Ever the Brave (A Clash of Kingdoms Novel)(36)

I don’t want him to feel bad for having missed his goose, so I don’t mention anything as I move to my first kill. I say a silent prayer of thanks and well-meaning as the fowl’s energy fades. Once the words are spoken, the goose seems to accept death, its frenzied energy slowing to a calm, weak beat until its body stills.

My arrows have no bends or breaks, so I snatch them from the three geese, clean the tips, and tuck them back into my quiver. When the birds are strung together, Cohen slings them over the saddle as I put my bow in the holder.

“Well done, Britt,” he says.

“Same to you.”

His small shrug tells me he doesn’t believe me, so I add, “It took both our efforts. Don’t forget that.”

He squeezes my hand. “I won’t.”

Together, we head down the mountain, walking with Snowfire in tow.

“Will you tell me what happened with Phelia?” Cohen asks. “When I got the news, I rode back to Malam as fast as I could.”

I touch his beard. “Is that why you look like you haven’t slept in days?”

“Didn’t want to sleep anywhere but in your cottage.”

Even though the thought of him being nearby at night thrills me, I remind him, “Gillian practically had an episode of fits when you last slept there.”

“We were in separate rooms.” He pulls me close. “Not nearly close enough.”

“Tell that to Gillian.”

He ducks and pecks my cheek with a quick kiss.

I start with my discovery of the king and his men in the clearing. I don’t say how I knew the king was in danger. It’s not that I want to lie; it’s that the words don’t come. They’re locked away with worry. I’ll explain my connection to Aodren later. Instead, I tell how I loaded the king onto Snowfire before the Spiriter showed up.

“Wasted a month searching for her.” He huffs out a wintry breath.

“Was it Omar’s missive that let you know she wasn’t in Shaerdan?”

“I figured it out just before I got word. Came across a girl who was working for Phelia. She’d been employed to lay a false trail.” He goes on to explain the charm Phelia used. Then he shocks me with news about Channeler girls being taken, and how he saved one from Lord Conklin.

I swallow over a dry throat. “One more thing.” Pushing out the words feels dangerous, like I’m yanking on the thread that holds me together. “Phelia’s real name is Rozen. She’s my mother.”

He stops.

Blinks.

Blinks again. “What?” His bafflement would be comical if it didn’t make me ill.

“She did something . . . I could sense her energy and feel the truth.”

“You’re certain?”

I nod.

Cohen scrubs his face with his hands, running his fingers along his scar. “Unbelievable. Phelia is Rozen? Your mother is Lord Jamis’s mistress?”

I hadn’t thought of it that way. Now I might lose the contents of my stomach.

“Who else knows?”

“Only you and the king, who heard most of the conversation. I told Captain Omar everything except the bit about Phelia being my mother.”

“You should tell him, Britt.”

My fingers are icy and tingling by the time we reach the edge of the Evers where the hills flatten into snow-dusted fields broken up by dirt roads. In the middle of the valley, Brentyn is a spider lording over her web.

I stare off to the east, where Castle Neart is visible in the tree-topped mountainside. “Knowing Phelia’s my mother won’t give the captain any more reason to find her.” If anything, admitting she’s my mother will draw more of the captain’s judgment.

“Yes, but it might help him figure out her end goal.”

Perhaps. But I already know one thing she wants. “She asked me to go with her,” I admit, “and said she’d teach me about Channeling.”

Cohen stills.

I can see the war behind his eyes, the way he wants to protect me, yet doesn’t want to overstep his bounds.

“Not that I’d consider her request,” I say before he responds. “But I need time. Let me make sense of this. I thought my mother died.”

“Far as I’m concerned, she is dead. That woman might’ve given birth to you, but she’s no mother.”

The brisk air raises bumps on my arms. Somewhere nearby, a crow caws.

“I agree. I just don’t want the captain to know. Not yet.”

Neither of us says anything more. The road home takes us past a few cottages that huddle like weary travelers beside the wall of Ever Woods.

I think of how Phelia’s a part of me, how we share the same blood, and how I must be capable of the same darkness. And it’s hard not to wonder if Cohen, in his silence, is thinking the same.





Chapter

16


Cohen


I FOLLOW BRITTA INSIDE HER COTTAGE. Heat from the hearth’s fire fills the room. Near the cozy blaze, Gillian sits in Saul’s chair, poking a needle at a frilly scrap of fabric like I might go at quartering a deer.

She stops and waves it in the air. “Look what I’m making. Your walls need a bit of something.” The handmaid glances around, but unlike when she first came to Britta’s cottage, she doesn’t turn up her nose. She just smiles expectantly at Britta.