across Ciaran’s shoulders, over the sensitive place at the nape of his neck to watch him shudder. “Will you be safe?”
“Are any of us?” He kissed her shoulder again, lingeringly this time. “This room is warded, though, and I always watch where I walk at night. Will you?”
She pressed her face against his neck to hide her frown, but imagined he felt it anyway. She couldn’t turn aside from Forsythia now, and that meant hunting vampires and blood-sorcerers. She laid a hand on his chest. “As safe as I ever am.”
Ciaran’s chuckle reverberated beneath her palm. “I don’t find myself comforted.” He eased the straps of her shift off her shoulders and her skin roughened in the wake of his touch.
Her fingers tightened in his hair, baring the line of his throat. “I’ll distract you from your discomfort.” Her tongue flicked across his collarbone, and his breath caught.
The bed was still too narrow, but that had never stopped them before.
CHAPTER 10
Savedra woke to a soft, insistent tap on the door. She had a moment of disorientation at the unfamiliar bed and the different echo of knuckles on wood. Annoyance chased confusion when she realized the sky beyond the window was still a dull pre-dawn grey. By the time she’d stumbled out of bed and found a robe, she recognized the rhythm of the knock as Ashlin’s.
“What is it?” she asked, tugging the door open. Her mouth was dry and sour with last night’s wine, her head thick-she should remember to stick to brandy. Her back still ached, and her limbs were as stiff as Ashlin had promised.
Ashlin was already dressed and moving much too quickly. She paced a quick circuit of the room while Savedra shut and relatched the door. “How far is it to the Sarken border?”
“What?” She rubbed her eyes and sank onto the edge of the bed. “I don’t know. A day’s ride, maybe, or less. Why?”
“Your missing relative married a march-lord, didn’t she? So maybe that’s where we’ll find news of her.”
Savedra blinked. “This couldn’t have waited till dawn?”
“Not if it’s a day’s ride. You’ve had your paper chase, now let’s try something more tangible.”
She wanted to argue, or simply crawl back into bed, but there was a logic in it, and Ashlin’s bright-eyed enthusiasm was beginning to penetrate her wine-fogged wits. “You have a lot of border-riding experience, don’t you,
Ashlin grinned. “I may have stolen some Vallish honey in my misspent youth. And I could hardly do that under my own name, could I? It would be indiscreet.”
Savedra snorted. “Cahal said you were self-destructive.”
Dyed eyebrows quirked. “Did he now? Well, not that destructive, at least. Not so much as to make my father go to war to ransom me. Come on-you might be dressed before noon if you hurry.”
In spite of Ashlin’s teasing and her own preference for leisurely mornings, Savedra stamped on her riding boots as the sun crested the lowest slopes of the Varagas. Her face stung from harsh alchemical depilatory powder, and her hair was an unhappy tangle of braids and pins without a maid and an hour of combing, but she was dressed.
Iancu awaited them in the kitchen. The lines on his face seemed to have deepened overnight, which tied a hard knot of guilt behind her breastbone. But despite the fatigue shadows, his eyes were sharp with interest. He wore riding clothes as well.
“This may well gain us nothing,” he warned, though the speed with which he packed bread and apples and jerky belied the caution. “But it’s worth investigating. We can reach Valcov well before dusk with a steady pace.”
They rode wide-chested, sure-footed trail horses with dark liver chestnut hides and striking flaxen manes. Ashlin was smitten with her mare as soon as she mounted, and spent much of the ride crooning to the beast in Celanoran. Cahal rode rear guard, his dark eyes moving constantly and a bow ready at his back.
East of Arachne the hills rose wild. The lower slopes of the Varagas were thick with silver firs and sun-hungry oaks and beeches decked in brilliant autumn copper; beneath the canopy ferns and fungus carpeted the ground, and moss cloaked falls of dead wood. A green twilight held the underbrush, broken by stray shafts of light. Woodpeckers drummed the grey bark of snags, a sharp tattoo to accompany the horses’ rhythmic four-beat gait and the dry-bone crunch of leaves. Wind swept the upper branches with a hollow rush, dancing spears of light across the ground and stirring the heavy scent of loam and pine and leaf must with the more immediate pungency of warm horse.
Lovely and scenic, a welcome relief from the city’s smells and sounds and narrow streets. It ought to have been, at least. Instead Savedra could only watch the shadows for any flicker of movement. Too early for wolves to grow bold, but there were always bandits, and today her head was full of witches and spirits and things hungry for living blood, despite the reassurance of the wards that lined the road. Sometimes she thought she heard a soft tinkle of bells, and remembered the dancing wood nymphs of Iancu’s stories. Not the deadliest of forest spirits by far, but she was just as glad she saw no further sign of them.
The horses navigated the steep trails easily and by early afternoon they were in the highest hills. The chill in the air sharpened, and soon they heard the rush and froth of the Ardos?, which split from the Herodis and flowed into the Zaratan Sea. The river’s deep-carven chasm marked the border between Selafai and Sarkany.
The village of Valcov straddled the divide, comfortable in the centuries of peace between its parent nations. Sarkany was more concerned with the Ordozh raiders in the north and Iskar to the south, and Selafai’s longest grudge was with Assar across the sea.
Townsfolk eyed them curiously as they rode past the sprawling stone-and-timber wall that enfolded the clustered stone-and-timber buildings. They passed fields of turnips and cabbage and winter wheat, and smelled sheep and goats before they neared the pens. When the wind shifted Savedra caught the greater stench of a tannery and mill smoke; the clatter and rasp of lumber-working echoed in the distance.
The center of town smelled more invitingly of a bakery and cooking from the tavern. They watered the horses and tethered them in front of the inn; Savedra, Ashlin, and Cahal went in while Iancu vanished quietly to search for information. As quietly as a stranger in a small town could ask questions, anyway.
“Try not to steal any honey,” Savedra told Ashlin as they entered the tavern.
Her stomach rumbled at the smell of meat and herbs, and she ordered ale and venison pies in badly accented Sarken, pretending not to notice how the conversation in the low dim-lit room faltered around them. She paid with a silver griffin and received Sarken pennies in change. Dull silver glinted amid the copper-a thin, uneven coin engraved with an owl on one side and crude letters on the other. She knew it from Iancu’s stories, too-a striga, or witch-coin. If she were a sorceress or a disguised spirit the silver would burn her fingers or glow at her touch. It stayed cool and slick, and she caught the tavern keeper’s eye as she sorted it from the rest of the change, thanking him and tucking it into her inner breast pocket. Courtesy for offered luck, instead of outrage at the implied insult. The man had the grace to blush, and was very solicitous in refilling their mugs afterward.
The pies were filled with meat and berries and thyme, sharp and bittersweet and rich with iron. They ate quickly, and Savedra sopped the last of the sauce off the notched wooden plates. With her stomach quiet, the ache in her thighs and back became more noticeable-another mug of ale might have helped, but she had to get back on the horse eventually.
The light spilling across the threshold changed before Iancu returned, deepening to a watery honey. The bartender had begun shooting them pointed glances, and Savedra was about to succumb to a third mug of ale to placate him when Iancu’s shadow fell through the doorway. A young woman waited for him outside, and another awkward stillness rippled through the room as the patrons saw her.
“I’ve found someone to help us,” Iancu said, stooping over the table to speak softly. “Apparently there’s only one woman left in Valcov who can.”
They left Cahal behind to watch the horses and followed the dark-eyed woman. She didn’t offer her name or
