“I-I only follow orders.” The voice was watery, unremarkable.
Manon snorted and headed for the nightstand, her braid and bloodred cloak flowing behind her. Slowly, listening, she poured herself some water.
The servant gathered her supplies quickly and deftly. “I can come back when it won’t disturb you, Lady.”
“Do your work, mortal, and then be gone.” Manon turned to watch the girl finish.
The servant limped through the room, meek and breakable and unworthy of a second glance.
“Who did that to your leg?” Manon asked, leaning against the bedpost.
The servant didn’t even lift her head. “It was an accident.” She gathered the ashes into the pail she’d lugged up here. “I fell down a flight of stairs when I was eight, and there was nothing to be done. My uncle didn’t trust healers enough to let them into our home. I was lucky to keep it.”
“Why the chains?” Another flat, bored question.
“So I couldn’t ever run away.”
“You would never have gotten far in these mountains, anyway.”
There—the slight stiffening in her thin shoulders, the valiant effort to hide it.
“Yes,” the girl said, “but I grew up in Perranth, not here.” She stacked the logs she must have hauled in, limping more with every step. The trek down—hauling the heavy pail of ashes—would be another misery, no doubt. “If you have need of me, just call for Elide. The guards will know where to find me.”
Manon watched every single limping step she took toward the door.
Manon almost let her out, let her think she was free, before she said, “No one ever punished your uncle for his stupidity about healers?”
Elide looked over her shoulder. “He’s Lord of Perranth. No one could.”
“Vernon Lochan is your uncle.” Elide nodded. Manon cocked her head, assessing that gentle demeanor, so carefully constructed. “Why did your uncle come here?”
“I don’t know,” Elide breathed.
“Why bring you here?”
“I don’t know,” she said again, setting down the pail. She shifted, leaning her weight onto her good leg.
Manon said too softly, “And who assigned you to this room?”
She almost laughed when the girl’s shoulders curved in, when she lowered her head farther. “I’m not—not a spy. I swear it on my life.”
“Your life means nothing to me,” Manon said, pushing off the bedpost and prowling closer. The servant held her ground, so convincing in her role of submissive human. Manon poked an iron-tipped nail beneath Elide’s chin, tilting her head up. “If I catch you spying on me, Elide Lochan, you’ll find yourself with two useless legs.”
The stench of her fear stuffed itself down Manon’s nose. “My lady, I—I swear I won’t t-touch—”
“Leave.” Manon sliced her nail underneath Elide’s chin, leaving a trickle of blood in its wake. And just because, Manon pulled back and sucked Elide’s blood off her iron nail.
It was an effort to keep her face blank as she tasted the blood. The truth it told.
But Elide had seen enough, it seemed, and the first round of their game was over. Manon let the girl limp out, that heavy chain clinking after her.
Manon stared at the empty doorway.
It had been amusing, at first, to let the girl think Manon had been fooled by her cowering, sweet-tongued, harmless act. Then Elide’s heritage had been revealed—and Manon’s every predatory instinct had kicked in as she monitored the way the girl hid her face so her reactions would be veiled, the way she told Manon what she wanted to hear. As though she was feeling out a potential enemy.
The girl might still be a spy, Manon told herself, turning toward the desk, where Elide’s scent was strongest.
Sure enough, the sprawling map of the continent held traces of Elide’s cinnamon-and-elderberries scent in concentrated spots. Fingerprints.
A spy for Vernon, or one with her own agenda? Manon had no idea.
But anyone with witch-blood in their veins was worth keeping an eye on.
Or Thirteen.
The smoke of countless forges stung Manon’s eyes enough that she blinked her clear eyelid into place upon landing in the heart of the war camp to the sound of pounding hammers and crackling flames. Abraxos hissed, pacing in a tight circle that set the dark-armored soldiers who’d spotted her landing on edge. They found another place to be when Sorrel landed in the mud beside Manon a moment later, her bull snarling at the nearest group of onlookers.
Abraxos let out a snarl of his own, directed at Sorrel’s mount, and Manon gave him a sharp nudge with her heels before dismounting. “No fighting,” she growled at him, taking in the little clearing amid the roughly built shelters for the blacksmiths. The clearing was reserved for the wyvern riders, complete with deeply rooted posts around its perimeter to tie their mounts. Manon didn’t bother, though Sorrel tied up hers, not trusting the creature.
