Page 19 of A War of Crowns

Outwardly, though, he conjured forth a rumble of laughter and a shake of his head. “Oh, no. No, no, no. I dare not steal your sterling company from our good Lord Bennett here,” Tiberius breezily declared. He clapped the grumpy man in question on the shoulder. Lord Bennett grunted. “No, no. It shall just be me and my thoughts. And my horse. And my guards. Though no doubt I’ll see you at dinner, my good fellow,” Tiberius finished, earning a strange sort of smile from Sir Tristan.

“No doubt,” the knight agreed as he sketched a shallow bow.

Lord Bennett, however, didn’t bother rising from his stoop, which he had reclaimed the moment Her Majesty departed from the vicinity.

Tiberius didn’t mind, though.

Let him sulk.

He loved the smell of jealousy in the morning.

Chapter four

Calix

Tucked into the upper boughs of a black-leafed kuraiha tree, Calix watched the sun sink low. His fingers already couched another arrow against the string of his bow.

Down in the valley, he saw movement in the makeshift camp the Kunishi raiders had erected there, just on the cusp of the Drakmor-Kuni border. In the dying light, the flicker of a campfire winked from the very heart of the camp, sending long tongues of wood smoke unfurling against the deepening twilight.

The beasts were getting bolder by the day.

Lighting a fire to mark their position so close to the deep hills of Blackrun was their second mistake, to be sure. But their first?

Thinking they could raid and pillage along the Drakmori border without earning for themselves the supremely unwanted attention of the Crow and his Twelve Sons.

When a burst of movement erupted from just below and to his right, Calix’s eyes snapped that way. He watched as a bird shot from the underbrush and took to the sky.

His own muscles tensed in response.

Calix lifted his bow. He drew its string taut. He sighted down the end of the arrow and tracked the bird up, up, up, up, up…

There.

His arrow sang through the air and swiftly found its mark.

Calix smirked while watching that potentially traitorous bird fall to the earth. Rumor had it those raiders down in the valley might very well have a Fangtalker with them.

One could never be too careful.

The sound of a whistle on the wind drew Calix back to the moment and away from all thoughts of unnatural Kunishi beast whisperers. He shot a glance over his left shoulder and squinted down through the leaves, back toward his own camp.

To the untrained ear, that whistle might very well have been some sort of songbird calling out to the deepening night.

But Calix recognized the Crow’s call for what it was—a summons.

His latest arrow he reunited with its fellows in his quiver. His bow he slung over his shoulders. And then Calix Fitzjesmaine, bastard son of the Viscount of Jesmaine, shimmied his way through the inky boughs and midnight-hued leaves of the kuraiha tree.

Though rare within the boundaries of Drakmor itself, he knew from their sporadic forays past the border that those trees grewplentifully all throughout Kuni. The Kunishi considered them bad luck, though. Which made it a perfect lookout point.

None of them would be likely to draw near.

When Calix’s feet touched down upon the forest floor, he bit back a groan of pain. His body ached in protest from the hours he had spent tucked in the high branches of that blastedly dark tree.

Next time, he was demanding the youngest Son, Sven, be put on lookout duty.

Another whistle cut through the air—a higher-pitched question from Beck. The Crow’s second-in-command was the worrying sort, always quick to jump to the worst possible conclusions when faced with any manner of adversity.

Stamping his feet to bring some life back into his legs, Calix pursed his lips and loosed a single, low whistle himself.

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