“Give me something I can work with,” I barked. “Now.”
She deliberated. “I broke into the relic vault.”
That, I had not expected. Then again, the woman had never been predictable, the novelty as refreshing as it was unnerving.
My pace wavered. “You navigated the trap floor.”
Aspen let her silence speak for itself. I speculated, torn between impressed and outraged, a standard reaction where shewas concerned. “So Briar disclosed the step pattern to the clan during my absence, and you abused that intelligence.”
The renegade female stopped abreast of a tree trunk. “Yes.”
That answer. That reply firing off her tongue, the sound of “Yes” cutting through these woods, the confession bleeding into the wind.
I hated it. And I wanted her to say it again. I craved to hear this radical exhaust that word in a different manner, at a different volume, for a different reason.
I wrenched my gaze from her insufferable mouth. “Tell me why.”
Once more, she weighed the benefits and drawbacks of responding. “To retrieve an ancient harness.”
“I see your passion for weaponry is growing felonious.”
“I need it to protect myself.”
“Your axe can achieve that more effectively.”
“Not where I’m going.”
I angled the point of my sword against the tassels fastening her cloak. “Who says you’re leaving this spot before I’m done with you?”
Until this moment, I had believed it impossible to render this female inarticulate. Gusts of air rushed from her lungs, the exhalations coming out in shallow bursts. And curse me. I hadn’t meant for that reply to reshape itself into something explicit, to shake this feud off course.
Her bodice contracted, the cloak’s tassels shivering against my weapon. One sign of consent from her, then one light flick, and the closures would be severed. Between us, the vestment would tumble to the ground.
It would be effortless. If I wanted to do such an inconceivable thing.
Which I didn’t. So I wouldn’t.
Waking the fuck up, I reached behind and buried the weapon into its scabbard.
“You could have asked the Royal family to borrow the harness instead of looting its contents.”
Aspen blinked. “Artifacts of the vault are sacred.”
Condemnation. She was right. Removing objects from the relic vault was sacrilege, tantamount to desecrating a grave.
An image of a small headstone with a bird chiseled into the facade drifted through my mind. The thought of anyone violating that resting place set my molars on edge.
Idling beneath a wizened tree, Aspen waited for me to deduce the rest. If this odyssey held as much importance as she implied, Briar and Poet would have handed over the harness. Despite Aspen’s ritual falsehoods, the particulars were often extravagant to the point of ludicrous. Always, the lies had been little more than harmless theater, a coping mechanism for things she would not share. As such, the princess and jester knew the distinctions between Aspen’s fictional tales and her factual ones. Had she been earnest, they would have believed and aided her.
Still, bestowing a hallowed treasure in secret involved risk. Our unknown spy, or any number of ambitious eavesdroppers, could have found out and then leaked that information to the public, which would have tarnished the jester and princess’s standing among the denizens of Autumn. After so long battling to win the public over social justice, the Crown could not afford a flagrant offense. Aspen valued autonomy, and she worshipped Poet and Briar, therefore she would not have put them in that compromising position.
“I’ll return the harness when I’m back.” Aspen planted one hand on her chest. “Would I lie?”
Very fucking funny. And very well, she stole a priceless harness for an expedition to an undisclosed location.
I cocked my head and mused, “Somewhere far. And historic.”
“Ancient, actually,” she provided. “In which case, I figured antique weapon accessories were better than modern ones. It’s a precaution.”
