summer, to keep some of the insects away….
Which meant Rolan was in the courtyard, just as Hestia had said.
Before Sev could relay this information to Kade, voices reached them on the evening breeze, and Kade yanked him down flat across the tiles.
Sev grimaced as his shoulder collided with the sun-warmed tiles, but that didn’t stop him from shooting a triumphant—and yes, smug—look at Kade before turning his attention to the conversation below. Kade rolled his eyes but followed suit.
They were directly above Rolan’s marble dining table; there was a low murmur of voices, along with the clink and swirl of a glass being refilled from a decanter and the gentle scrape of metal cutlery on ceramic plates.
“…the shipment is set to depart in two days,” came a man’s voice—Lord Rolan’s. He spoke with energy, as if their conversation sparked excitement. “It will take another two days to reach the capital. Ideally, you will meet it halfway—well out of sight of local traffic. That should provide a nice counterbalance to our offensive across the border.”
“Survivors?” The word was clipped, cool… and spoken by a woman. Sev didn’t understand the question. What did survivors have to do with a shipment? But an offensive across the border… Sev thought he knew what that meant, at any rate.
Rolan’s soldiers were about to mobilize.
“At least a few,” Rolan replied easily. “Not too many, mind—we’ll need them spreading fear and panic, not tales of their heroic escape.”
“There will be nothing heroic in their tales, I assure you,” the woman said, and a chill ran down Sev’s spine.
“If you do as you say you will and deliver what you promise, I will handle the rest. Do we have an accord?” Rolan said, and Sev murmured a low curse. The words had a tone of finality about them; Sev and Kade had missed the majority of the conversation.
There was a scrape of chair across stone—Rolan was standing. Sev inched forward on the roof, craning his neck. He caught a glimpse of Rolan with his hand outstretched, while the woman, her head cloaked, remained in her chair. Someone else stood just behind her, positioned more like a guard or attendant than a dinner guest.
Next to him, Kade’s attention was on the wider courtyard—as if he were looking for something in the bushes.
The woman finally stood—but made no move to reach for Rolan’s hand.
“I always deliver what I promise,” she said. Something in her cold, detached voice seemed oddly familiar to Sev, though he couldn’t place it. It was hard to imagine how any woman he knew would be dining with the governor of Ferro.
Footsteps echoed up to them, followed by a creak of leather and jingle of something metallic. There was a rustle—the sound of dry leaves skittering across the ground—followed by a gust of warm wind.
Then two massive, winged creatures exploded into the sky.
Sev gaped, hardly daring to believe his eyes. Phoenixes. The cloaked woman sat astride one of their vast backs while her attendant or guard rode the other. They flew in the opposite direction, away from Sev and Kade, who watched, mouths hanging open, as the Riders disappeared into the night.
Numb with shock, they waited until Lord Rolan opened his balcony doors and returned to his chambers before crawling back to Sev’s rooms.
They shimmied down the drainpipe at the same time, Kade first, then Sev directly after—so Kade could catch Sev if need be, and Sev couldn’t find it in him to resent the coddling. His shoulder throbbed relentlessly, and he was already wondering if he could salvage the scraps of Hestia’s poultice when he got back inside.
By the time they climbed through his window, they were both exhausted, and Kade had to get back to the bondservant quarters before his absence was noted. There wasn’t time to discuss what they had seen and heard—not that Sev could make sense of it even if he had.
Had Commander Cassian sent a Phoenix Rider to treat with Lord Rolan? And if he had… why hadn’t he warned Sev? And if he hadn’t…
Sev scribbled down everything he could remember, then hastily converted the letter into code. Dawn light was filtering into his room by the time he finished the note and attached it to the messenger pigeon. He watched the bird disappear into the sunrise, then prepared for the day.
Either the commander was keeping Sev in the dark, or there was more than one band of Phoenix Riders in existence, and those Riders might just be fighting for the