3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Marcos knew he would not tire easily, but Rhys— Evander, that was Evander under that unassuming exterior, a marvel that would never fail to astonish him—undoubtedly would.

After watching him for hundreds of years, both keeping near to him, and also keeping his distance, Marcos was still not sure how reduced his power was.

Marcos knew he'd retained some of the magic he'd possessed before, but unlike when he'd been the Guardian of Secrets, now, he was clearly more particular about how and when he used it.

"We should stop for a rest," Marcos said, after they'd been walking all night and partway into the day, almost without pause.

They'd stopped once, to fill their waterskins at a cold, bubbling stream. They'd long since left Beaulieu behind, and they had not even passed through a single village. Out of choice, Marcos had assumed, but it still surprised him that Evander kept to the disguise of Rhys.

Surely now that Marcos had revealed himself, Evander would let the shape of unassuming, gruff Rhys melt away until he finally was himself again.

Except not once, as far as Marcos knew, had Evander taken his normal shape since he'd been banished.

But now, now that he was with Marcos again, surely the subterfuge was unnecessary.

Rhys glared at him. Even after all these hundreds of years, watching Evander be someone else, he was not used to seeing Evander stare out at him through someone else's face. "Do you need to stop?" he asked.

"No, of course I do not," Marcos said. "I am a Guardian, I could walk all the way up the North Mountain without stopping. But . . ."

"But I am no longer a Guardian," Rhys interrupted him. "Your point is clear."

But even if it was clear, Rhys was obviously annoyed that Marcos had brought it up.

He doesn't trust you, he thinks you're to blame, which isn't all that surprising, and now he thinks you're patronizing him.

It was not the most auspicious beginning, but Marcos still held out hope that maybe they could forge a partnership, even after all this time had passed.

He just had to stop himself from saying the wrong thing and angering Evander—he is Rhys, Marcos reminded himself—even more.

So far, he had not managed even that.

Rhys stopped when the sun reached its zenith in the sky, finding a shady grouping of trees, with a large fallen log they could rest next to.

"Is this sufficient?" There was still a bite to Rhys' words.

"Perfectly sufficient," Marcos said, taking care to make sure there was no additional inflection to his words that would anger Rhys further. He certainly was not going to be stupid enough to remind the ex-Guardian that he did not need to rest at all.

Rhys settled down against the log. He looked tired. Perhaps if he changed forms, back to Evander, he might find additional strength. Maintaining a different form could be a strain on his power reserves.

Marcos would have suggested it but the silence that had fallen between them, and Rhys' defensiveness every time he made even the simplest suggestion, kept him quiet.

He waited until Rhys closed his eyes, and then shut his own, sure that Rhys, who was obviously exhausted, would fall asleep quickly.

But a moment later, Rhys spoke up. "You did not mean to reveal yourself to me."

Marcos had never been as accomplished a liar as Evander had been. He'd never needed to be. Fighting was often straightforward, with little need for deception, and he'd never gotten into the practice of telling falsehoods well.

He could lie, but it was unlikely Rhys would believe him, and the chances of Rhys being even angrier at the lie were considerable.

"No," he said carefully. "No, I did not mean to reveal myself."

Rhys looked like Rhys, and not anything like Evander, not like . . . not like the Guardian he'd known for so many years . . . but Marcos' heart beat faster anyway when he opened his eyes and Rhys was staring at him—like he was trying to figure Marcos out, still.

It was disconcerting, seeing Evander's stare come out of another man's face, and his personality and his unique intonation come out of another man's mouth using another man's voice. Marcos wasn't used to it yet, not even after a few hundred years, and he wasn't sure he'd ever truly adjust.

"If you were sent by the Guardians, why bother keeping it a secret?"

"I told you before, I was not sent by Deimos or the other Guardians."

"You just chose to leave the Castle at the Top of the World, chose to leave the Enclave of Guardians?" Rhys asked archly. "I find it very difficult to believe that Deimos would just let you go."

"Perhaps Deimos banished me as well." It was not a very good lie even for him, but he told it anyway.

Marcos could feel the scorching look Rhys shot him. "You forget, I was the Guardian of Secrets," he said. "I can tell when you're lying. Even now, because you're not very good at it."

"Never have been." Marcos rolled onto his back and stared at the slivers of blue sky he could see through the overarching branches of the trees.

