Page 67 of Untempered
“Do you need to see it yourself?” I asked her, holding the sting of hurt at bay until I knew it was warranted. It wasn’t like Audrey to interrogate the truth of my words. Not like this.
“I do if I’m going to take it to Steward Daniel,” she said, the words laden with the promise of conflict.
So, she wanted to go to the top. I wondered if that was because she didn’t know the power of the people. “The market would be risky. We’d be better to ride. We could tour the orchards with the guards.” If I could convince her to flee, mayhap I could kill her guards and hide them in barrels of apples or some such.
I was pondering how much effort it would be to dispose of Mortemon and Thomas when Audrey said crisply, “I’ll need Chay to go far.”
“Why?” I asked, suspecting she’d be happier to feed the La’Angi men to the fish.
She just sent me a level look. I paused, assessing the darkness under her eyes, remembering how her bed had creaked and groaned as she tossed last night, and wondered how close to a lie I could ride this omission.
The words to deflect her died on my tongue, though. I couldn’t do it. I hated that I couldn’t, because I knew what would come next. Aside from anything else, I knew she wouldn’t forgive me for it.
“I assume you’d need to order the Captain to arrange his attendance.” They wouldn’t have executed him yet.
Her mouth popped open, horrified. I was glad to see fury, not tears, in her eyes. Even tears would’ve been okay. Furyandtears meant the day would be useless.
“Theyheldhim?” she demanded.
“I should have told you,” I admitted. “You assumed, and I let you.”
“Isolde,” she said slowly, as if she picked out every single syllable with deliberation, “no one else will ever hold your place in my heart. But my heart has space to hold others.”
The knife hit home. She lifted her skirts and climbed the steps rapidly. I remained behind, teeth gritted against the pain.
I wasn’t jealous of those louts. I knew how little they had to offer and what a burden they’d be, but I wasn’t jealous.
It was easier for her to assume the worst of me than to acknowledge she was going to put us all in danger by delaying further.
I caught the cloak she tossed at me and threw it over my shoulders, but I stopped her before she could storm off. “People are dying,” I reminded her. “They died on his sword yesterday, but they also died at the hands of a mage trained to heal, and from the sickness. It’s spreading. We don’t know how fast. We could already have it.”
“Then we’d best stay where people are motivated to find a cure,” she said, her tone as steely as my own. “My father will be gone foryears,Isolde. You said it yourself. The winter will make the roads harder for our pursuers, but it’ll make them harder for us, too. We decided against cutting through Ange’s Pass this late in the season, so there’snothingto be gained for leaving tonight instead of in two moons’ time.”
Nothing? “Distance from sickness is not nothing,” I hissed. “Freedom is notnothing!”
She pressed her fist to her chest, her long mouth twisted in a bitter line. “Freedom ishere,Isolde. That’s what you taught me. They can’t take it from us until they bleed us dry.”
The knife twisted. I heard her go, and for once I wasn’t a half-step ahead.
My future stretched out before me, bleak. Heavy stone walls, rules that ate at our souls, petty, meaningless battles that would never be enough to disrupt the locways.
Chilled to my bones, I looked out the window at the patch of blue in the sky, but the wind hastened it out of sight, to be replaced by heavy clouds.
I wasn’t wrong about her. I knew what she could do.
I just wanted her to do it.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
CHAY
“To be born ignorant is common, to remain ignorant is noble.”~Southern saying
Their steps echoed down the dungeon’s corridor. It was a group of them, this time, not the pair who’d gone down the hall and tormented the heir a few cells down.
Either they were coming to kill me or haul me back up to keep on serving.
Staring up at where the dark ceiling surely was, I couldn’t figure out which I’d prefer. And didn’t that just say everything there was to say about this whole situation?
