His jaw clenched, but I kept talking. “Don’t worry. No one’s going to touch a single hair on your pretty little head. But Saints damn me if I keep my mouth shut again. Your mother didn’t demand this engagement just so you could end it because your skin isn’t thick enough.”
He stared at me, eyes narrowed. I waited, my heart thundering in my chest, filling my ears with a roaring. What if I’d been wrong? What if this marriage really was simply a way for Razel to torment us further, and she would happily let it dissolve at her son’s whim?
Finally, the prince smirked. “Not as useless as I thought, it seems.” Tension washed from my shoulders, and he continued, “But I would advise you to remember that I have an army on your border, and your kingdom needs this. We don’t.”
I straightened, keeping a neutral mask. A small victory. He still held the power, but at least I knew, to some extent, Illucia wanted this marriage to happen. “Let’s go.”
I didn’t wait for his approval before urging the group on to the Garien Wing, once home of the storm crows.
As we passed quickly along the light stone buildings, their windows shining with stained glass of amethyst and saffron, cerulean and gold, each color flowing into the next like a sunset, I felt endlessly lighter. Better yet, Ericen remained quiet throughout the ride, even as we crossed into the Cyro Wing, where the memory of fire crows lingered in the scorch marks on buildings and in the street.
I glanced at my burned arm before I could stop myself, and when I lifted my head, Ericen was staring too. My face flushed, but I didn’t look away, waiting for the snide remark. Nothing came.
As we passed beneath a row of pale pink orchid trees, a hummingbird flitted out from behind the tree and zipped over to him, hovering excitedly at eye level. He watched it curiously, trying to track its movements as it jumped around his head, then sped off.
I blinked. He wassmiling. Not the wolf grin that made my skin crawl. An actual,humansmile. He saw me staring and quickly turned away, making a show of adjusting his grip on his reins.
