4. The Golden Egg

Chapter 4

The Golden Egg

M ariel crouched low, her eyes in a squint and her ears listening for sounds, friendly or hostile. She and Alessia were hidden in a thatch of thorny bushes at the edge of a small clearing, Magnur not far off. The others were in their regular positions, passing signals that would make their way back to where Mariel and the two warriors of the group waited to be deployed. Remy and Augustine guarded each end of the road, while Destin patrolled the forest in between.

“You hear that, or did I imagine it?” Alessia whispered. She wrapped her arms around her slim jacket, warming herself. She was called the Sword because of her training as a blacksmith’s daughter and her role as the group’s armorer, but also due to her adeptness in wielding the steel she forged. Magnur, Alessia’s sometimes partner—the largest man Mariel had ever laid eyes on—had begun his days in Obsidian Sky as the Sea, an ode to his force and unchangeableness, but their targets had dubbed him the Stone for his implausible size, and that was the name that had stuck.

“I heard it,” Mariel replied and waited until Destin’s trill echoed a second time. She shifted to free her quiver from of a thatch of thorns. “Get ready. Remy’s should come anytime now.”

“He went north, right?”

Mariel nodded toward the north end of the road. “I saw him pass by ten minutes ago. Augustine was already south.”

“And Destin?”

“You heard his signal.”

“Isnae my meaning, and you know it.”

Destin had been reading the forest in preparation. The Whisperer, he was known as, but only by the others in the group, for Mariel had pushed from the very start to keep his role inconspicuous. Ever since their parents and sister had died, he’d been reading the dangers of the world like he was tuned just for them. It wasn’t magic, even if it sometimes seemed like it was, but an almost empathic connection to the world, similar to how advanced trackers could discern all manner of detail from things that were inconspicuous to others. He was not the tactical genius Remy was nor the warrior Alessia and Magnur were. He had no tangible skill, like Augustine, with which to make a name for himself. And he was not fiercely resilient, like Mariel. He had to be invisible because he would never survive capture. Mariel only kept him in the group because it was better to have him near and know what he was up to than worry about the trouble he’d find if he was not.

“He’s dry tonight,” Mariel answered tersely, followed by a warning look. For now, she added in her head.

“He doesnae need ale to self-destruct, Mar.”

“Nor do any of us. Shall I take your place then?”

“If you say he’s fine...” Alessia was clearly unconvinced but held up a hand in surrender and ducked lower before slinking off to take her position on the west side of the road.

For the first time in over an hour, Mariel was alone.

She used to enjoy her rare moments of quiet reflection, but in her weeks as the “pining wife,” she’d been forced into more than her share. She was still reeling from her antics on the terrace, and in desperate need of some inward wisdom, but she had none to give. Months she’d plotted and planned and sat in her impatience, knowing once he returned she would have to be ready to move on their agenda. It was an enigma even to herself why she’d behaved so poorly, going against her own plan to convince others they were warming to each other... why her tension had flamed into fury when Augustine had told her the way Erran had talked about her to the women he took to his bed.

She didn’t care about any of that. His idiocy with Yesenia worked in Mariel’s favor. Really, so did his wandering penis. If he spent his energies on a constant stream of housemaids, he’d leave her alone, and they could, maybe, make it through their short marriage without doing anything that would haunt her nightmares forevermore.

Just playing my part, she’d said, as if it explained any of her behavior. He was rightfully confused, and if she couldn’t extract her head from her ass, she’d sabotage everything she’d worked for over the past ten years. She’d let down the only family she had left, when they’d given up everything for a vision she’d convinced them was the path to their salvation.

But those were troubles for later, when they weren’t moments away from the wagon arriving.

Mariel snaked a meandering path through the bushes until the road was visible again. A canopy of leaves fanned the sides of the narrow passage, rustling against the peaceful breeze that had followed a quick, hard rain that had glistened against the moonlight. She peeked up long enough to find both Alessia and Magnur, each posted on opposite sides of the road and holding the ends of a stretched wire. Remy would be too far to spot, and Destin would be hiding by now, but where was...

