Sadie

I awoke to a boot toeing my shoulder and a familiar voice saying, “Come on, Sads, let’s go.”

I squinted up into the face of Maez. The pounding in my head made me already regret the decision to have one last hurrah—spending all night out at a little hole-in-the-wall frequented by farriers and smiths. Maez towered above me, backlit by the peach-tinted morning light. I blinked in confusion, staring up at her attire. She wore her black and golden fighting leathers, knee-high riding boots, a dagger on one hip, and a sword on the other.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

I asked as she adjusted the giant fawn skin pack on her shoulders.

She shrugged. “I’m coming with you.”

“What?”

“I’m coming with you,”

she said again slower as if I were a small child . . . or very drunk, which I was still balancing on the edge of. “It was agreed upon last night while you were off—” She waved a hand over my body as she wrinkled her nose. “How did you even end up in this park? Calla would’ve told you directly, but you made it very hard to find you.”

“Great,”

I muttered, sending out a silent word of thanks into the morning air that at least Calla didn’t send Hector to tell me off again. Having my judgmental older brother hovering over me this entire trip would’ve done me in.

“Oh, come on,”

Maez tutted, stretching her arms to the sky and taking a deep breath. Her leathers groaned as her broad muscles stretched her uniform. “It’ll be fun. I’m a way better travel companion than Hector, right?”

I sat up, rubbing my pounding temples. “You read my mind.”

“It’ll be just like when we were pups in military training,”

she said, offering down her hand and easily hoisting me up to my feet. “. . . Except we’ll be traveling in a wagon and there’ll probably be less brawling.”

“So nothing like our training.”

It took more effort to stand without toppling over than I would’ve liked, but I managed to stay upright.

“Whatever we’re doing,”

she said with a wink. “It’s always more fun with me around, though, isn’t it?”

I chuckled, sizing her up. I was tall but Maez stood a whole head taller than me. When we were little, we were the same height, and I never forgave her for when she shot up past me.

I understood, too, why Calla would want to send Maez for such an important task besides her connection to Briar. She had a stocky, muscular build that no matter how much I trained I couldn’t rival. She was incredible in close combat and grappling, but I was the blade master of our group. I could hit someone straight in the heart from across a crowded room, and a bandolier of knives was much easier to hide than Maez’s hulking sword.

Maez was also much more adept at political charming than I was. She was similar to her mate in that regard. Though Briar approached in a more regal, poised way, Maez easily became one of the lads wherever she went. It didn’t hurt that she was Nero’s niece and raised high in the Silver Wolf pack ranking. She was born with enough swagger to convince King Luo to support our cause, too, unlike myself who was generally far too abrasive to win anyone’s allegiance. I always believed whether people liked me or not was their problem . . . which was probably why Calla sent Maez along, too.

I swept my braid over my shoulder and glanced downriver through the blossoming orange gardens to where a lone figure stood, and I understood I was mistaken about one thing: Maez wasn’t coming because she could communicate with Briar over long distances. No, because that would only make sense if Briar wasn’t waiting with a pack leaning against her shins, her mouth tight and nose crinkled at my sorry state.

“Briar should stay behind,”

I said in protest. “She doesn’t know how to fight, and despite her diplomatic prowess, this trip could be dangerous. She’s more protected if she stays with Calla.”

“Navin doesn’t know how to fight, either,”

Maez countered. “But he’s going.”

“He isn’t important.”

I frowned down at my mud-stained boots, remembering that wet, stormy night when he and I were captured by the Silver Wolves. “Briar is one of the only Gold Wolves still alive. If a single person identifies her on this trip, they will be climbing all over each other to abduct her. She is leverage to whoever has her. She—”

“Briar isn’t coming.”

Maez cut me off with a wave of her hands. “I was just making a point.”

“But she . . .”

I gestured to her. “She has her pack with her.”

“That is your pack,”

Maez said dryly.

I narrowed my eyes at the pack leaning against Briar’s shins, recognizing the scuff and hastily sewn patches pockmarking the exterior.

“Oh. Right.”

I dusted off my clothes and ruffled my bangs so the hair sat evenly across my forehead again. I hooked my thumb at Maez. “You’re okay leaving your mate behind for this trip?”

“Okay? No, I’m not okay.”

Maez’s hackles raised at that comment. “I’m furious, and part of that fury is aimed at you, so maybe be a little nicer to me, all right?” She took a deep breath. “But I agree with you that she is safer here. It is too dangerous for her to come. And it would be good to have a way to communicate between our two parties,” she said, confirming my original thought—it felt good to know I hadn’t completely pickled my brain. “As much as it will hurt to be away from her, having something happen to her would hurt me far more.”

I pretended to dry heave at the sentiment . . . which then caused actual bile to rise up my throat, and I was reminded of the many, many pints I had drank the night before.

“Dear Moonlight, you’re a mess,”

Maez muttered; she grabbed me by the shoulder and steered me downhill. “Let’s go, grumpy little Wolf. Time to be a soldier.”

