Page 30 of Fragile Oath

P.S. Speaking of sunny Socairan personalities, please accept my sincerest apologies for the roughly seven hundred and sixty-four irritable sighs you’ll have to hear as your husband reads this letter over your shoulder.

As satisfied asI was likely to be, I rolled up the letter and marched out of the inn. In the past couple of days alone, the season had taken a sharp turn into winter. The ground was frozen beneath my feet, a thin coating of ice covering the walkway to the aviary.

Heavy snowfall sputtered from the sky, nearly concealing the figure rushing out of the building. It took me less than a second to place him — the smaller of the two Socairan guards. He had his hood drawn low, but he couldn’t hide his warrior’s stride or the Socairan sheath that peeked out from under his cloak.

I turned my face to the side, easing out of his field of vision. Once I had sent my own bird, I inquired after his, sliding a single copper coin across the counter.

“Socair?” I asked.

“Nay, mi’laird,” the man responded. “There’s only one bird trained to go through the tunnels, the one we’re sending for ye.”

Avani had managed to find a breed of falcon that could go through the tunnels, so at least I could get word to Rowan nearly as quickly as I could to my uncle now.

“Then where did his go?” I asked with a note of frustration.

He hesitated for a long moment until I withdrew two more coins from my purse.

“Bala village, mi’laird,” he said, pocketing the coins.

I nodded, filing that away and adding it to the growing list of things that didn’t make sense. A hazy picture was starting to form in my mind, one that might have made me furious if Alexei’s death warrant hadn’t already been signed.

Now I just added it to the growing list of reasons he had to die.

ChapterFifteen

GALINA

Davin was furious.

Angrier than he had been yesterday. Perhaps angrier than I had ever seen him.

The signs were so discreet. His eyes were usually warm and amused and surprisingly patient, but today they were like twin shards of ice. His mouth was turned up at one corner like it always was, but the smirk was endlessly cold.

Where I had come to recognize Alexei’s rage as a burning, palpable thing, Davin’s anger was calm and icy and, I suspected, all the more lethal for it.

But what had happened between yesterday and today to put him in this state?

Or perhaps I was simply more observant, having finally enjoyed more than two scattered hours of sleep without Alexei in my bed.

I didn’t think so, though. Gallagher was on edge as well, and neither was shy in their assessment when I climbed into the carriage. Their intense scrutiny made me feel nearly as uneasy as Alexei's growing displeasure with our current situation. He had fumed all the way from the inn.

“Did you sleep well,Radnaya?” The question was outwardly polite, but I knew better.

He had to see that some of the bruising under my eyes was fainter, the bags less pronounced. If I admitted I slept better without him, though, it would be a direct attack to his pride.

“Not as well as I would have with my lord in the room,” I lied, willing my cheeks not to burn.

It was bad enough cowing to him, let alone in front of two people who knew me well enough to know that I was lying. I felt rather than saw the probing gazes from the other side of the carriage.

At least Alexei looked satisfied. Of course he did. Obedience over honesty, every time with him.

By the time I snuck a glance at Davin and Gallagher, they were both looking pointedly elsewhere, though a muscle ticked in Davin’s jaw. Black stubble peppered the skin on the lower half of his face, thicker than I had ever seen it. His traveling clothes were simpler than what he wore at Lithlinglau, but they were still finely made and tailored to perfection, accentuating his broad shoulders and the muscles in his biceps.

He sat with his hands casually resting on his thighs, one of them holding the flask he occasionally pulled from.

“Galina.” Alexei’s sharp tone dragged me from my unwitting inspection.

Storms.

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