“Dare I ask why any market would do?” Luca was unsure—but if the ink on his chest had proved anything to him, it was that items of great consequence frequently hid in plain sight.
“A network is a series of points, Luca.”
“The resistance hasthatmany points?”
“They’ve had seventeen years of growth.” Ula smirked. “These points are stars in a constellation if you know where to look.”
“And if we breach any point, we have what we need to be directed to the leader?” Luca asked, before clarifying, “I assume there is a leader.”
“Of course there is.”
“Not to be contrary, but how do you know all this, Ula?” Urtzi asked. “I’ve been with you seven years, and have never once witnessed you take a secret meeting with some Torrentian rebel.”
“You are forgetting the definition ofsecret,you big oaf. It is a covert operation. You aren’t supposed to know.” She said it kindly, but Urtzi looked to be stricken down to his marrow. “Luca, the market?”
He jerked his chin up the trail. “We’ll split southeast at the next fork in the path. From there it’ll be another half hour at this pace.”
The market in question was the one that served the Itspi, down in the high ribbon of land that called itself a valley. It was a place Luca went at least weekly, filling the castle’s tab with items for his horses—lavender oil, oats, and ointments.
When it came into view, Ula called the group to a halt at a shaded turnoff. Below, the market’s colorful tents swayed, cook fires calling to the dusk. On a summer night, it would be all overfilled cups and blackened hog, song and gossip on everyone’s lips. Even at this distance, its energy was tangible, licking the air with a crackle and whisper.
Ula dismounted, handed her reins to Osana, and dug through her saddlebags. “I will obtain the information.” When the other pirate moved to do the same, she shook her head. “Alone,Urtzi.”
The big Myrcellian stared daggers that would kill any other person but didn’t even touch her. Ula held her stance and her gaze as he grumbled, “What if this covert person doesn’t like you? Doesn’t trust you?”
“They will trust me.”
Urtzi ran a hand through his dark hair. The curls immediately fell right back into place. “You don’t want me to come because I’m not of Torrent.”
“Untrue.” Ula checked her pouch again, then further dismissed his concern by changing the subject. “Do you have more coin?”
“No,” Urtzi answered. “While you and Amarande were spending diamonds, Osana and I were using Renard’s gold to buy that food you enjoyed so much the past few days.” And the food was good—fish fried in summer herbs, and all the pickled vegetables a man could want. “And why would you have to pay the resistance?”
“I don’t. But I will likely have to buy supplies as a show of good faith—they don’t let just anyone enter their network for free.”
Osana reached into her pocket. “Will these help? With the cost?” When her palm opened, inside were five rings, thick and gold, with a well-set stone in each.
Ula gasped. “You stole them from Dunixi?”
Osana shrugged as if she’d simply nicked loaves of bread instead of a person’s most prized possessions. “When I left my post to fetch horses from the stable, I found him out cold. I thought he had bigger things to worry about.”
Urtzi huffed. “His biggest problem was me.”
“It was, Urtzi; it was.” He was, indeed, the reason their former pirate leader had been abandoned on the floor of the Bellringe stable to begin with, having punched Dunixi straight in the temple when he forced Urtzi to decide between following him or following Ula. Now, Ula grinned at him as she dropped the rings into her pouch and cinched the cord. The market bell chimed then—seven times. “I should be back in an hour. Maybe two.”
“At least take a horse,” Urtzi offered. “You’ll get back sooner.”
“The saddle and sire are clearly of Pyrenee—King’s Crest knows what’s missing from its stable. It’s dangerous enough that they’re all we have anyway.” Osana glanced away at this—her error. “No.”
Urtzi sighed. “Will you ever agree with something I say?”
“I just did. About you owning our former leader. I’ll be back to disagree with you more as soon as I can.”
Ula made to move around him but Urtzi secured his stance, arms braced across his tree trunk of a chest. “We always do everything together. How will I know you will be fine?”
Luca nodded. “Yes, how willweknow?”
Rather than answer his question verbally, Ula yanked down the neck of her tunic, revealing a tattoo—the looping pads of a paw print. It was much smaller than Luca’s wolf but in the same general location over her heart—five distinct pieces, in an identical satiny ink and abstract style of angles creating an organic object.
