Page 33 of Winter's Fate

He rubbed his eyes. “I believe we’re in Aglye’s coastal forest. At dawn, we should make our way to Inasvale.”

Dread curled in Laena’s gut like a weight. “To the poisonkeepers?”

He stared into the fire, lips taut with tension. She wished she could tell what he was thinking. “I need to speak with the king’s brother, Thaddeus. He is a full brother there now.”

Laena had not known that the king’s younger brother had taken orders as a poisonkeeper. Though when she’d left Riles, he would have been what, sixteen? Seventeen? A spare heir to the throne in any case, and free to follow his inclinations. Provided that the heir remained well.

But Laena had no desire to travel to Inasvale or to meet the order of monks who believed they guarded the passage between the Miragelands and the Vales. If Callum’s hatred of magic was well known, the poisonkeepers’ hatred of it was the stuff of legend. Should they discover her magic, they would no doubt seek to destroy it. And her.

People in Etra whispered that their religion was a false one, their task purposeless. Some whispered that there was nothing to guard, that the mages were a myth and had never lived in the Vales at all, though Laena could not quite give credence to those theories. She’d studied too many histories to deny the truth.

Callum bit his bottom lip, his expression distant, as though he was rolling the plan around in his head. “Even if Hawk won’t take your crystal seriously, Thaddeus will.”

So he did doubt his king with respect to the crystal and the poison. Laena had hoped they might be approaching the more reasonable monarch of the Vales. More reasonable than Katrina, anyway. And certainly more reasonable than Silerith’s king, locking himself away as he did.

After the assassination attempt and the magical storm, Hawk seemed more likely to turn his eye toward Silerith, as Kat had done. They were the threat; who else would be sending heart-tithers after Etran royalty? And so blatantly, too.

Laena hugged her knees to her chest. If the poisonkeeperswould take the crystal seriously, then she would risk the journey. “Will Thaddeus know what to do?”

Callum looked at his hands. “I’ll take the first watch,” he said, offering no answer. “Get some rest, my lady.”

CHAPTER 13

As a soldier, Callum had endured grueling weeks of training, military campaigns, and all manner of marches, exercises, and drills. Yet he didn’t think his body had ever been so sore as when he woke the morning after the shipwreck. His back cracked ominously when he sat up, and he was sure he heard his knees give a creaking groan as he hefted himself to his feet. His arms felt as if someone had set them aflame. If he had access to a bed, he would surely collapse into it and sleep for a fortnight.

Laena was already up and about, dowsing the last embers of their campfire with dirt and stones while her shimmerling skittered through the tall grasses at the edge of the campsite, visible only by the pink licks of its tail. If Laena’s muscles were sore, she wasn’t showing it; she appeared capable of bending and stretching.

One bend like that, and Callum was sure he’d snap in two. She looked pretty doing it, though. Her figure was a shapely one, and make no mistake. Her arms were strong and well formed, though he admitted her limbs were not the part of her that most engaged his attention.

What had that fool stablehand been thinking, leaving a woman like her? Yesterday’s ordeal would have left most people whimpering on the ground. Demons, it hadhimwishing he could whimper on the ground. Yet here she was, finishing off the morning watch without complaint. She almost seemed to be enjoying it.

When she noticed him standing there, she gave him a businesslike nod that reminded him more of the no-nonsense palace housekeeper who ran the grounds at Hawk’s palace than any princess he’d yet encountered. If she realized he’d been leering at her like an untried youth, she wouldn’t hesitate to heft the largest stone she could find and crack him over the head with it.

“I found a creek nearby,” she said. “About fifteen minutes away.”

Callum rubbed a hand over his face, trying to dislodge the sleep from his mind. And the lust—might as well be frank about it. “You went traipsing through the woods on your own?”

She gave him an exasperated look. “We needed to find water, and you were dead to the world.”

“There are wild creatures in these woods,” he said. “And bandits.”

Laena cocked an eyebrow at him. “Then perhaps the captain of the King’s Guard might work to rectify that problem.”

She’d been honest with him last night. The honorable thing would be to tell her that he was no longer the captain of anything, and that he’d stolen this entire expedition out from under its rightful leader. Ass though the man might be.

But she’d woken in good humor, and he didn’t wish to spoil it. So he said, “You may have a point.”

“Assuming you do still believe we landed in your country, that is.” It sounded like a statement, but it was a question. She would not have traveled to the continent herself.

Callum didn’t know of anywhere else along the coast that hosted such a thick band of forest. Perhaps northern Silerith.But they could not have traveled that far, even on such violent tides, and he suspected the cold there would make for very different foliage.

He also suspected they would have been caught and arrested already. It had been some time since the Ruthless King had allowed anyone to cross his borders. Hawk’s spies had skimmed the edges, playing with danger, but no one had delved that far into enemy territory without disappearing into Silerith’s wilds.

Silerith, on the other hand, seemed intent on sending people out beyond its borders. Though he’d not seen the person responsible for the ship’s doom yesterday, it was Silerith he suspected. He’d spent enough time ghosting back and forth across its borders, raiding dens of heart-tithers and getting his hands dirty—breaking accords on King Magnus’s orders while knowing the king would deny any involvement, should Callum be caught.

He knew Silerith better than any other Aglyean or Etran could. Their leniency toward heart-tithers gave the magic a chance to grow, to fester into the kind of evil that could cause a storm like the one they’d survived.

“We’re in Aglye for certain,” he said. “If we follow the coast toward the northeast, we’ll reach Inasvale.”

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