"The more you persist in lying, and lying poorly, the more suspicious you are," Rhys said. "And the less I trust you."

"You said you didn't trust me to begin with," Marcos said.

"And yet, somehow I trust you even less now," Rhys said sarcastically. "At least tell me who sent you? Was it Deimos? Was it . . ." Marcos heard Rhys' voice catch and he willed away the bitter resentment that flared at the hesitation. "Was it Vanya?"

"I told you before and that was not a lie; I sent myself."

Rhys made a scoffing noise at that particular revelation, which made Marcos very glad that he had told some of the truth, but not the entire truth. Maybe he couldn't lie, at least not effectively, but he didn't have to tell Rhys everything.

"Out of guilt?" Rhys demanded.

"No, not out of guilt." Marcos hesitated. "Though I did feel some shame, but not because I betrayed you to Deimos, because I did not. It felt dishonorable that you paid for both of our mistakes."

"And so you left the comfortable, luxurious environs of the Castle, and came here, to . . . what? Watch me? Assist me?"

"You know very well you never needed any assistance," Marcos responded gravely.

"And how do I know that?" Rhys' voice was harsh. "Maybe you're the one who was responsible, in the end."

"You know that is not true," Marcos retorted. "I was part of the Mecant tribe during much of your final struggle against the last sorceress. What could I have possibly done to assist?"

Rhys didn't say anything for a long time, and Marcos had hoped that he'd actually fallen asleep, but then he spoke up again.

"Why the Mecant? And how long were you with them? A considerable time, I'd suspect."

Marcos risked a look over at him. "How do you know that?"

"You were comfortable. At least a generation or two, I'd guess. Maybe more."

"Three," Marcos said. "They suited me."

"I did wonder how we were discovered by them, as deep in the woods as we were."

"As if that has ever mattered to the Mecant," Marcos said. "Which is why I liked them. The quiet. As for why, the Mecant traveled considerably, and I heard much of what was happening in both Ardglass and Fontaine."

"But you want me to believe you didn't interfere," Rhys scoffed.

"Did I interfere when Rory and Gray were captured by the Mecant?" Marcos asked archly.

"According to them, they saved themselves."

"Am I supposed to believe you weren't watching the entire time?"

Rhys sighed. "I was, and they did save themselves. But you certainly did not assist, though you should have, because you couldn't have possibly known that Rory would know the key to the old kind of negotiation. Almost nobody does anymore. The Mecant are a very old tribe, nearly as ancient as we are, and even they have lost some of their traditions."

"I had faith that Prince Emory was intelligent, and Prince Graham was resourceful."

"Faith," Rhys scoffed.

"You know there is a very thin line between faith and the rhythm of the universe, how events occur as they're supposed to. You used to be able to feel it."

It was why he didn't regret touching Rhys, even if it had revealed his true identity before he'd intended to. He'd known the moment that it happened that it was right, because the universe had sung to him that it was.

Rhys stared at him, naked frustration and annoyance plain in his expression.

Shit. He had fucked up again, reminding Rhys of another power that he no longer possessed.

"I . . . I'm sorry." The words weren't much. Marcos had never been particularly good with them. He'd always been better with his fists—or with a blade.

Rhys sighed, and rolled over. "Go to sleep, Marcos."

But Marcos didn't, even as Rhys' soft snores finally echoed through the little valley they'd settled in.

He didn't need the rest the way that Rhys did. He could go much further, on much less sleep, with little food or water and still barely deplete his magical reservoir. But traveling with Rhys was going to be more difficult. He'd need regular sleep and food as well as clean drinking water. And the weather as they headed north? That was going to be an even bigger issue. Rhys was going to need warmer clothes, much warmer than what he was wearing, which was a light cloak, over plain shirt and pants, and a worn pair of boots.

Unassuming clothes for the advisor to the Kings of Fontaine, but especially unassuming for a Guardian.

Of course, Rhys had developed this particular character when he'd been in Ardglass, at the fortress of Tullamore, when he'd been Graham's tutor for most of his childhood.

Unassuming attire was the Ardglassian way, but surely he could have . . . spruced himself up a bit when he'd come to Beaulieu? But he hadn't, and Marcos, coming face-to-face with him for the first time as Merleen, had been shocked into near speechlessness.

