26.
Thalia and Ferith drove all night.
Under normal circumstances, they could’ve stopped at a town or settlement to top up the Rover’s energy, but in times like these, it was better to run unseen. People would undoubtedly report strangers passing through, even if they didn’t recognize Thalia. While she wasn’t famous per se, it wouldn’t surprise her if Ruark had put her face on WANTED posters or broadcast her face for bounty-hunting purposes.
When the Rover mini ran out of juice, they left it behind. Knowing where the mines were laid let them travel safely, and the drone guided them away from enemy troop movements. It still could, but progress would be much slower from here on out. They were still a hundred kilometers from their destination and Thalia was weighing the best plan for infiltration.
Luckily, the cold snap had passed, so at least they wouldn’t risk freezing to death on the move. Dawn broke in the distance as Thalia pulled a layer of pine needles and fallen branches over their vehicle. If a passerby got curious about the abandoned Rover, it wouldn’t end well, especially not deep in Gilbraith territory. If she could shift like the Animari, it would make things immeasurably easier. Not only would that make it easier to travel unseen, but she could also sniff for mines and IEDs along the route.
No point in wishing for impossible things.
Plus, she didn’t want to think about the Animari because once that door was open, she might let Raff in, and he would distract her from this mission. Not an option.
“What does the drone say? Did you find us a good route?”
“Define good,” Ferith mumbled.
“Relatively safe. Moving during the day holds some risk, but we can’t stretch this out over a week. Too much caution will get us caught, same as not enough.”
Ferith cocked her head. “Are you telling me, or yourself? Sounds like you’re scared.”
“To death,” Thalia admitted.
“It would be worrisome if you weren’t. This is an all-or-nothing endeavor.”
“I know. Thank you for coming with me.”
As she began to walk, following the path the drone had identified, Ferith nodded. “I’m the last of the old guard. So many Noxblades died getting the two of us here…there’s no way could I stop now, not like Gavriel did.”
That sounded like a judgment. “He had personal reasons for not being able to walk with me any farther.”
The other woman didn’t respond to that, and maybe it didn’t matter if Gavriel had been disloyal. She had wished to have him beside her during this mess, which might’ve been what he wanted—to instill some flicker of regret over his departure—but she’d only wanted his tactical strength, not his emotional support. And that was precisely why she’d cut him loose.
“Stop stating the obvious, and let’s go,” Ferith said.
They walked for ten kilometers, hard hiking cross country, when they spotted an isolated farmstead. According to the map, they were well past the border into Gilbraith territory. There would be no help coming from her own people, if she and Ferith ran into trouble, but they had to gamble here.
The Rambler was old, years out of production, and beaten all to hell. This family probably needed the vehicle to take their produce to the nearest town. I’ll make it right later. Right now, these people were allied with her greatest enemy, even if that support came only in nominal form.
She had all kinds of contingency plans, but the actual theft took no effort at all. They didn’t even need to hack anything; Ferith just hit the start button and they took off, sticking to secondary roads that should take them to Outwater, the town closest to Braithwaite.
This will all be over soon, one way or another.
Much later, Ferith parked the Rambler in a copse of trees. They slept for a few hours, and now, as twilight gathered, they’d walk the last two kilometers to Outwater and figure out the next stage of the plan. Thalia touched her hair uneasily, as it was both a beacon in the twilight and an identifying trait.
Ferith eyed her. “Want me to cut it off?”
Thalia couldn’t remember the last time anyone had taken a blade to her hair, but she stifled the instinctive protest, a quiver of affronted vanity that she couldn’t afford. “Do it.”
“Wish we could’ve put together a better disguise before we left Daruvar,” the other woman said, as she started hacking.
She shared that sentiment. “I had no supplies laid in. This…” Thalia stopped talking, aware that Ferith probably knew what she was about to say anyway.
“Isn’t how you pictured things playing out,” she finished.
No scissors, so the assassin sawed her hair off in a ragged, chin-length bob. Ridiculous to be upset, but as the other woman stuffed her shorn locks into a trash bag that she found in the back of the Rambler, it was hard not to snuffle like a child. Thalia gritted her teeth and turned toward town.
“We can’t leave this here. It’s evidence.”
Ferith hefted the sack with a nod. “Agreed. I’ll find somewhere in Outwater to dispose of this.”
They were lucky that House Gilbraith hadn’t set up checkpoints yet, but then, Ruark must be scrambling for a new plan, since Tirael had failed, and he’d lost his grip on Daruvar. He wouldn’t expect a frontal assault—he must know she couldn’t field that many soldiers—but Thalia didn’t imagine he would expect such a daring strike, either. Unexpected boldness might carry the day.
