“You look like you could use a drink.”

Catrin twisted, squinting up at Doneil’s tall, lanky form. The fires from below lit him askance, touching his chef whites with the thinnest glow of yellow. He’d removed his apron and tucked the shirt’s tails into his dark-colored trousers, giving him a lean profile that blended partially with the castle rooftop behind him. A half-filled bottle of triskan wine glinted in his hand.

She eyed it.

“You keep trying to get me drunk. It’s not going to work.”

“One of these days, it will, and I will win a lot of money betting on you in a barroom brawl.” He tilted his head. “Are those new braids, or is it just really dark and I can’t see the blood?”

Catrin snorted. As forest elves, very little was too dark for their eyes—not under open sky.

“They’re new braids. Geneve did them. She’s good, isn’t she?”

She only tensed a little when Doneil reached for her hair—he was a very touchy person, she’d found, but it didn’t carry the same weight to it as it did others. Maybe it was something in his personality, or maybe it was all the healings he’d done on her, but he was one of the few males who didn’t put her on immediate guard.

Plus, she’d seen him do a similar touch to pastry dough to assess it—light and finicky, like a sparrow.

The braids weren’t the only thing Geneve had done. She’d also helped ease Catrin out of the death-soiled ceremonial armor, treated the few scrapes and aches Doneil’s healing powers hadn’t bothered with—her knees, shins, and shoulders were practically burning with witch hazel—and brought her a mid-morning nightcap of warmed water and bengan berry loaf to help her sleep.

Last she’d seen, Geneve had wrapped the soiled armor in a large cloth and had directed two servants to take it for cleaning.

By the determined cant to her chin, Catrin suspected she meant to do it herself—or at least to help.

“I think she likes you,” Doneil said

Her thoughts ground to a halt.

By the tone of his voice, he didn’t mean ‘as friends.’

She frowned. Then, slowly, she backtracked.

Geneve had been doing a lot of things for her lately. She’d thought it a symptom of grief—busy hands make for less time to focus on a hurt-filled heart, and helping Catrin could have been Geneve’s way of contributing to Bellfort’s memory.

But her first set of braids had come before the attack. Now that she thought of it, she doubted Lady Stanek would have come up with the idea alone.

And she doubted Raidt elf warrior braids were usual curriculum for human ladies-in-waiting.

Geneve would have needed to think about it, and either order a book or get someone to teach her.

Hmm.

“She did give me a sticky dumpling last night,” she admitted.

“Oh? Really?” Doneil’s grin was a savage slash in the dark. “Did you follow it up with a poem?”

“Ah. Is that what I’m supposed to do?”

Was there something more to Geneve? She’d heard of woman-on-woman relationships, but hadn’t given it much thought herself.

Her frown deepened. This wasn’t the first time she’d thought this about Geneve. She’d considered it once before, after the woman had first given her that sticky dumpling. And then, there had been that encounter in the hallway this morning.

Geneve had seemed so fragile. Trembling. On the verge of breaking.

And yet, it was Catrin who she’d sought out.

Maybe there was something more to her actions.

“Well, you’re certainly not supposed to hole yourself away on some sad rampart. I mean, what the ten hells is this?” He made a wide, flamboyant gesture to the crenellations and rooftop that surrounded them—she’d picked a rather awkward place, a small niche space next to the back of the stable. “You know people can see you, right? You look like a gods-damned… what are those things called, the statues the humans put on churches? With big sharp teeth, bulging muscles, and a constantly angry expression? Really ugly—”

“Gargoyles,” she said flatly. “They’re called gargoyles. And they’re meant to scare demons away.”

“Ah, so there is a similarity—”

“If you finish that sentence, I will push you off the battlement.”

“Yeah, but I’d just heal myself and come back up. You can’t be rid of me that easily. And I’m not a prince, so I’d appreciate it if you left my hands alone.”

He snatched them away from her, as if she were a feral dog.

She said nothing for a moment, her expression flat as she studied him. “Does Geneve like women?”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

“Because you’re here, and you get all of the gossip.” She raised her gaze to meet his. “I know she talks to you. Everyone talks to you.”

“And they wouldn’t keep doing so if I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.”

“They talk to you because you can’t keep your mouth shut.” She snorted and shook her head, then lifted her hand and made a gesture to the wine bottle.

He passed it over with a crow of victory. “Yes! Finally!”

“I’m not getting drunk,” she warned. “This isn’t a party.”