It hadn't just been Rhys' thick, gruff brogue of a voice. It had been everything else, too. Rhys had been the antithesis of Evander, who'd been shorter and slender, and a graceful work of art with his loose blond waves and sea glass eyes.

Eyes that cut through everyone and everything—except that he'd miraculously never figured out Marcos' most closely held secret.

Marcos had known, even a thousand years ago, that Evander's attractions were far more than his appearance, but this proved it.

He was just as inexplicably attracted to Rhys as he had been to Evander.

But that wasn't important. What was important now was finding a decent village, where Marcos could earn some coin so they'd be properly stocked and outfitted for this journey.

Rhys might want to travel light, but Marcos wasn't willing to risk his health or his safety.

He hadn't been looking after it for hundreds of years to fail now.

Rhys woke up a few hours later, and from the disgruntled expression on his face as soon as he spotted Marcos, it was obvious he was still upset that he wasn't making this journey alone.

They didn't speak as Rhys drank more water and he pulled some dried meat out of his traveling sack as they stood back up.

Marcos stretched, strapped his sword onto his back, and headed to the stream to splash some water on his face.

He hadn't slept, but just the cool water hitting his skin refreshed him enough. He would make sure they stopped at the next village.

"Ready to go?" Rhys asked in clipped tones, nothing like the semi-hushed questions of the night before. Marcos wasn't disappointed or really all that surprised. He'd known it would take a long time to win Rhys over, once he discovered who Merleen really was.

Perhaps he'd never feel the same way about him that Marcos had always felt about Evander, but what he hoped for most was that they could be partners.

"Yes," Marcos said briefly.

They set off towards the north, following the main road, but keeping a good ways off it.

They walked in silence as they had the day before, for many hours, but as dusk was beginning to fall, Marcos began to see more people on the road, and when Rhys stopped abruptly, with a crossroads in sight, he was not surprised.

Rhys had been very clear that he was in charge of this journey, but Marcos also had no intention of letting him make stupid decisions.

"There's a village up ahead," Rhys said.

"Yes," Marcos agreed. "A larger one." That was an even better situation, as many people would be coming and going, and they could easily vanish into the crowd. With a smaller village, they would stand out, even in their humble attire.

He watched as Rhys considered the situation and all the potential benefits as well as the potential pitfalls.

"We should go around it," he finally said. "I have a little more dried meat, and as established, all you probably need for another few days is fresh water."

"What we should do is spend a few days, and gather the supplies we will need for the journey. Furs and proper coats and boots. The right kind of food and water for an undertaking like this. And horses to carry it."

Rhys shot him a bland look. "I see you don't enjoy walking. I'm not particularly surprised by this revelation."

"It's not enjoyment, it's logic," Marcos said with exasperation. "We will need supplies to make it all the way up the North Mountain, and horses can carry a lot more than we can. I didn't suggest we buy horses to ride, though I admit some confusion about your disdain for them."

"Why?" Rhys challenged. "Because on occasion I will take the form of one?"

Marcos barely held back an eye roll. "Yes, exactly."

"I knew you had caught me a week or so back," Rhys grumbled. "You were not particularly subtle about it, and I wondered if you had power, because you were so clearly drawn to mine."

Marcos wondered how, for a Guardian so fiercely intelligent, he could also be so utterly blind.

You want him to be utterly blind, Marcos reminded himself. You've always wanted him to be blind to you.

"If you're asking if I could sense you changing forms, the answer is yes, and also yes, you're changing the subject."

"I don't like them," Rhys finally confessed. "Horses. I was in the form of a unicorn for many hundreds of years, and I often disguised myself as a horse."

"Well, we don't need you to be a unicorn, so no need to further confuse your appearance," Marcos retorted.

That had never made sense to him, during all the hundreds of years he'd kept an eye on Evander-turned-Evrard. Why choose a form that required additional camouflage and an additional power drain?

If Rhys was not already so prickly, Marcos might have asked him why he'd done it.

But he wanted him to give in, gracefully or not, about the supplies, so he wasn't going to push Rhys on any other subject.

"I'm only surprised that you didn't decide that I needed to be a horse to carry all the supplies," Rhys grumbled.

It had never occurred to Marcos, likely because he would never have suggested a Guardian be used to merely haul something.

They were ancient magical beings, created to protect. Not to haul waterskins and dried meat and extra blankets.

Rhys sighed, no doubt at the shock on Marcos' face. "I have done far worse," he said. "The end justifies the means, but I would rather not do it again."

