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Chapter Eight: The Long Road Out

"Try it again," Wren said, arms crossed, "and this time, try not to sound like you're passing a sentence."

Alaric exhaled through his nose in a way that suggested enormous personal sacrifice. "Would you," he said, each word placed like he was defusing something, "be so kind as to bring me my boots."

"Better. Worse than a stable boy asking for the time, but better."

"I don't know how to thank you for that comparison."

"There! *Thank you.* See, you're getting the hang of it already, and it only took—" she counted on her fingers, "—four days of me openly despising you."

It had become, against every expectation either of them had walked into it with, something like a routine. She'd correct the eyebrow. He'd grumble and try again. She'd tell him "please" wasn't a weakness, and he'd inform her, with real bewilderment, that no one had ever suggested otherwise, they'd simply never asked. It was, Wren privately admitted to absolutely no one, almost enjoyable — watching a man who'd spent his whole life being obeyed try, clumsily and against his own instincts, to be *decent* instead.

Which was, of course, the exact moment the door burst open and ruined it.

The messenger was breathless, mud-streaked to the knee, and dropped to one knee with the kind of urgency that meant the news underneath it was bad. "Your Highness. Word from the border garrison. The watchtowers at Kelthorne Pass went dark two nights ago. No signal fires. No riders. Whatever's happened, it's happened quietly, and the garrison commander doesn't dare send more men in blind."

Alaric's whole posture changed — the easy, half-teasing man from a moment ago folding away like a curtain drawn shut, replaced by something colder, more careful. "Kelthorne hasn't gone dark in thirty years."

"No, Your Highness."

"Prepare horses. I'll ride within the hour."

"Alone?" Wren said, before she could think better of it.

Alaric looked at her — actually looked, the way he'd started to lately, like she was a person and not a piece of furniture that occasionally spoke. "This isn't your concern, Ashcomb. Stay here. Keep the castle standing. Try not to burn anything else down."

"Absolutely not."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me." Wren planted herself directly between him and the door, which she was aware was a fairly stupid place to plant herself, given he was a foot taller and considerably more armed. "Something dark enough to swallow an entire garrison's worth of signal fires isn't a 'ride out alone and hope for the best' problem. That's a 'bring the woman who set your bedroom on fire and might, theoretically, be useful in a crisis' problem."

"You're a servant."

"I'm a *complicated* servant, we've discussed this, and frankly, Your Highness, if you die out there because you were too proud to bring backup, I'm the one who has to explain to your council why I let you go alone, and I would very much rather not have that conversation."

Something flickered across his face — not quite a smile, but its distant cousin, tired and a little grim. "You're not trained for this."

"Neither, from the sound of it, is anyone else you've got. At least I come with a healthy disrespect for personal safety and an endless deck of cards that occasionally sets things on fire. That has to count for *something* out there."

He studied her for a long moment — long enough that she started to wonder if he was actually going to argue, or simply order the guards to physically remove her from the doorway, which, given the last week, she wouldn't have entirely put past him.

"Fine," he said instead, and the word came out rougher than she expected, like it cost him something to say it. "But you do exactly as I say once we're past the gates. No arguments, no lies, no invented rat infestations. If I tell you to run, you run."

"I make no promises about the lies."

"Ashcomb."

"Fine. *Fine.* No lies. Mostly."

He shook his head, but there was something almost like relief buried under the exasperation — the look of a man who hadn't realized, until just now, how much he hadn't wanted to ride out there alone.

"Get your cloak," he said. "And Wren—"

She stopped, halfway out the door, caught entirely off guard by the sound of her own name in his mouth for the first time in four days of *Ashcomb, Ashcomb, Ashcomb.*

"—thank you," he said, quietly, like the word still didn't fit quite right but he was determined to wear it anyway. "For not letting me be an i***t about this."

Wren stood there a second too long, feeling something in her chest do an unwelcome little twist, before she recovered enough to roll her eyes and mutter, "Don't get used to it," and disappear down the hall to grab her cloak — and, though she'd never admit it aloud, to steady the sudden, ridiculous pounding of her own heart before whatever waited for them at Kelthorne Pass had the chance to notice.

By the time the horses were saddled and the gates groaned open onto the long grey road north, the sky had gone the color of a bruise, and neither of them said what they were both quietly thinking: that they were riding, together, into something that was going to change everything — the curse, the crown, and whatever fragile, unnamed thing had started growing, against all odds, in the wreckage of a burnt pillow and four days of very bad breakfasts.