“You don’t even get drunk at parties.”

She tensed a little as he sat next to her, his shoulder brushing hers before straightening out. He smelled like the kitchens. Bread and stew, moisture, more than a little wine—by the dark, liquidy glint to his eyes, he’d been imbibing with the staff on the ground below before coming up to check on her. She’d seen him, in fact, doing just that. Checking up on others, just as he was checking up on her.

It took a few moments for her shoulders to relax back down. She took a sip of the wine, and the pungent bitterness of the triskan transported her back to last night. Her jawline locked as fresh grief gnawed through her throat. She slowed, mulling it over her tongue as the wine’s dark, cutting undertaste took over.

Below, the soft sounds of grieving threaded into her mind.

Eighteen dead. Over two hundred in a neighboring town, more elsewhere. Pemberlin wasn’t connected to the burgeoning wire system the goblins had developed, but they’d received birds from the nearest castle that was. Lorka was under attack, too, and there were reports of demons in every county they had received messages from. When she’d woken that afternoon, Treng had been distributing weapons and supplies and dispatching small messenger parties to affected areas. Doneil, too, hadn’t slept. He’d been in the courtyard when she’d awoken, healing with one of the human scribes who’d held a stack of kimbic healing markers on the table beside him.

He hid it well, but she could tell he was tired. There was a darkening around his eyes that wasn’t normally there, the whites tinged with little lines of red. She suspected he’d used a few ranger stimulant spells throughout the day—he’d have that experience, and the rune to go with it.

Another reason she wanted him with them. Although she was the much-deadlier fighter, he had the road experience she lacked.

The smell of incense came to her, cinnamon and myrrh, tinged with offerings of cedar bark and needles. A trail of smoke lifted from the temple near the other side of the castle, with two more fires set in the courtyard. Half the crowd from last night had either stayed or left and returned, joined by others—children, mostly, brought both to participate in the Vigil and to keep them under the protection of the castle’s guard for the night. Though most of the bodies had been laid out within the temple itself, three former staff, including the young woman and the stablehand she’d found on the way to the terrace, were in the courtyard, laid in a place of honor under the main tree and surrounded by friends. They’d been washed and wrapped, only their heads visible, eyes closed and faces relaxed, as if in sleep. Offerings piled up on the table between them—things they’d used in life, prayer cloths and papers, things they might like in the afterlife.

Elves had similar rituals. Incense to honor the body, gifts to honor the soul. Most in the courtyard would believe in some form of reincarnation, but for her and many in the Raidt, the dead passed through Death Veils and into the darkness beyond, a line no one could cross back from again. Even now, sitting apart from the gathering, she could hear them whisper, feel their nearness.

The newly dead always drew them closer to this reality.

She watched as another person came to lay a flower on the stablehand’s chest, and on the chest of the girl next to him. The candle in their hand undulated with the rest of them, touching the wraps on the boy’s body, and the sallow skin of his face, with a gentle gold.

Numbness ate a hole in her chest.

“How did this happen?” she asked. “Demons are supposed to be locked away.”

The tips of Doneil’s canine teeth showed as he twisted his lip. “Clearly, someone found a key.”

“A deliberate attack?” She mulled it over, the same way she’d mulled the wine on her tongue. It had been well-timed, occurring on the only day in the entire year that the Teilanni would be vastly unarmed—Abiermar was their holiday, mostly—and if anyone had dealings with demons, it would be them.

Plus, Nales had recognized the marker.

But… who would do this? And why?

The last part, at least, was easy. The Cizeks weren’t well-liked. Tolerated, yes, but in the same way a pack of wolves tolerates a family of bears—because they had to.

“You think someone’s making a move on the Cizeks?” she asked.

“The timing is suspect,” Doneil said, echoing her thoughts. “Which could be either coincidental or opportune. Abiermar is a Teilanni fête, and the Cizeks were responsible for the sealing, but it is also on equinox day—lots of transitional power in that.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Power to draw magic on, he meant.

Her bicep ached as she remembered what had happened the last time she’d tried magic.

“One of them was responsible for the sealing,” she said. “The rest were happily subjugating away with their possessed sword.”

“Such a strong opinion,” he said, drawling the words into a soft chuckle. “So it’s true—you and the princeling did have a fight.”

“What?” She scowled. “No. This isn’t about me. It’s simple fact.”

“It’s okay, ’Trin, you can talk to me. Everyone talks to me.”

She skewered him with a look. “I will hit you.”

