Chapter Seven
Even though they were open and exposed on the road, and tired, they were also cheerful. The road represented their first solid realization that they had survived, made it this far, and all they needed to do now was to follow the road to Kanthus. Signs posted along the way told them estimates of how far away they were. They passed one a short while into following the road, and saw they were four full daynights away.
To focus on taking the burn off her legs and the irritating blisters now starting to form on her feet, Bethany kept stride with Ronan, smiling at him before saying, “So. How exactly did you get caught in the first place? Big, strapping werewolf like yourself. Surely you'd be able to outrun the bandits?”
Yelena wrinkled her lips, and Ronan said, “Well, I can be as big and strapping as I want, but it's not going to stop me from being taken by surprise. Not a whole lot I can do when I wake up in my secure Golubrian home with about ten bows pointed at me.” He grimaced, yellow eyes pained from the memory. “There are hate groups in Golubria that detest the idea of associating with Kanthus. I was supposed to be an ambassador, but they took me, and since they practise slavery... they sold me off to a certain man who seemed to hate werewolves more than anyone.”
“My father,” Yelena said. She still looked as though she had swallowed something bitter.
Nothing much else to add on top of that. Maybe Yelena now sought a way to run away from the memories. Maybe she now clung to the thought that there was another family waiting for her.
“I imagine my disappearance soured or even cut off relations with the Golubrians altogether. They did have people who wanted to forge an alliance, but some idiots mucked it up for them. Goodness, my brother would have advocated for their destruction if he found out I was missing. Maybe dead.”
“You have a brother?” Bethany blinked in surprise. He mentioned family. Just not what exactly was in his family.
“Yes. Just the one, though. Older. Very proud. Has a wife,” he added, before Bethany asked her next question. “So we can look upon his face without fear. Hmm, maybe he has a child now. I'd like to see that. Be an uncle. I think I'd make a good uncle. Wouldn't you say?”
Yelena appeared increasingly uncomfortable with this talk. Something akin to shame entered her face.
“What's wrong, Yelena?” Bethany directed the question. Puzzled.
“I forget... or I like to ignore, sometimes, that the people my father robbed and captured have their own lives. It was easy to see Ronan as a beast. I only ever saw him as a werewolf. And all he did was snarl and snap or whimper.”
The werewolf examined her for a long moment. “I don't blame you. And... I'm sorry I almost...”
Yelena shook her head. “It doesn't matter now. Let's just make it to Kanthus.”
Easier said than done, given all the things that had happened to them.
Still, they walked along the gravel-laden road with a more cheerful air. Even Yelena appeared to be healthier. The swamp fever was gradually leaving her, so she coughed less and no longer had crust in her eyes.
A light appeared on the curve of the road, along with a distant clop clop of hooves. They didn't bother hiding—if they could see the light, doubtless the owner of those horses had seen them. Just another traveler on the road. They moved to the right as a small procession of carriages appeared, with guards on horseback, wielding glowing spears. The carriages themselves were a combination of dark brown wood and iron, with huge, spoked wheels that ground up the gravel underneath. The driver on top, holding the reins of two bay horses, had a raincoat on, and a long, floppy hat that obscured his face. The three carriages each had about six guards.
Better protected than mine, Bethany thought sourly. Probably someone important in at least one of the carriages. If not all three. Heading to Fjordan? Or another city?
As they drew alongside it, someone inside one of the three carriages yelled, “Halt!”
The procession stopped, and Bethany, Yelena, and Ronan froze.
Someone clambered out of the carriage, and the guard nearest to Ronan squinted at his yellow eyes. The bay horse he rode stood perfectly still, ears flicked forward, though it chewed on the bit. Bethany recalled something her sister said, randomly—about the bit hurting the horse. Kiara liked riding her horses bitless, with a light rope and knot at the bottom. She said they responded beautifully to it. And you didn't get aggravated movements like the horse opening its mouth or pushing its chin against its chest, because it wasn't in pain.
She stared at the horse chewing the bit, even as someone exclaimed, “Ronan?”
A man with yellow eyes had clambered out of the carriage, and he stared at Ronan as if he was seeing a ghost.
“Oh. Hello,” Ronan said. “Garland.”
“You're... you're alive. We all thought the Golubrians had killed you.” Garland's mouth split into a wide smile, and he let out a roaring laugh, before seizing Ronan in a hug and squeezing him tight. “Ronan!”
“Someone seems happy to see me,” Ronan murmured, accepting the hug.
“You go without telling one of your best friends where you've gone, of course I'll be happy to see you! And slightly pissed off. Where were you?”
He now took in the appearances of Yelena and Bethany better. “And who are they?”
“It's a long story,” Ronan said, “but it did start with a small dissident faction in Golubria selling me off to slavery...”
He recounted the tale as quickly as possible, glossing over some of the worse tortures. “The bandits then captured a new person. A princess of Fjordan, apparently.”
“Oh, another one,” Garland groaned. “We've had more than enough of the current one.”
“My sister isn't... in trouble?” Bethany raised her eyebrows, confused. Garland shook her head.
“Don't worry, your sister is fine. Only went and bagged herself one of the princes. Got herself some fancy lightweaving, too; all the lightweavers want to talk to her.”
Kiara? Lightweaving? She could barely light her way out of a house, let alone what Garland said.
“Clearly, my sister has been getting on well without me...” She was doubtful and also disappointed with the idea. A part of her wanted her sister to be in trouble. How else would she swoop in and salvage the situation?
