The Storm Crow (The Storm Crow, #1)(34)

“Why did you stop me from attacking him?” I demanded. “You were doing the same.”

He surveyed me coolly. “Because you’re my responsibility, and I didn’t give them permission.”

“That’s all?”

“Were you hoping for something more?” The ice in his gaze melted, and he smiled in a way that made me feel like a mouse in the claws of a cat.

I hated it. Hated the way it made me feel bared and the fact that I couldn’t shake the voice in the back of my mind that whispered it was a lie. He was deflecting.

“You know,” I said quietly, “you’re not quite so perfect a liar as you think.”

Something flickered across his face, his lips parting, but he said nothing. I allowed myself a small smile.

I’d told Caliza I wanted to ride with Ericen to get to know him, to be better able to handle him. Maybe it was time I learned to play his game and saw where it led me.





Eleven


The deeper into Illucia we got, the more the landscape changed. We were due to arrive in Sordell in the late afternoon, having just passed through the Etris Forest into countryside of rolling green hills and small villages of thatched cottages.

A few hours later, during which my stomach had tied itself into several knots, Ericen shifted closer to the window. “We’re here.”

I leaned over beside him, peering out. The city had been built on top of a cluster of hills, a ripple of stone and color. I couldn’t see the end of it. Overhead, a blanket of storm clouds floated, dark with the promise of rain. At least those I could relate to.

Ericen sat back to give me more space, and I pressed closer to the window.

The stone buildings were tall and narrow, shoulder to shoulder like soldiers. Clean cobblestone streets had walkways on the sides for people to keep out of the way of carts and horses. Everywhere I looked, there was green: moss growing on the sides of buildings, vines snaking along roofs or up lantern posts. Yet it all looked perfectly manicured and carefully designed, as if the city’s inhabitants had recognized they couldn’t make it disappear, but they could damn well organize it.

The Illucians were obvious, dressed in crisp clothes with sharp edges. Nearly all carried swords or other weapons, and they walked straight-backed with their heads held high, like soldiers prepared to salute a commander at any second. As the carriage passed, some of them did.

Then I started noticing the other people. The men and women with the dark hair and bronze skin of the Jin or the golden skin and fair hair of the Ambriellans that didn’t match the bright gaze and pale complexion of the well-dressed Illucians they accompanied. The bent-backed, downcast-looking ones who trailed a few steps behind or else hurried along alone without lifting their heads.

With their economies decimated and their towns destroyed, many of them came to Illucia looking for employment, others to follow children conscripted into Razel’s army. They were paid, though probably not enough. From the downtrodden looks they wore like cloaks, I doubted any amount ever would be.

I sat back from the window, barely noticing the lingering smile on Ericen’s face slip away as he registered my disgust. Three years ago, Illucia had decimated Jindae, murdering its royal family and destroying the lives of its people. The children had been funneled into Illucia’s army, raised as soldiers in a strange land that held no respect for them and their art. The adults worked tirelessly, both here and at home, trying to survive beneath Razel’s suffocating taxes and the knowledge that everything they produced went straight to supporting the army that had broken them.

Two years before that, the Ambriels had fallen under Illucian control with little protest, and Razel had allowed the nobles to keep playing at having their own government. Still, a great many of their people suffered the same fate as the Jin.

I wanted to lean out and yell that something was being done, that we were fighting back, that they hadn’t been forgotten, but I swallowed the words.

The carriage carried us through the city and up a sloping hill to the castle. I’d lost interest in looking out the window, and it all flew by in a flurry of gray. As we pulled to a halt, everything about Ericen changed. He sat taller, more rigid, his head held high. Even his eyes hardened. He leapt out of the carriage to hold the door for me, and I followed, then instantly wished I hadn’t.

It was cold.

I wrapped my arms around myself for warmth, my loosely knit woolen sweater doing little against the rising evening chill. Caliza had had some warmer clothes made for me, but they were packed away in my bags, and they were supposed to be for winter. But if summer was this chilly, I had a feeling they wouldn’t be sufficient for the colder months.

“Here.” Ericen removed his cloak and dropped it over my shoulders.

I pulled it tighter, staring at him in confusion. “Thanks.” I caught Kiva’s disapproving look as I faced the castle but ignored it. It. Was. Cold!

The castle loomed like a great dark beast with spikes. Instead of towering high in the air like the castle in Rhodaire, it sprawled across low, sloping hills, some parts lifted higher than others by the uneven ground. Black stone towers and spires sprouted on either side like sharp talons and jagged teeth.

The guards we’d brought were shown away to the barracks. Only Kiva remained, regarding the castle with open disdain. I glanced back, my eyes finding the trunk with the egg in it as the bags and boxes in the wagons were unloaded. I silently prayed they treated everything with care.