Mariel drew to a stop when she saw the nightgown-clad Augustine “stumbling” down a rut in the road. Hers was the first trap, which rarely worked as well as it used to, since Obsidian Sky was a known hazard to high-value wagons. But even vigilant men could not always resist a beautiful, helpless woman.

The second, the wire, was in case they did.

Mariel listened for the familiar creak of wheels carving through rutted dirt. She timed reaching for her arrow with a thud of the caravan hitting a pothole and used the next loud diversion to pull the folded vellum from her pocket and tack it onto the tip of the arrowhead.

Augustine shrieked. The carriage came to a stuttering halt.

“Sirs! Sirs, help me! Please help me!” Augustine cried. Her white nightgown flapped in the moonlight as she approached the wagon.

“Whoa!” The driver held a hand out. He nodded at his copilot to move again. “Lass, you need to clear this road right now?—”

“There’s a man, and he... he...” Augustine ran backward as the wagon drew nearer to her act. When they’d first adopted the ruse, she’d look over her shoulder by instinct, sometimes giving away the trap just behind her, but years of the act had made her execution near flawless. “Would you abandon your daughter in need? Your sister?”

“Miss, we are under strict orders to stop for no one. Donnae ye ken there’re bandits on these roads? Best I can do is throw you some bread.”

Mariel nocked the arrow, careful not to tear the message at the end of it. Almost there.

“Will bread heal these wounds?” Augustine gestured wildly to the red splotches on her white nightgown, courtesy of three overripe tomatoes.

“Steward Rutland has advised no coaches should stop in these woods?—”

“Do I look like a bandit, sir?” Augustine’s agony was so convincing, Mariel almost wanted to comfort her.

“Well, nay, but they’re known for employing such trickeries. Go on now. Off the road, miss. It will be all right. We’ll send help back when we reach town.”

Mariel held tight to her test and waited. Waited. She narrowed her eyes, searching for any sign of Magnur and Alessia, but they were too good to be spotted once they’d settled into place. Unlike rope, the wire could not be seen by the men in the caravans until it was too late, but the horses would spot it and break free, leaving the cart to fend for itself.

It was true what the man had said, that they were known for the distressed honeypot ploy, but it was one of over a dozen they used, and the variety should have kept their adversaries on their toes.

They were so close to the wire, so why wasn’t Augustine signaling?

And then it came. A single glance in Mariel’s direction, so quick no one else would have been suspicious enough to follow it, but it was all Mariel needed. She loosed the arrow and waited for the gasp, then stifled a snort when the man’s hat came detached from his head and pierced the tree several feet to his left, pinned by her arrow.

“Haven’t lost my aim yet,” she whispered, pleased with herself.

The driver gaped at the hat and note, leaning over the side of his wagon to read the message.

Obsidian Sky wishes you a pleasant evening, sirs!

“Feck the Guardians and all...” The man groaned, his eyes following the note even as his carriage continued, headed straight into the second trap.

Mariel couldn’t see them, but she knew Magnur and Alessia were backing in opposite directions, stretching their wire high and taut. It was too late for the driver or his cohort to do anything but yell, “Trap!”

The carriage skidded to avoid the collision, but the horses were already rearing, snapping their reins and darting off in opposite directions as the wagon slammed to the ground. Alessia and Magnur rushed forward to surround the men and their broken caravan, while Augustine to stand guard in the road.

“Why you’re just bairns!” declared the copilot, holding his hands out. Even from her vantage point in the woods, Mariel could see he wasn’t armed, which was stupidly shortsighted of anyone traveling the roads with expensive cargo. He was worried about bandits but not ready for them? “Take off your masks and show us who you are.”

“Our qualms are not with you!” Mariel shouted the words from the forest. She nocked another arrow and released it, enjoying the sharp whistle as it sailed through the leaves and landed an inch from her first one.

The hatless man stared at the tree, dumbfounded.

“But they shall find their way to you just the same should you resist us.”