Having Sorrel in Asterin’s position was … strange. As if the balance of the world had shifted to one side. Even now, their wyverns were skittish around each other, though neither male had yet launched into outright combat. Abraxos usually made space for Asterin’s sky-blue female—even brushed up against her.
Manon didn’t wait for Sorrel to wrangle her bull before striding into the blacksmith’s lair, the building little more than a sprawl of wooden posts and a makeshift roof. The forges—sleeping giants of stone—provided the light, and around them men hammered and heaved and shoveled and honed.
The aerial blacksmith was already waiting just past the first post, gesturing to them with a scarred, red hand. On the table before the muscled, middle-aged man lay an array of blades—Adarlanian steel, glossy from polishing. Sorrel remained beside Manon as she paused before the spread, picked up a dagger, and weighed it in her hands.
“Lighter,” Manon said to the blacksmith, who watched her with dark, keen eyes. She plucked up another dagger, then a sword, weighing them as well. “I need lighter weapons for the covens.”
The blacksmith’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he picked up the sword she’d set down and weighed it as she had. He cocked his head, tapping at the decorated hilt and shaking his head.
“I don’t care whether it’s pretty,” Manon said. “There’s only one end that matters to me. Cut down on the frills and maybe you’ll shave off some weight.”
He glanced to where Wind-Cleaver peeked over her back, its hilt dull and ordinary. But she’d seen him admire the blade itself—the real masterpiece—when they met the other week.
“Only you mortals care whether the blade looks good,” she said. His eyes flashed, and she wondered whether he would have told her off—if he’d had the tongue to do so. Asterin, through whatever way she charmed or terrified people into yielding information, had learned that the man’s tongue had been cut out by one of the generals here, to keep him from spilling their secrets. He must not be able to write or read, then. Manon wondered what other things they held against him—maybe a family—to keep such a skilled man their prisoner.
Perhaps it was because of that, but she said, “The wyverns will be bearing enough weight during battle. Between our armor, weapons, supplies, and the wyverns’ armor, we need to find places to lighten the load. Or else they won’t stay airborne for long.”
The blacksmith braced his hands on his hips, studying the weapons he’d made, and held up a hand to motion her to wait while he hurried deeper into the maze of fire and molten ore and anvils.
The strike and clang of metal on metal was the only sound as Sorrel weighed one of the blades herself. “You know I support any decision you make,” she said. Sorrel’s brown hair was pulled tightly back, her tan face—probably pretty for mortals—steady and solid as ever. “But Asterin …”
Manon stifled a sigh. The Thirteen hadn’t dared show any reaction when Manon had taken Sorrel for this visit before the hunt. Vesta had kept close to Asterin in the aerie, though—out of solidarity or silent outrage, Manon d
idn’t know. But Asterin had met Manon’s stare and nodded—gravely, but she had nodded.
“Do you not want to be Second?” Manon said.
“It is an honor to be your Second,” Sorrel said, her rough voice cutting through the hammers and fires. “But it was also an honor to be your Third. You know Asterin toes a fine line with wildness on a good day. Stuff her in this castle, tell her she can’t kill or maim or hunt, tell her to keep away from the men … She’s bound to be on edge.”
“We’re all on edge.” Manon had told the Thirteen about Elide—and wondered if the girl’s keen eyes would notice that she now had a coven of witches sniffing after her.
Sorrel heaved a breath, her powerful shoulders lifting. She set down the dagger. “At the Omega, we knew our place and what was expected of us. We had a routine; we had purpose. Before that, we hunted the Crochans. Here, we are no more than weapons waiting to be used.” She gestured to the useless blades on the table. “Here, your grandmother is not around to … influence things. To provide strict rules; to instill fear. She would make that duke’s life a living hell.”
“Are you saying that I’m a poor leader, Sorrel?” A too-quiet question.
“I’m saying the Thirteen know why your grandmother made you kill the Crochan for that cloak.” Dangerous—such dangerous ground.
“I think you sometimes forget what my grandmother can do.”
“Trust me, Manon, we don’t,” Sorrel said softly as the blacksmith appeared, a set of blades in his powerful arms. “And more than any of us, Asterin has never for a second forgotten what your grandmother is capable of.”