“Oh, no, not that. Then who will come on your little three-day-sortie with the princeling?” His mouth split into a grin. “Unless you want to be alone with him?”

Irritation bubbled up within her. “I will hit you.”

He held his hands up in mock surrender. “Mercy, mercy, oh great rnari warrior, please.”

She swatted his knee. “Focus.”

“Yes, oh scary soldier ma’am.”

She swatted him again, then swung her gaze back to the courtyard below, eyebrows drawing together in a frown. “Deliberate attack, or no?”

Doneil shook his head.

“I’m leaning toward ‘no.’ It’s too widespread for that, and there are far more effective ways to attack the Cizeks if one’s going to spend enough energy to smash through dimensional barriers.” His eyebrows twitched, and he glanced to her. “Plus, there’s a risk it would reactivate that sword of theirs. It was demon-powered, wasn’t it?”

“I… think so?” She searched her mind, but what information she had on the demon sword was hearsay at best. “Powered by a demon king?”

The pause drew out between them as they both thought about it.

“We should ask the princeling tomorrow. Trade court gossip.” Doneil flashed a wicked grin. “From what I hear, he might be happy to talk.”

“Right,” she said, reflecting back to the prince’s cautious, tight-lipped silence. “So far, he’s proven such a chatterhead.”

“Get him alone. He’ll talk. Ack—” He lifted his hands in a placating manner when she skewered him with another glare. “I meant that in a completely innocent manner, this time.”

She stared at him through narrowed eyes, the firelight playing off his skin. He likely had meant it in an innocent manner. His expression lacked the teasing it had held before, and she could see what he may have been going for—separate the prince from the people he needed to be careful around and loosen the mask he wore. The same as Bellfort had done at the fête.

Fresh grief sawed through her diaphragm. Her breath caught in her throat for a few moments, and she flattened her lips into a thin, tight line, struggling with the emotion.

Eventually, she wrestled it back enough to breathe.

She lifted the neck of the wine bottle and pressed its lips to hers. The bitter undercurrent of triskan flowed over her tongue like mulberry leaves.

“We’ll ask him,” she said after a few minutes. “But not immediately. Time it right.”

“No kidding.” He sighed, and his expression took on a more somber tone as he directed it back over the ledge. “Have you given a thought to the Raidt?”

“Many.” Of course she had. Her family was there—ten hells, her parents were guarding the king and queen! “Why?”

“Do you want to go back? Help with the attack?”

“The Raidt is one of the most well-defended places in this green world,” she said, repeating the conclusion she’d come to some hours ago, when the Vigil had first started and she’d been left alone to her thoughts. It was part of the reason she’d chosen to sit on the rampart instead of down amid the rest of the castle. “If they can’t handle whatever demons come to them, I very much doubt my presence would make much of a difference.”

There had to be three hundred Eleventh and Twelfth Circles guarding the Raidt, most with more experience, and spells, than she.

Doneil snorted. “You sell yourself short, little blade. Word on the street has you as a prodigy of your line—a literal ball of death. Hardly a brush-off. Temdin, I wouldn’t want to fight you.”

“Of course you wouldn’t,” she said. “I’m Twelfth Circle. I’d kick your ass so hard, you’d end up in Saras.”

“More like I’d end up sliced into exact pieces and left for the wolves in a neat package if you got serious.”

He was, actually, quite right. Like most dedicated rnari—ones who, as she had, had gone beyond the Eighth Circle—skill with a blade came as easily as breathing.

So long as that blade isn’t a sword.

She shook the thought off, clearing her throat. “I’m hardly an anomaly. We’re all literal balls of death, as you so poetically put it.”

“Yes. And you aren’t the only one with a lineage—but, in your case, your lineage actually bred true.”

She grimaced—could he not use the term ‘bred’ in reference to her parents?

“Where are you going with this?”

“I’m just saying—they won’t have forgotten about you. They’ll want you back.”

She almost laughed. “I doubt it. I broke their prince and betrayed my guardian trust. They won’t want me next to him.”

A brief image of thick trees came to mind. The scent of maple wood and cedar. Dogwood flowers. Torchlight over stone walls. Prince Tarris standing next to her, the jade-green eyes of his royal heritage bright and vibrant, lips curved in amusement.

Her jaw tensed. She clutched the neck of the wine bottle more tightly.

Doneil was shaking his head.

