Val gave him an incredulous glare. How the fuck was this so difficult to understand? “I couldn’t take her on the main road after she’d been shot at. We had no idea what danger there was coming up behind us, and we had to follow back roads and animal tracks. We only had Boreas, and we had to walk when he was tired. And before you ask, the arrows that only just missed her were pretty clear evidence that the shooters weren’t at all bothered about her safety.”
Reece looked up for the first time, face flushed and belligerent, bleary-eyed from the wine he’d been drinking solidly since he sat down. “You expect us to believe that Princess Peevish walked all the way back from Ravenstone?”
There was a beat of silence around the campfire as the words echoed in Val’s brain and then settled into a ball of acidic rage. This was exactly the attitude he was fucking sick of.
He stood in a rush, swaying slightly as darkness teased at the corners of his vision, and clenched his fists.
He didn’t care that Reece had only said what everyone else was thinking. He didn’t even care that the man’s drunkenness was never going to slow him down as much as Val’s brokenness.
He was going to end this.
But Nim got there first, quivering with rage as she put herself between them, right in Reece’s face. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I—”
Nim started jabbing the muscled, angry, more than half-drunk former soldier in the chest with her finger as if he was a child. “Have you ever even had a conversation with the woman?”
“No, I—”
Her wings flared behind her as she cut him off again. “How dare you? So you had a bad day. Get over it. This is a woman who has been systematically abused for months. You haven’t even spoken to her, but I have. And I liked her. A lot.”
She whirled toward Tristan and narrowed her eyes. “Don’t forget that she sacrificed herself to save me and Keely.” Her voice lowered dangerously, “Or did that mean nothing to you?”
Tristan stood slowly, opening his mouth as if he was going to say something but then closing it again as Nim slowly spun to stare the full squad down.
“I’m ashamed of you. You all believed the worst of her, and now you’d rather keep maligning her than simply admit that you were wrong.” Her quiet declaration fell into the stunned silence, and Val would swear they genuinely did look ashamed of themselves.
Val pinched the top of his nose and shook his head to clear the darkness still swirling in his peripheral vision. Gods, what had it come to that his baby sister had to fight his battles?
He had nothing more to say to any of them. He had hoped that if he explained everything, they would, at the very least, understand. But he should have known better.
He did know better. And he was done.
He stumbled away, intending to start walking back to the palace. But before he’d taken three steps, Nim ducked under his wing, wrapped a firm arm around his waist, and turned him toward the tent he shared with Rafe. “Oh no, you don’t. You’re going back to bed.”
He staggered slightly, cold sweat slicking down his back between his wings as his shivers magnified, jostling and pulling torturously at his bandages. His head felt like a termite mound, dark and crawling.
But he knew without doubt that he was needed in the palace. “Nimmy—”
“Don’t Nimmy me.” Her voice was calm and unyielding as she guided him firmly through the tent flap and down to his bedroll. “You won’t make it a mile. Let us send someone to find out what’s happening. Grendel told us that she had been found guilty of attempted regicide after we escaped, but we don’t know when or how they intend to execute her. We need to know more so that we can plan properly.” Her face softened. “I won’t leave her, I promise.”
Gods, he was so tired. And so cold. Freezing, even. Although his eyes were hot and prickly.
A gentle hand settled on his forehead and then retreated. “Here, your fever’s back, drink this.”
He sipped something cool and soothing and lay back, closing his eyes against the stabbing pain in his temples, ignoring the agony in the rest of his body.
She was right. He wasn’t going to make it a mile. If he was being honest, probably not even half a mile. He needed to take a few moments, and then he would pick himself up and start moving.
He flung an arm over his eyes and tried to block out the world as Nim pottered around the tent, tidying and organizing.
There was something so comforting about it, something almost like home, that made him feel as if their mother was there. Gods. It was a fucking bad sign if he was thinking about his mother.
The rough blankets rustled as Nim sat down on the ground next to him and took his hand, and it was all he could do not to give in to the burning prickle in his eyes.
He kept them shut rather than face her, but he wanted her to know the truth. “I’m so very sorry, Nim.”
Her free hand gently smoothed the hair from his forehead. “Don’t be sorry, Val. I’m not.”
