The Bird and the Sword (The Bird and the Sword Chronicles #1)(6)

Rumors of the Volgar were probably exaggerated, but the rumors were truly terrifying. Some said they killed only to drink blood and eat flesh, believing life force was transferable. Their leader, known only as Liege, had wings like a vulture and razor-sharp talons. He flew above his armies and directed them from above.

Liege wanted the Land of Jeru, believing there was power to be consumed, though the King of Jeru, King Tiras’s father, had purged the population of magic. Liege wanted the lands of Jeru and Dendar and Porta and Willa. He’d taken Porta. Then Dendar. And he’d left nothing in his wake.

Now he was on the border of Jeru, in the valley of Kilmorda, and King Tiras and his warriors were assembled against him. My father was caught between hope and loyalty. He was a lord of Jeru, and he needed Liege and the Volgar to be defeated. But he also wanted to be King. Preferably, King Tiras would die after he defeated the Volgar Liege and his swarms of miscreants. That way my father wouldn’t have to contend with marauding monsters when he ascended the throne.

My mother had told the old king he would sell his soul and lose his son to the sky. It hadn’t all come to pass—King Zoltev was gone, his soul still in question, and his son was very much alive—but my father was banking his future on the fact that it would. He was next in line for the throne. He wanted to be king, and I just wanted to be free of him. My mother told my father I wouldn’t speak again, and she told him if I died, he would die too. He had not doubted her, and I had spent the last fifteen years caged and cornered. My father watched me anxiously for signs of health and hated me because his fate was tied to mine.

When my father looked at me, I almost always heard the same word. I heard my mother’s name. Meshara. He looked at me, and he was reminded of her warning. I would hear my mother’s name in his voice, then he would turn away. Always.

He didn’t turn away because I looked like her. My mother was beautiful. I was not. My eyes were a flat grey. Not blue like the sky or green like the sea. Grey. My skin was pale, my hair a light brown—ash, my mother had called it. Not rich. Not dark. Just a quiet brown like the little brown mouse that huddled in the corner and waited for me to sleep so he could steal the crumbs beneath my table. My coloring was as timid and unassuming as I was. Pale. Insipid. So reticent that it had never fully materialized. I was a slight, grey ghost.

“Ye aren’t as invisible as ye think, Bird,” Boojohni huffed, as if he’d heard my internal musings. “I wasn’t the only one who took note that you were missing this mornin’. Strange things are afoot. Mertin, one of the stable hands, was found naked as a wee baby lying in the hay just after dawn. One of the horses was gone too—yer father’s favorite grey. Then Bethe comes screeching down to the kitchens claiming yer room is empty and yer bed wasn’t slept in. I made her swear to be quiet about it until I could sniff ye out, which I obviously did.”

I shook my head and sighed. Bethe was my maid. She was prone to fits of alarm, but the theft of the grey was upsetting. She was a good horse, and I hated that she’d been taken.

I touched my eyes and asked a question with my hands. Boojohni answered immediately, understanding.

“No one saw anything . . . except poor Mertin’s ass when he ran from the stables.” Boojohni snickered.

I indicated my clothing from head to toe. Everything?

“Yeah. All of it. Boots, breeches, shirt, and cloak, to be sure. I don’t think Mertin bothers with underthings.”

I winced, not liking the thought of Mertin’s underthings. He was a big man with a surly attitude and enough hair on his body to weave a small hearth rug. But he was good with the horses and not a man to mess with. I wondered that someone had stolen his things without waking him.

“Mertin thought he’d been pranked until he noticed the horse was gone. He’s not laughing now. He’ll be getting a handful of lashes fer drinking on his watch. He claims he wasn’t drinking—at least not enough to pass out. He has a huge knot on his head, so I’m inclined to think someone clocked him.”

That made more sense, and I nodded.

“Your father isn’t happy. He’s already on edge with the battle on the borders. We won’t mention that ye slept in the woods last night with thieves about.”

We hurried in silence, skirting the road and cutting through the trees, though it wasn’t the most direct route. Boojohni seemed to understand that I would like to avoid the eyes of the early risers, already about their business. I had no reason to be out and about at this hour, rumpled and hooded, looking like I’d spent a night rolling in the hay with Mertin.

My father’s keep sat on a rise with several small villages making a half-circle around it in the south, fields and forest ringing it from the north. The only road to the keep was steep with stiff drops off the craggy mountains that rimmed the upper valley of Corvyn. It was fertile land, beautiful and breathtaking, and well-fortified by the natural landscape. But the Volgar were winged men. Cliffs and climbs would do little to deter them if the army at the border failed to hold them off. We were a mere twenty miles from the front in the valley of Kilmorda, and my father, though worried and constantly in talks with his advisors, had not sent a single warrior from Corvyn to help King Tiras defeat the Volgar.

The keep itself was like a small city—two forges, a butcher, a mill, an apothecary, a printer, a clothier, bakers and weavers and makers and healers—all of the very un-magical sort. Skills were acceptable. Mystical gifts were not. Everyone was quick to show how staid and useful they were, and as a result, my only desire as I grew was to be valuable too.