“No, you are the exact person they’d want next to him. And they’ll definitely want you back in the Raidt—not out and about, aiding potential enemies.” He grunted. “I doubt anyone in the Council chamber actually questions your loyalty. It’s just politics that threw you so far away.”

The muscles in her jaw only tightened. For a second, she could barely breathe as a mixture of hot shame and fear raced through her—Gods alive, she had to be the only above-Eighth Circle rnari who was on her own, not honing her skills among the Raidt. Her teeth clenched together so hard, she could feel it in her bones.

This time, it wasn’t Tarris she pictured, but the Council. Old men sitting around their stone tables, their eyes on her, picking her apart like a prized rooster amid a den of crows—and the mask of her father’s face as he stood behind the king, watching her like the rest of them.

Doneil was right. They would want her back. She was too valuable an asset to leave among the humans.

“I know this was unintentional on your part, but it’s probably a good thing that you’re escorting the prince. Ulchris is a two-day trip, one way. This’ll likely stretch into at least a week’s expedition.”

She frowned, not following. “So?”

“So that’s a week that a recall summons can’t reach you. Not unless they send a rider after us, which they won’t.”

Ten hells, she hadn’t even thought of that. Fury rose up within her like a bubbling, hot blackness. In the next instant, she was on her feet and snarling.

“Fuck.”

Doneil’s eyebrows shot into his forehead. “Whoa, Catrin. It’s a good thing. That means you won’t be receiving summons for at least a week.”

“No, that means the summons will arrive and I won’t be here to receive it,” she hissed, rounding on him. “How could you possibly think that is a good thing? In the Raidt’s eyes, it will be my fault that I didn’t receive it in time. Another mark on my record.”

“Your current master is the one sending you. They can hardly fault you for obeying.”

“You know how they think,” she snarled. “Treng is human. They won’t give two tits that Treng issued me the order. I’m just supposed to magically know things. Elrya.”

Doneil eyed the tattoos on her arm. “Last I checked, you didn’t have a communication marker. And I checked yesterday.”

“Do you think that will matter? You know what they’re like.”

Gods, and what would she be doing when not receiving the summons? Playing guard to a member of the family most-hated by the Raidt.

She’d never put this incident behind her.

She hissed again. “I’m always going to be the black sheep, aren’t I?”

Doneil was looking at her with a mix of pity and irritation. After a moment, he stood. “Well, I think it’s a good thing, and I don’t think they can fault you for not receiving a summons you didn’t know about while obeying a direct order from your superior. Just do your job. If anything, it’ll be good practice for guarding people you don’t really want to guard. At least this one isn’t an asshole.”

She stiffened.

He raised his hands before she could retort. “Ease, rnari. I’m going now. You can keep the wine. Sounds like you’ll need it.”

The last mark, with his tone, slapped her like a cutting whip. Her teeth clenched together again, and her entire body shook with rage as he turned his back, aching with the need to attack him.

She held herself back. Barely.

The door to the rooftop squeaked when he went through, then banged shut. She watched the corner where he’d disappeared for a few seconds, the sounds of his footsteps faint on the stone stairs inside the rampart’s wall. The dim brown shadows of the stone and roof tiles seemed to shiver and deepen under her gaze.

She let out a breath. Then, she turned her attention upward, toward the sky.

With the light and the smoke, only the brightest stars were visible, but their cold distance washed through the turmoil of her emotions. Ice solidified in her heart and spread. She forced her shoulders to relax with a sigh, the memory of her lost spells sparking fresh grief in her chest—gods, had something happened to Kodanh? Was that why she couldn’t call on him?

She closed her eyes, feeling the cold spread. Slowly, the rest of her relaxed. The world righted around her. Reconnected. The night breeze touched her lips, tinged with smoke. The spicy scent of cinnamon came to her, along with the smoothness of cedar bark. For a second, the smoke painted her face with warmth.

Slowly, she grew aware of someone watching her. She opened her eyes.

Prince Nales stood at the side of the courtyard, partway hidden by the branches of a nearby tree, his gaze as unerring as an arrow’s flight. He didn’t stop when she caught him. Instead, their eyes met and locked.

A ripple of emotion passed over his face, but he quickly shut it down.

After a moment, he placed a small bowl of berries among the offerings on the vigil table, turned his back, and strode away.

Irritation built in her shoulders like a buzzing hive. She watched him go.

Great. Neither of us wants to do this.

Doneil was right—this was going to be good practice.

She grimaced, fingering the lip of the wine bottle with her thumb.

Tomorrow would come too soon.