Chapter 20

20

Feed and care for your mount before you care for yourself; your survival will one day depend on the loyalty of the taybarri.

~ The Ranger's Guide to Honor, Duty, and Tenets

Kaylina sat astride Levitke's back with Vlerion draped in front of her, unconscious with his clothes shredded. She'd retrieved her own sword but had no idea where his boots or sword were and hoped he remembered when he woke up. Assuming Spymaster Sabor would allow Vlerion his weapons. Sabor rode a brown stallion and was leading Kaylina and the rangers, not to their headquarters but toward the royal castle.

Targon, who rode his taybarri at her side, had protested, saying Vlerion needed a doctor to stitch up his wounds. All Sabor had said was that the royal castle had a surgeon, doctor, and pharmacist and that he would be adequately tended.

Though the rest of the taybarri who'd been accompanying Kaylina that night ambled along with them, it was clear Sabor was in charge. Targon, irritation tightening his eyes, glared at his back, but it seemed a kingdom's spymaster outranked a kingdom's captain of the rangers.

As they rode through the streets, dawn creeping over the city, Sabor kept glancing back at Kaylina and Vlerion. Waiting for him to wake up? Or wondering if she would veer away and use her sway over the taybarri to convince them to help her escape the city?

That had crossed her mind. But she'd already endured being a fugitive on the lam. She didn't want to do anything to incriminate herself. Or Vlerion. Besides, as she kept reminding herself, they hadn't done anything wrong. Sabor wanted to use them.

That wasn't much more appealing than being a fugitive. Kaylina rested her hand on Vlerion's back.

"We caught the end of the battle," Targon said quietly.

She winced. She hadn't been sure how long the two men had been standing in the doorway to the bath chamber, watching across the pools as the beast advanced on her. If they'd seen the end of the fight, that meant they'd seen them together, him touching her, her kissing him. Her cheeks flared with the heat of embarrassment. It wasn't as if she could have done anything else, since touching had been required to assert her power, but she could imagine what they thought of a woman who would kiss a furry, fanged beast.

"Despite knowing about the curse for years," Targon continued, "that was the first time I'd seen him fighting as the beast. He is powerful. As evinced by the torn-off head at the bottom of one pool and the body floating in the other." The captain's grimace suggested that even he, surely inured to death, had found that gory.

"Yes. It would be unwise to irritate him." Kaylina spoke firmly, the words more for Sabor than Targon.

The spymaster had to know that, because he looked back, his smug smile unconcerned.

"I don't recommend people irritate him when he's a man either," Targon said. "I seem to remember giving you that warning once."

"You did." Kaylina lowered her voice. "What's he planning to do with us?" She nodded toward Sabor.

Though she didn't like Targon, he was closer to an ally for her than Sabor. He at least considered Vlerion a friend as well as a loyal subordinate, and cared what happened to him. Sabor, she had no doubt, didn't care if Vlerion lived or died. All he saw was a potential tool.

"I don't know. Study him maybe. Study you two together. Figure how he can use the beast to help protect the kingdom." Targon eyed Sabor's back and spoke the next sentence so softly she almost missed it. "And further his own ambitions."

"Will he— we —be safe?"

Targon turned his palm toward the sky. He didn't know. Great.

The thought of being studied didn't appeal in the least to Kaylina. Would the spymaster lock them up so he could have scientists poke and prod at the beast? And order her to soothe him so he could be controlled?

She shuddered at the thought of being used against Vlerion. All she wanted was to help him and be with him.

She closed her eyes and stroked Levitke's fur, again tempted to urge the taybarri to flee, to take her and Vlerion out of the city. But her siblings would be in danger if she acted against the crown's wishes. And Vlerion's mother lived nearby too, his cousins and friends. People that someone like the spymaster could use against him.

Sabor led the taybarri herd away from the last buildings and toward the cliff on which the royal castle perched, overlooking the harbor and the city. Before the road began its ascent, Kaylina noticed someone peeking out of an alcove. The person wore a hood, but she glimpsed a familiar face under it. Mitzy, the Virt girl who'd come to the castle numerous times and who'd tried to recruit Kaylina for the movement.

