Sefa called out as I left the room, but the door was already closing behind me.
I calmed down after hiding in one of the empty rooms to eat. I had known there would be a risk I wouldn’t like their answers, and I had asked anyway.
They stopped talking when I entered. I hated the guardedness that sprang to Marek’s features. “Sorry,” I said. “I was childish.”
Sefa was already shaking her head. “No, we’re sorry. We should have known the fortress meant something completely different to you. You were right to be upset.”
“I was not upset.”
Marek rolled his eyes and threw a bundle of tunics at my head. “Finish packing. We’re going to be late.”
Since most of my belongings would be sent back to Raya, I wasn’t as prim about putting everything away as Sefa. As we passed the training center, I pressed a palm to the wall. “Forgive me,” I whispered to my grandparents. Their flaws were many, probably more than I knew, but they had given everything for me. I could not say the same.
Sefa and Marek waited by their carriage, belongings already stowed away. We would be taking two carriages on our journey. Sefa and I watched Marek bustle around the horses, diligently checking over the gears, and exchanged a resentful glance. He had the energy of ten people.
“Not very ostentatious, are they?” Sefa remarked, nodding toward the carriages. Compared to the gilded contraption Felix rode into Mahair in, these boasted few adornments. Each wheel had a secondary support to help negotiate the unruly terrain, and the rectangular exteriors were painted a dull brown. If a vagrant caravan or enemy cabal happened upon us, they wouldn’t give either carriage a second glance.
“Ego does not often defeat Arin’s practicality,” I said.
Sefa stared. I touched my chin, self-conscious. “What?”
“Arin?”
On cue, the tops of my cheeks reddened. With my hair pulled back, Sefa noticed instantly. She grabbed my elbow, yanking us away from the others. “What is your relationship with the Heir?”
Her accusatory clip raised my hackles. A sliver of rage raced along my jaw, cracked between my teeth. My eyes narrowed to slits. “I beg your pardon.”
“You called him Arin.”
“That is his name.”
“Not to you!” she hissed. She stepped forward, either unaware or unbothered by the anger emanating off me. “To you, he is the Nizahl Heir. The Commander. The man who would cut you into more pieces than there are leaves in Essam if given half the chance. The way you two gravitate toward each other scares me. You are a Jasadi.”
“There is nothing to concern yourself over.”
From the tightness in her temples, she wasn’t convinced. “I hope not.”
We returned to where the others were climbing their horses. I waved away Marek’s help, hauling myself into the carriage with a grunt. Though outwardly unremarkable, the carriage’s interior had space to support two parallel benches, heavily cushioned and wide enough to lie down and sleep. Arin was already seated inside, a stack of parchment folded neatly beside him.
“Where is Vaun?” I managed not to make the question a snarl.
“Vaun has been dismissed from my service,” Arin said, drawing a line under a sentence.
I gaped. Arin took Vaun on almost all his hunts. If the other guards were to be believed, the two had been together since boyhood.
“I have no use for easily provoked guardsmen.”
Had I been a more charitable woman, I might have experienced a spark of sympathy for the devoted guard. What would Marek do if Sefa cast him aside so cruelly?
He would find a way back, Hanim warned.
With a mortified flush, I wondered if Vaun had relayed my taunts during our fight. “Did Vaun mention in detail what transpired between us?”
Arin’s hands knit together over his stomach as he sat back. “I am open to any suggestions on how I can improve my clumsy affections—”
I hurled a folded quilt at him, boiling with embarrassment. He batted it aside. “Vaun had a weak point. You exploited it. Where we’re going, you grapple for every advantage you can gain.”
“The other Champions may not be as sensitive about insults to your virtue.”
“This is the fourth time you’ve mentioned my virtue,” Arin said, and I would swear to Sirauk he sounded amused. “Perhaps preoccupy yourself with a different matter.”
“I don’t—I have not—” Since I would rather have stuck my head under the carriage’s wheels than continued this conversation, I shut my mouth.