Coming over the next rise, she spotted the lights of town, bright and beautiful against the backdrop of night. If she didn’t know they’d already passed the border, this might have been one of her settlements, similar in layout and design. There were no walls, nothing to stop the Golgoth brutes, should they push this far, but before she could worry about an outside enemy, she had to vanquish her internal foes first. She pulled a dark knit cap over the ruins of her hair and set her shoulders.
“This way,” she said.
Ferith followed her, surefooted and silent, making Thalia uncomfortably aware that she was the weaker link in this partnership. Yet she couldn’t simply assign the Noxblade to Ruark’s death and wait for results. No, to prove her worth, she had to take Ruark’s head as she had Tirael’s. Only then would the challenges stop, and she could focus on unifying the people and moving forward with progressive policies that would pull their provinces into the modern world.
At the outskirts of town, a ramshackle wooden hostel flashed a VACANCY sign. This wasn’t the sort of place that cared if you came on foot, only if you had local currency. While Thalia hovered outside in the shadows, Ferith took care of the rental. On her return, she sighed and shook her head at the sight of Thalia stamping her feet.
“It’s cold,” she said.
“I’m aware. Here’s the room key, wait for me inside. I’m going shopping.”
Thalia intended to follow instructions, but half a block away, she glimpsed a fire barrel with several thin and sickly people clustered around it. More proof that Ruark doesn’t care about his people. Her father hadn’t either. Thalia intended to change all of this for the better, implement infrastructure to protect the impoverished and infirm. Nobody said anything when she eased into their circle, though they did complain when she dropped the sack into the fire.
The nearest male grabbed at the edge of her jacket. “Are you dimwitted, child? Don’t you know how much burning hair reeks?”
“Sorry,” she whispered.
An older woman slapped him on the shoulder. “Oh, leave her be. It’s fuel anyway, and we all smell a bit already.”
“Thank you,” she said.
Thalia had studied etiquette for all kinds of occasions; none of them covered a situation like this. It might seem suspicious if she dumped the bag and immediately ran away so she lingered, pretending to warm her hands, and soon the conversation she’d interrupted resumed its course.
“Anyway, be careful of the gray tar coming out of House Manwaring. It’s not safe,” the homeless man said.
Gray tar? What’s that?
“It’s not even a decent head rush. Heard it’s supposed to make you stronger, more resilient, but the people who take it, they get fearsome strange after a while.”
As Thalia parsed that information, she recalled Raff saying that the soldiers from House Manwaring that attacked them after the hunt smelled strange. Off. Maybe they were using this gray tar? Perhaps it was developed to make her people better able to stand up to the Animari and Golgoth in combat. That meant the other houses intended to go to war, following Ruark to potential annihilation. A cold chill suffused her.
Deciding she had warmed herself long enough to seem casual, Thalia returned to the hostel, still thinking about what she’d learned. Nobody seemed to be paying attention when she slipped into the grungy closet of a room. She made a point not to look in the mirror or she would have had to face the pale, frightened woman in the mirror.
Not a queen, just a terrified nobody.
By the time Ferith came back, she had herself in hand, calm and stoic once more. The Noxblade dumped her purchases on the bed. “Here’s what I could find. Hope it’s enough.”
Russet hair dye, disposable brown contacts, varied cosmetics, cheap, thick trousers and a heavy sweater. “I can work with this. I’ve got an idea.”
“That’s good, because once you’re geared up, I have a lead on someone who supplies provisions to Braithwaite.”
There were no Noxblades left in Daruvar.
And Raff’s wife had gone to personally assassinate her political rival. What the fuck was wrong with the Eldritch anyway? He leashed a snarl, chained up his rage, when all he wanted to do was shift and track Thalia in wolf form. Fighting his instincts had never been so fucking tough.
He had only a rudimentary idea about the chain of command since he was supposed to be a damned consort, no actual power, but now suddenly, command of Daruvar’s forces had fallen into his lap. Questions about supplies, costs, and when to reorder, well, he knew even less about that shit, and there was a goddamned queue of people outside the strategy room waiting for his word.
Raff cast a helpless glance at Sky. “Can’t you help me out? I don’t even manage the minutiae at Pine Ridge.”
She leveled a sharp look at him. “Maybe it’s time you did. Don’t look at me, anyway. I scheduled a call with Bibi to try and get a handle on why your wife’s former head of the assassin guild might suddenly murder you.” Saying that, she got up, opened the door, and sauntered out, which seemed to send the signal that he was available.
Damn it all.
An Eldritch male he recognized as a soldier stepped in as Sky left, executed a deep bow, and remained standing until Raff waved an impatient hand at the seat opposite. “I don’t suppose I can stop you from telling me what you want.”
“First, I should introduce myself. I’m Commander Olwyn. We met briefly at the wedding, but…well.”
Yeah, best not to linger on that memory, Raff thought. He also figured he could be forgiven not remembering names when the event turned into such a horror show.
Olwyn went on, “The princess left instructions that all our forces answer to you in her absence, so I’ll be taking my orders from you, sir.”
