33. Thirty

The saddle chafed almost as bad as having to share it with Ruith.

After our encounter in the alcove the night before, I went to find a quiet place to wash before crawling into the bed of furs at the hut. I didn't see Ruith until the morning. He was waiting outside the hut with the remaining horse and my clothes. We exchanged a look, coming to a silent understanding not to speak of it, at least for now. Then he climbed up into the saddle and I reluctantly accepted his invitation to join him rather than walk the whole way.

There were no beasts in the mist. Barren trees cast long shadows in the morning fog, which scattered whenever sunlight penetrated deep enough. The sound of horse hoofs was the only noise.

Wind hit my neck, and I shivered. Without my collar, I felt naked. I hadn't thought I would miss it once it was gone.

There would be another to take its place soon, this one made of iron. I didn't know yet how I felt about that. While I didn't want to be a slave, I was. Being one without a collar felt wrong. It would only separate me from the others, and I didn't want to be unlike them. I wasn't better than them. Hawk, Luthar, and I had a friendship, and I would miss it if it disappeared.

We rode up the sloping trail and past the tree with the many skulls sprouting from its branches.

"You're leading a rebellion against your father," I said at last. I turned my head. Ruith rode behind me, his arms tight around my middle, holding the horse's reins. "You called yourself a king, but you're not, are you?"

"Not yet," he agreed.

"Your mother was a queen."

He nodded. "The last."

You may call me Prince Ruith. That's what he'd said to Michail on the day he collected me. Yet everyone knew the elves didn't have kings or princes. It struck me as odd then. I thought it a slip of the tongue, a simple poor choice of words. It had been deliberate.

"You said your father was a slave once. How does a slave rise to become Primarch of the elves?"

The clip-clop of hooves was steady, the landscape crawling by.

"He survived," Ruith said at length. "That is the simple answer. The truth is more complicated and shrouded in too many embellishments. I know that there was a man. His name was Isheda Runecleaver. He and my father were lovers, both soldiers in the king's army."

"Slaves can't be soldiers."

"Some would say they make the best soldiers," Ruith said quietly. "They have the most to gain when promised freedom in exchange for service. Tarathiel was King Belios' most loyal slave, trusted to guard his person. But Belios was not a good man. On campaign in the Yeutlands, he slaughtered thousands. It was enough to lose him support among many houses. Someone convinced his slave to murder him in his bed, and then there was civil war. Brother fought brother, lovers fought their beloved. The country was torn apart. There was not one clan, one house that doesn't feel the ripple of those divided loyalties to this day."

"Where did the Runecleavers fall?" I asked, thinking of Vinolia and her venom for Ruith.

"They were loyalists, supporting the monarchy. A man named Gin, Belios' nephew, led the armies, but he was defeated time and again. Tarathiel grew in power and respect, eventually becoming the leader of the rebel army. He fought Gin at the Battle of Veldin and slew him. Then he crossed the Krosika with his army and laid siege to the capital, expecting a quick surrender. Instead, Gin's widow, Princess Siriyama, took up the mantle and became queen of the elves. She barricaded herself in the Hall of Wisdom at the center of the capital. Each night, she would light a single candle from her window to let the people know she was still alive."

"Eventually, she lost." I pointed out. "Besieged cities are almost never victorious." In fact, I couldn't think of a single instance in history where the besieged city had won without some outside assistance.

"She might not have," Ruith said. "All she had to do was wait and hold ground. They were waiting for the Runecleaver army to come in behind the rebels. Tarathiel knew he was running out of time. He also knew that Isheda Runecleaver, his former lover, had been appointed as an honor guard to the queen. They met in secret. Where, how, and how they conducted themselves that night varies according to who is telling the story, but the next day, a door opened. Tarathiel stormed the Hall of Wisdom. He broke down the door to the queen's chambers and…" His fingers tightened into fists around the reins and released. "Some say he was so struck by her beauty that he proposed to her on the spot. Others say he wed her that night to end the bloodshed. The truth is that she became his prisoner until, a year after, there was a child, and shortly after, she was dead, and so was anyone who knew the truth of those days."

"What about Isheda?" I asked, though a part of me already knew.

"He was hanged for treason, his body left for flies and birds."

My stomach turned. "This is how elves reward loyalty?"

"It is how my father has maintained his power for so long. He kills any who oppose him swiftly, decisively with one hand, and does whatever he can to make the people love him with the other. Slaves, luxury goods, bread and gold… The elven aristocracy has never known such opulence. He has put his loyalists in place to lead with few exceptions. There is no lover for my father among the merchant houses, in the Yeutlands, or among the slaves, and there are some warriors who still remember their honor."

Like Niro, I thought, though I didn't say it aloud. Ruith had sent riders to his allies the night we left, calling in all the men who would've pledged to him in secret. If his allies were merchants, and the wild elves of the Yeutlands, it wouldn't be much of an army at all. I wondered how he planned to win against the might of D'thallanar and against ambition like Tarathiel's. Determined Ruith might be, and his cause might even be just, but he just didn't have the advantage in numbers. Not unless he somehow planned to get the slaves to fight for him, and that seemed unlikely. What slave would raise a sword to defend his master when he was given the option to slay him instead?

We rode the rest of the way in silence, cresting rise after rise. In the darkened ride before, we had only seemed to go down, descending into the underworld. Now I saw that the land rose in grassy waves, and there were snowcapped peaks in the distance, the place the elves called the Spine of the Gods.

The path meandered, growing clearer, wider. The further we went, the more my neck began to itch where the collar's needles once sat. They were scabbed over marks that would likely scar. One was a bruise where Ruith had kissed too deeply. I rubbed it, liking the flash of reminder it brought too much.

I had hoped he would follow me the night before, or some part of me had. It felt wrong to have been left with the upper hand in our power exchange, like I was being forced to hold my breath and only he could make me exhale.

Satisfactory. What sort of lover declares that after? Was it an insult or a compliment? Perhaps both coming from him. Then again, he hadn't sought me out for more, so perhaps it was also a lie. It hadn't been enough to sate me. Too many kisses when I craved a bite. I had won, hadn't I? Then why did it feel as if he were the victor?

We rode up over the final rise and Ruith reigned in the horse, stopping us at the high point overlooking the Godsfel where we'd camped. The ruin rose, white and broken like bones out of the dirt. In its shadow, an arrangement of tired white tents, horses, slaves. There were the banners of the Broken Blades waving in the wind.

But scattered on the edge of the encampment were new banners: a red sunburst rising behind an evergreen. Ruith's hold on me tightened at the sight.

"Whose banners are those?" I asked.

"Those are the Primarch's banners," he said. "Tarathiel is here."