I go to tug my dagger from its sheath, only to find Kaan’s hand clamped firmly around my wrist.
Rude.
Teeth gritted, I loosen my fingers, hoping he can feel the displeasure I’m radiating.
“Be my guest,” Noeve says, her tonealmostpassable for loyal servitude. “There’s nothing I enjoy more than lining our king’s pockets.”
The soldier pins her with a fierce glare, receiving pouch after pouch of bloodstone. “Your belongings will now be scoured for stowaways,” he snips out, as if we didn’t just pay for the passage of thirteen folk. At least.
He and three other soldiers move around the cart without invitation or approval.
“Folk these daes,” Noeve mutters, flicking the butt-end of her smoke stick, dashing ash into the now-churning wind. “They’re all a bunch of mannerless shit scoops, if you ask me.”
Puffy, stabbing sounds come to us, suggesting the soldiers are hard at work slaughtering Noeve’s plump, feather-filled sacks.
Brow raised, I look sidelong at Kaan.
He clears his throat.
There’s the sound of material ripping before a burst of feathers whip through the air like an eddy of snow.
Noeve sighs and pinches another smoke stick from a pouch at her hip, lighting the end with a weald. “Shit-eating bastards,” she says, dragging deep while slaughtering the guards on the other side of the gate with a honed glare.
Clode spins and flicks about with the feathers, dancing to her own tune while the soldiers finish their search, finally moving forward. One jerks his chin at us. “Get up so we can check beneath the seat.”
This is getting tiresome.
Kaan’s the first to climb down despite their shit manners, feigning a limp—which does nothing to soften his immense presence, but I appreciate the effort. He moves around the back of the cart and helps a grumbling, bow-spined Noeve down from her seat.
I follow, positioning myself so I have a good view of every soldier. The perfect vantage point to watch Noeve’s cushions get flung to the ground.
I wince.
Clode whips into a shriller, squealier dance, flicking feathers about like it’s a celebration. The tingly anticipation shooting through me suggests things are about to get much more interesting for her.
Kaan moves beside me as the board is removed, the compartment beneath tousled through, not that Noeve seems to carry many belongings bar some jerky, spare smoke sticks, and another three pouches of bloodstone the guards are quick to stash in the back of their own cart.
“They’re clear,” a soldier yells, and they all retreat from the cart like they’re abandoning a freshly torn-up carcass. Showing no inclination to clean up their mess.
Kaan and I are just moving forward to begin picking up the cushions when the faintestsquawkcomes from the cart.
Heart in my throat, I slice my stare through the contingent, all narrow-eyed, looking between each other. Then to us.
Another shrill, hungry squark seals their fates.
“Beneath the floorboards,” one of them shouts. “They’re hiding something!”
Clode shoves back my hood, like tossing me onto a stage while she languishes in the wing, giggling like the chaos queen she is.
A soldier goes wide-eyed, pointing at me. “That’s the Ath bitch! I watched her get eaten!”
I sigh.
That shit’s gonna follow me everywhere.
“Hail ui, Clode, gail arr enuin. Shuie!”
Feathers gather to take the lithe, ethereal shape of Clode jumping up and down, clapping, squealing with glee.