“Where’s the Flame?” The driver limped forward, blood staining his trousers from the fall. “Where’s your leader?”

No one, of course, knew Mariel was the Flame, but it suited their purpose for others to continue believing it was a man authorities had been searching years for. It was a blow to her pride that she could never reveal to the craven barons they’d been bested by a woman .

“Here’s all ye need to know, grunt,” Alessia said, sauntering closer with a grin. Her dark-blonde hair was stuck under her hat, part of her disguise, but her smoky voice was unmistakably feminine. “We’re taking what we’ve come for, but it’s up to you whether ye end up in the gulch.”

Magnur stood quiet and rigid, like a boulder.

While Alessia educated the men about their unfortunate predicament, Mariel drew smoothly toward the road, and the wagon. She clipped her bow into her back strap and drew one of her daggers instead, stepping sideways until she was so close, she could hear the men’s labored breaths.

She caught Magnur’s eye. His face moved not an inch, but the single blink told her he’d seen her and was ready if the men turned.

Mariel held her breath and climbed carefully aboard the wagon. It was a mess of bags and ropes and trash, which would take longer to sort through than they safely had time for. At any point, Remy or Augustine could sound the whistle, and?—

And then it happened. Mariel strained, listening for which direction the sound had come from.

Remy.

They had two, maybe three minutes, to find the jewel and flee before whoever was on the road arrived on the scene.

Mariel calculated her options. The back of the wagon was a quagmire of scattered items and trash, a shot into the wind. If I were escorting a rare golden egg valued the same as the annual taxes on a small village, would I store it in such a sty?

Or would I keep it close?

She landed in the dirt and stepped quietly onto the road to shake her head at Magnur, who was tying both men to the tree she’d shot. His nose flared in aggravation, but he returned to his task.

“Is it you, big man? Are you the Flame?” one of the men asked. Terror edged his flippant tone.

“You’re wasting your breath and our time,” Alessia snapped. “Where is it?”

Mariel withdrew her bow and nocked another arrow, aiming at the men as she came around the side of the wagon. “Hand it over. Now.”

“We’re just poor merchants?—”

She smacked his temple with the arrowhead. “Give me the egg or you die here.”

“I wouldnae choose such a dishonorable death for myself,” Alessia spat. “Ye donnae ken that what they take from others, they take from you? Would you die for men like them?”

Magnus tightened the last bit of rope with a tug and a grunt. “There. Going nowhere.”

“Last chance, merchant,” Mariel warned. Her heart was itching to address the panic that they were mere moments from disaster, but she’d learned to tease it, to trick it into waiting for the moment to pass. “Hand it over or don’t. We’ll have our egg either way.”

Magnur caught Mariel’s stare over the men. He had a hunting knife pressed to one of their throats, and it would take even the most subtle nod to get him to use it. He wouldn’t hesitate... wouldn’t break her gaze either. But though they’d injured some in their dealings, and had certainly threatened worse, execution was not part of their agenda. The irony of killing men over a golden egg—men who were just as much victims as Mariel and her friends were—was not lost on her.

She’d abandon the heist altogether before she’d let that happen.

Mariel lowered into a crouch. “We have a tracker in the forest. He can smell you. Sense you. Follow your stench all the way to whatever family awaits you. Now, I’m sure he’d rather enjoy a hearty meal than burn a family home to cinders, so let’s agree it’s not worth destroying lives over a golden egg you’ll never benefit from either way.”

“Will ye at least feck us about? So we look like we put up a fight?” the driver asked. He tried to dig in his pocket, but his bindings prevented it.

Alessia snaked a hand down and did it herself, then withdrew a weighted golden egg the size of an aubergine. She winked at Mariel and then darted into the forest. Her sharp cries, signals to Remy and Augustine to withdraw, echoed after her. Mariel prayed Destin, wherever he was, was doing the same.

Mariel grinned at Magnur. “Seems like the least we can do. Aye?”

Magnur’s face brightened in amusement. “Aye. Won’t take but a moment.”

