A Time of Blood (Of Blood and Bone #2) - John Gwynne Page 0,37
angry, bewildered, and deeply worried for Riv.
Feeling and recognizing all these emotions now, he had come to the strange realization that for the last moon or so, he had been… happy.
Despite the shock of Kol’s coup and the flight in the dead of night into the endless twilight of Forn, despite living in a woodsman’s hut, shorn of the comfort and luxuries that being a prince, even if he was a ward of the Ben-Elim, had given him. It had been a long time since he had felt able to relax his cold-face, to allow his feelings to emerge from the depths where he kept them so well controlled and hidden. And he knew there was a reason for that.
Riv.
Somehow, she had managed to pick, chip and bore a hole through his guard, fracturing his protective shield. He felt as if he had stepped out from a dark place into the light of the sun.
And now it was over, his cold-face shifting back into place, but beneath it emotions boiled, foremost of all worry for his friend.
Where is Riv?
He searched the skies, looked front and back again, but could not see her.
And now they were going back to Drassil, five or six days’ travel through Forn before they would see the giant walls of the Banished Lands’ greatest fortress. It was not a sight that Bleda was looking forward to.
A horn blast rang out. Aphra was standing at the head of their column, a fist raised, the signal to make camp for the night. They rippled to a halt and then two winged shapes flew over Bleda and his companions: Kol and Riv. They alighted in a swirl of leaves beside Aphra.
Riv did not so much as glance at Bleda or her friends.
Darkness, as thick and dense as a wall, loomed about Bleda. He was sitting beside a fire with Ellac, as well as his three guards: a man named Tuld, taller than was common amongst the Sirak, and two women, Ruga and Mirim, sisters whom Bleda struggled to tell apart. All had injuries from the fight at the hut, but most of them were superficial, only Mirim having a deeper wound in her thigh. Ruga was checking on it now, cleaning it with boiled water that had been left to cool. All three of them were shaven-haired, apart from the long braids that marked them as Sirak warriors.
Bleda was tending to his bow, for a moment lost in the memory of its making, so long ago; his brother had helped him craft the weapon. It was one of his most treasured memories, recalling a time when the world seemed stable and solid, and also exciting, with so much promise for his future, and he had been sure of his place within it. He remembered his brother’s voice, teaching him to sand the sturgeon glue with rough shark skin, his brother’s arm around his shoulders, the both of them laughing.
But now he is dead.
Now, all was in flux.
He could not just go back to Drassil and resume the life he had been leading; it felt impossible. His eyes searched out Kol, sitting at a campfire with a handful of his Ben-Elim and some of Aphra’s White-Wings. Kol was drinking from a skin, laughing.
He is king, now, the Lord Protector of the Banished Lands. The man who slew my brother and sister, and shamed my mother. He has slain Israfil, slain Riv’s kin, and yet he sits there drinking and laughing.
“What do you think has happened to the rest of my honour guard?” Bleda asked.
Ellac had led one hundred Sirak warriors from Arcona to Drassil as Bleda’s personal honour guard, and only ten of them had been about him on the chaotic night that he had saved Riv from the madness of Kol’s coup. It was those ten warriors who had accompanied him into Forn Forest, and now seven of them were dead.
Your sacrifice will not be forgotten.
“Who can say what Kol has done with them?” Ellac shrugged.
Bleda felt a dark mood settling upon him, struggled to stop it from showing. He mourned the loss of his guards, felt the weight of responsibility for their deaths.
“Ellac, Ruga, Tuld, Mirim,” he said, and they all looked at him.
“My thanks,” Bleda said.
“For what?” Ruga asked, frowning.
“For keeping your oaths, for standing with me.”
Ellac snorted. The other three were looking at Bleda with quizzical looks.
“You are our prince, and we are oathsworn to you,” Tuld said, as if that explained everything.