Wren decided to break the silence.
She took a seat on one of the remaining chairs and put her booted feet up on the table. “Why were you trying to kidnap the prince?”
Julian sighed, rubbing a hand distractedly over his chest where the arrow had landed. “Do you ever stop talking?”
Wren smiled. She was just getting started. “Were you trying to barter for something? Gold?”
He didn’t look at her when he spoke. “What good is gold when we have no one to trade it with? As soon as that Wall went up, gold as a currency became irrelevant to us.”
“Food, then?”
He shook his head and stood, facing her. “Sacks of grain and cattle in exchange for a prince? Are you being deliberately obtuse, or are you actually this stupid?”
Wren took that in stride—she’d been called worse—and instead, she studied him closely. He made the Breachlands sound every bit as wild and untamed as Wren had always thought they were in the wake of the Uprising, except she knew there were towns and cities, thanks to Odile. His clothing was fine, his weaponry new and of the highest quality an ironsmith could produce, and the horses he and his fellow soldiers had ridden were well tacked and healthy.
What if they weren’t hungry and poor? What if they were something else entirely?
“You serve that regent, don’t you? And he ordered you to kidnap a prince…” She paused. “You want reentry. To become part of the Dominions again.” Julian looked away, but a line of tension tightened his jaw. “Forgiveness for the Uprising, and—”
“Forgiveness for trying to save our people from the Breach?” Julian snapped. “Forgiveness for storming the Wall that kept us penned in like livestock, like sheep trapped with the wolves?”
Wren straightened in her seat. Anger radiated from him, and she feared her attempts at idle conversation might come to more physical blows. But she wasn’t going to back down.
“You caused the Breach in the first place!” she said, her voice as calm as she could make it in the face of his fury. “I hardly think—”
“Believe me, I know.”
She scowled. “If you hadn’t been overmining, none of this would have happened. You’d still be a part of the Dominions, your house noble and powerful.”
“And you’d be nothing.” Wren glared at him, and he smiled slowly. Viciously. “Isn’t that right? Your nobility, your wealth, your revered position in society. The House of Bone has none of that without the Breach.”
“You’re right,” Wren said lightly. “Without the Breach, we’d just be the only thing stopping the dead from rising in every corner of the Dominions. There wouldn’t even be the Dominions without us.”
“Ah, yes. Our only defense against the undead. And instead of standing with us to fight this threat, your house marched into the Breach, escorting an army onto our lands, and then stood aside, watching as they and the undead mowed us down. How brave. How heroic. You left us here to die, and you begrudge us fighting back? Fighting to survive? We need no forgiveness. We need justice.”
He stormed out the door without a backward glance.
Wren remained seated, her heart pounding.
At first the bonesmiths had fought with the ironsmiths. The Breach was everyone’s problem, and so everyone in the Dominions had attempted to stand against the influx of undead pouring into the world.
However, it became obvious fairly quickly that they didn’t stand a chance. That’s when the palisade was erected. When that proved insufficient, next came the Border Wall and the forts that lined it. Even then the ironsmiths were still considered a part of the Dominions, but when the crown failed to protect them or send aid, they decided to take what they wanted by force. The Uprising was what had truly separated the House of Iron from the rest of the Dominions.
It had been a royal decree, but Wren could see how Julian would blame the bonesmiths. They were the only ones who could protect his people, but they had heeded the word of the king instead of their own calling.
She wished she could talk to Odile about it. Clearly the woman felt terribly conflicted over what had happened. Did Wren’s father? And Locke… Had he relished his role in the final battle or performed the task with a grim sense of duty?
She got to her feet. She understood Julian was angry, but she hoped he hadn’t actually taken off and left her here.
No, his supplies were there, on the floor, which meant he couldn’t have gone far. But the whole point of them traveling together and taking this particular route was because Wren could offer him a certain level of protection. If he wandered too far and came across an angry ghost, she would be lost in the middle of the wilderness with no guide and no chance of finding Leo.
A soft splash reached her ears, and she made for the window. She spotted him on the bank of the river, and relief unspooled inside her. She still had her guide, and by sticking close to the water, he would be protected even without her.
It was difficult to see in the darkness, but the fog hadn’t followed them into the narrow valley. With the light of the moon dancing on the river, she could make out the ironsmith’s silhouette as he crouched by the river, scooping up water in his gloved hands and splashing it over his face and across his neck.
He had removed his armor and weapons, and the effect was to make his body look slimmer and less formidable. In fact, he looked more youthful now, especially with that intimidating helmet he’d worn left somewhere behind.
As Wren watched, his hands dropped, and he seemed to be unbuttoning his shirt. She squinted, wanting to see how bad that chest wound really was—or so she told herself—but he didn’t remove the garment entirely. In fact, he seemed to undo it just enough to splash some water across his chest, soaking the dark fabric.
Disappointed, Wren continued to watch as he used his wet fingers to comb back his hair, droplets cascading down his neck and into the collar of his shirt.
He turned away from the river, and Wren drew back from the window, afraid she’d been caught staring.
And why was she staring? Just because he was nice to look at didn’t mean she could allow herself to become distracted.
He’d not abandoned their arrangement—that’s what mattered—so Wren took the opportunity to see to her own armor, undoing straps and buckles and rolling her stiff shoulders. Her arm wound could use a bit of cleaning, but she’d wait until Julian returned, then wash after.
That done, she turned her attention to the house itself. She extended her senses again, but there were no bones, dead or haunted, in the vicinity. But the way that ghost had moved earlier—nearly fearless in the face of the bones she’d pulled up to obstruct it—told her she needed to take extra precautions.
Like she had in the Bonewood, Wren withdrew a large pouch of bonedust and spilled it in a steady line around the inside perimeter of the house, everywhere except the door, which she’d finish once they’d both settled in for the night.
Wren was seated at the table and chewing on a rather uninspiring piece of dried meat when Julian returned.
He glanced at her briefly, armor and weapons held in his hands, before his gaze fell to the bonedust on the ground. He carefully closed the door behind him so as not to disturb the trail and noticed that the line was incomplete.