Erran watched Khallum drop coins into the mugs of the four women he was recruiting to join him later, wondering where his friend would even find the stamina for such an ambitious endeavor.

Even though their entire crew had become either married or betrothed, Khallum still roped them into ending a party in a brothel.

Hamish, before meeting and falling ass over head for his wife, Yanna, used to join in the entertainment, but Erran never had, nor Samuel for that matter. Erran always had too much on his mind to let go long enough to forsake consequence—particularly the variety that had healers visiting Khallum every month or so to clean up his messes—and Samuel just didn’t believe in indulging in illicit distractions.

They’d always been an odd bunch, the four of them, but despite his discomfort in a hall of midnight repute—the shrill music and drunken laughter so loud, his ears hadn’t stopped ringing—Erran never felt more at home than he did with his three oldest friends.

“Look how they watch him. Every single one, dying for a coin in their cup.” Samuel shook his head and sipped his milk like a dainty madam.

“Aye, even the ones who know better,” Erran quipped, and they both laughed. “Ken he’d notice if we left?”

“Doesnae miss a whit, our Khal,” Hamish said, slopping ale all over the place as he wedged between them. “Remembers every one of their names too. Stunning commitment, innit?”

“I prefer fealty to home and hearth, but it suits him,” Samuel said, conceding as far as he ever would. “And Gwyn doesn’t seem to mind.”

“She minds,” Erran said. “But what can she do about it? She didnae choose the marriage any more than he did. She’s a Northerland lass. Might not be their way.”

“It’s the way of all men,” Hamish retorted. “Until they find themselves, course.”

“Not all of us can just stumble upon a beautiful, helpless woman in a port and marry her.” Erran laughed. Hamish hadn’t told them the full story of Yanna, only the parts they’d seen themselves: she’d been homeless, abused, desperate... and pregnant. But Hamish had seen something in her eyes that had turned his entire world on its head. He’d taken her back with them that very day, and they’d been wed within a fortnight. Their oldest son, Jesse, as far as anyone else knew, was Hamish’s. Erran and his friends were quick to shut down anyone positing otherwise.

“Mariel is lovely, Erran. I’m sorry we didn’t get to meet her sooner,” Samuel said. “Reminds me of Yesenia, but with fewer, ah... spines.”

“Aye, but the lass was prickly tonight,” Hamish replied. “Erran likes ’em tha’ way, I ken. Flogs himself for sport.”

“ Is she lovely?” Erran swallowed a mouthful of ale to drown his distaste. “Cannae see past her displeasing attitude.”

“And you have accentuated our point.” Samuel shook his head at Khallum, who was still winning over the lasses he’d bed later. “I’d think you two would get on swimmingly. Remind me, Hamish, who his first infatuation was, before Yesenia?”

Erran shook his head tightly at them both in sharp warning.

“Oy, Esta Garrick!” Hamish boomed, slapping his knee. “Course, she wasnae half as hairy then...”

“Feck off.” Erran grunted at him. “I was a bairn, you tosser.”

“Still plowed her,” Hamish muttered, cackling into his ale. “Bairn or nay.”

“Fourteen is plenty old to know better,” Samuel replied, grinning with mischief. “Is that why you didn’t attend her handfast? Were the feelings too... raw?”

“I didnae attend her handfast because the Garricks are uncivilized.” Erran groaned through his teeth, remembering how Yesenia had taken a dagger to Esta’s brother, Lem, for bullying her brother. Maybe Mariel was right and he did always find a way to work Yesenia into a thought. He only knew he missed her still. “I expect this nonsense from Khallum but not you two.”

“We’re just trying to cheer you up, mate.” Samuel leaned over the table and slapped his shoulder. “Did you at least talk to her? Was it an attempt at humor?”

“She’s like walking into a storm without a cloak. All I can think about is how I can get to safety without losing too much in the doing.” He eyed Khallum, still smoothly charming his chosen ladies, wishing, for a moment, that his own needs were so simple. “She says it’s about Yesenia and some maids I allegedly consorted with at the Spires, but I donnae ken I believe her.”

