Page 23 of The Flame and the Forsaken

“I meet him at dawn with the egg. He’ll give us exactly what we ask. Alessia’s coming with me, and she’ll deliver the gold to the Whitecliffe miners straightaway, minus our small cut.”

“Good.” Obsidian Sky retained less than five percent of their bounties, just enough to fund the jobs and ensure they didn’t starve. “How close was the other caravan?”

“You had time.” Remy patted her knee. He turned a tight smile toward Alessia and Magnur, who were wrestling for the keg spout. Destin had drifted farther from the group and was drinking alone near the edge of the clearing. “We’ve had closer calls.”

It hadn’t felt like that to Mariel. Her anxiety as they’d worked the men over, waiting for danger to arrive, had reminded her of the early days, when they were still testing the waters to see what they could get away with. Gone was the confidence of the Flame at her peak, when she’d ignored the bird calls and the peril and charged forward with intrepid bravado.

Nothing had felt the same since she’d joined the Rutlands.

“Excuse me,” she muttered and pushed to her feet, rushing off before their confusion could reach her ears. On the way to Destin, she caught Alessia’s eye. She’d stopped playing with Magnur long enough for concern to pinch her face, but Mariel shook her head to indicate she was all right, despite that she was not. Heist nights were for revelry, not for whatever was going on in her head.

“Hi,” she said, sidling up next to her brother with a warm squeeze.

“Hi.” Destin’s smile didn’t make it to his eyes; it never did anymore. “How was your party?”

Mariel snorted. “Be glad you weren’t there. It wasmonstrouslyboring and then I made a proper arse of myself.”

Destin laughed. “That’s not like you.”

“I don’t know what’s gotten into me. Maybe I’m... I don’t know, losing my touch.”

“I wish I could be there to help you, Mar. I feel neutered out here.” Destin took a swig from his mostly empty bottle and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He pointed his glossy gaze at the moon. “Remy and Auggie act like they’re my mother and father, and I ken it’s because they feel they need to be.”

Mariel nudged him. “They love you, same as I do. That’s all.”

“Hm.” Destin emptied the bottle and chucked it into the forest, where it disappeared. “I’m older than all of you, except Magnur.” It never should have been the Flame leading the Sky at all, at least in his mind. He was supposed to protect Mariel, not the other way around. But for all he couldn’t forgive himself, nor could he seem to change.

“We all have our role to play, Desi,” Mariel said, plopping a soft kiss on his cheek. “And I could not play mine in there if you weren’t playing yours out here.”

“You mean if they weren’t looking after your indigent older brother?”

“I said what I meant,” she stated firmly, giving him a gentle shake. “If anything,I’mthe one neutered, having to watch everything I say, do... having to pretend I don’t dream of wringing every one of their necks. It’s harder than I thought it would be.”

Destin considered her words for a moment. “What’s he like?”

“Who? Erran?”

He nodded.

Mariel balked. “I barely know him.”

“You’re his wife.”

She blurted a laugh. “Do you know how strange that sounds when you say it so casually?”

“Will you ever forgive me for it?”

“Aw, Desi,” Mariel said, her heart heavy as she pulled him in for a squeeze. There were nights she didn’t sleep at all, wondering if she’d wake to learn he’d been dredged from the river or thrown into jail. Her fear for him had no end. “You saw a clever opportunity and you took it. You acted like a leader. I’m the one who needs to screw her head on straight and finish this.”

Destin hugged her tighter, sniffling. “You’re a good liar anyway. How long can you stay?”

Mariel kissed him again, sighing her regret. “I should go. Now that he’s back from sea, they’ll be less likely to turn their cheek at me visiting our ‘sick aunt.’”

“Poor dear Anna.”

They both laughed, and for a moment, she remembered what it had once been like, when they were children and unencumbered by so much trauma. When Angelika’s crystalline laugh still rang through their halls and their mother’s oyster stew could cure any ill.

“Be safe,” she whispered and slipped off through the trees without saying good-bye to the others.

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