Page 59

“We will procure lodgings,” Salvi says, “at Sailor’s Inn. Will you join us there?” he asks, looking from me to Hilla.

“Aye. But I would visit someone first.”

“I would accompany you,” Hilla says, as I expected.

Salvi nods, seemingly resigned to the fact that Hilla and I will not be separated, even if he must think it odd.

Here in Murwood, even when the sun shines, a cloak is necessary. Hilla pulls hers up around her ears as we leave the crowded docks and head toward the village.

“The king was most kind to provide this. I’d forgotten the chill that pervades even the warmest days up here.”

Partially listening to Hilla, and partially noting all of our surroundings—the buildings, the people, anything that could pose a threat—I speak without thinking.

“’Twas not easy to procure.”

The bustle of the docks begins to give way as we pass into what is the heart of Murwood End. Its village, though not large by Merian standards, is robust.

It takes a moment for me to realize Hilla has stopped. When I turn to look at her, the princess is staring back at me.

“You sent this to me?”

I blink, realizing only now what I’d said.

“Aye.”

A merchant’s wagon rolls past us, Hilla moving out of the way only as I reach out to guide her from the center of the dirt street. Behind her, timber-framed two-story buildings with heather-thatched roofs and dead hedges line up one after the other.

“And the gowns?”

“We should move along,” I reply, intent on finding the smith. Aedre bid us to find her father straightaway when we arrived. She assured us he could gain an audience with the king’s son. While Salvi and the others would be attempting to do the same, d’Abella and his wife made clear Kipp Aldwine would be unlikely to meet with them. And even less likely to agree to come south with them.

“You had them sent to me?” she asks again.

These past days, I’ve memorized her every expression. And though Hilla has not asked about my role since that first time, she’s wanted to. And that same understandable curiosity is apparent now.

“Each of them, including this”—she tugs on the fur-lined cloak—“must have fetched quite a bit of coin.”

“Hilla . . .”

I want to touch her. Kiss her. When we are together, when she is in distress as she was three nights ago when we hit another storm, I’m finding it more and more difficult to hang back. Not to reach out and pull Hilla into my arms at every moment of the day.

“Who are you, Aiken? I do not even know your surname, do you realize that?”

“Furlan,” I offer, but she hardly hears me as I’m rushing ahead. “But we must go now to Lorenson.”

Another wagon passes us, and Hilla and I move closer to the building nearby, an alehouse from the look of it.

“You are angry I sent you gowns?”

Hilla’s brows furrow as she scowls at me. “Nay, Aiken. I am angry that, after all we have been through, you do not tell me who you are truly. That you trust me in all things but with that knowledge.”

“I do trust you, Hilla. In all things.”

“Except the most important one.”

There is nothing I can say, the code more sacred even than what has developed between us. Unless a life hangs in the balance, I cannot, will not, share the one secret she wants me to give.

“Why now?” I ask. “This entire journey you’ve known, thanks to Lady Aedre, and yet you remained silent. Asking me this as we finally reach Murwood?”