The Adani Chronicles: Birthright

Three days later, Ryn knew the idea to scout before bed had been a wise one. “They’ve found our trail,” she reported, still breathless from her run down the ridge. They had set up camp under a slight overhang, boxed in by evergreens that blocked most of the incessant wind. The late evening sun shone bright on Ryn’s face, making her squint to see her friends. “We’re being tracked. I wasn’t sure before, but now it’s unmistakable.”

Both men stopped what they were doing to look up at her. There was silence for a moment, broken only by the crackling of their supper fire and the soothing noise of evening songbirds.

“How far are they?” Brandt finally asked, rising from his perch on a log to bank the fire.

“Not far enough,” she answered. Evin moved now too, packing up his cooking utensils and stuffing them in his pack. “Only about a league, and they haven’t stopped for the night.”

“Neither then shall we,” Brandt said, and nobody argued the point.

Ryn followed suit, re-packing her own bedroll and tying it quickly into its proper place beneath her leather pack. She swung the whole thing onto her back and picked up her staff as she rose, half-subconsciously confirming the grey shieldenstone still sat in its carved head. She ruffled Kota’s fur and Brandt turned to her, gesturing for her to take a small strip of the hot meat he’d been cooking. She acquiesced gratefully, holding the sizzling venison gingerly between her fingers as she blew on it.

“Thank the Light the food had time to roast first,” Evin grinned. “Aeos forbid we go hungry, Val’gren or no!”

Ryn allowed herself a smile at his attempt to lighten the mood, but it didn’t last long. Whatever luck Lord Áed had been able to grant them with his rumors and his secrets had run out. Râza was on the hunt.

They traveled through the night, and while Ryn wasn’t exactly unfamiliar with all-night runs, she remembered near dawn why she hated them so. Just as the sun began to turn the black velvet sky a quiet blue, Brandt called a halt in a small clearing. Evin bent to rest his hands on his knees to catch his breath. Brandt’s face was grey in the wan light. Kota huffed and nudged Ryn’s leg before lying down right where he stood. She knelt to confirm he was well, only tired, then met Brandt’s gaze. His normally-vibrant eyes were dull with exhaustion, and the set of his face registered a measure of desperation under the stony determination. He blinked at her.

“I’ll check,” she said, in answer to his silent question.

Have we gained enough of a lead to rest safely for an hour or two? She hoped so. She shimmied up the tallest tree she could see on the ridge, blinking as the sun came into view at last. When Ryn reached highest bough that would hold her weight, she turned carefully to squint toward the west.

There.

Flocks of birds, screaming as they took to the sky in fear, far too near for comfort. And beneath that, there was…something. Ryn couldn’t quite put her finger on it. It made her heart race in her chest and her upper lip bead sweat. It felt sinister and dark, so unlike what she had grown used to seeing in the forests and mountains and lakes around her. Something in that direction made her jumpy, itchy, like that prickly feeling when one is being watched. It was when she found she thought of it as Black, though all she could see was green and blue and purple, that she realized it wasn’t her physical eyes telling her, it was her Sight.

Now that was an interesting development. Kenelm had mentioned nothing about Seeing without intending to.

Ryn shook herself—no time for this now—and cursed. If her eyes and her Sight were correct, the Val’gren were close; closer than they’d been the night before. Not only had she and her friends not widened the gap at all, it had in fact closed slightly.

How? Ryn wondered desperately. Even Val’gren must rest sometimes.

Swallowing her disappointment, she left the tree and ran back to the princes and her lynx. They looked up at her arrival; she shook her head in response to the unasked question of whether rest was an option, and Evin groaned softly. Brandt smacked him on the shoulder encouragingly, and Ryn forced a smirk onto her face, hoping it looked genuine.

“Come now, oh mighty Sir Evin,” she teased. “Are you to be outrun by some capering halfwits wielding glorified toothpicks?” Golden eyes sparkled at the description, and Evin’s lips quirked.

“Hardly, my Lady.”

She didn’t hesitate to offer her signature rejoinder. “Still not a lady.”

“Unless my eyes deceive me—”

“Less flirting,” Brandt ordered, hoisting his pack. “More running.”

Evin winked as he checked his sword and stood, but Ryn took a moment to kneel and speak to Kota. She held his head and looked into his yellow eyes. “Are you well, kisa?” she asked softly. He gave her a small, strange little mewl and batted her face lightly with one massive paw. “We’ve got to keep running,” she rubbed his tufted ears. “They’ll catch us if we don’t.”

Kota huffed and hopped back, crouching almost playfully, as if to say, well, come on then.

She went.

The sun was nearing the western horizon and the terrain had turned truly treacherous when next Brandt called for a break. As they went deeper into the mountains, the hills had become steeper, the stone underfoot more unstable, the woods darker. Evin leaned against a tough old evergreen, trying to breathe normally. Never before had he been forced to make this sort of speed for this long without rest. Looking around at his companions, he thought it safe to assume they had not, either. Ryn had collapsed where she stood, on her hands and knees gasping for breath. He could see the small tremors wrack her frame on every exhale and knew it was sheer willpower holding her upright at all. Brandt was in no better shape, legs shaking visibly as he leaned heavily against a boulder jutting out from the ground like an over-large thumb. Kota had fared best of them all, though he sat beside Ryn and huffed as he nuzzled her red face.

