Smoothly executed. That whole misanthropic act had its limits.
I conspired with this asshole for an hour, spent the next few days acclimating myself to the enclave, debating how best to mark the paths so Nicu would remember how to get around, and training at different intervals from Aire, who practiced on his own or with Nicu.
When enough time had passed—ensuring the knights encampment wouldn’t tie an accident to me after my visit—I called it an early night. After waiting until everyone retired to their cabins, I changed into pants woven from some extinct textile conceivably involving tree roots. Fascinated, I paired this with a hooded cape as light as mist, yet more effective than wool. After securing my axe inside the ancient harness, I strapped my waist with an archaic smith belt from one of the tool sheds, then crept from the enclave dressed as a nomadic bandit.
The temperature dipped, and blasts of air pushed from my lips. I skulked past trees glowing in the dark, their trunks embroidered in lichen, and retraced my path to the encampment.
A cluster of fires crackled beyond the hedges, illuminating the tents like globes. Squatting behind a shrub, I reacquainted myself with the men and women from the other night, their outlines hunkering around the flames, murmurs floating through the air.
In the center, that broad trunk rose into the sky, the great boughs spreading wide. I winced as the symbols across my fleshstung, then focused on the scene. Just then, a new figure stepped into view, oil-black hair spilling down the folds of his linen mantle.
The blood leached from my pores.
The great oak rose proud. The camp was right there.
And so was Rhys.
33
Aspen
The king slithered from the largest pavilion and paced through the camp, a scowl distorting his mustache.
“Do I look like a patient king?” he bitched to Dame Muriel. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about tradition. Not if it conflicts with my agenda.”
“It’s less about tradition and more about tactics, Your Majesty,” the woman responded, her sickle nowhere in sight. “People will be less on guard if we time this correctly.”
“I’ve tried this so-called tactic before,” Rhys grumbled. “It didn’t work for a king. What makes you think it will work for an infantry of soldiers?”
For fuck’s sake. This spoiled monarch had a nasty habit of ejaculating that royal word all over the place, no matter which doorstep he darkened, as if anyone would forget his status as a superior being instead of an evolutionary mistake.
The female knight maintained a dignified expression. “With all due respect, Sire. Your gambit involved a fortress and a squad of civilians as your pawns. Our objective is the opposite.”
Fortress. Civilians. Opposite.
He was referring to a previous Reaper’s Fest. Namely, the castle blackout ages ago, when he manipulated civilians to lay siege to the fortress’s walls.
This confirmed the rest of what Aire and I knew. How the ambushes would take place far from the castle, and the attackers would be traitorous knights instead of common folk.
Rhys’s spittle flew across the camp. Despite his belittling protests, the assembly took it in stride, evidently tolerating the prick as a means to an end. So Summer hadn’t motivated this troop to commit treason by charming them. Hardly a shocker. Instead, they’d been mobilized purely to further their cause, to collapse Poet and Briar’s crusade for born souls, to sabotage the clan’s progress for equality.
Rhys wasn’t an ally. He was a weapon, an outlet to revolt while banking on the clout, military reinforcements, and protection of a monarch. They didn’t care which ruler they served, so long as their endgames matched.
Not that it made a lick of difference. Not with this lot still bent on slaughtering their own kin.
By feeding Summer lies, I’d influenced the Royal shithead to misdirect these knights each time. Because that was no longer an option, I held my ground.
The oak rained dead leaves over their heads. Grunting, the king dragged several commanders and members of his security detail out of earshot. While he pissed on the knights’ lack of success and shat on their mood, my eyes veered toward the pavilion he’d exited. Newly erected, it must be Rhys’s lair.
Creeping nearer to the king and eavesdropping wouldn’t work. Too many officers patrolled that end of the vicinity. But while Rhys bleated on and on, his tent stood empty, the entrance unmanned.
Scuttling through the underbrush, I slipped past armed silhouettes. A hellish montage of The Shadow Orchard raided my mind, culminating in Merit’s head tumbling off the end of my axe. I clenched my eyes shut until it passed, then kept going.
The oak towered over the tent’s canopy, two hundred feet of vertical bark emitting creaking noises. I wavered, a frigid splash of anxiety icing my veins. To reach my destination, I’d have to skulk past the tree and a high stack of kindling.
One tentative step, then another. A branch bent as though warning me not to come closer, as if recognizing my connection to Mama, who once dug her blade into this tree.
Grief cramped my stomach. I could ask a hundred questions, list a thousand pains since that day, exhibit my markings like scars, vent and lash out, ask forgiveness on Mama’s behalf, and plead for this tree to remove the motifs. Not for myself, nor out of shame. The markings were beautiful, and I handled the pain.
