“Dogs?” Trick says, and
“Bone?” I say, our words tumbling over one another.
Chitai strolls up to the fire, grinning at Andras and then at me. “I thinktheirbones are the problem, not yours, sweet Soli.”
“You could come and sit by me,” the Sylvan tells me, a slyly amused expression on his face. “I promise not to fight over my … bone.”
I blink, not understanding, and then heat rolls up my face when I do. “Maybe we could change the subject?”
Sergeant Neville frowns at Andras and Chitai. “Good idea. Who would have guessed you could put a poisoner to shame like that? How in the world did you learn so much about poisons in the few hours of tutoring you had with Lady Elianna?”
“Soli knows many things,” Chitai says, her sharp gaze on me. “Poisons. Court etiquette of the Sylvan. Much more. This is from reading?”
“Yes. Of course, I’m not actuallyallowedto read the books and scrolls at the library,” I confess, wincing as I slant a glance at Neville. If I survive this, I don’t want to end up in the dungeon for unauthorized use of library materials. “But after I taught myself the letters and then the words, I couldn’t make myself stop reading. For all my years trapped in the life of an indentured servant, I compulsively read and read and read. Anything to give me a window onto the world I knew I’d never be allowed to see.”
“Yes, yes,” Chitai says. “You read the books. But—”
“I don’tjustread them,” I say, wondering how to make them understand. “Books are so much more to me. I … It’s almost like I … discovered how to climb inside the stories. How to wrestle with the sentences and wrap myself up in the paragraphs until I climb out at the end, exhausted but triumphant, sweaty and covered with words and drenched in ideas.”
When I look around, I see varying levels of comprehension, but Kaelen and Elianna are nodding.
“Books are a window.” I duck my head and wrap my arms around my knees. “A window to the lives of people whose minds aren’t broken like mine.”
Kaelen hurls a stick into the fire with controlled ferocity. “Your mind isn’t broken, Soli. It just works differently than most other people’s. It’s abominable the way Pyrrh treats Gray Minds.”
“She’s not broken,” Trick agrees, his readiness to align with his enemy’s sentiment a sure sign that he really means it. “You’re just different, Soli. Occasionally fragile. That’s nothing to be ashamed of, ever.”
“Fragile means easily breakable, does it not, riverlander?” Chitai pulls out one of her daggers and begins to sharpen it. “I think you have used the wrong word to describe your friend. She has more courage than many of the warriors I’ve known. I didn’t seeyoutouch that amulet. And she fought a Fell and won.”
It’s true. I was pretty brave then, right? And all day today. Maybe I can wake up every morning deciding to be brave for that day only. It might be more possible than thinking about the bravery required forthis entire quest as a whole.
Bern clears his throat. “If it’s not too presumptuous to ask, Your Highness, how is it you’re a one-man force of destruction with a sword? I thought you were just—”
Kaelen grins, but his expression is bleak. “A useless fop? A pretty-boy courtier?”
Chitai gives him a sly glance. “You think you’re pretty?”
Oh, he’s definitely pretty, I think, only to look around and see everyone watching me with amused expressions. Everyone but Trick, who scowls, and the prince himself, whose gaze holds more than a little heat.
“I said that out loud?” I mutter.
Elianna, seated on my other side, snickers. “Just a bit.”
“My mother put a wooden sword in my hand as soon as I could walk,” Kaelen says, rescuing me. “Since I became a ‘guest’ in Pyrrh, Over-Lieutenant Rackness has been kind enough to allow me to train with a few, carefully selected guards.”
“We made sure to tell them the king didn’t ‘officially’ need to know about Kaelen’s skill with a blade,” Sergeant Neville says gruffly. “That the prince was his secret weapon, so to speak.”
I nod. Having met the king, I can’t imagine he’d approve anything that made his captive prince a potential threat.
“I saw your parents give a demonstration in swordplay at a tournament once, nearly twenty years ago,” Andras interjects. “Watching them was like attending a master class in the art, and we Sylvan are among the best in Altarra, so I don’t say that lightly. Your mother …”
“She was an artist with a blade,” Chitai says when Andras trails off. “I saw her fight for true once, when I was a child and a small contingent of Zhagarn attacked our camp. Your mother was visiting with her healer and only a small group of guards, talking about herbs with our elders. When the Zhagarn attacked …”
The desert woman touches the cloth binding her left arm, kisses her fingertips, and points up to the sky. “The queen was fierceness itself. A death-dealing sandstorm the enemy could not touch. She left manydead in her wake. I’ve never seen the like until today.” She slowly turns to stare at Kaelen. “She would be proud of her son.”
“As would the king,” Andras says, inclining his head toward the prince.
Kaelen’s jaw clenches, and I can see that their words have a profound effect on him.