“And what would those be?”
“Sir?”
“What orders do you imagine I have?”
“I’m not paid to imagine things, sir, but I’ve got a list of issues in hand that demand your immediate attention.”
What the hell.
It was the height of poor judgment to leave him in charge of a demesne that he barely understood. Hell, he didn’t even know the patrol assignments in Daruvar, and this pasty Eldritch fool had a roster of fires he was supposed to put out? His first impulse was to scramble, just as he had when he was a pup and the teachers produced a complex assignment that made his head hurt. He imagined how sweet the woods would smell and how good it would feel to run, the wind blowing through his fur—
But the stakes were much higher now. Thalia’s people would suffer if he refused to take up the slack in her absence, and for whatever reason, she’d trusted him to keep the home fires burning. Raff didn’t let himself think about anything else; she was coming back, and he’d absolutely have a chance to make things right when she did. If Raff went to the woods, it would only be to gather intel from Titus’s people, and after he dealt with Commander Olwyn’s emergencies.
“I’m listening,” he said, finally quashing the urge to flee.
“First, let’s talk about Daruvar. We need to vary our patrol routes, and then we should talk about drone deployment…”
At first, the questions weren’t too bad, but then the commander started asking stuff about places Raff had never even been. “Let’s discuss options for increasing protection on our settlements. The threat level has risen, and we’ve skirmished with soldiers from Houses Gilbraith and—”
“Hold up, has this escalated to a full-out civil war?”
Commander Olwyn wore a grave look. “We’re at the cusp, sir. If not now, soon, and if we don’t have measures in place, civilian casualties could be catastrophic.”
“You’re telling me that the rest of the houses…” Except for Gilbraith, Raff was blanking on the other names. “Wouldn’t hesitate to strike at Thalia like hyenas, nipping away at her, until they take her down?”
“If that’s possible,” Olwyn said, “if she can’t hold what’s hers, then she’s not fit to rule.”
“Fuck. And you call us animals,” he muttered.
“I don’t,” Olwyn said.
“Fine, come on. Let’s map it out.”
He spent a full two hours discussing strategy, while well-aware that he wasn’t Korin’s equal when it came to planning and tactics, but Olwyn nodded with satisfaction once he saw what Raff had in mind. “That should mitigate our lack of walls, though we’ll need to dig the mines up once we settle things with House Gilbraith.”
“You don’t doubt the princess? Even though she’s gone off without telling you shit about her schemes and left you with me?”
Olwyn shook his head. “I wasn’t even a soldier originally, sir. I started with her from the very beginning, when I worked in the kitchens at Riverwind. She asked me to enlist and to train, to prepare myself for the struggle to come, because she needed loyal men.”
“And you did all of that, rose through the ranks, just because she asked?”
The other man raised a brow. “Aren’t you doing all of this, just because she asked? Besides, it’s rather special that she did. How often does a princess take note of someone from the kitchen? I wasn’t all that attached to the pot-scrubbing anyway, if you must know the truth.”
Raff laughed. “I guess not. If we’re done for now, send the next petitioner in.”
“Understood. Thanks for your time.”
It was nothing short of miraculous what Thalia had accomplished; under house arrest, she’d built a loyal retinue who would fight for her to the last. He could do no less.
A plump woman came in next, her pale hair twisted up in a complicated do, but he could tell by her somber attire that she must be staff. Maybe it wasn’t fair, but since they all had pasty skin, fair hair, and light eyes, it was damned hard for Raff to tell most of these Eldritch apart. The fact that they didn’t show age in the Animari way only made his life more complicated, and shit was already tough enough.
“How can I help you?” he said in what he hoped was a pleasant tone.
“Well, I’m Madam Isoline, the chatelaine, a fancy way of saying housekeeper, I suppose. I keep Daruvar running, keep the fortress relatively clean and the soldiers fed.”
“Gotcha. And…?”
“Funds are running low, sir. We need to tighten our belts, or the princess must sell something to keep the fortress going as it has been, but with tensions as they are right now, finding a buyer for jewelry or property could be…challenging.”
“Right, which leaves us cutting expenses. What are my options?”
He wouldn’t ask his wolves to come to their aid again. Soldiers were one thing, and the need was dire at the time, but no way in hell would he let Animari civilians deliver provisions in the middle of the Eldritch civil war. Not only would that be dangerous for his people, he also didn’t want to give their enemies the chance to hijack the supplies.
“Food,” she said softly. “I hate to make this recommendation, sir, but I believe it’s time for us to go on rations. The soldiers need the best of what we have left, and the rest of us will…make do.”
Raff could picture the kitchen staff eating porridge for days and the severity of the situation registered all over again. “I appreciate your dedication and your sacrifice. Princess Thalia does as well.”
“We know, sir, we all do. That’s why we’re with her—and you—until the end.”