“What maids?” Hamish asked, his eyes growing wide. “Donnae recall anything about pretty maids.”

“There were none.”

“Why don’t you believe her?” Samuel asked.

“Because to care about who I spend my hours with would require some sort of harmony or attraction, and she has neither. And aye, feeling’s mutual. So feckin’ mutual.” Erran sputtered into bitter laughter. “She doesnae even know me, and you’d think I’d murdered her family, down to the last.”

“Did ye?” Hamish waggled his brows. Ale foam stuck to his beard.

“Be serious,” Erran gruffed. “Never even met her until Father came home one day and told me he’d picked me a wife. I had no choice in the matter.”

“Where did your father find her?” Samuel crossed his arms and leaned back. “I don’t remember you saying.”

Erran pursed his mouth. “All he’d say was that she was ‘unproblematic.’ What he really meant was ‘lowborn’ and ‘easy to control.’ Suppose he was right on one point.”

“Must’ve been right cross wit’ ye to pair his only son wit’ a lake rat,” Hamish said. When Samuel shot him a look, he asked, “What? Donnae mean nothin’ by it. It’s what they call lake dwellers, innit? Leastways the ones with no family name?”

“Ashdown is a name, Hamish.”

“Aye, never said otherwise.”

“You know they used to be barons, the Ashdowns?”

Hamish frowned. “Oh, aye?”

Samuel shook his head and turned back toward Erran. “Where does she think you are tonight? If she’s sore about the chambermaids, she won’t much like you in a brothel until dawn.”

His friend’s questions were right. Valid. The ones he should be asking. But it assumed Erran had valid answers. Nothing about Mariel’s behavior made sense. By all accounts from his mother, she’d been perfectly congenial in his absence. Polite. Pliant. Nothing at all like the spitfire who’d slapped him in Mistgrave and humiliated him in his own home in front of everyone. “Couldnae say, Samuel. She went off to be with her brother before the party ended.”

“She always carry a mask when she goes to visit her brother?” Hamish asked.

“Sorry?”

“She had a mask in her hand is all. Saw her from the balcony. Do they play mummers together?”

“Guardians, Hamish, mummers is for children,” Samuel scolded.

Erran sat up straight. That was curious. “You sure that’s what you saw, Ham?”

“Aye, sure as anything.”

“And she was headed north, aye? Toward her brother’s place?”

Hamish squinted one eye, his face pulling up on the same side. “Oy... nay. Nay, she went east actually. Aye, was east, toward the village.”

Mariel wasn’t done keeping secrets then.

Well, he was done with her keeping them.

“Excuse me, mates.” Erran pushed back from the table. His blood boiled with unknowns. He’d been back hardly a week, and already he’d tarnished his own reputation, with Mariel all too happy to make it even worse. He might not be able to fix the first, but he’d be damned if he let her errant behavior push him out of the admiralty. “It seems I need to go find my wife. ”

Mariel nursed the heavy golden egg between her hands. At her feet, beside the log she was sitting on, was a mug of the old cider Remy had procured from a taverner who was going to throw it out because it was past its expiry. She hadn’t touched hers, but the others were on their second or third rounds. Their glossy eyes and swelling laughter were a sign it hadn’t lost its potency at least.

Even if she’d wanted some, she was too distracted to command her body to lean or her hand to reach for it. What she should have been doing was loosening up and joining them, as she’d always had before she’d signed her marriage contract. Even in Erran’s months away, she’d still felt free, like herself. Old Mariel would not have tensed at the potential snag in their plan, the way she had when Remy had sounded the bird call. She would have relished the small bit of challenge it posed in an otherwise now-rote routine they could all perform in their sleep.

It was always the same. Isolate, subdue, steal, flee. Retreat to camp, eat, drink, enjoy the merriment, distribute the spoils to the people in need. Do it all again when the next opportunity landed in their laps.