"I believe we can find the coin for a horse or two," Marcos said slowly. "My skills are usually in high demand in villages like this."

Rhys eyed him suspiciously. "High demand for what exactly?"

Marcos supposed he should be embarrassed by this. "There is always someone or something who needs to be . . . evicted, shall we say, or controlled, or dealt with," he said, "and as it happens, I am well-suited to those particular tasks."

"Evicted? You're hired to remove people from their homes?" Rhys sounded shocked.

"Bad men, sometimes. Thieves or robbers or murderers. Or men who would hit their partners or their children. And occasionally, they will have me hunt for a wild animal in the forest who continually preys on the village."

Rhys shot him a look. "You're a regular hero, Marcos. How much coin do you take for such work?"

"As much as they can give me. It's . . . well, it's not honest work, but do you see many generals who are needed? Much battle strategy? Any gladiator battles to be fought? No? Then I take what I can find."

"How do you find it?"

Marcos grinned. "That is the easy part."

"Why do I think I will not like this very much?" Rhys asked with a resigned sigh.

There were two local pubs, both with accommodations on the second floor, but one looked quite a bit rougher than the other, and Marcos could feel Rhys' annoyance emanating from him as he selected the worse of the two.

"Really?" Rhys hissed under his breath as Marcos pushed open the door.

Above it hung a worn sign that read, The Ass & Bee.

"Always better to take the rougher place," Marcos said under his breath. "There's more money here."

Rhys looked around at the plain, shabby interior of the big common room. There was a large fireplace at one end, with a few logs in it, flickering lazily, and roughhewn tables, filled with what looked to be crude and dirty men, all drinking out of ugly carved wooden tankards.

"Somehow, that does not seem to be true," Rhys said disdainfully. "Money . . . here?"

"Trust me," Marcos said, and then remembered too late that Rhys did not.

Rhys clearly remembered though, because he shot him a look that spoke volumes about just how much he didn't trust Marcos, and that this scenario was certainly not helping the situation improve any.

But Marcos couldn't help that. He'd done this enough times to know that at the nicer establishments, nobody was ever willing to open their purses. The way he looked almost always scared them off.

Here? All these men would rather face his sharpest blade than admit he intimidated them.

"Just . . . sit, and keep your head down," Marcos suggested, waving to a table close to the fire.

"What are you going to do?" Rhys sounded skeptical. "Whip your knives out, and start polishing them?"

Marcos laughed, before he could help himself. He noticed at least half a dozen heads swivel his direction. No, he would have to do no knife polishing tonight.

"Something like that," he said. "Go sit down." He gave Rhys an encouraging push on the back, and then when he finally saw him sit, he turned towards the bar.

It ran the length of the room, and it was just as roughly carved as the tables and benches, stained with grease and mead and what could've even been blood.

Rhys might be disgusted by a place like this, but truthfully, it felt like home to Marcos. He didn't need to pretend or smile or even talk. He just needed to grunt and, when the opportunity presented itself, demonstrate his skill.

A man, in a dirty white flowing shirt topped with a grungy brown vest, patched in two places, gave Marcos a look as he approached the bar.

"Two meads, cheapest kind you got," Marcos muttered, "and a plate of whatever you have to eat."

The man eyed Marcos suspiciously. "You got coin?"

He had the miniscule amount he'd owned as Merleen, but it would be enough to feed and lodge them for at least a few days, at least until he got more.

Digging into the pocket of his tunic, Marcos set the worn cloth bag on the bar. "Yep," he said laconically.

The suspicion in the man's eyes did not dim.

Marcos supposed if you owned a place like this, you kept it by being continually paranoid of everything and everyone.

"Who you with?" the man asked as he turned towards the keg set back, behind the bar. "That mousy-looking man over by the fire?" He gestured towards where Rhys sat, disdain written plainly across his features.

Marcos wouldn't have called him mousy. Unassuming, yes. But as soon as that big brain and big mouth ended up on the same page, the real man underneath the trappings roared to life, and Marcos had spent too many years trying to resist the irresistible pull of that man.

"He's an associate of mine," Marcos said.

"Associate in what?" the owner of the pub wondered.

See, Marcos thought, no knife polishing necessary.

"A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Whatever people need, in exchange for coin."