“We’re going to have to make a stand,” Evin ventured, knowing he’d receive backlash from at least Brandt on the issue. They were Heirs to the Throne, now more than ever before, his brother would say. They could not be so reckless, nor engage in battle with anyone who might recognize them as the Sons of Signy, anyone who might understand their importance. And, as always, his older brother was right—they could not do those things. But they could not run forever, either, and all of them were nearing the end of their reserves too quickly. If it came to a fight right this moment, none of them would last a minute; but if they waited for their pursuers to catch up, prepared for an assault...

“We cannot.” Brandt’s reply was expectedly grumpy. “They are Val’gren, Evin, not mere bandits. They would destroy us, or worse, take us hostage—”

“What if we hide?” Ryn asked, voice raspy from disuse and exhaustion. “I know many shadowing techniques we could use. They could stand mere inches away and not see us.”

“We’ll not hide!” Brandt was looking at her as though she’d suggested he dress up as a peasant girl and hop on one foot while singing a love song backward. Evin, giddy with fatigue, tried not to laugh aloud at the mental image. “We are Signy’s sons, princes of Laendor, and warriors of the Keep—”

But Ryn was rolling her eyes. “Yes, yes, I know all that, and please excuse me if I don’t take a proper moment to be impressed by it; but I’m not talking about honor, or pride, or whatever it is you men so enjoy tossing around as your reasoning for stupidity. I’m talking about survival, and the certainty that we cannot outrun this hunting party, nor can we beat them in a full-on fight. We need to disguise ourselves.”

“They will find us,” Evin supplied, before the two could start fighting. And fight they would, for her slight against a warrior’s honor would not sit well with Brandt, but they had more pressing problems and Evin had no desire to play mediator at the moment. Their surrounding terrain had given him an idea. “When the trail stops, they will search under every leaf and rock until they uncover our position.” Both of them looked ready to argue, so Evin held up a forestalling finger. “But I may have an idea.”

The plan took almost an hour to set up properly. Ryn first confirmed that the Val’gren were far enough behind them to give them a few hours’ respite, and then they set to work. None of the preparation was nearly as exhausting as constant running, nor as demoralizing as fleeing like a hunted animal, so when they at last settled into their places to wait, Evin found himself inexplicably wide awake.

From where he hid, sequestered among the branches of a thick bush, he could see both Ryn and Brandt’s positions, though he could only see his brother’s face because he knew exactly where to look. He resisted the urge to scratch at the drying mud on his face, inwardly amused that he and his Royal Brother, the Heir to the Oaken Throne, were sitting in the middle of the woods covered in dirt and leaves awaiting an enemy. He knew Brandt found it considerably less amusing and more humiliating, but Evin couldn’t help but laugh. It was just too odd.

It turned out Ryn’s shadowing techniques had been quite impressive and relatively involved. She had erased their original trail and forged a new one leading through a narrow, booby-trapped schism onto a small plateau. Here, where they currently lay in wait, was perfect for an ambush—Evin’s idea, and a decent one, if he did say so himself. One side of the clearing was backed up against a sheer rock face, blunt and gray save for a few hardy little plants pushing their way out of cracks in the rock. To the south, the clearing dropped precariously off into a near-bottomless chasm; Ryn’s hiding place was on that side, between a couple of large boulders at the edge of the cliff. Evin hadn’t liked that idea much, thinking it rather dangerous should she fall asleep while they waited, but she assured him that both she and Kota had excellent balance and even better self control; they would not sleep or fall.

The eastern edge of the plateau sheltered both him and Brandt, inside an impossibly dense thicket that would easily block any escape from that direction.

Their enemy would track them here, bottled through the tiny opening and trapped where Evin, Brandt, Kota, and Ryn could take them out easily.

Like fish in a barrel, he’d said to them, grinning as he saw Brandt come to agree and Ryn begin thinking which traps would work best in the space they had. Once the traps were laid, she had insisted they cover their faces in dirt to hide their light skin. Pale, he believed she’d called them, eyeing him specifically, though he’d easily flustered her with a coy wink before turning to find some loose dirt on the barren plateau.

Evin yawned as he grinned at the memory. He’d never before met a lass so easily turned around by his gentle teasing, but far from annoying him, it rather endeared him to his friend. It was the only way he ever saw her lose some measure of the rigid control she kept over her reactions and her expressions; even when she was in danger, she always seemed perfectly at ease, confident and self-assured. He knew a good portion of that came from living on the road, where having a thick skin was a necessity, but he did like to see beneath her careful façade now and then, and a bit of flirting seemed to accomplish that easier than most anything.