Mariel couldn’t make sense of where her own head was at. She’d had far longer than she’d imagined to learn the ways of the Rutlands, without having to share a bed or life with one. At first, she’d been annoyed he was leaving her for so long, forcing her to endure life in his family sphere longer than she’d ever intended. While she hadn’t known about the auction before the marriage, she’d assumed there would be something like it, some big win she could lead the Sky to and then declare her short marriage a victory for the cause. When he’d gone away to sea, a test run of the eastern coast to prove he was ready for more, she’d taken the slight loss on the chin and made the best of it, biding her time and learning the keep and their ways. She’d reminded herself it wasn’t the worst thing for her to have more time to ready herself for what, even then, she’d known would be her toughest act yet.

She hadn’t seen him at all until after he’d returned from Warwicktown, shame shrouding him and his family after he’d begged Yesenia to leave her husband. It might have been better for everyone if she had, because then Mariel’s nearly histrionic performances would have been more reasonable.

“You’re not drinking. Or singing. Or doing much of anything other than staring at that ridiculous wad of gold,” Augustine whispered, craning sideways with an inebriated grin. She batted her lashes at Mariel, which made her laugh. “Would you prefer we retire to our tent? Just you and me?”

Mariel lowered her eyes toward the forest floor and shook her head. “Nay, sorry. It’s not about the heist. I wasn’t myself at the party tonight, and I need to do better.”

Augustine’s smile faded. Her expression clouded. “He deserved everything you said.”

“You heard, aye?” Mariel shook her head. “I humiliated him.”

“He deserved it, Mar.”

“But I’m not there to humiliate him, Auggie. I need him. We need him.” She watched Destin accidentally slosh whiskey into the crackling fire, sending it roaring briefly higher. Magnur shot him an irritated glare as Destin stumbled away with his bottle without saying a word.

Augustine pulled herself erect. “Be careful about needing him too much, Mar. He’s a volatile man, who would let you starve if it meant filling his own plate.”

“Were you not just telling me you’ve heard naught but good about him?” Mariel laughed. She’d clocked Augustine’s strange fascination with Erran, but she didn’t know what to make of it yet. “Which is it? Is he a diabolical lion or a tender little lamb?”

Remy’s brawny arms hooked around Mariel’s neck as he pulled her head back for a teasing kiss. “What are you two she-demons whispering about over here? Hmm?” He squished between them on the log. Augustine groaned. “And why are you not drunk, lass?”

Her malaise aside, Mariel’s fondness for spirits had waned as Destin’s problem had increased. The others loved him too, but their world was one of high stakes. The reward was helping others, but they bore all the risk. Every heist was a new opportunity to meet the noose. Drinking themselves into oblivion was a small vice in comparison.

“Long night for me,” she replied, trying to smile. “You had no problems with the buyer?”

“I meet him at dawn with the egg. He’ll give us exactly what we ask. Alessia’s coming with me, and she’ll deliver the gold to the Whitecliffe miners straightaway, minus our small cut.”

“Good.” Obsidian Sky retained less than five percent of their bounties, just enough to fund the jobs and ensure they didn’t starve. “How close was the other caravan?”

“You had time.” Remy patted her knee. He turned a tight smile toward Alessia and Magnur, who were wrestling for the keg spout. Destin had drifted farther from the group and was drinking alone near the edge of the clearing. “We’ve had closer calls.”

It hadn’t felt like that to Mariel. Her anxiety as they’d worked the men over, waiting for danger to arrive, had reminded her of the early days, when they were still testing the waters to see what they could get away with. Gone was the confidence of the Flame at her peak, when she’d ignored the bird calls and the peril and charged forward with intrepid bravado.

Nothing had felt the same since she’d joined the Rutlands.

“Excuse me,” she muttered and pushed to her feet, rushing off before their confusion could reach her ears. On the way to Destin, she caught Alessia’s eye. She’d stopped playing with Magnur long enough for concern to pinch her face, but Mariel shook her head to indicate she was all right, despite that she was not. Heist nights were for revelry, not for whatever was going on in her head.

“Hi,” she said, sidling up next to her brother with a warm squeeze.