The man set the two tankards down, mead slopping over the side of one of them and wetting the bar. "You look like you'd be handy," he said, his dark, shuttered eyes taking in every inch of Marcos' size and musculature.

"If you hear of anyone needing a hand, we'll be staying a few days."

The man gave Marcos a sharp nod as he counted out a few silver coins from his purse. "Need a room?"

"Yes."

"I'll send the girl over with the food and your room will be top of the stairs, second from the left," he said tersely.

Marcos picked up the tankards, and left the bar with only a brief nod.

He'd done his work for the night.

Rhys was frowning as Marcos sat down and pushed one tankard in front of him.

"We have a room," Marcos said, "and we should have plenty of coin in a few days."

Rhys shot him an unimpressed look. It shouldn't have fired his blood, but it did.

"And how," he asked, delicately picking up the roughhewn tankard and taking an experimental sip, "did you manage that so quickly?" He made a face at the taste of the mead.

It was watered down, Marcos discovered as he drank his own, but it wasn't a terrible flavor. Of course, Rhys was used to living at court, both at Beaulieu and before that at Tullamore. Even though the Ardglassians were less particular than the Fontainians, Tullamore had still been a ruling seat of power with all its inherent luxuries.

Of course, the valley and its farm buildings, where he'd stayed with Gray, had not been particularly well-appointed, but as far as Marcos knew, Rhys had always been Evrard then, and even a unicorn couldn't be that particular, when all he'd needed was a warm stable and some sweet hay to chew.

"It was not difficult," Marcos said ruefully. "A few of the right kind of grunts, and he understood my meaning."

Rhys did not look convinced. "It would have been just as easy to meet some rich merchant on the road and take what we wanted."

"You have become unscrupulous during your time here," Marcos teased. "Robbing merchants on the road!"

"Like you aren't going to do much of the same thing now," Rhys grumbled. "I doubt anyone is going to hire you for particularly scrupulous reasons."

"No, but they are going to pay me for a service, which I intend to render," Marcos said.

"Apparently so long has passed that I forgot entirely about your obsession with honor," Rhys said wryly.

Marcos finished his tankard of mead. It was not particularly good, but it was wet and he was thirsty, and he'd long since learned during his time here to take what he was given and not complain.

"War should be honorable," Marcos said quietly. "Anything less, and it is merely cruel chaos."

"Yes, well, there is no honor in secrets," Rhys retorted evenly. "So you understand my complete lack of familiarity with the topic."

Marcos wanted to argue with him. He'd seen the toll that Evander's Guardianship had taken on him, during all the time they'd sat on the Conclave together, and he'd also known, for a thousand years and more, that Evander was wrong.

A Guardian without honor would never have risked everything to protect the people here. And even after the worst possible scenario had come to pass, he'd still devoted his entire life to making it right. To doing the honorable thing.

Even with his diminished power, he could have easily usurped any kingdom, or created his own. But he hadn't.

However, that was the thing about Evander—about Rhys, about Evrard—he never liked listening to another opinion besides his own.

So Marcos stayed quiet on the subject, and did not argue.

Instead, he asked, "During your years, was that how you earned your keep? Stealing from rich merchants on the roads?"

Rhys' look was chiding. "You were following me for many of those years, weren't you? Keeping an eye on me? You should know the answer to that question."

"I was not keeping an eye on you," Marcos said, even though that was not very far from the truth. "There were many years when I kept to myself, with the Mecant, or in other places, and I did not know where you were or what you were doing."

He was never going to be good at lying, but this was close enough to the truth that Marcos hoped it would pass muster.

"No," Rhys said decisively. "No, I was not stealing. I did not need to."

"Of course not. You created yourself an influential and important personage, who wouldn't need to whack rich merchants over the head to steal their purses."

Rhys glared at him.

"Just an observation," Marcos said lightly. "In any case, we do not need to resort to it now, as I believe that tonight we will see a development that will make going to such lengths unnecessary."

"What is it?"

But instead of answering, Marcos stood. "I will fetch more mead. Would you like another?"

Rhys stared sulkily at his half-full tankard. He was clearly unhappy that Marcos would not divulge all his secrets so easily. "No."

When he returned, the food had arrived, and Rhys was picking at it with a frown on his face.

"How long will we be here?" Rhys asked. "The food is . . . distasteful at best."

"Not up to your regular standards?" Marcos asked. "And to answer your question, we will be here as long as it takes."