Page 17 of Embers of Ruin

“I did not drag her.” Onyx crosses his arms across his massive chest, glancing over at me.

I shoot him a sharp look. “That depends entirely on how loosely you define the word ‘drag’.” I make air quotes with my fingers, practically feeling the annoyance rolling off of Onyx in waves. It makes me want to smile… but I show a little restraint.

Otto barks out a laugh. “Ah! She has wit! The charming kind. You could take notes, Captain.”

“She talks too much,” Onyx mutters.

“And he broods too much,” I reply sweetly.

Several nearby villagers turn toward us with interest, but no disapproving stares. Onyx looks as if he regrets every decision that has brought him to this exact moment. Good.

Otto’s grin widens. He’s broad in the shoulders and thick around the middle, the kind of man who looks as if he’s spent most of his life hauling barrels and breaking up tavern fights. His hair is more gray than brown, his beard even grayer, but his eyes are bright and warm in a way that makes me want to trust him, which immediately makes me suspicious.

“Come on, then,” Otto says, waving us farther inside. “Sit near the fire before she collapses on my floor and ruins the mood.”

“I’m not going to collapse,” I snap.

I flush the color of a cherry tomato, embarrassed that my condition is very obvious. I’m sure I look as though I’ve been through the seven veils of hell right about now.

My legs choose that exact moment to nearly betray me. Onyx’s hand catches my elbow before I stumble. His grip is firm and steadying, then gone almost as quickly as it came. I hate that he notices, but I’m grateful and give him a tight-lipped smile in thanks.

Otto notices too, of course. His eyes flicker between us, far too observant for a man I’ve known for less than five minutes.

“Near the fire,” he repeats, this time with less teasing.

I want to argue on principle alone, but the fire calls to me with a tenderness I’m too exhausted to resist.

Onyx guides me toward a small table tucked close enough to the hearth that my damp boots begin steaming almost immediately. I lower myself into the chair with as much dignity as I can manage, which is very little. The wood beneath me feels blessedly solid. I’m eternally grateful to be sitting on something that’s not saddle or frozen earth. I nearly sigh.

Across from me, Onyx removes his cloak and drapes it over the back of his seat. Without it, he looks broader, all dark leather and quiet danger, as if the shadows have shaped themselves into a man and given him a sword. Several people in the room glance his way, but none with fear. Some nod, and a few smile our way.

Otto returns before I can let my thoughts wander any farther down that dangerous path, balancing two bowls in one hand and a loaf of bread tucked beneath his arm as though feeding half-frozen strangers is something he does every evening before bed. The smell reaches me before he does, rich and savory enough to make my stomach clench so hard it nearly draws tears to my eyes. He sets the bowls down in front of us with the self-satisfied air of a man who already knows he is about to be appreciated, then tears the loaf cleanly in half and hands one piece to me.

“Eat first,” he says, lowering himself into the chair beside our table with a groan that suggests his knees have been arguing with him for years. “Then you can ask questions with enough strength behind them to make the rest of us uncomfortable.”

I would like to say I maintain some semblance of dignity, but the first spoonful of stew makes that impossible. It is thick with root vegetables, bits of tender meat, and herbs I cannot immediately identify, and it’s so warm that it feels less like food and more like mercy. I close my eyes for half a heartbeat, letting the heat spread down my throat and settle somewhere deep inside me where cold has been living for far too long. Across the table, Onyx says nothing, though I catch the briefest flicker of amusement in his expression as I all but inhale my second bite.

How embarrassing.

Otto leans back in his chair and folds his arms over his broad chest. “Lycar doesn’t have much,” he says after a moment, and there is no apology in his tone, only plain truth. “What you see is what we’ve managed to keep. What we couldn’t grow, we learned to trade for. What we couldn’t trade for, we learned to live without. It isn’t easy, but the people here are stubborn, and stubbornness has kept more of us alive than comfort ever would.”

I glance around the inn again, taking in the patched sleeves, the worn boots drying by the hearth, the cups that have clearly been mended instead of replaced. He is right. There is nothing luxurious about Lycar. Even the warmth feels hard earned, bought with chopped wood and steady hands and people who keep showing up because no one else will do the work for them. Yet there is something in that stubbornness that makes my throat tighten. In Elvora, survival has become such a lonely act that I had almost forgotten what it might look like when people chose to endure together.

“You all seem…” I hesitate, because saying hopeful aloud still feels dangerous, as though naming a thing might curse it. “Less afraid than people where I’m from.”

Otto’s mouth curves, though the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Fear doesn’t stop winter from coming, girl. It doesn’t fill a grain bin, mend a roof, or keep a child warm through the night. We have our share of it, same as anyone. We simply don’t let it run the village.”

That answer pleases me and irritates me in equal measure, because it sounds wise and infuriatingly incomplete. I tear off a piece of bread, dip it into the stew, and try not to look as ravenous as I feel while failing entirely.

“And the king?” I ask, because of course I do. The question slips out between one breath and the next, quiet enough that it shouldn’t draw attention, though somehow it does anyway. “Does Lycar not fear him either?”

The change is so slight that another person might have missed it. Otto’s eyes flick toward Onyx for the span of a heartbeat. Onyx does not turn his head, but I feel the shift in him from across the table, the way his shoulders seem to settle into something more guarded. A small silence falls between the three of us, and in an inn as loud as this one, that silence rings like a struck bell.

Otto clears his throat and reaches for his mug. “You’ll find,” he says, taking a deliberate drink before setting it back down, “that villages survive best when they spend less time speaking of kings and more time speaking of practical things. Broken fences. Short rations. Whether Mila at the bakery is ever going to stop pretending she doesn’t water down her soup stock.”

I blink at him.

He raises a brow, perfectly innocent. He changed the subject so smoothly that if I weren’t already irritated, I might admire it.