“Hi.” Destin’s smile didn’t make it to his eyes; it never did anymore. “How was your party?”

Mariel snorted. “Be glad you weren’t there. It was monstrously boring and then I made a proper arse of myself.”

Destin laughed. “That’s not like you.”

“I don’t know what’s gotten into me. Maybe I’m... I don’t know, losing my touch.”

“I wish I could be there to help you, Mar. I feel neutered out here.” Destin took a swig from his mostly empty bottle and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He pointed his glossy gaze at the moon. “Remy and Auggie act like they’re my mother and father, and I ken it’s because they feel they need to be.”

Mariel nudged him. “They love you, same as I do. That’s all.”

“Hm.” Destin emptied the bottle and chucked it into the forest, where it disappeared. “I’m older than all of you, except Magnur.” It never should have been the Flame leading the Sky at all, at least in his mind. He was supposed to protect Mariel, not the other way around. But for all he couldn’t forgive himself, nor could he seem to change.

“We all have our role to play, Desi,” Mariel said, plopping a soft kiss on his cheek. “And I could not play mine in there if you weren’t playing yours out here.”

“You mean if they weren’t looking after your indigent older brother?”

“I said what I meant,” she stated firmly, giving him a gentle shake. “If anything, I’m the one neutered, having to watch everything I say, do... having to pretend I don’t dream of wringing every one of their necks. It’s harder than I thought it would be.”

Destin considered her words for a moment. “What’s he like?”

“Who? Erran?”

He nodded.

Mariel balked. “I barely know him.”

“You’re his wife.”

She blurted a laugh. “Do you know how strange that sounds when you say it so casually?”

“Will you ever forgive me for it?”

“Aw, Desi,” Mariel said, her heart heavy as she pulled him in for a squeeze. There were nights she didn’t sleep at all, wondering if she’d wake to learn he’d been dredged from the river or thrown into jail. Her fear for him had no end. “You saw a clever opportunity and you took it. You acted like a leader. I’m the one who needs to screw her head on straight and finish this.”

Destin hugged her tighter, sniffling. “You’re a good liar anyway. How long can you stay?”

Mariel kissed him again, sighing her regret. “I should go. Now that he’s back from sea, they’ll be less likely to turn their cheek at me visiting our ‘sick aunt.’”

“Poor dear Anna.”

They both laughed, and for a moment, she remembered what it had once been like, when they were children and unencumbered by so much trauma. When Angelika’s crystalline laugh still rang through their halls and their mother’s oyster stew could cure any ill.

“Be safe,” she whispered and slipped off through the trees without saying good-bye to the others.

Erran lost Mariel’s trail on an old service road, but he soon realized why when he stumbled upon an abandoned caravan half in the ditch. He followed the path all the way to the caravan itself, where her footprints ended, but not only hers. There were at least three others he could discern.

The entire scene was confounding. Whoever had been driving the wagon had left it seemingly in a rush after being clipped by a... wire lying across the road? The tree nearby had some severed rope at the base and one of those anachronistically friendly notes from Obsidian Sky tacked to the bark, a group of bandits of which he was all too familiar. They were the bane of his father’s business, and for as steep as the bounty was on any one of their heads, it was a wonder none had ever been caught.

There were only small signs of a scuffle, nothing serious.

He was almost certain she’d been there when the wagon had lost its battle, because of the way her footprints traced the edges of the wreckage, like she was intentionally stepping around it. From there, they disappeared into the forest.

Obsidian Sky wasn’t known for violence, but what if they’d kidnapped her?

Erran knelt to get a closer look at the boot prints at the front of the wagon when he heard someone coming. He swiftly squatted and angled quietly around the side until he again had a view of the road, one hand on his hilt.

With a surge of relief, he immediately recognized the long, dark hair, but gone was Mariel’s smug swagger. She moved quickly, her hands crossed over her chest and her head down, and although it was hard to tell by squinting in the darkness, he was almost sure he saw tears cutting lines down her face.

