“Lad,” Havram said, and I pulled away from Falkin’s stare to join the vice admiral, Suiden and Javes in our carriage.
We made a curious procession to the castle, a sort of reverse of the parade not so long ago where a mountain cat walked through a city whose acceptance of the magical stopped at street drama or children’s tales. Laurel now strode alongside Commander Pellan’s horse, a lone elf walking before them carrying the Fyrst’s device: three stars opposite a crescent moon on a midnight blue field. Behind the elf and the Faena came the first carriage with Chancellor Berle, Lord Esclaur, Doyen Allwyn, Lieutenant Falkin, and Jeff. Second was my carriage with Captains Javes and Suiden, and Vice Admiral Havram, Basel pacing on one side, Honor striding on the other, and the elf detachment bringing up the rear.
We wound up the streets to the castle, going higher and higher, the powerful horses making light work of the steep inclines. The city was just as bright up close as it was from the ship. Colorful mosaics of the sea and its denizens were inserted into white walls and pavements. Flowers were coaxed to grow on just about every available surface, from narrow window ledges to full gardens. Trees lined the streets and towered over walls, and more than one of them watched us go by.
“Now, lad,” Uncle Havram said, starting back from the carriage window after he made eye contact with a spruce. “They’re not going to attack us, are they?”
I swallowed a laugh and shook my head. “No, sir. They won’t.”
I turned my head again to the scene outside the carriage and went back to staring at the shops and markets—at both the goods and the people buying them. I picked out sprites, faeries, shamans, brownies, pixies, dwarves, someone in mages’ robes (my heart contracted for a moment, then I realized he was dark-haired and young), a sprinkle of humans, and, of course, elves. And they picked us out, at first curiously glancing at the eorl and the Faena, then starting to turn away until they caught sight of Honor and Basel. But instead of the eye-popping, mouth-falling, full-screech terror that would have happened in Iversterre, they bowed their heads, pulling hats off as we went by.
Shops, markets, more shops and markets, steeper streets with more exclusive shops and markets terraced into the cliff’s side, and we turned the corner onto a new street with (I sighed) shops and markets.
“I take it that the main thrust of this city is commerce,” Javes murmured, also looking out the window.
“No, just the streets we’re being allowed to see,” Suiden said. “I traced the most direct route while on the Dauntless, and this isn’t it.”
“What do they think we’ll do? Draw maps for the invasion?” Javes asked. He raised his quiz glass at a sprite wearing the traditional minimal clothing, but an elf saw him and moved to block Javes’ view, lifting his hand in an apparently universal rude gesture.
“Remember what Rabbit has said, Javes,” Suiden said as Javes dropped his quiz glass, red blooming across his cheekbones. “The elves already do not like us.” Suiden did Javes’ silly ass smile. “So try not to give them any more reasons, there’s a good fellow.” Javes lowered his brows, keeping his attention out the window, while I did not look at the vice admiral, who started to softly hum a sea ditty. Especially when I remembered the words to the song, about a sailor who’d been at sea for a long, long time. Javes’ face turned redder.
The procession turned one more corner and the horses set their back legs to tackle the incline. I noted that the exclusive shops had finally given way to exclusive homes, their windows sparkling in the early afternoon sun.
“Well, now,” Uncle Havram said, “it seems that we’re getting close to the seat of power. Or at least of the powerful.” We turned a couple of more times through streets just as imposing, and then the houses fell away and the sharp sound of the horses’ hooves on cobblestone became muffled. I glanced down. Sand. Hard packed, but still sand. The bright early afternoon suddenly darkened to twilight, Basel and Honor glowing in the dimness, and I stared at the huge pines forming a canopy over us, pine needles a thick carpeting on the ground. The wind moved through their boughs, a sighing, rustling sound that reminded me of the forest around my home, and I smiled.
“More trees,” Uncle Havram said, twitching a little on the carriage seat squabs.
“As long as you don’t carry an axe about your person, sir, I should imagine we’ll be all right,” Suiden said, his voice just short of dry. “We’re in the castle’s park and the final approach to the castle itself.”
The vice admiral gave him a cold stare. “Thank you, Captain Suiden. You have so greatly relieved my mind.”
I immediately wiped the smile off my face—only to see it appear on Captain Javes’ (briefly) as he miraculously recovered his good humor. He turned from the window, ready to associate once more with his brother officers and, as he looked back into the carriage interior, his eyes collided with mine. I quickly looked aside, but apparently not fast enough.
“I say, Lieutenant.” I held in a sigh and looked back at Javes to see him slightly frowning at me.
“Yes, sir?”
“It just occurred to me. We’re in the Border. Why haven’t we translated?”
“Translated?” Uncle Havram asked, a frown now on his face.
“That wasn’t in the dispatches, sir?” Javes asked. “About what happened at the Border embassy?”
“Oh, aye.” The frown disappeared. “Aye, it was. The king himself wrote how you all turned into beasts.”
“I was a wolf,” Javes said. He waved his hand at Suiden. “He was a dragon.”
“Was he!” The vice admiral’s mouth twitched as he looked at me. “No wonder you jumped, lad, when I called His Highness a sea dragon.”
“Yes, sir,” I said again, my voice faint. I gave my uncle a betrayed look as I wondered why he wanted to drag me into the fray. He winked back at me.
“So why haven’t we translated, Rabbit?” Javes asked again, reclaiming my attention.
I looked at the captain, and, swallowing, glanced over at Suiden—but they were both as they had been in Freston, with the exception of Suiden’s green dragon and Javes’ yellow wolf eyes. Those were gleaming in the dusk. “I don’t know, sir.” My hand started to burn and I looked down at the rune.
“Apparently, you do know,” Suiden said, his voice rumbling. I looked up and saw flames licking in the middle of each eye. Not only was he annoyed at the sea dragon crack, he did not like being lied to.
But I wasn’t lying. I didn’t know why no one had translated.
“Do you think that perhaps it was because the Faena was with us when we came ashore?” Havram asked, the frown back on his face. “The king did write that the cat seemed to be able to control it.”
That was plausible. “Maybe, sir,” I said, but the rune didn’t stop burning. I held it up to the window, trying to catch some light—and met Honor Ash’s gaze as she stared at me.
“Bloody damn it all to hell!” I yelled, almost throwing myself across Javes’ lap as I jerked away. “I wish she wouldn’t do that!”
“Yes,” Suiden said, his skin stretched tight across the bones of his face. He took a deep breath. “But if I recall correctly, the last time she did that was to answer a question that no one had an answer to. Or at least you didn’t.” Faena didn’t answer questions. They inflicted them through illumined questioning that drove folk to find the answers in desperate self-defense. But then, death did change one’s perspective. I slid cautiously closer to the window, hesitated, then opened it.
“Lad—” Havram broke off as Honor reached a ghostly hand in the carriage and almost touched my queue. Then she was gone, and glancing out the window, I saw her once more striding beside the carriage, easily keeping up with the horses.