Galen den’ Mora sat in a meadow at the edge of the city, blanketed in the fading shades of summer. Burnt orange- and caramel-colored flowers dotted the tall grasses, their tiny seedbeds bursting and scattering to the wind. Two giant oxen grazed, their copper-red hair swishing in the gentle breeze. It was a beautiful, idyllic sight . . . until I threw up into the nearest shrub, which happened to be covered in stinging nettles. The stale sourdough bread I nibbled on did nothing to calm my curdling stomach.

“Maybe I should offer to drive the wagon,”

Maez grumbled as we stalked through the grasses. “I’d rather be covered in juvleck goo than ride with you.”

“There’s a bathing chamber on board,”

I said, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. My arms wheeled as I tilted to the side, forcing me to stop and adjust my heavy pack again. Did they put frying pans in this thing? “I’ll have a wash and be fine.”

“There’s a bathing chamber?”

Maez asked incredulously.

“You’re going to like this place.”

“I certainly will, especially once you avail yourself.”

The massive wagon was easily two stories tall, an intricate network of seating areas and bunks inside, not a single inch of the place gone to waste. The outside had bars of musical notes wrapping around it, words scrawled in every language of Aotreas, and ribbonlike pennants waved from the edges of the vaulted canvas. It was a beautiful space, quirky and artistic, much like the musicians who called it home.

Navin climbed down from the back of the wagon and paused, his eyes locking with mine. His face was purpled with bruises, one eye still so bloodshot his pupil looked to be floating in a sea of crimson. The normal elegance with which he held his body was pinched and angled to one side, probably from his bruised ribs. I trailed my eyes from his russet leather boots to his matching leather suspenders that held up his stiff olive green trousers and up to his knitted cap. He wore a billowy cream shirt and a velvet azure jacket with a high neck and musical notes embroidered around the cuffs. I shook my head. Why had I ever thought I could understand a human musician? I looked at Maez’s midnight fighting leathers and my disheveled garb, still tinged with menace from my bandolier of knives. I was a killer and a Wolf; nothing about me matched anything about him. Even if we’d had a chance to see where things could’ve taken us with a bit more time . . . there would’ve never been a happy ending between someone like me and someone as gentle and soft as him.

Navin gave Maez a warm greeting, gesturing out his hand to the wagon for her to enter. Maez only gave him a perfunctory nod in return, probably out of loyalty to me.

I wandered over, taking my time. As I neared, I thought of a million things I wanted to say—I also thought about grabbing one of my many knives and cutting out his eyes—but instead I just moved to walk past him.

He didn’t let me, though.

His hand reached out and gently touched my elbow, barely a graze at first, and then a little more confidently those long fingers wrapped around my arm, imploring me to stay. I laughed in disbelief. As if he could ever stop me with his delicate artist’s hands.

It took nothing to pull out of his grip, and yet I lingered.

“I’m sorry, ,”

he whispered as I squinted at the horizon. I made a study of the dragonflies zipping through the meadow and the diaphanous cobalt clouds that promised rain over the ocean—anything but him. “I had to protect my brother. There are reasons I can’t explain . . .”

That piqued my interest. More secrets. I wondered if this secret was related to what Navin knew about Ora’s capture. Was it all interconnected? How much was Navin keeping from us? He was more a stranger to me than I’d even realized. Most of the people traveling with Galen den’ Mora seemed to be people trying to either reinvent themselves or hide from the world. I realized my question from the night before wasn’t so pressing. I shouldn’t be asking what was Navin hiding, but what was Navin hiding from?

Tilting my face back into the bracing wind, I vowed I would get my answers from him, whether through persuasion or through the knives on my belt. I would know all his secrets by the time this trip was over.

It felt good in some strange way to know Navin was keeping secrets from us all. At least I hadn’t been the only one who misjudged him. Maybe Hector’s hatred of the man had been more shrewd than the brotherly overprotection and wolfish bigotry that I dismissed it as being. It made my hatred of Navin now feel even more justified, too, and I quietly prayed that he turned out to be an even worse person that we first thought . . . it might be enough for me to keep on hating him forever.

Muffled on the wind, I could hear Maez’s awed exclamations as she explored the inside of Galen den’ Mora.

“Your wounds seem extensive,”

I said tightly, still staring straight ahead as I broke our silence. “Does it hurt every time you breathe?”

From my periphery, I spotted the bob of Navin’s throat. “Yes.”

“Good.”

“—”

He reached for me again, but I climbed up the steps without another word.

Navin didn’t protest further or follow me into the wagon, instead turning to go gather the oxen and begin our journey south. At least I knew his loyalties were pulled in as many directions as my own. I hoped all of it was as senseless and confusing for him as it was for me. Maybe one day I could parse apart why I felt anything at all.

Patience. A little voice whispered in my head. First, I needed to bend him, twist him until the point of breaking so that all his well-kept secrets would come spilling out when I applied enough pressure.

Maybe then I’d finally feel settled back into myself enough to understand that nonsensical pull or why he and I ever fell into each other’s orbit.