A strange flutter filled his chest, followed by a stab of guilt, like he’d been spying on her—and though he had , until that moment, he’d felt wholly justified, expecting to catch her in the act of something heinous or untoward that would explain her hostile attitude.

She stopped abruptly and turned. “Who’s there?”

Erran slowly rose, unsure whether to smile or hold up his hands in some sort of apology. Instead he announced himself with a throat clearing. “I came upon this mess and feared the worst. What happened here?”

“ Errandil ?” Her posture went rigid, and he again recognized the firebrand who had humiliated him in front of everyone he had ever known. “You following me?”

He stepped out with a flippant shrug. “What if I am?”

“I told you where I was going.” Her arms locked over her chest.

“You said you were going to see Destin. He lives the complete opposite direction of this road.”

“I never said I was going to see him at his place.”

“So you’re fine then? You weren’t caught up in this Obsidian Sky mess?”

“Do I not look fine?” She swept her hands over herself.

Erran’s concern shifted when he pieced it together. “You went to see him, didn’t you? The cad you met in Mistgrave? After I asked you to be more careful?”

“What kind of man slinks about at night trying to catch his wife up to no good?” Her laughter split the night. “I really don’t think you want me to answer that.”

Erran gritted. Whatever pity he’d felt for her fled with her barbed words. “The kind who knows when he’s being lied to, Mariel. It was your idea for us to play nice and...” He gestured around. “You were clearly here at some point. Did you see it happen? Why are you here?”

“You’re so good at mysteries, can you not solve this one? Obviously I robbed the men and chased them off, all by my little old self,” she said with an insinuative grin.

Erran buried an exasperated groan. “Be serious.”

“But I am.” She blinked petulantly. “They put up such little fuss. It wasn’t a very taxing challenge.” She lifted one shoulder.

He marched toward her and she flinched when he neared, lighting a new anger in him. “You think I would hit you?”

Mariel’s throat contracted in a hard swallow. “I know better than to trust any man who hasn’t earned it.”

“I don’t need you to trust me, but I will ask you to stop insulting me.” I need to calm myself or we’ll just keep going in circles. She could go like this all night. “Mariel, secrets never belong to just one person for long. If whatever you’re up to is big enough to hide from me, my mother and father will find out. They may already know.”

“There’s nothing to know. I went to see Destin at a friend’s homestead. That’s all.” She turned but didn’t leave right away. Her entire demeanor shifted, became heavier somehow. “Erran, look, I...”

He waited for her to finish, but moments passed and all she offered was silence. “What? You what?”

“I miscalculated tonight at our party. I was upset about Destin not being there and wasn’t my best self. I’m... still not.” Her stare traveled to her boots. She dug the toes of one into a root bisecting the road. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to do better.”

His anger softened. In what little he knew of Mariel, apologies didn’t come easy. “I perhaps could have prepared you better.”

“Aye, but... I’m not asking you to lessen what I did. I can admit my own faults.” Her mouth puckered in what was nearly a grin. “For what few I possess.”

There was something almost charming about her when she wasn’t trying to take his head off. “This will get easier if we’re on the same side.”

Mariel nodded at the ground. “But then you’ll have to stop telling tales to your conquests.”

Erran shook his head wildly. “I truly don’t ken what you’re?—”

“I don’t care who you dodder, I told you.” She looked up. “But if they’re people I have to see day in and day out, women who serve me food and prepare my clothing, then I’ll thank you not to make it harder for me.”

He had no idea where she’d gotten the idea he’d been snogging the entire kitchen staff and then some, but she wasn’t going to believe him no matter what he said or how he said it. “And I’ll thank you not to hide things from me.”

“For the second time in our marriage, it seems we agree on something.” Her smile was so forced this time, he laughed. “You aren’t going to try to be chivalrous and offer to escort me back, are you?”

“Well, we are going the same way, and it is rather dark...”

She scoffed, mouth twisting. “I draw the line at taking your arm.”

He snorted. “Wouldn’t dare offer it.”

Mariel grinned.

Erran shook his head and held his arm out, gesturing for her to go ahead. “After you.”