He felt his lips thin slightly and his heart skip in his chest when thoughts of harmless banter turned to the memory of the riverbank a few nights ago. Evin had gone looking for Ryn, after she’d been away from camp longer than usual, but he hadn’t really expected to find her by her nearly knocking him over. He definitely hadn’t expected her to freeze and then practically burrow into him, making a soft noise that had left him weak in the knees and warmed to the core.

He’d needed a moment before following her back to camp.

Evin was no idiot; he knew what these feelings meant, knew what he wanted from her, and he also knew he’d never really get it. She was far too galvanized against anyone invading her heart, far too much a traveler and a loner, far too used to being alone.

Still. He wanted.

It was his last conscious thought before he drifted into a light doze.

He was awakened not long after, feeling as though he had not slept at all but instantly and severely awake. Something was happening. A few yards away, Brandt was stock still, his eyes wide in the wan light. Evin did not move, for their painted disguise helped blend them in with their surroundings, true, but it also depended heavily upon complete stillness.

One of their traps had been tripped. Firelight bathed the clearing nearby, and he could make out a couple of dim silhouettes; three of the impossibly-tall and slender Val’gren he could see, as well as their chimaera mounts. He knew there were more behind them, unable to pass through the narrow opening just yet. They were speaking quietly to one another, examining what appeared to be the body of one of their comrades lying still and quiet on the ground. Evin strove to make out the words.

“...are nearby?” A deadly-cool voice asked. It was answered by one deeper, languorous in a way that made Evin’s blood run cold.

“I know this trap,” it said. “This is the work of that bitch you all fear so much, the girl with the pet wild cat.”

"Leyna?” the first voice asked again, only a slight catch at the end betraying any fear at all. The other snarled.

“The same. Strap him to one of the beasts; we will burn him after we catch our prey.” The voice strengthened to carry to the whole group. “And beware. They’ve snared the path, the cowards.”

General bustle followed the order, and the voice belonging to the one in charge spoke again, something Evin could not hear. He turned his head slowly, minutely, to get a better look. Figures robed entirely in black lifted the hunter their trap had managed to kill, bound him to the flank of a dirty-brown chimaera. The tallest of the lot stood a little off from the others, studying the dark around them.

Evin’s stomach dropped when the sparse clouds moved and moonlight shone against the man’s white face. His eyes were blood red.

Râza.

He held his breath against the sucking gasp that instinct pressed upon him. He looked toward Brandt—his own self-soothing behavior, and a shamefully juvenile one at that—and had to swallow a small sound of confusion. His older brother’s face was a cacophony of expressions ranging from hate to rage to desperation to fear and back again. Brandt couldn’t seem to decide on one particular emotion, and it made Evin dizzy. He looked toward Ryn’s hiding place instead, uselessly, for he couldn’t see her at all. He shifted, managing a slow, deep breath to soothe his jangled nerves.

For now, his part of the plan was to wait in readiness. Painfully slowly, he pushed himself off his stomach and nocked an arrow silently. He focused on breathing, kept watching the Val’gren, who had finished with their dead companion and now awaited further orders from their leader.

Râza strode into the clearing, somehow avoiding all the rest of their traps easily, and studied the dirt at his feet. He cursed vividly and stood, turned back to his men, expression fierce. “The trail dies here. Our quarry is hidden; they think to make a stand. Find them—all four of them—and do not even think to let your fear of the little huntress stop you—”

He was interrupted by the whiz of an arrow from the boulders to his left, but the Val’gren Warmaster twitched, moved back just enough that the sharp stone arrowhead missed his face by a hair’s breadth, and the hunting party sprang into action at the strike. Ryn’s traps took down two more as they rushed into the clearing, and Evin took the opportunity to let his own arrow fly. He finished off one of the trapped ones, then drew and aimed again, this time at Râza himself. Still recovering from the last shot, the Warmaster didn’t quite move fast enough to avoid this one, and Evin’s goose-fletched arrow buried itself deep in his shoulder. The Val’gren leader roared his fury even as Evin cursed his aim; half the hunting party broke off their search of the cliff’s edge from whence Ryn’s arrow had come to head his way. He tossed a galvanizing wink at Brandt, who was standing now and readying to charge, then shot again—this time at one of the other Val’gren, the nearest one, who was poking his way closer to Evin than the others.

This one was perhaps not so experienced as Râza, and Evin’s aim was more true; the arrow found a home between the man’s eyes, and he dropped like a stone. Evin moved now, keeping low to the ground like he did on hunts, balancing on the balls of his feet to lessen the noise of his step, moving close to the edge of the thicket. He shot again, this time hitting a sword-wielding hunter in the ribs as he raised his rapier high. Shouts alerted him to the fact that one of them had been found, and the location of the bustle told him it was his brother. His chest tightened and he moved toward the disturbance, hoping to pick some of them off, but he was interrupted by the cry of battle that took him by surprise from his right. He turned, dodging instinctively, and barely managed to avoid the lightning-fast blow intended for him. Unthinking, he let fly, shooting the Val’gren in the eye. This one screamed when he shot it, and the sound was as horrifying as any he’d ever heard—and he was no stranger to screams.