Targon followed her gaze, and Mitzy ducked back into the alcove.

"The Virts are watching." Kaylina hoped the captain wouldn't feel compelled to chase Mitzy down.

Mitzy mostly seemed like a messenger, and she had argued against getting rid of Kaylina, as one of her allies had wanted to do. One whom the plant had later killed before he could leave Stillguard Castle. Kaylina doubted Mitzy would dare act against her now.

"Yes, that's the third one I've noticed." Targon looked forward, giving no indication that he would pursue Mitzy. "Your taybarri herd was making quite the commotion at the Strigil. Most of the city knows something happened there."

As the taybarri climbed toward the castle, the road growing steep, gravity shifted Vlerion back toward Kaylina. She leaned forward to compensate, imagining being trampled if they both fell off with more taybarri coming behind them, and gripped the thick fur of Levitke's neck to anchor herself.

"I'm expecting an invoice for destruction to the bathhouse," Targon added dryly.

"The lead assassin is still alive. He got away into the catacombs." Maybe Kaylina should have reported that earlier, but by the time the men had walked in, she'd assumed the assassin long gone.

Targon grunted, not sounding surprised. "I'd hoped he'd gotten them all. They blab to you who hired them?"

"I asked, but the assassin wouldn't say. He was fixated on wanting to use me as bait for Vlerion." Kaylina shifted her hand to rest on his back again, worried that he hadn't yet woken. Were his injuries graver than she'd realized?

But he stirred under her touch, as if he'd only been waiting for it to waken. Since he was draped belly-down over Levitke's back, his first view was of fur and the ground.

He issued a disoriented grunt.

"I'm here," Kaylina told him, lest he think some kidnapper had gotten him—though the blue taybarri fur should have told him he was with her or another ranger. "We're being escorted to the royal castle for..." She looked at Targon.

Sabor was the one to answer, though she'd been speaking softly and hadn't expected him to hear. "A chat." He waved an airy hand.

"More likely scientific study," Kaylina muttered as Vlerion shifted around.

"There's not much that's more unmanly than being carried helpless in a woman's lap." Vlerion managed to get a leg over Levitke's back so he could sit up.

"Levitke is doing the carrying," Kaylina pointed out. "And you were more in front of my lap than in it. You'd be heavy for that."

"I see." His back straightened and shoulders tensed as he took in their surroundings—and their company.

The taybarri were cresting the plateau, and the royal castle loomed ahead of them. At Sabor's approach, guards opened the gate without hesitation. Of course they did. He was halfway in charge here, after all. Kaylina remembered the way the aged king had looked to the spymaster for cues when he'd addressed the Kar'ruk and taybarri elders in the courtyard.

"About time you woke up," Targon told Vlerion. "You look rougher than an archery target at the end of the summer."

"I wasn't perforated that many times. I don't think." Vlerion touched his side, a wound visible through one of many gashes in his shirt. Most of the rips in his clothing were from the beast changing, prompting muscles to bulge out, but that one had to have been a gift from one of the assassins.

"Not as badly as they were. The lead assassin got away, but even he has garish claw marks deep in his side. The ones who didn't get away…" Kaylina glanced at Targon again.

" More garish claw marks," he said.

"Do you remember much of the night?" Kaylina touched Vlerion's shoulder as they rode through the open gate.

"As usual, it was a blur. I remember seeking the assassin's trail, as I'd planned, and then fighting and…" Vlerion looked toward the cloudy gray sky as he tried to recall the events. "More men showed up. Some were his, but there were guards too. They heard our battle and came. The beast almost attacked them, but he—I—had instincts enough to realize we didn't want to be seen, that the guards would turn on us." He waved at the plural pronouns, as if to acknowledge they weren't correct, but he didn't amend them. We was probably right. He truly was two different beings when he was Vlerion versus the beast. "We wanted to lead the assassins to the catacombs and take care of them down there. I remember that. We tried to let them think we were more injured than we were, that the assassins had us."

