it?”
“We leave without delay,” Tancho replied instead.
Crow realised then, with ice in his belly, that he wasn’t going home. “I can’t abandon my people,” Crow whispered. “If each land is being invaded in turn, I must go to them.”
“Invaded?” Soko cried.
“We don’t know if the Northlands are under attack,” Tancho said. He spoke with certainty, but there was a hint of understanding as well. As a king, he could sympathise with how Crow must feel. “But we know the Westlands are.”
Crow knew in his reasoning that if an attack came by the north seas and approached the northern shores of his land, they met sheer mountains and snow. An almost impossible trek, and they’d be fools to attempt it. And the Eastlands was a sea of desert dunes that would take weeks to travel, the Southlands dense and impassable jungles. It made tactical sense to go to the Westlands. They could basically walk ashore and simply keep on walking.
But still, it didn’t make abandoning his people any easier.
“My people . . . ,” he mumbled.
Soko shook his head. “Don’t ask me to go back without you. I swore to never leave you. My life for yours, remember?”
Tancho stared at Soko with barely contained rage before he met Crow’s eyes. He seemed conflicted and irate before he turned to his four riders with a sigh. “Iruka and Hitode, you will ride to the Northlands’ castle. Relay any message their king needs sent.”
Tancho was giving Crow two of his men?
Crow was about to express his disbelief and thanks when Tancho snapped, “I don’t require your gratitude. I would expect the favour returned should you and I be returning to your homelands.”
Blue skies above, the man’s mood was like a blade. All ashine one moment, killer sharp the next.
“I shall offer my thanks to the men who do your bidding,” Crow snarled back at him. “And perhaps give the little fish a lesson in manners before I’m done.”
Tancho spun around to glare at him. His long red hair swirled around his head like ribbons, his hand on his sword hilt, but Karasu slipped between them. She gnashed her teeth at Crow but held her hand up, passive. “I care not for you, blackbird. But my king is not himself. Whatever this thing is between you—this lacuna curse—affects you both.”
The tension in the room was so thick and caustic, a simple spark would have set it all on fire. So of course, Soko said, “Blackbird on its own is rather plain.” He made a face. “Tancho called him pretty blackbird. I like that much better.”
Karasu drew her eyes to Soko, and if her eyes were swords, he’d have been slain where he stood.
He held up his hands in surrender. “Or just blackbird is fine.” But then he straightened. “Or you could address him as king.”
Kohaku laughed. “The ride home with you all is going to be so much fun.”
Tancho let his head fall back with a groan. “We are wasting time. We must leave.”
Bags were collected and Crow slung his over his shoulder, Soko did the same while Kohaku carried two. Karasu helped Tancho strapping on his scabbard, and Crow was blindsided . . .
Irrational anger and jealousy slammed into him like someone opened a door to a blizzard, seeping through his skin and into his bones. She was touching him. She shouldn’t touch him . . . No one should touch him . . . He tried to ignore it, tried to swallow it down, shake it off, to breathe through it, but it was too strong.
Soko grabbed Crow’s shoulder and shook him. “Crow? What—”
But Crow couldn’t look at Soko. He couldn’t take his eyes off Tancho—his Tancho—and how Karasu touched him . . . “Remove your hands from him,” he snapped, seething. His fingers wrapped around the hilt of his sword.
Karasu turned, and seeing the glowering look on Crow’s face, she bristled and reached for her katana. But Tancho pulled her away and put some distance between him and her. “It’s not rational,” Tancho murmured. “He can’t help it. I felt the claws of it earlier.”
Soko looked between Crow and Tancho, back and forth. “What in all the blue skies is going on?”
“Nothing,” Crow said, almost breathless. He felt better now that Karasu wasn’t so close to Tancho, but still . . . “I suggest no one touches him. That is all. Unless they wish to step into the afterlife.”
Soko let out a low breath. “Oh, my word. This is . .