His position compromised, Evin shouldered his bow and drew his long sword. He spun to meet his next attacker, a young Val’gren with orange eyes and deliberate, swirling scars covering half his face. They traded blows, his opponent impossibly strong and quick. Evin had not been this challenged by a spar in a good long time, and far from being appropriately frightened, he found himself instead exhilarated. He laughed when his next block met steel and shoved his way into the other man’s defenses.

The Val’gren seemed surprised at this reaction and tried to backpedal, but Evin was in his element now. The swordsmasters at home had always said he was quick and light on his feet, but that was not typical of his people. Most of them were thicker, stronger; so he was always at a sort of disadvantage in those departments. Speed often helped him avoid situations where strength would fail him; but at last he had an opponent as fast—or nearly as fast—as he. It was a real challenge, in an area in which he excelled, and it made him smile. Nimbly, he spun his sword in a complex move that smacked the weapon clean out of the Val’gren’s hand, and its bright eyes widened as he drove his sword deep into its belly.

“Surprise,” he taunted, and drew out his sword. The dying Val’gren’s expression twisted into something resembling rage, and Evin yelped at the line of fire that spread down his calf where the man had dealt a final blow with its dagger. Sloppy work, not seeing that coming, he chided himself. Luckily it was a painful but shallow laceration, and he had other worries. Not wasting any time, Evin started in the direction he knew Brandt to be, noting with some satisfaction that of the twelve hunters Ryn had counted as the Val’gren drew near, about half lay dead. Snarls told him some others were engaged with Kota, the thump of a staff against flesh nearby belying Ryn’s location. Steel struck steel to his left—Brandt—and he headed that way at a run. What he saw as he drew closer sent his heart racing and moved his feet impossibly faster.

Brandt’s double axes gleamed in the moonlight, flashing against the massive shadow that stood before him. Râza, somehow unhindered by Evin’s previous arrow in his shoulder, had a blade that was blackened steel, nearly impossible to see; Evin’s heart skipped a beat when he realized that meant Brandt was basically fighting blind. The Val’gren Warmaster knew it, too, and smiled; a feral, vicious expression that Evin never wanted to see directed at his brother. He scowled and in one smooth motion, un-shouldered his bow and nocked an arrow. Normally, he’d have just shot and readied himself for another strike, but in an instant, he caught a glimpse of Râza’s sword raised high above his head, aiming to descend and cleave Brandt in two. That, in itself, would hardly have shaken him—there were a dozen ways to block such a blow.

But Brandt wasn’t using any of them. Unable to properly see the weapon in the dark, his brother was readying to block a blow from the side, not above. He hadn’t a chance...

“Hey!” Evin bellowed, letting his arrow fly and praying his aim was good. Aeos smiled upon him, for the arrow buried itself neatly in Râza’s thigh, and before the man even had a chance to react, Evin shot him again. This one pierced the Val’gren’s side—a slowly fatal shot, Evin thought wildly, if untreated—at the exact same moment Ryn appeared out of the shadows and drove her Y’rai blade deep into Râza’s chest. He was a warrior, he knew enough about anatomy to know her blow had landed too far to the left to kill the Val’gren quickly—

He never got to finish the thought, as something slammed hard into him from the left. He hit the ground with brutal force but didn’t have time to move before a horrible growling filled his ears and pain lanced through his left shoulder. He cried out as the pieces slotted together enough for him to realize he’d been bowled over and bitten by a chimaera—one of the Val’gren’s mounts, probably—and the creature was dragging him along, shaking him in its jaws like some sort of mouse.

He heard shouting—Ryn and Brandt, trying to help, he guessed—though it was Kota who reached the creature first. A lynx’s scream joined the monstrous growls, and Evin yelped as he was jostled about by the teeth dug into his shoulder.

The skirmish lasted mere seconds. Evin clawed desperately at the skull of the thing holding him, unable to get his bearings but hoping to reach its eyes and motivate it to let him go. Suddenly, the chimaera lurched backward, whined, and there was a sickening feeling in his stomach as Evin fell.

Oh this won’t end well.

He was conscious long enough to realize the giant catlike creature had finally let go of his shoulder before he hit the sturdy ledge. His head smacked something hard, there was a ringing sound, and then everything went dark.

The second-worst experience of Brandt’s entire life had been the night his cousin and friend and future king, Gunnar, had died on that Astra-forsaken patrol. The Val’gren were never supposed to be anywhere near their location, and no one knew how they’d been found, but the barbarian hunting party had been sizable and had struck hard and mercilessly. Gunnar had been heroic to the last, fending off four of them while standing over a wounded comrade, bellowing for reinforcements.

The reinforcements had come, but not before a javelin pierced the Crown Prince’s heart, shredding Brandt’s world before his very eyes.

But the worst experience of his life was happening right now, watching Evin disappear over the edge of a precipice so steep it may as well have been a cliff. He heard a shout, hoarse and painful-sounding, and as he stumbled to the edge, he realized it was his own. He arrived just in time to see his little brother and the monstrous chimaera crash into a ledge perhaps twenty feet below. The thick shale held for a moment but then buckled beneath the force, sending the creature into the depths with a scream, while a clearly-unconscious Evin rolled perilously close to the edge. Ryn appeared at his side and cursed in a tight voice, spoke quick words that Brandt couldn’t understand. His attention was completely taken up by Evin, bleeding and broken below, and barely avoiding the fate the chimaera had suffered.