"It was working. I… I guess I screwed up the beast's plans. I'm sorry. I woke up and heard a roar of pain and worried the assassins would catch you after you changed back, and they'd take advantage."

"That would have been a possibility, but the beast was dead set on ending the threat to you. He wouldn't change back until you were safe."

The taybarri came to a stop in the courtyard, Sabor having dismounted and handed the reins of his horse to a stableboy.

Vlerion shifted his gaze to Targon. "Are we being detained for some reason, Captain?"

" Chatting ," Targon said sourly.

"Your presence is requested for a brief discussion, Lord Vlerion." Sabor bowed politely to him. "And that of Ms. Korbian as well. It's not a detainment. There may even be snacks. Croissants? Jam? I trust you haven't had breakfast yet?"

"He chewed the head off one of the assassins," Targon grumbled.

Vlerion didn't wince, but he did clench his jaw, and Kaylina was positive he didn't want to be reminded of the details—or for them to be a joke.

"One would think croissants a more palatable meal," Sabor murmured.

"Will they be served in the dungeon?" Kaylina asked.

"Certainly not. The dungeon is reserved for criminals." The way he twitched his eyebrows and looked at her made Kaylina think he still believed her such. Or, if not that, he could envision her becoming one.

This time, she clenched her jaw.

"You may leave, Captain," Sabor said. "This won't concern you or the other rangers."

"It involves one of my men."

"Lord Vlerion, I am certain, is capable of handling a chat without you holding his hand. Especially when he has someone far more appealing to do that." Sabor inclined his head toward Kaylina.

Maybe it was meant to be a compliment, but she doubted it. She barely resisted the urge to bare her teeth at him.

"As his commanding officer," Targon said coolly, "I have the right to know what the crown needs that would involve him. What you need." His narrowed eyes suggested he knew fully well that the crown and the spymaster might have different desires in this instance.

"He is welcome to report the minutes of our meeting to you if he wishes." Sabor waved toward Targon before pointing Kaylina and Vlerion toward a door that she hadn't been through before. "And do take your furry herd with you when you go, Captain."

Levitke issued a defiant grunt. Several of the taybarri did, and a number of them sat or lay down.

"The furry herd looks like they're sticking with their anrokk ," Targon said dryly. "I might be able to convince Terkarik to come along for a promise of breakfast." He patted his own mount. "Croissants with jam, perhaps."

A floppy blue-furred ear lifted with interest.

"If that's what you feed them," Sabor said, "they're spoiled."

"They are intelligent beings and eat and do what they wish. Don't forget that if you have more than chatting in mind. You may recall that they've been in the castle before. They helped protect the king and queen from the invaders."

"What I remember is picking up droppings in the great hall," Sabor grumbled.

"I'll wager a thousand liviti that you didn't personally pick up anything."

Sabor smiled thinly. "Privileges of rank."

He shooed the captain toward the gate.

Before budging, Targon looked to Vlerion. Vlerion sighed and nodded to him.

"I'll take that report when you're done," Targon told him and directed his men and the taybarri toward the gate, though many looked back at Kaylina. Even his loyal mount did.

Levitke swished her tail on the cobblestones, not leaving.

Vlerion sighed again and dismounted, noting his bare feet for the first time.

"We weren't sure where you left your boots and sword," Kaylina said, "or I would have grabbed them."

"It's all right. I trust I won't need them for this meeting." Vlerion directed a sour look toward Sabor, but the spymaster was already heading for the door. "Assuming the droppings have been cleaned up."

Kaylina also dismounted. She started to give Levitke a customary pat but felt the urge to turn it into a hug, wrapping her arms around the taybarri's thick neck and pressing her face into the fur for a moment.

When she stepped back, Levitke gazed at her with concerned eyes.

"We'll be fine," Kaylina promised and hoped it wasn't a lie.