Page 110 of An Oath and a Promise

And we ran.

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Chapter Thirty-Four

Dima’s eyes were screwed up tight, his teeth clamped down on his bottom lip and his hands squeezed tightly shut. The man was clearly in pain but the warning hand Starling had rested on his shoulder proved unnecessary, for he made no sound until the riders had passed out of sight. Then he grabbed a fistful of Velichkov’s shirt and pulled the heir close to his face, muttering something that had both of their eyes flickering to me.

Velichkov stood and peered along the road the riders had disappeared down. With time being so short we’d decided to travel fast rather than safe, taking the main road tola Cortinaand ducking down into the ditches and orchards whenever we spotted someone coming. We weren’t exactly inconspicuous, but we’d lost the luxury for overabundant caution and it had been working for us so far.

Yet rather than immediately setting off the way we’d been heading, Valeri strode back towards me with determined steps, shrugging his hooded cloak off and throwing it over my shoulders. I squirmed, trying to escape as he wrapped it tighter around me.

“What are you doing, you idiot? With your hood off, someone might recognise you!”

“Better me than you,” he growled.

That made no sense at all. Sure, my people were divided in their loyalties, with some on my side and some supporting Welzes, but the animosity towards the northern royals was a lot less ambiguous.

“Aratorre,” he snapped as I continued to protest the humiliating manhandling. And was what with him trying to dress me in his clothes anyway? Some weird territorial marking on behalf of his brother?

Velichkov threw up his hands in surrender. “Fine. Keep your face uncovered and see what happens.”

I glared at him. “What are you talking about? Why are you worrying about thatnow?”

“Dima says they’re claiming...” He glanced over my shoulder along the road to the north, looking…nervous, for fuck’s sake. Valeri Velichlov, first prince and heir to the throne of Temar, built like a horse and with a sword bigger than any I’d seen other than Jiron’s, wasnervous. “There’s a rumour going around that you have the Voice.”

“Well I don’t,” I said flatly. Dima nodded sharply, knowing it as the truth, but I had a much more compelling argument at hand. “If I did, you’d all be enjoying yourselves in a huge naked orgy right now instead of being your usual annoying selves.”

“If I thought that was remotely in my future, you’d be dead before you could Tell us any such thing,” Velichkov snapped. Starling gave a slow nod of agreement, looking at me distastefully. “But it’s a smart move on the Lukian bastard’s part.”

“Then that means it was Councillor Navar’s idea,” I said sourly. Because fuck, now that I was thinking it through?Genius.

What better way to ensure I was never brought in alive than to tell the continent that I had the Voice? An instant death sentence no matter my status or lineage, or any lingering loyalty my people might have felt for me. If he’d had more time to plot, maybe Navar would have used that as his opening move back in Máros: it would have avoided relying on that liar Yanev, and Velichkov wouldn’t have been able to manipulate them into agreeing to a higher bounty for my capture.

“You sure?” Starling asked Dima in stilted Mazekhstani. A stupid question, for Hearken couldn’t lie – just another burden on the poor creatures – but he didn’t look offended. How could he take offence when he knew it wasn’t meant?

It was why he called us all by our first names, touched us with familiarity, never asked us questions. Hewasus, living in our minds if not our bodies, no secrets or reflections or fears to divide us from him.

It was utterly fucking creepy, and if I thought that, he thought that.

What was even left of Dima the man? Did he have any sense of self, or was the Hearken merely a melting pot of everyone he’d ever come into contact with, his own personality and hopes and dreams chafed away by ours?

I saw him swallow uncomfortably.

Maybe we could...

Dima’s head shot up. “I’d like that,” he said to me softly, and then I was forced to explain my idea to the others.

Not that Ihadto, of course, and I was sorely tempted to remind them that I owed the two pains in my ass nothing, least of all my valuable breath...but I suppose I wanted to tell them what I’d been thinking. And when they both smiled at me in approval, I felt all weirdly warm inside.

Devotion and praise was nothing new to me. I’d been born a prince, wanted for nothing, and quickly became addicted to the feeling of holding power over others that demanded they indulge me at my whim.

But there was a huge fucking difference between being simpered at because they had to, and genuinely impressing someone. And while I wasn’t an idiot and was familiar enough with putting on appearances to well recognise that distinction, I’d never truly experienced the latter until Mathias. He was the first to value honesty over how he was expected to act – ironic, I knew, considering our very first meeting had been shrouded in lies about his identity, but Mat had never given me false compliments. If one of my ideas was shit, he told me so. If the idea was pure unadulterated fabulousness, he still told me it was shit, but the point was that I could trust him not to undeservedly bloat my ego.

And through him, I’d gotten to know Starling and Velichkov, who were much like him in that way. So when the two of them gave mesmiles of approval, it felt pretty fucking good.

And my idea of having Dima trail far enough behind us to keep out of range of our thoughts while still remaining within view, the tension within our little group seemed to ease somewhat. The man had less of a grimace on his face whenever I glanced back at him, and the rest of us inevitably relaxed now we weren’t worrying about our minds being overheard.

Although it meant that I let myself truly stew on the implications of what I was being accused of, and hell, I’d laugh at the irony if it wasn’t so fucked up. My father had hidden his magic for decades, only using his Voice to manipulate those who either knew about it or wouldn’t live long enough to tell anyone...and yet Navar, a man in Iván Aratorre’s trusted Council, had not only been blind to it but had the audacity to blame the king’s favourite victim of his crime?

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