Because our clan had experience reading Flare’s lips, Nicu caught on.“I chased your ribbons,”he mouthed back.
Goddammit. He followed me.
To illustrate, Nicu pointed overhead to the orange garland. Poet and Briar had installed these color-coded strandsto guide him through the castle grounds. Every passing year, the tethers extended farther, though not yet beyond The Wandering Fields.
Nicu must have been out here and witnessed my nosedive behind the hay bales. Which meant he’d watched as I hid from Aire.
Shame crushed me to a pulp. Of all the clan, Nicu was the last person I’d ever want to suffer from my treachery, even more than Aire. This precious Royal deserved to have the continent kneel at his feet, not to see a friend turn her back on him.
But wait. Although Nicu shouldn’t be promenading without his security detail, that didn’t mean this young Royal had anything to apologize for or justify. Not unless…
The horn’s call throttled my ears. Along the parapets, armored figures swarmed the crenelations and shouted to one another.
By some miracle, I picked up one word.Missing.
Aire had sensed a presence here. Then he asked, “Where are you?”
But he hadn’t been thinking of me. That explained why he rode into an area outside of his designated patrol.
My head snapped to Nicu’s sheepish face. His pupils trembled with a mingling of yearning, trepidation, and defiance. Sometimes he had trouble comprehending the difference between his presence in one location versus another. However, he’d made progress on that front, so it took half the time it used to for him to grasp who the knights sought out.
“You,” I said. “They’re looking for you.”
Peach tinted Nicu’s complexion. “Don’t tell them. Please, Aspen.”
“Nicu.” I snatched his hands, warm against my chilled ones. “I love the clan like my own family. But I’d never betray your secrets to anybody.”
For what it was worth, I wanted him to remember this promise, regardless of whatever came later.
His worry dissolved into a pure, do-no-wrong smile that could melt iron, summon the sun, and charm the devil. Any second, that grin would move me to confess a dozen cardinal sins.
I squeezed his fingers. “What don’t you want them to know?”
Nicu peeked at the tower. “I’m leaving.”
A heart attack wouldn’t have been unreasonable. “Leaving where?”
Struggling to grasp how far both stood from the castle, his gaze trailed the ribbon garlands from the harvest fields to the forest beyond. “There.” Swerving back to me, his features alighted. “I’m hunting for my stars.”
“Your stars,” I repeated. “Your destiny.”
He nodded. “At first, I was hunting for the spy.”
The spy. The lying female hunching in front of him.
Or the secondary informant, depending on the context.
“The fellowship is already looking, but I can help,” Nicu exclaimed. “Except I didn’t see a spy in the castle, so I thought maybe I’d find them under the clouds. Only I didn’t find them out here either. So now I’m hunting for my stars and being a hero instead. The one to save us all.”
“Let me take a gander,” I whispered. “Your Mama’s famous words.”
“She told me that once. I swore to her that I wouldn’t forget.”
Let no one call me a sucker, except when it came to this Royal. I’d developed a tender spot for Nicu since the night he found me sneaking into The Shadow Orchard on an involuntary mission to chop off a knight’s head.
I replayed the roundtable yesterday, when Nicu volunteered to help to find the spy. And while his parents had explained to him the dark side of the Seasons, Nicu’s role had been limited to meetings and training sessions, so he could practice how to defend himself.
My conscience ached on his behalf. Poet and Briar would torch the universe for their son. They did right by Nicu, crusading for his freedom and his future. But Nicu wanted to accomplish things on his own now. To do more, try more, and see more.