“This princess has a little bite to her as well,” Ronan noted. “She only went and stole—uh, set fire to the camp.” Ronan hastily corrected the stealing the light at the last moment. Best not to mention that little detail. “And managed to help me free myself. And, um, Yelena here was a prisoner, too. She came with us.”
Best not to mention that she was a former bandit.
“Which one you marrying?” Garland now grinned at his friend, dark yellow eyes eager. “Since you've shown your face and all.”
“Not me,” Yelena said. Bethany stammered a “We were just trying to escape...”
But Garland didn't seem to care. “Ah, good on you, Ronan. She's probably a pretty lass, once you get her back into court clothes. Oh... just wait until people hear this.”
“Are we going to move at some point?” A high, nasal voice came from one of the other carriages. “We don't have all night.” A rather irritated-looking woman peeked out, fanning her face.
“Sweetling,” Garland said, “we're turning back. The Kossek can wait an extra eight fullnights. We're going to escort these three people back, after their ordeal from Golubrian slavers.”
The woman sniffed, her yellow eyes disdainful. “Can't we just leave them and head on? The Kossek don't like waiting.”
“Honey, this is a princess of Fjordan, a highborn, and one of our court gods that have just escaped a distressing ordeal. If we don't escort them, and they get captured again, it will be our fault for not helping them when we had the chance.”
The woman sighed. “So be it. But when the Kossek send indignant letters to Kanthus, don't say I didn't warn you so.”
“Of course not, sweetling.” Garland gave her a simpering smile, which made Bethany want to puke.
Grateful, they clambered into Garland's carriage, and the whole procession turned around. Ready to take them to Kanthus. Ready to return Ronan to his former home.
It might have been a little cramped in the carriage, since Garland had originally taken the whole thing for himself, but the time was mainly passed with Ronan being brought up to speed on the current status of Kanthus, while Garland hungered for more information from them.
They completed the rest of the journey over four fullnights, with Garland's wife joining him in his carriage, giving Yelena, Ronan, and Bethany room in the wife's rather spacious accommodations. She even had silken seats to sleep on, and they passed the time with small talk.
Including Garland's awkward statement on “marriage.”
“Are people seriously going to assume we're married if we arrive back together?”
“Well...” Ronan gave a helpless shrug. “Not if we explain things fast. We can be exonerated from it since the circumstances in which we met was unplanned. But...” And now his face scrunched up. As if he already regretted what he needed to say next. “But then we won't be allowed to marry if that happens. If you've seen my face but refused. It has to be clear so that there isn't any confusion for any new prospective partners.”
Oh.
Bethany's felt like she'd been kicked in the chest. Her second reaction, after recovering from that, was anger at the stupid Kanthian system. Marrying people just because you'd seen their face? How did that even work?
No different, perhaps, than arranging a marriage without seeing each other's faces at all, she thought.
“That's awkward,” Yelena said. “What if you do fall in love after some time? How does it work for that?”
“Courtship... tends to go quite fast in Kanthian society. At least when it comes to werewolves,” Ronan sighed. “The rest of you can have something normal. But for the werewolves, it's an imperative that we produce more werewolves. So the rules are different to essentially get us to marry faster.”
“That's not fair,” Bethany protested hotly, though a part of her wanted to cry as well. “I don't want to marry you straightaway. But neither do I... not want the chance to marry you, either. I want to get to know you better. Is that wrong?”
“No,” Ronan said softly. “It's not. But right and wrong doesn't matter with these rules. Ideally, we should have spent time in the court conversing, getting to know one another. That's what the rules are for. We wear masks, we're careful about it... usually. But the rules have less to say when it comes to situations like this.”
Bethany slumped in the pink velvet seat. The carriage still smelled strongly of feminine perfume. Yelena didn't like it, and resorted to sticking her head out the window to keep her lungs and nose less poisoned.
At first, Bethany believed she only needed to worry about getting to Kanthus to help her sister. Then she needed to worry about escape. Surviving. Not getting killed by the Quaking Bog. Not getting eaten alive by the rabid monsters of the night horde.
And now she needed to decide in a short space of time if she was going to allow this marriage to happen. The one she didn't exactly ask for. One that if she refused due to “special” circumstances, would tear Ronan away from her in the process.
How unfair. She liked him. She really did. Maybe he was a little too flippant, in spite of all the issues he'd gone through, but it made him somewhat endearing.
She didn't want to cut off that building affection. To boot him out of her life, with his warm smile, twinkling yellow eyes. She wanted to get to know him better. To share more moments.
But... married? The fact people would honestly consider them as such?
It made her head spin.
The more she thought about it, over the hours, the more she realized that however fast it might be, she didn't want to remove Ronan from her life. That remained the one certain emotion she could account for.
Which led only to one final conclusion.
“Dark take us,” Bethany cursed. “I'll marry you. I'm not going to let you run away from me.”
Yelena peered back into the carriage, one side of her mouth curled up in a smile. “Nice,” she said. “Though I'm not into girls.”
Ronan burst out laughing, leaving Bethany at a momentary loss for words.
“Yelena! Seriously! I'm trying to say something life-changing here!”
The bandit girl grinned. “And I answered. On a more serious note, congratulations. I guess.”
Ronan grasped Bethany's hand in his own. Both hands rested on Bethany's lap.
“To unexpected, sudden marriages. And getting to know each other better.”
Behind his eyes came the hint of something else. A promise that Bethany would have a hard time regretting her decision.
If she judged anything by that smile of his...