Please don’t move, brother, don’t wake up.

“Brandt!” Ryn’s voice was high, cracking as she punched his shoulder hard. “Come on, we have to get him off there!”

Shaking himself, the Prince stared at her and somehow managed to push back the shock that threatened to render him paralyzed. Some part of him knew he couldn’t afford that, that Evin couldn’t afford that, so he grabbed the rope Ryn held out to him. “I’m lighter than you,” she said, talking fast as she fashioned a series of knots in the rope. “I’ll go down, harness him, you pull him back up. There are handholds down there that I can hang onto until you send the rope back down.” She added, as she leaned back and tested the tension on the rope he held tightly, “Just don’t forget to send it back for me.” She was only half-kidding, he knew. She kissed a panting, bloody Kota on the head and tied herself into the makeshift harness.

He lowered her slowly until she shouted for him to stop, and then he waited, trying to be patient as the rope jostled and pulled—Ryn harnessing his brother for the ride back up. When at last she yanked the rope and called for him to pull, Brandt pulled the rope taut and then began hauling his brother up the steep slope, praying he wouldn’t accidentally injure him further. He shuddered to think of the damage done to Evin’s body by such an attack.

When at last Evin flopped over the ledge in a manner so undignified Brandt would have teased him about it if he hadn’t been so horrified, the elder pulled him fully to safety before kneeling beside him, gingerly cataloging his injuries. Bruising on the side of his face, including his temple, seemed to indicate a concussion at the very least; Evin also sported that horrific bite wound beneath the shredded leather armor of his left shoulder, lacerations and bruising over every bit of exposed skin, as well as abrasions from being dragged over the rough ground...

“You promised not to forget me!” Ryn chided gently, climbing over the ledge.

Brandt jumped, blinking at her. “How did you—?” His first words since Evin fell.

“It’s not quite a vertical face,” she smiled thinly. “And there were handholds all the way up here, so I came on up.” He nodded, turning his attention back to his brother. “How is he?” Ryn asked, softly.

“This could be bad,” Brandt answered, trying not to choke on the words.

Ryn sighed as she pulled herself to her feet, patting Kota once as she went. The lynx stayed where he was, curled around Evin’s sleeping form, carefully avoiding his bandaged head. She stretched, muscles sore from her long vigil, and moved slowly to where Brandt sat watching guard across the small plateau. Her friend looked up at her approach, his expression bleak and his skin gray with stress. Ryn sat down beside him.

“He will recover,” she said, eager to put Brandt’s mind at ease.

But the man scoffed, quietly. “He was thrown by a rampaging chimaera off a cliff,” he protested. “It’s a wonder he isn’t—“

“Hush,” Ryn interrupted. “Do not say it.” She shuddered, playing again the horrifying image of her friend careening off the cliff, held tight in the massive jaws of a slavering chimaera. She continued a moment later. “He skidded along the face and a few ledges broke up the fall on the way down; but his injuries are extensive. Brandt, he…should not be doing as well as he is.”

“Did you use your magic?” Brandt asked, almost suspicious.

Ryn shook her head. “Only to check his physical wellbeing. I do not trust the healing magic yet and would not use it on anyone I cared for.”

Brandt stared hard at her for a moment, then grunted and turned back to his watch.

Ryn took a breath and continued. “He is healing too quickly. Already his bruises fade.” She hesitated, uncertain how the next question would be received. “Brandt, he heals as I do. Is there Y’rai blood in the royal ancestry as well?” The hypothesis fit; it would account for the Prince’s string of good luck, his ability to be reckless and not end up dead, would account for some of his height and grace, perhaps.

But Brandt rounded on her. “He is no such thing! Evin is Laendorian, a human through and through!”

“Brandt, I did not say—“

“Bite your tongue, before you speak more malicious lies!” Brandt ordered, and Ryn did; not because she was afraid of him, but because he was far too upset about this for it not to be true. “He is my brother, and I certainly have no such abilities. You are wrong.”

Ryn sighed. “Two people with the same parentage can have differing levels of Y’rai blood, based upon how much resides in the mother or father—”

“I told you not to speak of it again.”

“Unfortunately for you, I don’t take orders!” Ryn snapped. “You act as though inheriting the ability to heal oneself or others is a curse, something to be feared rather than embraced!”

“Is it not?” Brandt asked acidly.

Stung, Ryn quieted and turned away. She stood to go, then faced Brandt. “Say what you will, but your brother is not precisely what you claim he is. To me, it is no matter, I care not; but whatever his story, it may come out eventually if you keep denying it so vehemently.”

She turned and limped away, every nerve screaming from the day’s excitement. She’d barely made it three steps when Brandt called her softly.

“Ryn, wait.”

