Page 47 of Ties of Death

“My fourteenth birthday gift from my father.” There’s a slip of bittersweet nostalgia to his emotions as he thinks of it. “But we found it early, didn’t realize it was for me. Eskil and I both wanted to try it on—only to try it, then we’d put it right back.”

“You nearly wrestled over who would go first, but finally Eskil let you. He’s always been nicer than you,” I add as a teasing aside that Daenn scoffs at. “But none of us knew how to put armor on, so we just made our best guesses.” I smile at the memory.

“The cuirass was backward.” His tone is light as he remembers, and I can’t help but chuckle too.

“You looked ridiculous. And then your father walked in—”

“He was horrified.”

“I think more so by the incorrect wear than us spoiling yoursurprise.”

“Of course.” He leans forward ever so slightly, and I have to shift to finish working at the buckle. Rueful chagrin laces through him. “He lectured me that night for nearly an hour about being a good leader and not dragging others into mischief. He even threatened to separate us.”

I roll my eyes. “As if you were the instigator of all our mischief as children. Eskil and I were certainly as complicit as you, and we were perfectly happy going along with it even when we weren’t the ones starting it. And besides, if he had tried to separate us, I would have just found a way to see you anyway; I wouldn’t have stood for being kept apart from you.”

Grief is sudden, but muted somehow, like it’s more of a remembered feeling, and I look up at Daenn involuntarily—why the sudden hurt? My breath catches at how he stares at me, the raw pain and longing I both see in his gaze and feel.

He rips his gaze away. “He managed it a few years later anyway with his treaty.”

“I suppose he did,” I murmur. The memory of that day rises, near the surface thanks to the dance with nostalgia we’ve already engaged in. I was crushed when the king asked the marriage of me. Hedidask, not order, but it wasn’t like I could refuse my king, not when he explained how our clan needed the treaty.

I did so well at hiding my feelings until later, when I was alone. Only then did I let myself weep. Daenn found me like that, but I couldn’t bring myself to explain why I wept—for the loss of the future I hoped for withhim.

But he still held me. Protected me in the only way he could at the time.

He’s always trying to protect me, then and now.

A low greeting from the door has me stepping back sharply from Daenn as if I’m doing something I shouldn’t. A youngman who looks startingly like the innkeeper comes in with two more steaming pots of water and pours them into the tub. Behind him, the innkeeper has returned with his own load.

“It’s all unbuckled,” I tell Daenn, clearing my throat and turning away.

He thanks me softly and returns to removing his own armor, which is just as well. I am drowning in my emotions and memories—and Daenn’s emotions, which only confuse matters. There’s a longing and a heavy sense of grief from him that could be my own. Both lack that muted feeling they had before; they are fresh, sharper. They worry me. What is he thinking about? Is he thinking about us, like I am? It seems too much to hope for. Is he worried about what will happen tomorrow when we go home?

We have a night of respite, but soon enough we will return and go straight into another fight.

I will help him, I decide suddenly. He won’t face Viggo alone. Despite what I thought before, when I lived in the lowlands and heard only rumors, Daenn is still a good man. A good king, worthy of leading our people. I won’t let anyone steal his throne. He’s protected me so much in our lives. It’s time someone protects him in return.

28

An Unspoken Hope

We leave before dawn.

Daenn did what he could to clean his armor last night, but there are scores and pits from our battles. He’ll have to give it a more thorough tending after we reclaim Daenn’s throne from his usurping cousin. I am in a clean dress, given to me by the innkeeper, but it’s thin for flying, especially in the pre-dawn chill.

The sun has barely broken over our mountain when we reach our clan. The flight took us little time, but it crawled by for me as my mind whirled with worry. What state will we find the clan in? Daenn left our home in the hands of loyal warriors. Will they all be imprisoned? Dead? Did they turn on Daenn?

Daenn is wrapped around me, like he has been for every flight since Raindrop vanished, but as Storm circles closer to our mountain and my worry tightens like a corkscrew inside me with every circle, he tightens his grip and presses his lips close to my ear.

“I’ll protect you, Emana.”

His words send a shiver through me. Does he think I’m worried about myself? I’m worried forhim, for our people. Viggo won’t hurt me. If anything, he’ll try to make me hisqueen—or mistress, I amend, as I remember that he’s married now.

The idea makes me want to vomit.

The mountain looms before us, closer and closer, and then, barely even slowing, Storm swoops into the eyries.

Most of the gryphons are sleeping. They raise their drowsy heads to peer at us, and a few give low churrs of greeting to their flock member.

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