Page 60 of The Stolen Heir
Oak cuts off whatever he was about to say with a look.
Mellith’s heart must have been what Lady Nore demanded in exchange for Madoc in the correspondence Hyacinthe was talking about. And if Oak was even considering turning it over, then I have every reason to be glad it’s impossible to get. But I also have to remember that, as much as he wants to take Lady Nore down, she has something over him. In a moment of crisis, he might choose her side over mine.
At the edge of the swamp, the hob-faced owl is waiting for us, perched on the stringy roots of a mangrove tree. Nearby is a patch of ragwort, its flowers blooming caution-tape yellow.
Oak turns toward me, a grim set to his mouth. “You’re not going to continue on with us, Wren.”
He can’t mean it. The prince fought and killed an ogre to keep me with them.
Tiernan turns to him, evidently surprised as well.
“But you need me,” I say, ashamed of how plaintive I sound.
The prince shakes his head. “Not enough for the risk of bringing you. I don’t plan on dueling my way up the coast.”
“She’s the only one who can control Lady Nore,” says Tiernan grudgingly. “Without her, this is a fool’s errand.”
“We don’t need her!” Oak shouts, the first time I have really seen his emotions out of his control. “And I don’t want her.”
The words hurt, the more because he cannot lie.
“Please.” My arms wrap around myself. “I didn’t try to run away with Hyacinthe. This is my quest, too.”
Oak lets out a long breath, and I realize he looks even more exhausted than I am. The bruise under his eye from the punches he took has darkened, the purple yellowing at the edges, spreading over the lid. He pushes a stray lock of hair back from his face. “I hope you don’t intend to continue to help us the way you did in the Court of Moths.”
“I helped theprisoners,” I tell him. “Even if it inconvenienced you.”
For a long moment, we just stare at each other. I feel as though I’ve been running, my heart is beating so hard.
“We head straight north from here,” he says, turning away. “There’s a faerie market near the human city of Portland, in Maine. I’ve visited it before; it’s not far from the Shifting Isles. Tiernan will buy a boat, and we’ll gather other supplies to make the crossing into Lady Nore’s lands.”
Tiernan nods. “A good place to set off from. Especially if we need to lose anyone following us in the crowds.”
“Good,” says the prince. “At Undry Market, we can decide Wren’s fate.”
“But—” I start.
“It’s four days of travel up the coast to get there,” he says. “We pass through the territory of the Court of Termites, the Court of Cicadas, and half a dozen other Courts. Plenty of time for you to convince me of the mistake I am making.”
He strides off to the patch of ragwort, taking a stalk of the plant and enchanting it into a fringed skeletal beast. When he has two, he gestures for us to mount. “We can cover a lot more distance in the sky.”
“I hate these things,” Tiernan complains, throwing a leg over the back of one.
The owl-faced hob alights on the prince’s arm, and he whispers to it for a moment before it takes to wing again. Off on some secret mission.
I climb onto the ragwort steed behind Oak, putting my hands around his waist, feeling shame at being dismissed, along with anger. No matter how fast Oak’s swordplay or how loyal Tiernan or how clever they might be, there are still only two of them. The prince will realize it makes more sense to bring me along.
As we rise into the air, I find myself as unnerved by ragwort horses as Tiernan is. They seem alive now, and though they are not an illusion, they are not quite what they seem, either. They will become ragwort stalks again and fall to earth, with no more awareness of what they were than any other plucked weed. Half-living things, like the creatures Lady Nore enchanted.
I try not to grip Oak too tightly as we fly. Despite the strangeness of the creature whose back I am on, my heart thrills in the air. The dark sky, dotted with stars, mirrors the lights of the human world below.
We glide through the night, a few of my braids coming loose and undone. Tiernan may distrust the ragwort steeds, but he and Oak sit astride them with immense ease. In the moonlight the prince’s features are more fey, his cheekbones sharper, his ears more pointed.
We make camp beside a stream in a wood redolent of pine resin, on a carpet of needles. Oak coaxes the taciturn Tiernan into telling stories of jousts. I am surprised to find that some of them are funny and that Tiernan himself, when all attention is on him, seems almost shy.
Parts of the water are deep enough to bathe in, and Oak does, stripping off his armor and scrubbing himself with the sand of the bank while Tiernan boils up some of the pine needles for tea.
I try not to look, but out of the corner of my eye, I see pale skin, wet hair, and a scarred chest.