Page 43 of Boundless
They continued to pepper Vaern with questions, but it became clear that the young elf hadn’t been privy to any other pertinent information. Still, they’d managed to learn some valuable things, and Len was glad for it.
“Alright,” he sighed once they’d all run out of questions. “We’ll feed you and g-give you some water. I’ll need to rest before I tackle the remainder of your injury, b-but as soon as I can, I will. This I swear on my life and lineage.”
Anger flashed in Vaern’s eyes, but he managed a minute nod. “Alright.”
Rodrick summoned two more guards and their makeshift stretcher, as well as Sevren and the inn’s only chambermaid. “Bring him over to the sick bay,” Rodrick told the guards. “And you’ll be helping their highnesses prepare for bed. We’ll be staying here at least another night, it would seem,” he told Sevren and the maid. Rodrick dealt with the dismembered hand and rolled the corpses on the roof onto the ground to be searched and disposed of, then took his leave.
Len and Daega both tried to get up to help Sevren and the maid—Millie, she said her name was—but were firmly rebuffed and forced to lie down. Sevren helped Daega remove the rest of her armor—what hadn’t already been removed to treat her wounds—and promised her that it was all being cleaned and tended to, along with her weapons. Len watched as Millie scrubbed at the dried blood soaked into the floorboards, the poor girl clearly distraught as the bucket of water went first pink, then red. Sevren swept up the shattered remnants of the room’s basin and the window glass, mopping off the water that hadn’t yet dried up.
Then Daega and Len were left alone, Aevel covering their broken window with a board before settling into his post outside their door.
“Who d’you think it was, pet?” Daega asked, her fatigue trying to carry her off for much-needed rest.
“Impossible to s-say,” Len responded, shuffling close and wrapping an arm around her waist. “But the g-gold crowns…It might be s-someone at the castle.”
“Aye. But who?”
Len bit his lip, his heart hammering.My father,he thought, feeling sick. But there were other nobles who would have had access to the treasury.Please, merciful gods…please let it not be my father.
Len’s silence stretched on, and after a time he realized Daega had fallen asleep, snoring ever so slightly beside him. He smiled, foolishly happy to hear it after everything that had happened over the last day, then settled in to sleep.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Arriving at the Camps
LEN
ON THEtenth day from the start of their journey, they finally arrived at the outskirts of the Istarii Drakan camps.
Len was glad to have arrived for a lot of reasons, but the one he wouldn't dare say out loud was that he was glad Daega would now be someone else's patient.
He loved his wife; that hadn't changed. But if he had to tell her one more time to sit in the cart and stop trying to exercise her wounded arm he thought he might scream. Maybe do somelightstrangling of his lady-wife. Because at least if she was unconscious she wasn't snapping at everyone out of boredom or fighting him on every little thing to do with her recuperation.
He could empathize with her, and that let him keep his cool outwardly. He'd been just a boy when they'd discovered his heart's irregular rhythm and needed to hospitalize him for months while the healers crafted a spell that would let him live a normal life. He'd been desperate to play and roughhouse with his friends, but it was too risky. And then after the spell was wrought he was much changed, and suddenly no one wanted to play with him anymore. The healer’s hadn’t managed to give him a normal life, in the end, and the palace children had avoided him once he looked sickly and was prone to fainting.
But that wasn't likely to happen to Daega; even with her poor mood she'd managed to charm every last one of their remaining guards. Even haughty Fenris, who'd scorned them both that first day on the road, had warmed up to her after the incident at the inn. He wasn't quitefriendly, but he'd stopped shooting her evil looks and muttering under his breath about her. And he used her title without any irony.
"I'msoexcited to be home again," she crowed, waving enthusiastically and whooping loudly at the first of the Istarii Drakan that they were passing. "Mum'll want someone's scrotum for a napkin for what happened at the inn, but I'm glad to be seeing her anyway."
Len felt himself pale. "That's—that's f-figurative, is it not?" he asked.
Her only answer was a shrug, and then she was launching into an explanation of what was going on around them, how the camp worked and who it was that they were passing. It was an absolute bombardment of information, and even though Len had fully intended to listen to it all with rapt attention, he found his exhausted brain slipping away. He got caught up in studying her face instead, in admiring how animated she was, how her dark eyes glittered and sparked in the light and her sensual lips molded around her words. He especially loved how when she got especially excited her wings started to quiver against her back, making a strange shuffling sound against the luggage bags she was propped against.
They'd had to purchase a cart from the inn before leaving, splitting the wounded and the luggage between the two. Luckily, they still had all their horses, so they’d had enough to pull both carts and even a spare to sell to cover the cost of the cart itself and the damages. Len had insisted the innkeepers be paid for the trouble, even if he thought his father might have demanded thattheypayhim. But it didn't make any sense to Len that two people struggling should be forced to struggle more just because they'd been unfortunate when the wrong people were around. A thorough interrogation had made it clear the innkeepers had had nothing to do with the attack, so there was no reason not to try his best to help them rebuild. Daega had liked his way of handling it, even if Maleom and some of the guards had been a little askance. Her approval meant so much already.
"Len?Hellooo, are you alright?" she called, interrupting his train of thought.
He shook his head, smiling sheepishly at her from atop Mana. "Sorry, dearest. My m-mind wandered."
She chuckled, sharp teeth glinting in the bright midday sun. "Aye, I figured as much. I asked if you wanted to have a bite before we met Mum and Da or if you'd rather get the reunion over and done with."
He worried his lip between his teeth, thinking. "I think I'd r-rather meet with them. They n-need to kn-know what happened."
She nodded, looking sour. "Aye, it makes sense. But Vitrin's mercy, I'm sohungryLen!"
"How are your rations?"
"Gone!" she groaned, throwing her horned head back and pouting. "And I'm sick of that shite anyway. I wantrealfood, dammit!"
