Two.
“We need to get off this road. Now.” Taven’s head darted back and forth. He pounded on the carriage wall, but the riotous crowd overtook the sound. “I’ll have to get out. There’s no other way.”
Three.
“Elloven, did you hear me?”
Four.
She listened for the fifth turn, frustrated at the disruption. The counting was all that prevented her heart from exploding. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, but you’ll obviously do as you please.”
Five.
“I feel like I hardly know you anymore. Where is the girl who would spit fire with her words if I was even a step out of line?”
Yes, Fabrien liked it better when I fought back too.
Six.
“They’re not going to let us pass without trouble, Taven.” Seven. “So we can take our chances inside, and pray our driver can outmaneuver the mob, or you can do the foolish thing and martyr yourself.” Eight. The rotations slowed. “I won’t stop you.”
“I never imagined it would be this bad...” he said, more to himself it seemed. “We should have taken the east entrance. Foolish not to.”
“They’ll be there too. And west. And south. This is the most excitement Riverchapel has seen in years.”
“Are you unmoved by what’s about to happen, or do you just want me to think so?” Taven gaped at her in impressively restrained suspicion.
“People think courage is the true weapon of fear. But it’s not. Indifference is.”
“Are you intoxicated?” He flung back against his bench when something hard struck a window, splintering it. “Guardians deliver us.”
Elloven didn’t believe the village people intended to actually hurt them, at least not intentionally. But a mob by nature was violent, and the festering energy would soon outgrow reason.
She’d lost her place in her counting. There was no telling how many rotations she’d missed, and it was too late to start over. Guessing wouldn’t satisfy her need for accuracy, and she was already too distracted. Taven was wrong. She wasn’t unmoved at all. She was just trying to delay the inevitable for as long as possible. Once she lost her calm, she couldn’t control the result.
She closed her eyes and started hyperventilating.
“Ellie?”
Elloven shook her head, tears swimming and spilling.
Taven sighed sharply through his nose and shifted on the bench. She couldn’t see what he was doing, and she didn’t want to. If he leaped out and got himself killed, it wouldn’t be her fault, but it would sure feel like it.
A different pitch of clamor echoed beyond—surprise. Elloven opened her eyes and found Taven peering out the one window still intact. He wiped away the condensation and smashed his face to the pane.
“Is that...” He peeled back some. His expression contorted, wavering first on annoyance before settling on disgust. “What is he doing here?”
“Who here wants to be indicted for treason in the name of Mathias Skylark? Well, come on then. Raise your hand!” a man yelled. Some of his words were garbled by the melee, but they were clear enough. “No one? Ah, come on. Let’s have some fun!”
It wasn’t the steward himself. The voice was too young. “Emrys?” Elloven tried to recall what Taven had said about the Skylarks on the ride home. He’d inundated her with all the gossip she’d missed in her years away, as though she cared about anything so frivolous, but she’d caught some of it threading through her daydreaming, and she was reminded of the scandal that had rocked Riverchapel almost a decade ago.
Steward Mathias Skylark had experienced a fall from favor after it was revealed his youngest son, one of Gennady’s friends, was a product of his wife’s affair with Steward Edevane, in neighboring Oldcastle. Then his wife died under questionable circumstances. He’d gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal both ugly truths, including seeing a magus to remove his children’s memories.
“No, no, the other one.” Taven’s lower lip peeled downward. “The letch. Jesstin. Surprised he bothered to drag himself out from under his mountain of sins.”
She remembered now. Jesstin. Or had it been Jessie back then? He and Gennady used to send walnuts through her open window with notes attached containing choice messages that would have made even a sailor blush. She could almost hear their snickers trailing into the forest. How clever they’d thought they were.
“Move, move! Fucking move!” Jesstin hollered, his voice growing nearer. The rabble diminished, spreading farther away. Elloven folded her hands over her chest and tried to breathe.
