She hadn’t slept well. Her driven nature wouldn’t allow her to risk losing the daylight. Her body was still tired, and the morning was spent feverishly devising a plan. She would take her tea and summon Ursla’s armies to sack Chairre. Maybe send word ahead through Derring to have the faithful sort themselves from her betrayers so she knew who to target. She knew better than to believe her only enemies were within the palace walls.
But she was either two days from home or two days from beingan indiscernible speck in Ursla’s endless garden of the dead. Or worse somehow, two days from being exactly where she was now.
Boot clicks echoed from the stone tunnel leading back toward the lower levels of the Murisin castle, and Yemi turned to see Luzon striding toward her, his long crimson coat billowing dramatically behind him in the updraft. He wore a determined expression, which brightened slightly as he came upon her.
“Gods be praised, you made it,” he said breathlessly as they embraced.
“Was there ever any doubt?” she asked, unspeakably grateful to see him.
“Not about you, just the company you kept.” He pulled back and inspected her.
Sumire appeared at his side, panting for having had to keep up on considerably shorter legs.
“See? She’s fine,” Sumire bragged defiantly as Yemi knelt to hug her tightly. “They told me you went to Abyssa, so I thought you’d have fins.”
“Not anymore, thankfully,” Yemi laughed.
“You look a little down, love. A bit grim in the gills,” Luzon said. “Have you seen a physician since you arrived?”
“Oh, I’m fine. Tired, but a meal away from fighting shape, I promise.”
“Well, with any luck, there will be little of that. Fighting, I mean. The food, we can accommodate.” He lent her his arm as they walked the garden path at her tired pace.
“We met the Harpy woman,” Sumire announced.
Yemi raised an eyebrow. “Did you? Thoughts?”
“Not queen material.”
Yemi and Luzon exchanged expressions of fighting smiles.
“Sum-Sum, why don’t you let the kitchen know our guests are hungry?” Luzon suggested.
“Because you have people for that,” Sumire replied, deftly missing the point. Luzon waited for her to get it, and she rolled her eyes and headed back toward the palace without another word.
“Tenacious, that one.” Yemi snickered.
“Somehow more so every day,” Luzon replied, continuing their walk.
“I’m told you and the group devised a plan.”
“Well, we had to do something while you were off on your adventure. The others are already gathered.”
“Thank you for letting us borrow your space.”
“No thanks required. I’m sorry I can’t show you more of the new upstairs. Only so many people know you’re here.”
“That’s for the best.”
“So. How did it go?” he asked as if bracing for something.
A wave of exhaustion struck her just from trying to figure out where to start. “Would you believe there isn’t enough time in a year to tell that entire story?”
“After your coronation, then. We get you home and settled, and then every night for the next year, you get to tell me. Or on whatever nights Nova generously decides to allow you a free moment.”
Yemi laughed, something she hadn’t done or witnessed anyone else doing in days. She was hard pressed now to even remember a time she’d laughed without it having been directly Nova’s doing.
A vision of the kiss with Lirik blinked across her mind, and she squeezed Luzon’s arm tighter as if he’d seen it himself and needed distracting.