She stopped, sighing, and turned back to him. To her shock, she saw wetness on his dirty cheeks, and his blue eyes were downcast. Brandt struggled visibly with something before beckoning her jerkily to come back and sit. With a glance to confirm Evin slept still, Ryn complied.

When she sat, Brandt let out a long breath. “What I am about to tell you goes no further than the two of us, do you understand?”

Ryn cocked a brow—a noble of Laendor possessing Y’rai blood was hardly reason for such shame-ridden secrecy, unless she was missing something—but nodded. Brandt turned to look over the rugged mountains; a defense mechanism, as if the truth were easier to tell not looking anyone in the eye.

She knew the feeling.

“Evin is my…half-brother,” Brandt confessed, choking a little on the last. Ryn swallowed her reaction to this, ignoring the way her stomach dropped. A bastard child among the court was a scandal Evin would have trouble recovering from. “We do not share the same father, although mine loved him as a son without ever even meeting him.”

Brandt coughed past a sob, a tight, pained sound that made Ryn wince in sympathy. “What happened?” she asked. It came out a hoarse whisper.

“My mother was kidnapped by the Val’gren when I was barely out of nappies,” Brandt said. “Not the nagrat, but the Val’gren themselves; taken, likely to be used as a sacrifice. My father and my Uncle Eirik would abide no such thing, and rode with the hunters to recover her.” Ryn tried very hard not to wince visibly; of course.

She knew the tale of Signy’s Abduction—everyone did. It was something of an epic love poem among the minstrels. The pieces slotted into place, and Ryn realized with a punch of dread where this story was headed.

Brandt went on. “Even with all their might and ability, it was many days before they found where Mother was being held, and the rescue was…difficult.” He pinched the bridge of his nose in an attempt to compose himself, and Ryn couldn’t resist the urge to place a supporting hand on his shoulder. Rather than calm him, the gesture seemed to undo what composure Brandt possessed, as he choked out a near-silent sob and rubbed his eyes fiercely. Ryn said nothing; words seemed useless here anyway. Nothing she could say could fix this.

“Only five of them returned, including Mother, and I remember they were all brutally injured,” Brandt continued. “But Mother remained ill for a long time, even after her injuries healed. I was too young to understand, but my father was not. When she confirmed what he suspected the Val’gren had done to her, he swore vengeance on the lot of them and left to exact it. We never saw him again. Mother was barely starting to show.”

“By the Light,” escaped Ryn’s lips without her permission. That was not part of the story the minstrels told. Brandt shuddered.

“When word got out, everyone assumed Mother had conceived shortly after she returned, and she never corrected any of them. I don’t know if Uncle even knows.”

Ryn stared dumbly at him, at a loss for words. Evin was not only a bastard child, he was fathered by a Val’gren, a monster, one of the enemies of the entire human race....now she understood Brandt’s uncharacteristic rage at the mere suggestion his brother could be anything other than entirely Laendorian. If his parentage were to come to light, Evin would be cast out of the kingdom, forced to live as she did and acknowledged as dead to his family, and that would be the best case scenario. He would be shattered beyond repair, and Brandt would never see him again.

“Does he know?” she finally croaked, already knowing the answer. Brandt shook his head.

“Mother and I are the only ones, as far as I am aware. He must never find out,” the Heir was adamant. “Ryn, it would kill him. You cannot tell him.”

She considered. She trusted Evin, a phenomenon she was unfamiliar with but was quickly becoming attached to. It was comforting to have someone to share your experiences with, someone you could believe when they said things, someone who would come to your aid when you needed it, whether you asked or not. This trust was a new, fledgling thing, and she hesitated to betray it.

Still, Brandt was not wrong. Such a revelation would only ruin Evin. She shuddered to imagine the way his face would fall, the spark leave his golden eyes and the pain embitter his too-soft heart. Everything that made him Evin would shatter, be crushed beneath the despair and shame such news would bring, and for what? It would save no one, benefit no one, help in no way.

Still.

She shook her head. “No, I will not tell him. But Brandt, someone must. He has a right to know.” She held up a hand when he started to protest. “And it should be you.”

Brandt’s face, already bloodless, paled further. “I know,” he whispered, and those two words were so broken, Ryn felt her heart spasm in response.

She moved, pulling him to her by her arm around his shoulder, and cradling his head when it crashed into her collarbone. Brandt’s back shuddered beneath her palms and pinpricks of wet heat soaked through her leathers. Ryn stroked his tangled hair and said nothing, wishing she could comfort her friend with promises that all would be well, that Evin would be all right and that everything would go back to the way it had been—but knowing he would find no peace in sweet lies. Instead she pressed her forehead to his damp hair and let her own tears fall too.

She didn’t even think of it until much later, that Brandt’s story hadn’t really answered her question.

Evin woke to quiet humming coming from somewhere to his left. He wondered fuzzily if his Mother had caught up to them, for the voice was feminine and sweet, if a bit low. His first instinct was to open his eyes and look, but that thought got no further before the agony registered.

