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“Camping?” she asked. “Because I must inform you, I am fond of the amenities of civilization.”
He grinned. “Not camping. Well, okay, there will be a night of camping to get to where we’re going, but I promise you’ll have an actual room and some amenities once we get there.”
After the chocolate kicked in, she finally managed to put his words together. “You want to go somewhere…overnight?”
“It’s a day-and-a-half ride. Then we’ll stay a couple nights. Come back.”
She stared at him. “You want me to leave with you? For almost a week? Have you lost your mind?” That excitement in his eyes flickered, like maybe half the manic energy had been building himself up to this ask, and she’d effectively kicked him in the gut. That was also when she realized the mark on his neck was gone, that he’d clearly had a healer take care of it, and likely the others, too. So before he could back away from his statement she said, “Fine. I suppose Alaric can’t wonder where I am if he isn’t here.” Undoubtedly, he had someone watching her but…but she wasn’t tolerating the situation, she reminded herself. And if he’d left the gate of her cage open, she was damn well walking out of it for a time. “Where are we going?”
The smile Numair gave her—one of those rare, honest ones—was worth everything. “It’s a surprise.”
“Please understand the great honor I do you in allowing you to surprise me.”
“Consider me honored. Eat your breakfast and pack.”
She did both and, after an internal debate as to the wisdom of leaving without any word, finally penned a brief note to Fitz, ensuring it would be delivered after she was well enough away from Veralna that he wouldn’t be able to follow.
Then she and Numair were off, leaving the city and all of its problems behind.
Chapter Sixty-Five
He Isn’t Yours to Talk to That Way
Clare had been patient yesterday, assuming that, despite promises of their destination being a “surprise”, Numair would tell her where they were going once they were far enough away from Veralna. He hadn’t. After a full day of riding they’d spent the night in a tent, which had been significantly less awful than she’d thought it would be, because practically every piece of Numair’s camping equipment came with heating spells. In the morning Numair had made surprisingly decent campfire coffee, and when they’d packed up and started riding again, he’d said it was a little less than half a day’s ride to their destination.
It had now been almost half a day, and she was getting anxious. Because he was getting anxious. The Numair riding next to her was a side of him she’d only caught rare glimpses of. He’d lost the rigidity he carried at court, lost the jaded glaze to his eyes and the dark twist to his lips that always said he was waiting for the worst to happen, and he was determined to find it amusing when it did.
He looked younger. He looked…happy. He also looked nervous. Yesterday, he’d been excited. What did it mean that he was nervous now?
“Are you ever going to tell me where we’re going?”
He hesitated before finally saying, “A village.”
She waited, but he didn’t elaborate. “Is it a very special village?”
He was the second prince of Faelhorn. The position might come with far more ills than positives, but when it came to entertainment, privileges, or goods to be purchased, there was nothing he couldn’t afford. So what could a village a day-and-a-half’s ride from Veralna have to offer him that he couldn’t find within the city?
“Yes. More special than any other.” His voice was soft and serious. Enough so that she didn’t press him further. Not that there would have been time, had she decided to. They crested a hill, a deep valley spread before them, and in that valley lay Numair’s promised village.
It was a farming community, with the town and most of the housing located in the center, and what would be cultivated fields when the warmer weather hit sprawling out around them. More people than she’d expected were out, bundled up against the cold, doing repair work on fencing and outbuildings. Most were too busy to look up as she and Numair rode by but a boy—may seven or eight—who was tagging along after an older woman and clearly hindering more than helping, looked to the road and let out a whoop of excitement.
He came running at them full-speed, so fast and unexpected that Kialla snorted and danced, her neck arching. Who was this child, and why was he so excited? Had he mistaken them for someone else?
If anyone, child or not, had come running at Clare like that in Renault County, she would have already sent a dagger flying for their throat. It was still her first instinct, her fingers itching for the blade hidden inside her boot, a lifetime of bitter experience telling her that this boy was either mad or drugged, or simply pushed too far and hoping the appearance of being crazed would lend him an advantage in theft or survival.
The instincts gripped her so deeply she almost didn’t register the broad smile breaking across Numair’s face.
“Uncle Numair! Uncle Numair!” The boy shouted the greeting as he approached, and he said Numair’s name differently, turning it from a flat, two syllable word into a rich, rolling, three syllable affair. Nu-my-ir instead of Nu-mare.
The boy finally reached his target, flinging himself exuberantly at horse and rider like this wasn’t the notoriously ridiculous, notoriously drunk second prince of Faelhorn.
Uncle? To her knowledge, Numair had no siblings.
Numair laughed, catching the boy as he tried to jump onto Hellack and helping him scramble on behind him. Poor Hellack took a knee or two to the stomach and rump in the process but, paragon of equine virtue that he was, handled it with nothing more than a backward twitch of his left ear.
The boy didn’t stop talking during the whole process. “We didn’t know you were coming! Mom said you wouldn’t be back until the spring, but I volunteered to help Nari in the fields because I thought you’d come sooner and look! Now I get to ride back on Hellack, and who are you?” The boy asked the question as if it flowed from the rest of the sentence, squirming around to look at Clare and kicking Hellack another time in the process.
“Settle down before you give Hellack bruises,” Numair admonished.
