Gods. All her shelves of ointments, tinctures, and remedies. All the work that she’d done. All the precious bottles that she had inherited from Mama. All gone forever. And no time to grieve; she had to keep moving.
She pushed up into the air to fly away… and nearly fell out of the sky as her wing muscles seized in agony. Her feet scrabbled back onto the beam, and she stood, panting in shock, trying to regroup. How ironic to fall into the sea now, having avoided its pull through the long nightmare-riddled night.
She moved her wings backward and forward, rolling her shoulders and stretching. Feeling the aching pull of tears and bruises. Acclimatizing herself to the torment of movement. Then, rather than trying to fly up, she jumped off the beam, angling downward toward the wet sand at the base of the pier.
It was a jarring and disorderly flight down to the lonely beach. A barely controlled fall more than flying. She stumbled as she landed, falling heavily to her knees before hauling herself up and carefully checking that no one was watching from the top of the pier.
It was gray and silent, like the beach.
Finally, away from the leaching iron, her brain cleared. Enough that she could start to think and plan. Enough that she recognized the miserable truth of what she had to do. She was going to lose her last tie to Val.
The leather jerkin she’d been wearing when the house was attacked was well worn and comfortable, but it was no good without a warm cloak to put over her bare arms. Her breeches and lace-up knee-high boots had kept her legs marginally warmer, but if the autumn night had been any colder, she would have been in real trouble. Far more urgent, though, was treatment for her wounds. And water. Her empty stomach clenched on itself—food, too.
Small white and gray birds scampered along the shore, back and forth through the foam of the rolling wavelets as Nim trudged through the sand. Over the dunes and onto the well-paved road that led to the pier.
She darted over the road as quickly as she could, too worried about being seen to linger. The cobbles were flanked by a huge pleasure garden, and she followed a well-trodden path through formal flower beds filled with vibrant blooms and carefully maintained walks.
The gardens told her where she was. She vaguely remembered that the long-dead queen mother had commissioned the design years before. After she and her newborn baby girl had both died in the birthing bed, the gardens had been maintained in her honor. King Geraint had come down to take the sea air and enjoy the pleasure pavilion right up until his death at Ravenstone.
No doubt his son, the new king, would make use of them now. Part of her wished she could be there when Ballanor next arrived. To tell him exactly what she thought of him, his guards, and particularly his Lord Chancellor.
But what would be the point? Her aching wings sagged. Yes, she was going to fight—but she wasn’t an idiot. Val would want her to survive, not pick pointless fights with vicious, murdering bullies. That would only play right back into their hands. Bastards.
Gods. So many years she’d stayed at home. The dutiful daughter. The loving sister. The caring apothecary. Doing what was best for everyone else without much thought to what she wanted. What she needed. And look where that had gotten her—now she had nothing.
In future, she was going to stand up and take what she wanted.
She made her way through the gardens, staying in the shadows as she flitted quietly from tree to tree. The paving of the gardens gave way to a dirt crossroads, dominated by a wooden cross pointing east to Brichtelmes or north to Kaerlud.
She paused for a moment beneath the sign, took a deep breath, and then turned to the nearby town. Away from the capital—the place where Val died.
She didn’t want to go to Brichtelmes either, but she needed a cloak and supplies, and there was nowhere else for miles. Once she had what she needed, she could disappear into the countryside and nurse her wounds.
She would simply have to keep her head down and stay far away from any soldiers. And there would be soldiers. They had a large barracks outposted here as part of the sea defenses. Gods, the very barracks that Val would have stayed in when he first enlisted. Val, Tristan, and all their friends.
She wiped her dirty hands over her stinging eyes, refusing to give in to tears. Her brother was dead. Hanged for treason. Abandoned by those very friends. And nothing would bring him back.
It still didn’t make sense to her; none of it did.
Begging for his life and weeping as he confessed.Hehad said so, laughing as he described it. But Nim couldn’t imagine Val begging for anything. It made less sense to her than Val as a traitor, which was utterly ridiculous.
And abandoned by Tristan. Gods. Tristan, who had been closer to him than a brother. Tristan, whom they had played with as children. She had been prepared to play any role in their game, so long as they included her. All she had wanted was to be close to them. Her brother. And Tristan.
Tristan, whom she had loved secretly and hopelessly for so many years, even after he and Val were both soldiers and away on campaign far more than they were home.
The bastard. How could he have abandoned Val?
She couldn’t imagine Val dead. Wouldn’t. But her heart felt broken just the same. First Mama, so long ago. Then Papa just three weeks ago, a few hours after they heard of Val’s arrest. Now Val. Her big, brave brother. Gone.
She patted the small pocket sewn into the waist of her breeches again. She still had Val’s signet ring.Hehad thrown it at her feet, jeering as she scrabbled in the dirt to snatch it back. But she hadn’t cared; she wasn’t leaving it. And, by some miracle, she hadn’t lost it through everything that had come after.
But she wasn’t ready to think about that. Instead, she concentrated on battling her way along the tiny animal paths through the thorny gorse that flanked the road. Staying out of sight.
The town, when she finally got there, was bustling with midmorning commerce. Servants scurried, costermongers called their wares, and a colorful array of different people and different races thronged the streets. Some with wings, others proudly displaying their black and red tattoos, a few with glittering metallic scales.
She stayed away from all of them. Eyes down, hair over her face, she walked only in the shadows.
There seemed to be troops everywhere she looked. Deep voices calling commands and the stamp of booted feet. More than once, she crept around a corner only to flinch back at the sight of gleaming buckles and sword pommels. The black coats of the cavalry and the green uniforms of the military.