His head was pounding, an angry counterpoint to various and sundry other pains that were not exactly insubstantial. His shoulder, in particular, was on fire, and his muscles protested even the slightest hint of movement on his part. He lay still for a moment longer, putting off the eventual necessity of moving as he tried to get his bearings.

He remembered...something. Vague impressions of wan moonlight and shouts of battle, quickly sharpening to real memories—the stretch of muscle as he drew his bow and let fly, killing a Val’gren hunter, gutting another who was stupid enough to challenge him up close, another of his arrows buried in Râza’s thigh and one in his side...Ryn’s blade in the Warmaster’s chest...then a lot of noise, a lot of pain, and nothing.

He let the moan loose now, rolling his head and forcing his eyes open despite the pain, and the humming stopped. He was sorry; it had been soothing. He blinked hard against the bright light that assaulted his stinging eyes. After a moment he could see that Ryn sat nearby, one hand in Kota’s fur as always, the other on her staff, sitting guard. The sun was not yet peeking over the mountainous horizon, though morning had well and truly broken, the sky pale blue and untouched by clouds. They were in a forest of thin-trunked asley trees, their spindly branches and large leaves dappling the light that played over Ryn’s face. She was looking at him, and her expression held such relief it was almost pained. It made his chest ache with the desire to hold her and soothe it away.

“Good morning,” she greeted quietly. “I’m glad you’re awake. How do you feel?”

Evin opened his mouth to answer and all that emerged was a croak. Ryn smiled and reached for a water skin, tutting at him to stay still when he tried to sit up. Dizzy with the effort, he acquiesced and laid back, let her bring the water to his lips and help him drink. After he’d had a few sips—but not nearly enough—she drew the skin away, to his groaned protest. She smiled.

“Too much too quickly and you’ll get sick,” she provided. “You can have more in a few minutes. Now, tell me how you’re feeling.”

“Like I got run over by a troll,” he rasped, trying to soften the pitiful sound of his voice with a smirk.

Ryn laughed. “That was weeks ago, my friend. Here,” she put the skin to his lips again and he drank greedily, though he didn’t protest when she took it away this time. “Let me look you over.”

“Look all you like,” he answered cheekily, and she pinched his bicep—probably the only part of him that didn’t hurt, he thought—before moving very close and looking directly into his eyes. He blinked, startled by the proximity of her face, and tried not to study the freckles dusting her nose or the pale scar across her cheek. She said nothing, just watched his eyes for what seemed like an inordinate amount of time, and Evin finally snorted and blinked. “Usually I buy a lass dinner first.”

Ryn’s face took on an extraordinary expression, and she jerked back, pushing him down in the process. Evin coughed as his back hit the dirt, seeing stars. “Ow.”

Ryn sat there for a moment, saying nothing, then nodded once. “You seem better. We might be able to leave tomorrow.” Then she stood, quickly, and walked away, leaving a grinning Brandt behind as she stalked out of the camp. Evin moaned and looked back up at the sky.

“Finally met a lass who doesn’t swoon at the sight of you,” his brother teased.

Evin scowled. “I don’t want her to swoon,” he confessed, then shut his eyes again. Brandt left it alone and came to sit nearby. The silence stretched for a moment, then his brother spoke.

“She’s right. We’ll see about getting you up later and then try to move on tomorrow.”

“What happened?”

Brandt sighed at that. “A chimaera ran you down, dragged you over a ledge. You hit a shale outcropping, the chimaera kept falling.” Evin didn’t open his eyes, but he didn’t have to in order to sense his older brother’s distress. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

He hummed his agreement, thinking he should say something to ease Brandt’s mind, but he couldn’t think of anything. After the initial excitement of waking up, his head now felt like it had been used as a battering ram, thoughts slow and muddy. His shoulder hurt too.

“Râza is gone,” Brandt continued after a moment, and Evin was conscious enough to feel grateful for that, at least. “It’s difficult to believe he could survive his injuries, but Ryn and I have both scouted the area pretty thoroughly in the last couple of days, and there’s no sign of him. We burned the others.”

“Least he’s not here,” Evin mumbled, the words heavy in his mouth. Brandt seemed to notice, laid a gently hand on his forehead. His brother’s fingers were cool, it felt good.

“Rest, Evin.”

So he did.

They did end up leaving the next day, after all, despite Evin’s weakness. All three of them knew the longer they stayed, the higher the chances Râza or his cohorts would come back. So even though the younger prince was barely on his feet, Ryn took his pack and Brandt slung his brother’s arm over his shoulder, and they left the campsite near the cliff that Evin had nearly died upon. They took more frequent breaks, and the pace was agonizingly slow, but they were moving, at least.

The mountain pass loomed nearer with each halting step, and Ryn wondered how they would ever make it through. She’d never been through this particular pass, but she’d seen plenty in her day, and they were never easy going. Steep, rocky terrain; narrow, sometimes-nonexistent paths; and truly treacherous weather, especially near the summits, made traveling mountain passes a dangerous undertaking even in the best of circumstances. With one member of their party far from recovered, it was likely to prove particularly troublesome.

