Page 192 of A Dagger of Ice and Intrigue
Ryker gave me a grave look. “They match the hearer’s emotions. You were hiding in the back of a cart, tired, hungry, and probably nervous.”
“Yes. But the voices weren’t nervous. They were…unyielding.”
“Same as you.”
I shook my head. That didn’t feel right. “No, I think…I think Solkar’s Reach didn’t want me to leave. The lights tried to stop me before the market, the voices tried to scare me…”
And I’d ignored all those omens in my stubbornness to get away and return to who I thought was an ally.
The worst mistake of my life.
The second had been not poisoning Silas’ wine as a child.
Ryker’s grip on my hands tightened. I could almost feel the same question blazing through me echoed in his own mind.
“If I’m right…” I went on. “How could acraterknow I was heading for a trap?”
The question hung between us, leaden.
“Thatis a very good question.” He was doing it again, that ticking motion with his jaw. But now it didn’t look as painful as before. I was beginning to learn him, like a battle map. What flutter of his eyelids and parting of his lips meant.
It scared me, how in tune to his emotions I was becoming.
It frightened me even more that I wanted to.
“Solkar’s Reach is an anomaly in Malhaven, crafted by the gods,” he said, voice gravel. “Ancient magic, not of this world, but it is not omniscient. It cannot knowus. Not like that. An entire realm cannot know the minds of humans. Especially not ones within it. The cratermighthave sensed your plans, and that is being generous. But to know Orion would have attacked you all the way from Aquila…that is impossible.”
I nipped at my lower lip as a new possibility sprouted in my mind. But it was too despicable, too dangerous, too–
“Out with it, Huntress,” he said gently. “I feel you fretting.”
Fret I did. Because it was an awful thing to say.
“What if someone in Solkar’s Reach knew about the plan?” I asked, feeling ridiculous for even voicing such a ludicrous idea.
But it kept on whirling in my mind.
Ryker shook his head. “I trust every soul in this crater. Even the trolls. They have their own laws, even if we don’t understand them.”
“Then how?”
“We will find out,” he said with absolute conviction. “Perhaps Orion had been camping in that clearing for days. It’s close enough to the rim that the crater might have detected enemies on our borders. That has happened before, according to legends.”
“Probably. We like to be prepared in the Protectorate.”
It did make sense. Much more than someone in Solkar’s Reach somehow finding out about the message Orion sent me, my own escape plan,andthe plot to steal me away.
Ryker was the only other person in the room when I saw Orion through the portal and he’d been the one to save me.
I shimmied my shoulders, trying to ease the shivers off me. Jitters from revisiting the edge of the crater, nothing more.
“However,” Ryker said. “If the craterdidwant to prevent you from leaving, that is great news.”
“Because it might try again if I do something equally stupid?”
“I trust we’ve both learned our lessons when it comes to trusting former allies.” He smirked. “It means Solkar’s Reach has accepted you–and wants to protect you, even against yourself.”
I began to laugh, but the mirth quieted as the idea sank into me.
