“Do you suppose that’s the stone that goes in the compass, considering what he said about the shadow caster controlling the kings?”
“Could be. Four kings. Four directions.”
“Apparently, we have our work cut out for us.” She’s quiet, thinking or concentrating, I’m not sure.
Landsdowne glints far below. Kiki is fierce like the shield fae but also has a gentle kindness. A rare realness that I appreciate. She’s smart, talented, beautiful... I find myself gazing at her and tear my eyes away, filling my mind with other thoughts because getting closer has its risks.
“If you’re trying to come up with a plan of attack, we could brainstorm and strategize. Here’s an idea. Let’s break into the castle. Get to the king while he’s sleeping.” I’d mimic thrusting the air with a sword but don’t dare let go.
“Does he sleep?” Kiki asks.
“Good point. I have another one. We could go in disguised as guards.” I tell her about when I was a short-lived member of the king’s retinue, intending to destroy him from within but couldn’t stomach the things he’d make us do. “I figured I’d do a better job helping people keep clear of him on the outside. I realize now it was a cowardly thing.”
I’m lost in her sugar and snow scent when she says, “We all do things we’re not proud of. I was training to be a Police Officer and would get carried away. Intent on stopping the demon crimes, I’d destroy, well, anything that stood in my path. Stores, trains, food carts.”
“Sounds familiar,” I say.
She snorts a laugh. “I guess we’d make quite a pair.” Her cheeks turn a pretty shade of pink.
“Ooh, we could pretend to be another king and queen from a distant land and raid the harbor, forcing Leith to surrender and come out of the castle.”
Kiki’s head tilts in curiosity. “Wait? He doesn’t leave the castle?”
“Never.”
“That’s strange.”
“I agree, but the king isn’t a regular person concerned with having his laundry done and getting the best brick of cheese at the market. He has the patrol do his dirty work and believe me, all his work is dirty.”
“If he rarely leaves the castle, how does he know who to throw into the ashpit? Whose shadows to steal…”
“Probably dreamweaving and the same way he hears my traitorous words. We could poison him, stab him, push him from a tower to crash on the rocks, or drown in the moat. Wait,” I say, stopping short. “Don’t think about any of this in case you dream it.”
“I don’t know if that’s how it works. Maybe I’ll dream up a better option.” However, where I expect her to smile, her lips remain a grim line.
I glance back on the dark clouds rolling over the mountains as though chasing us. “I need a plan and I need action. I want to know what I’m supposed to do.”
“I guess that leaves us with what we’re both good at. We fight.” I pause a beat. “I like the idea of us charging in, backed by a battalion of kings, battle arms, shield fae, and ravens.”
“I could use the horn.”
“I think that’s reserved for the all is lost moment.”
“We have to come up with something, a decoy to fool the patrol. A smoke and mirrors deception. I’ve fleeced enough players at the tiles table to know that the trick is to know more about them than they know about us. Or what they think they know about us. And make sure that no one person knows everything,” I prattle on.
“It sounds like you’ve thought a lot about this,” she says as snowflakes float down dreamily and dust her shoulders.
“I can’t afford not to. I need a plan. When I set foot on Raven’s Landing soil, I must take action and that means things will change: we won’t be nestled in this cocoon of snow and preparation. We’ll be rallying for freedom, fighting for lives, our own and for the people of Raven’s Landing. We’ll be righting wrongs. We will be courageous and strong.” My chest heaves as though I’m already out of breath during battle.
“Sounds like words spoken by a leader...a king.”
Kiki reaches for my hand—the same fingers I held while leading her through Raven’s Landing and to safety when we first met and the same fingers as we trekked through the outerlands. “We’re in this together, whatever happens,” she says.
“I’ve thought a lot about a lot of things,” I say more softly.
She tilts her head as her wings beat in the sky.
“I’ve thought about us.”
“I know,” she says, and it’s as though I feel her words inside me.
“Have you seen my dreams?” I ask, biting my lip as a sudden bashfulness washes over me. I feel my cheeks redden, warming in the cold.
Her nod is subtle and her grin flirtatious “A few of them.”
My cocky swagger returns as though bidden and my smirk matches hers. “What did you think?”
“I don’t object to what I saw.” Her whisper and her hand and her eyes carry with it a promise that terrifies and excites me.
“You have the most beautiful and complicated lips I’ve ever seen,” I say.
She tilts her head toward mine and I lower my chin a few degrees.
Her nose brushes mine, soft, warm. We’re so close. Her eyes are low and glittery. Our breath is like the wind and then my lips are on hers. It’s a touch at first, but then we move deeper, mouths pressed together. There is no darkness. Only light. Then my stomach drops as we fall from the sky.
Kiki stops us midfall. “Sorry. I don’t think I can multitask.”
I smile as we float on, but it suddenly drops when the king’s soldiers march toward Raven’s Landing along the Royal