Yet on they pushed, for four days, each one seeing Evin a little stronger and taking a little more of his own weight. Ryn was at first astonished at his progress, but each time the thought crossed her mind, so did the conversation she’d had with Brandt about it—along with many other confusing and unpleasant emotions, not the least of which were grief and a fierce protectiveness that made her itchy. She would see every Val’gren she met for the rest of her life destroyed for this, she promised herself. Still, she said nothing, just caught Evin when he nearly fell, took over his evening duties, and played dumb when he waxed flirtatious, same as she had since the day they met.

It was the night before they would reach the pass itself—starting tomorrow, the way would be even harder—and they were camped beneath a large outcropping about halfway up a ridge. The location was inconvenient for pitching camp, hard and cold, but it was also the safest spot around. The fire was bright and cheery against the chill darkness, and the stars winked above them, a brilliant backdrop for the bright yellow full moon. Evin had insisted he could sit the first watch, despite his obvious exhaustion—“I’m injured, Brandt, not broken”—and had his bow out, back to the stone as he looked out over the steep ledge, the other mountains close around them. Ryn was packing up the remnants of their dinner and readying herself for sleep. Brandt had left the campsite to relieve himself, and Kota was lying near the wall gnawing on the remains of a mountain hare.

“You fixed me, didn’t you?” Evin asked, out of the blue. His face was unreadable when Ryn turned to look at him, his tone even and carefully blank. She moved over to him and sat.

“Brandt and I both patched you up after we got you back,” she answered quietly, playing for time while silently cursing herself for not seeing this coming. She had no idea what she was going to tell him, and hadn’t discussed it with Brandt at all.

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it,” Evin answered, leveling her with a dead-serious look she had never seen on his face before. She wasn’t even convinced, until this moment, that the younger prince knew how to be completely serious. It was an intimidating expression, those gold eyes hard and the lines of his mouth all turned down, eyebrows furrowed. She shivered at the subconscious comparison to Râza’s deadly expression when she prevented him slicing Brandt in two. Ryn sighed and nodded, figuring it best not to insult Evin’s intelligence by pretending not to know what he was talking about.

“I do know, but I didn’t heal you,” she said, looking him straight in the face. There was a lightning-quick myriad of emotions that played over his pale face—fear, skepticism, pain—but the one that eventually settled into place was not the one she expected. His eyes chilled and narrowed, and she wondered fleetingly if she was about to witness something else she hadn’t previously been convinced Evin was capable of—anger. He said nothing for several seconds—long enough for the silence to become distinctly uncomfortable—then turned away from her.

“I did not expect my given trust to be worth so little, I must confess.” There was something off about his tone, even more so than his words, which made a truly unpleasant emotion clench in her stomach.

“What?”

“Do not lie to me,” he said, turning back to her, and this time she felt her own face betray her—wide-eyed and guilty—before she could school it into something less incriminating. Evin saw it, lips thinning as his glare sharpened.

“I would not,” she answered, now cursing Brandt for staying away so long. How long did it take to piss?

“Then why am I healing so quickly?”

“If I had healed you, you would have been completely well instantly,” she tried to reason with him. “Evin, I used my magic only to check your progress, to see things my natural eyes would not tell me. I am not skilled enough to heal on my own yet, you know that.”

Evin rubbed his chest defensively. “I know that is what you told us.”

“I have never lied to you.”

“Perhaps not directly, but you do like to leave things out, don’t you?”

Ryn looked at him incredulously; that was hardly fair, given the rather large secret he and his brother had thought they were keeping from her for a good portion of their journey.

“You know who I am. I have never hidden that, which is more than can be said for you,” she responded, aware her tone was growing colder by the second.

Evin didn’t seem to care. “What of this deal of ours? Why do you need a day in the Archives? What could you possibly learn that would be helpful to a meylika?”

Ryn tried not to let the hurt cross her face, she really did. It wasn’t the first time she’d been called a homeless hag, but it was the first time in years it had come from someone she cared about, and the pain, while familiar, surprised her a little. She growled, though Evin looked a little shocked at himself for using such a derogatory term.

Probably against his courtly manners, isn’t it?

“That is really none of your concern, sir prince. I fail to see why you would care, I being such a nameless nobody and all.”

Evin looked stricken. “Ryn, I—”

But she was already gone, stalked to her bedroll and crawled in, calling Kota to her. She hated to behave so childishly, but she needed to get away before he saw the tears on her cheeks. She swiped at them surreptitiously, silently half-daring him to notice.

Stupid ass. She was as angry at herself as she was the prince—well, both of them really. Brandt, for wresting a promise of silence from her. Evin, for being such a hard-nosed, intelligent idiot. And herself, for caring in the first place.

Brandt came back soon after, huffing at the climb to their large ledge and stomping around as he readied for sleep. Stupid, loud lug. Ryn cursed herself as she closed stinging eyes, determined to ignore the pit in her stomach and sleep. Angry and hurt though she was, she was also exhausted, and she was nearly unconscious when she heard Evin’s voice entirely too close to her ear.

“I am sorry, nileth,” he whispered, and pressed a kiss to her hair.