Page 64 of Nightingale

Vrea found a knee-high set that would do, adding it to her pile of things on the bed and opening her own trunk as she looked for a clean pair of underthings, since the ones she currently wore were no longer white. She wasn’t sure what colour to call them, but she refused to wear them after the grime that coated the cloth.

Vrea slipped out of her current clothes with a more-than-satisfied groan to be rid of them, and tossed them aside to be disposed of. Burned might have been better, considering that amount of muck and blood that would never come free, no matter how many washes one attempted.

There was already a hot, wooden tub waiting for her after a couple of the men carried it in, filling it with steaming buckets of water from the river that they lit over a close campfire, adding enough until the water level would cover her shoulders.

Amir had come in once, to check on her and gain the full story before setting two bottles of soap down for her bath and departing with a bob of his head. He stood outside as she entered the tub, keeping her quiet little moan of delight at the heat to herself. Vrea didn’t trust many, but she would put her life in his hands time and time again.

He’d served her mother faithfully, as he would her whenever she took over. As did his wife, a woman named Imogen who was only a handful of years older than she was. In the absence of a father she never needed, Amir filled that space in a weird way. She’d never call him such a title nor would he ever expect it.

Perhaps uncle would suit his closeness better.

He was simply ‘Amir’, and she wouldn’t want him to be anyone else.

Vrea dunked herself under the warm water and scrubbed at every inch of her filthy skin. Until the dark mahogany that neared Amir’s skin tone was gone, replaced by her soft brown that held an amber hue. She combed through her hair with her fingers, dumping half the bottle of soap overtop it until it was velvet smooth again, without an inch of dirt to be found.

She’d go see Rian soon, after she was presentable. There were rounds that needed to be made with the men as well, to walk around the Niroulian side of the war border and see how things fared. It was part of her duties as an heir to Vasthold. One she didn’t mind, considering that she got to hear all the interesting stories the men passed around to make the time go by faster.

After being away for so long, she was desperate to have some part of her country close, even if it was the familiar company of the men that proudly, bravely defended it. Three years had felt like a millenia when there was no soft sand to lay on, no warm sun to bask in, no oasis to splash in. She missed the way her people spoke, acted, and dressed.

Until she received confirmation that Rian would be able to ride and ride hard, for Niroula, Vrea would visit her people. She would sit with them and listen like a good sovereign should, help them plan for upcoming attacks and study whatever plans had previously been made to her unexpected arrival. She would catch up on the news of her mother and Vasthold, slightly optimistic that Eamin had bit the dust in her absence.

Then, when Rian was well enough to travel on horseback, they would leave for Vasthold.

Thirty One

He surveyed the surrounding damage of the Blackleg Caverns with a sceptical eye, brought after many years of fighting in countless battles, of finding targets from miles away and hunting down his enemies.

Roaming over the dozens of spider carcasses that arrows protruded out of, with nothing but black blood as far as the eye could see.

An ambush of sorts, with the Niroulians if the blue-tipped arrows were any indication. Niroulian warriors liked to use obsidian to carve their arrowheads as well as mark them with one of their house colours. As he yanked one free of a particularly large beast, he examined the glass-like tip to find his assumption correct. Pointed to a deadly precision, chipped edges that shattered upon impact for a painful removal, and a tiny badger carved into the wooden shaft.

Niroula.

He tossed it aside, the wind rustling his white-blond hair, down like it always was. He didn’t like the way it looked when it was up, didn’t like the pressure at the nape of his neck. It felt too much like a collar and he was already clasped in one of those. Instead, he let it fall free, curving and whipping around his shoulder like a flag in the middle of a hurricane.

It was wild, untamed.

Sometimes he thought back to his mother and what a greatbeauty she must have been. Even he saw the allure in his reflection from time to time. There were no features of his father within him, which meant that they must have all come from the woman that sired him. There were no descriptions, no drawings to aid his memory of a Carylimian he did not recall. It sorrowed Castil in a certain way that he couldn’t remember anything about his mother but there was nothing to do about it. His father refused to speak of her, even in kind memoriam.

His hair wasn’t the only thing the breeze stirred up. The smell in the valley was rank, one of the worst things he’d even smelt in his entire life. It was death with a tang, a wafting odour of salty blood mixed with shadows and an oily texture by the touch of it. He didn’t dare use his bare hands, tugging on a pair of gloves as the chill set in.

Castil ran a finger over it, smudging it in the same way that fire oil smeared.

The spiders wereflammable.

He rummaged through his saddle bags, searching for the flint and stone he always carried whenever he travelled, locating them at the bottom of the pack. They must have fallen over the miles of rocky terrain.

Castil worked quickly, tearing up one of his filthy shirts from days on the road into thin strips of cotton, wrapping one at a time around bundles of branches that he covered with the black blood. He continued until he had twenty bundles of kindle, the exact number of tunnels that surrounded him. Spider webs were tossed carelessly everywhere, which would only help his cause.

With a strike of the flint against the stone, and a couple sparks later, he held a flame. The male lowered it to the first bundle, waiting as it sputtered, danced and came to life. It hissed in wriggling delight as it came in contact with the blood, flaring up violently enough that he shielded his eyes. When the light wasn’t intolerable, when he could blink away the brightness, Castilbrought his line of sight back and rose from the ground, taking another bundle of sticks and tucking it into the pit of his arm.

He rested them on Atlas’s saddle, balancing and stacking them in a way that wouldn’t send them toppling with a hoofed step. His horse didn’t seem to mind as he continued until there were none left on the ground and he brought the one under his arm back out, lowering it to the flame.

It took a second, but then the fire jumped.

Castil eyed the distance, wrapping his reins across his knuckles as he brought his arm back. Then he threw the first bit of kindling into the very first cavern. For a moment, he stood still as the fire passed down, down, down. And as it spiralled into the depths of darkness and shade, a shiver ran through him at the thousands of reflective eyes that tracked the fire.

A crack sounded, a rumble of legs, and then a loud ignition as the flames burned.

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