Page 51 of Winter's Fate

Not that Moore’s incessant chattering gave them so much as a moment to talk together, or revisit the topic of magic, or stolen armies, or—it should not have numbered among her concerns, but it did—that almost-kiss.

By the time they reached Inasvale, Laena’s nerves felt as if they’d been rubbed raw against a washing board. It took a concerted effort not to cringe each time Moore opened that foolish mouth of his.

The forest ended with an abrupt shift, a single step carrying her from dense vegetation to rolling fields. The sea, ever their companion, sparkled to the right beneath a clear sky. And ahead, the city sat perched upon the side of a cliff, its multi-tiered walls giving it the look of a rather drab wedding cake. A golden flag fluttered from the highest layer: the monastery of the poisonkeepers.

The monks came from throughout the Vales, called to their vocation from across Etra and Aglye, and even parts of Silerith. Or so the textbooks had taught her. The books never mentioned the murmur of waves in the background, or the salty spray as they split upon the rocky cliffs. Nor had they described the perfume of wild roses that grew along those same cliffs, or the singular joy of breathing their scent combined with the brine of the sea.

When she looked to Callum he actually seemed… relaxed. He would have seen this place before, of course. “How long has it been?” she asked, as Moore busied himself instructing his soldiers. “Since you last saw Thaddeus?”

“One year and two months,” he said. “I escorted him here myself, against King Magnus’s wishes.”

That surprised her, the idea of King Magnus’s famously trusted captain escorting the younger prince to join the monks.What had Callum’s relationship with Magnus been like? It was said that he was treated like another son. “Was the king angry?” she asked.

A shadow fell across Callum’s face, and she wished she could snatch back the words. One year and two months. Was that not the precise time when King Magnus had been killed?Careless, Laena, she scolded herself. She’d not been living in the palace when he’d died, but even she could not avoid hearing such news.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have realized. The timing…”

Callum gave his head a shake, as if extracting himself from a memory. “Don’t trouble yourself. It is my fault that I wasn’t there.”

Laena frowned. “I don’t think you ought to blame yourself for?—”

“Pick up the pace!” Moore called from the front of the group. “No need to dawdle now.”

Except for the rockiness of the path, Laena thought. But as Callum took the excuse to hurry ahead and check on his soldiers, she found she wanted to hurry herself, to make for the city gates and meet the younger prince whose desire to live as a poisonkeeper had so angered his father… and prompted Callum’s defiance.

Was this the reason, too, for his demotion? His removal from the captaincy? Truly, he could not be blamed for his absence. He likely would have been killed along with the host of guards rumored to have been massacred along with the king by a heart-tither. One who’d never yet been caught, unless she’d failed to hear the news.

If Callum had been relentless about pursuing heart-tithers before the king’s death, what had he done since?

The road shifted to cobblestones just before the gates to the city. No guards were stationed at the wall, though she supposedthey could see threats approaching from the watchtower in the city’s center.

Inasvale’s streets were quiet, at least compared to the bustling city of Riles. Where the Etran city was all bustle and cheer, Inasvale was calm, as though every shopkeeper, fisherman, and street sweeper aimed to live with the same serenity as did the monks who oversaw the city.

Children, she noted, were still children. They chased one another down side streets, giggling wildly, if a bit more furtively than they might have done in Riles.

The city’s hilltop position, paired with its twist of a fortress, made it appear large and imposing from the outside. Within the walls, the streets closed in tightly, each overlooked by the guardian walls to either side. The streets were surprisingly bright, the indigo sky shining down on neatly arranged cobblestones.

And once they were within the walls, it was barely a few minutes’ walk before they found themselves at the peak of the hill, standing before the gates of the Inasvale Monastery. Wrought in a lacework of twisted iron, these inner gates appeared both beautiful and unbreachable. Bereft of decoration, the gates stood without shining paint or gargoyles or carvings, yet they gave off a distinct feeling of elegance.

Someone, she noticed, had planted a bed of marigolds at the foot of each surrounding wall.

There ought to be some kind of protocol for approaching the monastery, likely one that involved Landon Moore puffing out his chest and demanding to be seen on order of the king. Which, to be fair, he already seemed primed to do; he was striding toward the gate, and in a moment, he would certainly open his mouth and start talking. She found herself wishing a bug would catch in his throat as soon as he did.

Before Moore could demand entrance, or whatever he planned to do, a man in long black robes approached frominside, withdrew an impressively large iron ring from within his abundant sleeves, and unlocked the gates.

“You are welcome here,” he said. “Please, come in.”

General Moore nodded, as if entrance to the poisonkeepers’ monastery were his due, and strode past the man without a comment for the wounded soldiers who were supposedly his entire reason for stopping here.

It was Callum who paused, giving the keeper an appraising look. “Still at it, I see.”

The man pushed a rickety set of spectacles up his nose and met Callum’s gaze, fingers twitching around the key ring, and Laena had the distinct impression he was stopping himself from running a hand through his dusty brown hair. “Someone needs to keep the poison at bay.”

The two men stared at one another for a good long moment. And even though the monk gave the impression that he was half ready to dart away, he held his ground until—to Laena’s incredible surprise—Callum broke into a wide grin and embraced him, jangling the keys as he did. “Thaddeus,” he said. “Did you see us coming?”

“Hours ago,” Thaddeus choked out, clapping Callum awkwardly on the back. “We keep watch from the outer bulwarks.”

Callum released the younger man, and Thaddeus stepped aside, allowing the party to pass into a neat entry courtyard. Which, like the rest of the fortress, was surrounded by neat stone walls. These walls protected a simple wooden structure, short and squat, with pillars to hold up the far-reaching corners of a slanted roof. Pink-flowered trees bloomed in the corner, their fallen petals leaving splashes of color along the cobblestone paths that meandered back and around the main building, suggesting that it was one of several.

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