Eggs sizzled in a pan, and Lyara leaned over the fire to sprinkle diced jerky over top. She didn’t have the leeway to burn these, as they were the last of what she’d brought with them. On the horizon, behind the short and wooded Saligen Mountains, the rising sun fought through the dreary grey cloud cover. It was technically morning.
She yawned, covering her mouth with her hastily bandaged hand. Was it beautiful? Light glistened in the sheen of frost that coated the open field where they’d set up camp, but instead of being drawn in by the colors, she just felt cold. The muse simply did not wake before noon.
No one else had been up—not even the sun—when she hauled herself out of bed at that godsforsaken hour, but a few other wives joined her when the very first rays of light beamed over the ridge. Perhaps she should have actually practiced this sort of cooking, instead of assuming she’d master the techniques just because she wanted to? That would have given her more time to sleep, at least.
Dradge rolled the flap door aside then crawled out of the tent, yawning himself and blinking bleary eyes. “You’re up?”
Lyara nodded, straightening her shoulders. Gods, he wasn’t even trying and he loomed over her, a specimen of physique his thin bedclothes couldn’t hope to hide. “I’ve made you breakfast.”
He grinned first at her, then at the eggs frying in the pan, and sat cross-legged beside the fire to watch them. “Smells good!”
Bracing herself, she prodded at the eggs with her fork—with her uninjured hand—to flip them. The congealed mass started to break, but she hurriedly forced it over and it turned without totally collapsing on itself, the oil flaring up again as the uncooked topside met the hot iron.
“What’d you do to your hand?” Dradge asked.
She shoved her bandaged fist into her dress pocket. “Burned it on the handle. I would appreciate if you didn’t mention that. We’re pretending I got everything right on my first try.”
Dradge smiled. “Sorry.”
Lyara let the eggs cook a moment longer, then left the fork in the pan to retrieve her cloak. She wrapped the thick wool around her hands, then gingerly picked the frying pan off the burning logs. The weight of it caught her off guard—again—but she held tight this time, arms trembling as she plunked it down in the grass at Dradge’s feet.
“There,” she said, tossing the cloak over her shoulder to place her hands on her hips. The stench of smoldering grass wafted over the fried egg. “Enjoy?”
Dradge gingerly picked up the fork, properly cautious of what might burn him. He eagerly hacked off a corner of the dish, then blew on it before eating the entire bite. He still had to chew with his mouth open to keep from burning his tongue. “Don’t you want any?”
She heaved a sigh and flopped to a seat beside him. “It is entirely too early for that. I had a cup of tea.”
He studied her a moment, then shrugged and kept eating.
She laid back in the grass, ignoring the wet chill of frost against her neck and cheeks. “…does Seren still have the sword?”
Dradge nodded, not looking up from his food.
In three weeks’ time she hadn’t managed to swipe it from him. By the end of the first week he’d had it forged. He came knocking on her parent’s door in the dead of night, grey eyes gleaming until he could show off that creation under the deceitful light of her basement library.
It was beautiful. Even more than she’d imagined it would be.
Never before had one of her drawings come to life in such a tangible way. She almost wanted to believe in that Ìsendorál herself, even knowing the apostate who’d devised it. That terrified her, but the deed was already done. She’d tried to convince Seren to let her keep it safe, but he’d barely listened to the idea, much less considered it.
She’d have to try harder. And be a bit cleverer about it.
She wished she could have seen Hilderic’s face when he woke up at the beginning of this week to find every soldier in Edras and the nearby towns—aside from the wall guard—had abandoned their posts. She imagined it, his beady eyes squeezing shut as his leathery cheeks flushed red in anger. Had he become that goofy cartoon she’d drawn him as for years in her Whisper?
They were more than a thousand strong now, and they wouldn’t just defend Salkrov. They’d start here, then sweep across the western border, forcing the centaurs across the Everard Ravine and into the Wynshire Waste to die. All of Avaron would know who saved them, and it wouldn’t be their King.
On returning to Edras, they’d take his throne.
Lyara’s heart pounded in her chest as she peered up at the cloud-mottled sky. When the crown changed heads, her husband would wear it. Seren was supposed to be negotiating with the Fidelis order, convincing them to show on this battlefield today. Somewhere along the line she needed to figure a way to snatch Ìsendorál from him, and in the meantime she’d make sure Dradge was willing to carry it.
She thought he was. Maybe. She hadn’t met a single man in her entire life who was better suited for it, she couldn’t fathom how he didn’t see that.
Lyara glanced back at their tent, thinking of that oil painting she’d rolled up and hidden in her bag. When should she show him? The timing had to be right, otherwise he’d make it all about her brushstrokes and not about what the image really said.
A sharp horn blast sounded on the other side of the field. She sat up with a start, but Dradge just grinned and shoveled her egg dish into his mouth on double-time. She climbed to her feet and stood on her tip-toes to better peer over the rows of white tents.
