Chall grunted. Which meant likely someone—whoever the first of Feledias’s troops was—was getting ready to have a real shit day. “And has anyone woken the lad up yet?”
“I thought maybe you’d like to do that,” Priest said.
Chall frowned, glancing at Maeve who only shrugged before looking back at Priest. “Why?”
The man gave him that small, knowing smile, the one that always gave Chall the urge to punch him in the face, an urge he would have long since given into if he wasn’t quite so much of a chicken shit. “Why not?” Priest asked.
Well, there wasn’t time to sit and argue about it, not unless they meant to race to see who died first, so he grunted. “Whatever.” Then he turned and started for the door.
***
Maeve watched the mage walk out of the door and head toward Matt’s room. He did a good job hiding it, of trying to perpetrate the lie that he was fine—few, after all, had more practice at lying than that false bastard—yet she knew him well enough to know he was scared. And why not? He, much like her, had spent the last fifteen years of his life trying to avoid a fate pretty much exactly like this one. Had, in many ways, given up his life to save it, and Maeve knew that feeling well. Knew the feeling of never being able to get a completely restful sleep, for the worry was always there, in the back of your mind, the worry that today would be the day, tonight the night, when the fate she had feared for so many years would finally find her.
All that sacrifice just to stay alive, a sacrifice that she was beginning to think wasn’t worth it, for what had it bought her but nights spent waking in cold sweats, days spent looking over her shoulder sure that this time, Feledias and his men would be there? Chall had sacrificed just as much to live, and while he loved to pretend at selfishness—likely even believed his own lies in that regard—he had been willing to give all of that up the moment he’d seen that their prince was in trouble. Not a selfish man then and not a coward, no matter what he acted like.
She watched until the man—looking thoroughly uncomfortable—stopped in front of the lad’s door.
Maeve decided to leave him to it, turning back to Priest. “Why?” she asked, genuinely curious. “Why send him? Do you think that, what, seeing Chall will make the boy worry less?”
Priest gave her a small smile as he started toward the door. “I didn’t do it for him—I did it for Chall. He will be brave, confident, for the boy. He will be it because he has to. Now, we had better go—our prince will be waiting.
With that, he walked past her, pausing only briefly to put a gentle, comforting hand on her shoulder, offering her a nod of his head before continuing on.
***
Matt woke with a gasp as water splashed into his face, sputtering in a panicked moment feeling as if he were drowning. Then that moment, that fear, subsided, and he blinked up to see the heavy-set man called Chall standing over him. “Hey,” he managed, running an arm across his dripping face, “what did you do that for?”
The man shrugged. “You been walkin’ a while, lad. Might be no one else is ready to tell you, but you could do with a bath. We all could. But there’s no time for one, not now, probably not for a while, so I’m thinking this is probably as close as you’re going to get.” He set the now-empty glass down. “Well. Best be getting up and putting your boots on. We’re set to leave.”
“Leave?” Matt asked, confused and still struggling to shake off the heavy sleep that had come over him the second he’d laid his head down. “But…when?”
The other man raised an eyebrow. “When you get your boots on.”
“But…but it’s still night,” he said, glancing at the window where darkness could be seen outside. “I mean…isn’t it?”
“So it is,” Chall agreed. “Unfortunately, revenge-mad princes have a tendency of not taking others’ feelings into consideration as much as they might.”
Matt blinked, still struggling to catch up with what the man was telling him. “Revenge-mad princes?”
“That’s right. Princes like the one approaching Ferrimore right now, along with fifty or so of his troops. The same one that, the way it’s looking, will be here knocking on the door before you put your damned boots on.”
That was enough to get him moving, to wipe the remaining cobwebs of sleep away, and Matt jumped to his feet, finding his boots and tugging them on. “W-what do we do?”
Chall winced. “We go and find Pri—Cutter. He’ll know what to do. He always does. Now, come on, lad. We’re running out of time.”
Matt felt terror gripping him, terror and a sense of hopelessness. He had left his home, had watched from a distance as it and everyone he loved was burned to the ground. He had traveled through the Black Woods, a place he’d heard horror stories of for as long as he could remember and, somehow, had come out the other side alive only to find that their pursuers had found them almost immediately. He was tired, exhausted, and he was scared, so he did the only thing he could do—when the other man hurried out of the room and down toward the common area of the inn, he followed him.
The wounded were still there, still being overseen by the innkeeper who, the night before, had terrified Matt, but who now he paid little mind as he was already about as terrified as he was likely to get. But terrified or not, he could not help but notice that there were far fewer wounded—and caretakers—than there had been. He would like to believe that was because many of those the caretakers had been tending to had gotten
