“You can depend on me,” Lizzan said. “But I am on a quest. I can take no coin . . . though I will take a supper every night and feed for my horse.”
“You will get them.” His gaze hardened. “But do not lie again. Unless you wish to make enemies of us.”
Lizzan very sincerely did not.
CHAPTER 15
AERAX
It seems the delay is at an end,” Lady Junica said as a group of Parsatheans rode toward them from the stables, with Lizzan near their head. “Will you help me into my saddle? I should probably avoid any attempt to pull myself up, lest I find myself on a periwag again.”
While one of the Kothan soldiers held the bridle, Aerax hefted her astride, then mounted his own horse. The sun peeked through the tall trees from on high, and already Riasa and her Krimathean warriors had taken their leave of Oana—as had the caravan. The alliance party was the last to head out.
Degg nudged his horse alongside Aerax’s, gesturing with his chin at the Parsatheans. “What were they looking for at the baths?”
“Seri’s claws.”
In a leather pouch, which was thought to have been accidentally dropped into the water and carried by the current from bath to bath. In the time it had taken for the wound on Aerax’s chest to close, the Parsatheans had searched each of the pools. They’d not yet found the claws when Aerax had left the baths and donned his prince’s costume again.
“The girl warrior?” Degg asked. “It appears she located them.”
To Aerax, Seri appeared near tears. And the Syssian prince who rode at her side seemed to be consoling her. “I think not.”
“They are around her neck.”
“It was not those claws.” All of the Parsatheans wore varying numbers of drepa talons as trophies, but they hadn’t taken off the necklaces before bathing. “It was the silver claws they wear into battle.”
“Silver?” Degg clicked his tongue against his teeth, shaking his head. “There is the answer, then. When I was a boy, we used to make a game of waiting for the bathhouse attendant to leave so that we could take coins from the purses in the changing rooms. No doubt the children in Oana do the same.”
Lady Junica huffed out a laugh. “What a little scoundrel you were, Degg.”
“Unlike some, I did not have to labor at a young age to provide for my mother, so I had plenty of time for mischief.”
Aerax eyed him silently. That had clearly been a reference to Aerax’s childhood, yet he heard no smug insult in Degg’s tone.
The councilor flushed. He slanted a glance at Lady Junica before lowering his voice and confiding to Aerax, “I could not sleep for thinking of what was said of me last eve, of how I resented you unfairly . . . and there was a truth in those words that did not sit comfortably. So I hope that we might start anew.”
What was said of me. As if the words had been birthed from the air, and Lizzan still didn’t exist to him. So Aerax cared not at all what Degg did. But he could start anew, by not caring all over again.
He grunted his assent.
Degg looked pleased, and when Caeb prowled out from between the trees and onto the road, the councilor added, “When I’ve made amends to you, perhaps your cat will let me near him without snarling.”
Doubtful. But Aerax said nothing, eyes narrowing on the cat as Caeb came closer. Lizzan had not bathed him, yet his jowls were hardly bloodied.
“Lizzan cut up your meat?” Aerax shook his head at the cat. “She spoils you.”
Which the cat likely believed was his due—and that Aerax did not spoil him enough. That would not change. Aerax had spent enough time nursing and mincing meals for this fool beast.
“Did she also discard of the carcass for you?” When Caeb responded by drawing back his lips to show his front teeth in a self-satisfied grin, Aerax said in disgust, “You are the laziest of all cats.”
Unconcerned, Caeb yawned and stretched his long body from his raised hindquarters to flexing forepaws, unsheathing claws that gouged deep into the packed dirt of the road.
Breaking ahead of the other group, Lizzan and Ardyl approached the Kothans at a trot. From behind Aerax came the mutters of the four soldiers who had remained to guard the councilors. Before Uland left with the Krimatheans, he’d sharply reminded the soldiers that anyone whose name was not written in the books should