“Then why not try it?” Gently, I arch my eyebrowsat him, but I lift my hand from his arm because the choice has to be his. “Your people are trained to hide themselves away. Do you know for certain they do that out of fear? Or are they simply obeying the rules?”
If he comes back with a firm reply, then I won’t push it, but his hesitation gives me the opening to push. “Why not give them a chance?”
He starts to shake his head. “It’s a risk?—”
“Is it, though?” I challenge him. “What have I been training for, if not to handle the unexpected?”
His lips form a worried line. “Iker has spies in the city. Brunkil could too. I overhear a lot, but I can’t hear everything.”
He’s right to be concerned. I don’t know what Iker’s spies are capable of. I thought only of Stellen’s people and the fact that one of his staff was so determined to speak with him last night that she overcame her fear of him. Whatever she wanted to say, it must have been very important to her.
I choose my words carefully. “If I wasn’t with you, and you thought it was time to test your people’s reactions to you, would you do it?”
“If you weren’t with me?” He takes a moment, then the corner of his mouth twitches upward. “But you are.”
I compress my smile. “But if I wasn’t?”
“I would do what I wanted.”
“Well, then,” I say, facing forward again. “If there are risks, I’m resolved to deal with them.”
He lowers his hand without releasing his power and by the time his arm wraps around my waist again, there is not a single glistening snowflake on his fingertips.
Up on the wall, a stir ripples through the guards.
It’s clear they’re uncertain if Stellen has changed his mind about going out when one of them calls down, “Lord, should we open the gate?”
Stellen gives a firm nod.
It seems that’s all the guards need because they rush to obey.
A moment later, the portcullis opens.
For the first time in a week, I’m about to leave the inner two circles and enter a city bustling with fae.
At my ear, Stellen whispers, “Let’s see where your resolve takes us.”
Chapter Fifty-One
Stellen
The buzz of sound within the city was already dizzying from behind the second wall.
Now, it’s overpowering.
My ears are assaulted by chatter, footfalls, swishing material, objects thumping surfaces, metal clanking, doors opening and closing, distant arguments, nearby conversations…all of it a churning mess of sound.
Thyra’s hand finds mine.
She draws my right arm around her waist and leaves her arm wrapped across the back of mine.
I brace for a reaction from the fae busily working and traveling alongside this main path while Nara moves cautiously forward, her head raised.
I remind myself that soldiers come and go from the second circle all the time, so the mere opening of the portcullis hasn’t alarmed anyone. What’s more, they know to stay off the main path, which stretches straight ahead, in case soldiers leave in a hurry, so it’s not as though we have to actively clear the path.
As Thyra said, I’ve trained my people to watch for my signal. Without it, astonishingly…
They’ve barely looked up, let alone registered that Nara isn’t just another white wolf passing by.