A line of horses came to a halt at the edge of camp. These weren’t soldiers. A few wore the crimson cloak, but most were dressed as they lived: farmers, scholars, laborers, merchants. There were men and women, young and old, skins of every shade and eyes of every shape, but they shared one thing: all of their irises were a deep, emerald green.
One man dismounted as the camp guard, already armored, ran out to meet him. Lyara recognized that face—she wouldn’t ever forget it. Féderyc, the man who’d saved her husband’s life. Seren sat on a white gelding beside him, leaning back in the saddle to conspire with a bulbous-faced man on a brown mare. That man nodded, then Seren nudged his horse to a trot, weaving between tents to reach theirs.
He wore chain-mail and a soldier’s tunic and carried the sword on his hip, in an embossed leather hilt. She was disappointed to find it didn’t look comically out of place.
Dradge laughed at him anyway. “You know reading Jonwarch doesn’t qualify as training, right?”
Seren hesitated, but peered down from the saddle with the hint of a smile—and possibly an inkling of the proper humility. He dismounted and his gaze fixed on the ground as he stepped towards the fire, his hand drifting to the buckle on the belt of his scabbard.
Lyara drew in a breath. He’d give the sword away?
“Dradge, I think we are of one mind on the matter, but I have to, in good conscious—”
“Keep it.”
Lyara’s heart sank, but Dradge stared straight ahead, shoveling the last of his breakfast in his mouth while pointedly avoiding her gaze.
Seren still held that belt. “I won’t lie, this is what I want. But I don’t…” Frustration flashed in his eyes and he looked away, with the slightest grimace. “I want to know you understand what you’re doing.”
Dradge stared at him for a long moment, then burst out laughing again. “I think that’s both the kindest and the most insulting thing you’ve ever said to me.”
Seren’s eyes widened, and then his cheeks flushed a shade of red. He grumbled something and scratched angrily at the back of his head.
Dradge jerked his chin at the waiting cavalry of Fidelis. “They’ll fight?”
Seren nodded. “They’ll fight.”
“Good. What’s my approach?”
“Salkrov is overrun, so I’ll leave that up to your discretion. I’m concerned the populace is already dead. The centaurs have torn down the houses and restructured them into dwellings of their own design. They don’t have specific guards posted, far as we can tell, and they’ve not made any obvious or deliberate fortifications.”
“Numbers?”
“At least forty today. Yesterday’s reports counted over a dozen more, but they’re roaming, so that’s likely an underestimate. I think they’re alerted to our presence.”
Dradge grunted. “Can’t help that. Weather?”
“Overcast to sunny by afternoon, I expect. No rain for a day or two yet.”
“Cover?”
“Not much to speak of, beside the occasional small boulder. Terrain is about as flat as it can be. I’d rely on the cavalry’s momentum and keep the squads small and mobile.”
Lyara’s shoulders sank as she watched them talk, and she ended up huddled in the grass, her knees pulled against her chest. This was the utility she hadn’t seen, the bond that linked these two men together, and she hated that it made sense.
“Where do the Fidelis want to be?” Dradge asked.
Seren tilted his head. “They’re willing to act under your direction today.”
His eyebrows rose. “Really? How many are there, thirty-five or so?”
“Thirty-eight.”
“Then I want two per squad—one on offense, one on healing as circumstances permit. Assign them two spear-men each as cover.”
Seren nodded again, then turned on his heels—like a proper sergeant—and strode toward the nearest guard post.
Lyara grasped Dradge’s arm. “I thought—”
He placed a hand on her knee and smiled, but it was perhaps the first time the look carried something besides happiness. “Thank you. For seeing something like that in me. But I know my place.”
She stared into his eyes, heart aching, mind grasping for the words to persuade him. She didn’t find any, just her own exasperations. “You’d swear your oaths to that man?”
“Lyara, I’ve sworn oaths to sergeants and captains and generals and kings alike. Not because I ever believed in the man, but because I believed in the people of this country and the folks in the mud beside me. So, yes. If it meant I kept standing here, between Avaron and what would see her dead, yes I’d swear it.”
She didn’t break from his gaze; she didn’t want to. A smile crept across her face, but all the same she felt like crying. She shoved herself up and toward their tent. “Let me show you—”
A single horn blast carried across the camp, the note long and angry. Dradge scrambled to his feet, jaw set and eyes scanning the horizon; she knew that easily to be nervous.
Seren, who had been exchanging words with the nearby guard, jogged back to them. “Centaurs, twenty or more. Minutes away.”
Dradge fished a sheathed dagger from his pocket, shoved it in her open hands, then gently took her by the arms to plant a kiss on her forehead. “I’d thought up something better than this, but there it is.”
Lyara’s mouth fell open—she was still processing, she wanted to say something—but he’d already turned to place a hand on Seren’s shoulder.
“Defend this camp.”
That was a command, from officer to subordinate, and Seren knew it. He slowly turned from Dradge’s face to hers, that vacant stare indicating he understood the weight her husband had placed on his shoulders as well.
Seren nodded, sharp and precise; he was grasping that sword hilt in a white-knuckled fist. “I will.”