The dryad raises one imperious mossy brow. “You are still a bard, are you not, Lyarthorn?”
The hesitation on his face is plain to see, and his hands come down to rub across the harp on his ribs. “I suppose. But Drystan is a lord, and—”
“A bastard from a different court,” Drystan retorts, smoothly. “I haven’t returned to Calimnel outside of Samhain in centuries. Kitarni is right. You’re of more help here than I will be.”
“I don’t understand.” I look between them all, hating feeling like I’m missing something. “I thought bards were musicians?”
“The lesser ones are,” Jaro explains. “Those you find in taverns and inns barely warrant the name, but Lyarthorn was part of an elite—”
“Please stop saying that name,” Bree cuts in, running a hand over his ears, which are flat against his head. “I was only one half of it, and the other half”—he grimaces—“was the one who was most involved in court drama.”
I open my mouth to tell him it’s okay, that I’ll be fine. But that’s a lie, so what leaves my lips is. “I don’t want you to put yourself through more pain for me.”
Bree pins me with sorrowful green eyes that hold the weight of agonising centuries and replies, “Nothing would hurt me more than knowing I had the skills to protect you and failed.” He pauses, eyes darting to the snake tattoo still wrapped around my wrist, then continues in a whisper. “I have a feeling… Never mind.” He looks away sharply. “I’ll listen for whispers and report what I hear.”
Why did that sound a lot like… spying?
I resolve to ask my grandmothers exactly what a bard does at the earliest opportunity.
On my arm, his snake wiggles, and I smile as his head lifts from my skin in a flash of inky mist.
“I think someone missed you,” I coo, stroking the head of the tiny serpent.
I don’t understand how the giant snake that saved me from Elatha can be the same, pocket-sized version currently wrapped around my upper arm, but I put it down to magic as the little beast slithers off my skin.
“Espen’s usually shy around people.” Bree leans forwards and slowly, deliberately, touches his fingers to my arm to create a bridge for the snake to return to his rightful home. “It’s surprising that he’s taken to you so quickly.”
I smile, rubbing the snake’s head one more time before he disappears back into his master’s flesh. “I like him too.”
My eyes flick up to meet Bree’s, trying to convey without words that I like him just as much. He may have fucked up with Caed, but I don’t want to add that to the pile of self-blame he’s already carrying.
My fever was hard on all of us, but now that it’s out of the way, perhaps Bree and I can get to know one another properly. I’d like to try sex with all of them without the cramping and sweating and haze of sexual need fogging things up.
Before that can happen, I have to deal with Aiyana. She’s waited almost two weeks, which I doubt has warmed her to me.
Twenty
Rhoswyn
The second we descend the temple steps, the furore begins. Pavellen is a bright and airy metropolis, with buildings made of a pale stone dressed in garlands of bright flowers. In fact, blossoms areeverywhere.
Petals fall from the sky in a shower of natural confetti, getting caught in my hair and the folds of my dress. They coat the bottom of the gleaming silver boat that waits in the crystal water of the canal.
It dips and bobs as Jaro carefully helps me to my seat, guiding me down onto the bench as I try my hardest not to fall into the water. When I’m settled, Wraith jumps into the boat, making it rock dangerously, and my stomach turns before he finds his balance. He settles, curled around me with his head on my lap, as if to keep me secure. Once the two of us are in, my Guard takes their places around us, with Jaro and Lore at the front, and Bree and Drystan behind. I have no idea how the enchantment knows that all the passengers are aboard, but the second they’re ready, the boat begins to move.
Prae, Kitarni, and my brothers will follow in a different boat, for which I’m grateful. With Wraith’s weight, we’re already riding low on the water, and I really don’t want to meet the glimmering metallic eels up close. I remember all too well looking at paintings of them in Kitarni’s lesson in awe, only to learn that they eat anyone unlucky enough to fall into the water.
“Wow, they really like the colour blue,” I murmur, as we pass under a garland dripping with cornflower-coloured blossoms.
Sure, there are other colours mixed in, but the sheer amount of blue overwhelms the majority of them.
“Probably another subtle way to snub you,” Jaro murmurs, unhappily. “Everyone knows that the Nicnevin’s colour is violet.”
The temple is just across the palace moat, so our boat trip isn’t long, though I spend longer than I should staring at the glowing golden water lily-shaped crystals sticking out of the canal at regular intervals. Between the deadly eels and the enchanted shield that prevents flying in and out, Aiyana has effectively made it so that anyone entering or leaving has to take a boat… and the canal around the palace is wide, leaving nowhere to hide.
Glamour could hide a boat and the occupants, but it takes someone truly skilled at creating illusions to hide the ripples in the water from the prow. Even a tiny blip in focus would be their doom.
Which is why Madoc is right. A big event—like the stupid trial of restitution—is the best chance to smuggle someone out. With the queen away from the palace, we should be able to slip Caed out under a glamour without anyone noticing.
