I give a quick nod.
“It shouldn’t be too long a walk.” He lifts the prince, draping Oak back over his steed. Then we proceed, with Tiernan leading Damsel Fly. Hyacinthe walks behind him, and I am left to lead the knight’s mount.
The bloodstain on her flank has grown, and her limp is noticeable. So, too, is the piece of an arrow still embedded in her side. “Was she poisoned, too?”
He gives a curt nod. “Not enough to bring this tough girl down yet, though.”
I reach into my backpack and take out the bruised apple I brought. I bite pieces off for both horses, who snuffle gently into my hands.
I stroke the hair over Rags’s nose. She doesn’t seem to be in too much pain from the arrow, so I choose to believe she’ll be okay.
“Maybe it would be better if he did sleep for a hundred years,” Tiernan says, although he seems to be talking more to himself. “Lady Nore is going to be hunting us as surely as we’re hunting her. Asleep is better than dead.”
“Why is Oak really doing this?” I ask.
The knight gives me a hard look. “Doing what?”
“This task is beneath him.” I don’t know how else to say it. In the Court of Teeth, Lady Nore made me understand that she might pierce my skin to make a leash of silver mesh run through it, might cause me agony so great that my thoughts shrunk to those of an animal, but any disrespect of me by a commoner was punished by death. Being royal mattered.
Surely, even at her worst, the High Queen cannot value the prince less than Lady Nore valued me. Jude ought to have sent a dozen knights rather than her own brother, with only a single guard to protect him.
“Maybe there’s a lady he wants to impress with his heroics,” the knight says.
“His sister, I imagine,” I say.
He laughs at that. “Or Lady Violet, with lips of carmine and a crown of living butterflies in her hair, according to a poem written about her. Oak spent three days in her bed before a jealous lover appeared, waving around a dagger and making an ugly scene. There was a Lady Sibi, too, who will declare dramatically to anyone likely to listen that Oak made her mad with passion and then, once he tired of her, splintered her heart into shards.
“Actually, now that I think on it, he’d be well served not to impress Sibi more than he already has. But there’s any of the other two dozen beauties of Elfhame, all of whom are very willing to be awed by his heroics.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “That’s a ridiculous reason.”
“Some people are ridiculous,” says Tiernan with a glance back at the sullen Hyacinthe in the bridle, trudging along. “Especially when it comes to love.”
Not a flattering assessment of Oak, but he is currently slung over the back of a horse. He also, possibly, saved the knight’s life. And mine.
“Is that what you truly believe?” I ask.
“What? That there’s a girl? Of that, I’m certain. There always is. But I’m equally certain that bravery shouldn’t be beneath a prince,” Tiernan tells me.
There are rumors that Cardan never wanted the throne, that he will hand it over to Oak willingly at some vague future time. But when I think of High King Cardan with his black curls and cruel mouth, the way he behaves—silly and dangersome all at once—I don’t believe he would relinquish power. He might, however, trick Oak into going on a quest he wouldn’t return from. Build him up with stories of honor and valiant deeds. “If the High King and Queen let him go without no more protection than you, someone wants him dead.”
Tiernan’s eyebrows raise. “You’ve got a suspicious mind.”
“Says the lover of a traitor.” I hadn’t been certain I was right, but then I saw Tiernan glance at Hyacinthe when he spoke of love, and recalled what Oak said to him before about trust.
It’s satisfying when I see the blow land.
Tiernan gapes at me, stunned, as though it never occurred to him that just because my voice is scratchy with disuse, just because I seem more beast than girl, it doesn’t mean I haven’t been paying attention.
Hyacinthe gives a hollow laugh.
“You think the High King is making a move against Oak through me?” asks the knight.
I shrug. “I think that even if you want to take every risk for the prince, there’s only one of you. And I think it’s odd for the royal family to allow a prince to gamble on glory with his life.”
The knight looks away and does not respond.
We walk on for the better part of a mile before Oak makes a low moan and tries to sit up. “Jude,” he mutters. “Jude, we can’t just let him die.” \
“You’re all right,” Tiernan says, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We lost them.”
The prince opens his tawny fox eyes and looks around. When he sees me, he slumps back down, as though relieved that I am still here.
Near dawn we come to a windswept beach.
“Wait here with the prince,” Tiernan tells me as we close on a jetty of black stone. “Hyacinthe, your commands stand. My enemies are yours. Defend her if necessary.”
The prisoner gives a thin-lipped smile. “It’s not I who has forgotten all I vowed.”
I cannot see Tiernan’s face, so I cannot tell if Hyacinthe’s bitterness bothers him.
The air is thick with salt. I lick it off my top lip and watch as Tiernan leads his wounded horse onto the sand. Rags’s hoof touches the edge of a wave. At the brush of sea-foam, she tosses her mane and gives a whinnying sound that causes the hair to stand up along my arms.
Hyacinthe turns to me. The crash of the surf makes it impossible for him to be heard by Tiernan, but he lowers his voice anyway. “There are things I could tell you, were I not bridled. Free me, and I’ll help you.”
I say nothing. I pity him, bridled as he is, but that doesn’t make him my ally.
“Please,” he says. “I would not live like this. When I was caught, Oak removed the curse, but he didn’t have the power to keep it from creeping back. First my arm, then I know not what. It is worse than being a falcon entire, to lose oneself again slowly.”
“Let me be clear. I hate Lady Nore,” I say, a snarl in my voice, because I don’t want to listen to him. I don’t want to sympathize with him more than I do already. “And if you’re loyal to her, I hate you, too.”
“I followed Madoc,” Hyacinthe says. “And now I am his son’s prisoner. Because I was more constant, not less. More loyal than my lover, who became twisted around the finger of another and forswore me. Lady Nore promised to remove the curse on any falcon who would join her, but I never gave her any oath. You can trust me, lady. Unlike the others, I will not play you false.”
Across the beach, Tiernan’s horse charges into the black water, heedless of the swells breaking over her.
More loyal than my lover, who became twisted around the finger of another.
“Is Rags drowning?” I ask.
Hyacinthe shakes his head. “The sea folk will take her back to Elfhame, and she will be made well there.”
I let out my breath. My gaze goes to Oak, his cheek pillowed on Damsel’s flank. His armor glinting in the moonlight. The flutter of his lashes. The calluses on his hands. “Removing the bridle will neither halt nor hasten your curse,” I remind Hyacinthe.