Page 20 of A ?Sky Beyond the Storm

“You’re right, of course,” I say. “Keris might want us dead, but I’m not in a hurry to get to the Waiting Place—are you?”

Laia’s body tenses. Too late, I realize what a callous remark it is.

“I’m uh—sorry.”

“It’s all right.” Laia sighs. “Men are a terrible waste of air.”

“Utter garbage,” I agree.

“Useless rubbish,” she adds, grinning.

I chuckle before unwittingly glancing at Harper, camouflaged amid a cluster of longboats. Laia follows my gaze.

“He’s one of the few who isn’t, Blood Shrike.”

“We’re almost there.” Harper is not a subject I have any interest in discussing, now or ever. But Laia shakes her head.

“Poor Avitas,” she says. “He does not have a chance, does he? Skies, his eyes will fall out of his head when he sees you in those Mariner leathers.”

My face gets hot and I feel stung. I didn’t expect unkindness from her.

“No need to be nasty,” I say. “I’m aware that I’m not...” I gesture vaguely at her, curved in all the right places.

Laia only raises her eyebrows. “I mean it, Shrike,” she says. “You are very beautiful. It’s no wonder he cannot keep his eyes off you.”

A strange, warm feeling fills me, like after I’ve won a battle, or when I’m a half dozen cups into a keg.

“You—”You really think that?I want to say, because if Faris or Dex or even Elias told me I was beautiful, I’d stab them in the face. “You’re just saying that because you’re my—my—”

“Friend? Is it so hard to admit it?” Laia glances upward, ostentatiously shading her eyes. “A Scholar rebel and a Martial Blood Shrike are friends and the sky didn’t fall in. Whatever shall we do?”

“Let’s start by getting out of here alive,” I say. “Or I’ll have to make new friends in the afterlife, and we know how that will go.”

Harper reaches us then, stepping into our larger boat gracefully and abandoning his punt. He passes so close that I shut my eyes to better feel his warmth. When I open them, he’s at my side, staring at my mouth. His pale green eyes burn as his gaze travels down my body. I should tell him to look elsewhere. I am the Blood Shrike, for skies’ sake. Laia is sitting only a few feet away. This is inappropriate.

But for just a moment, I let him stare.

“Ah—Shrike.” He shakes himself. “Forgive me—”

“Never mind. Report, Harper,” I bark at him, hating the severity of my voice but knowing it’s necessary.

“Soldiers, Shrike.”

“That’s not a report—”

Harper shoves me out of the way as an arrow smacks into the mast beside me. I did not hear it amid the noise of the market. He grabs an oar as Laia cries out.

“Shrike!” The Scholar girl looks left—then right. I see the legionnaires immediately. They are cleverly disguised as merchants, making their way toward us at speed.

And they have us surrounded.

X:Laia

One moment, I am gaping at the sheer number of Martial soldiers closing in on us.

The next, the legionnaires are leaping to our boat from a dozen different punts. I barely have a chance to shout a warning before a thick, gauntleted arm is wrapped around my neck.

Our vessel pitches violently as Harper and the Shrike battle the soldiers swarming us. I kick back, landing a blow on my captor’s knee. He grunts and quite suddenly, I am weightless.

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