The Bone Palace - Amanda Downum [74]
Ciaran’s chuckle reverberated beneath her palm. “I don’t find myself comforted.” He eased the straps of her shift off her shoulders and her skin roughened in the wake of his touch.
Her fingers tightened in his hair, baring the line of his throat. “I’ll distract you from your discomfort.” Her tongue flicked across his collarbone, and his breath caught.
The bed was still too narrow, but that had never stopped them before.
CHAPTER 10
Savedra woke to a soft, insistent tap on the door. She had a moment of disorientation at the unfamiliar bed and the different echo of knuckles on wood. Annoyance chased confusion when she realized the sky beyond the window was still a dull pre-dawn grey. By the time she’d stumbled out of bed and found a robe, she recognized the rhythm of the knock as Ashlin’s.
“What is it?” she asked, tugging the door open. Her mouth was dry and sour with last night’s wine, her head thick—she should remember to stick to brandy. Her back still ached, and her limbs were as stiff as Ashlin had promised.
Ashlin was already dressed and moving much too quickly. She paced a quick circuit of the room while Savedra shut and relatched the door. “How far is it to the Sarken border?”
“What?” She rubbed her eyes and sank onto the edge of the bed. “I don’t know. A day’s ride, maybe, or less. Why?”
“Your missing relative married a march-lord, didn’t she? So maybe that’s where we’ll find news of her.”
Savedra blinked. “This couldn’t have waited till dawn?”
“Not if it’s a day’s ride. You’ve had your paper chase, now let’s try something more tangible.”
She wanted to argue, or simply crawl back into bed, but there was a logic in it, and Ashlin’s bright-eyed enthusiasm was beginning to penetrate her wine-fogged wits. “You have a lot of border-riding experience, don’t you, Sorcha?”
Ashlin grinned. “I may have stolen some Vallish honey in my misspent youth. And I could hardly do that under my own name, could I? It would be indiscreet.”
Savedra snorted. “Cahal said you were self-destructive.”
Dyed eyebrows quirked. “Did he now? Well, not that destructive, at least. Not so much as to make my father go to war to ransom me. Come on—you might be dressed before noon if you hurry.”
In spite of Ashlin’s teasing and her own preference for leisurely mornings, Savedra stamped on her riding boots as the sun crested the lowest slopes of the Varagas. Her face stung from harsh alchemical depilatory powder, and her hair was an unhappy tangle of braids and pins without a maid and an hour of combing, but she was dressed.
Iancu awaited them in the kitchen. The lines on his face seemed to have deepened overnight, which tied a hard knot of guilt behind her breastbone. But despite the fatigue shadows, his eyes were sharp with interest. He wore riding clothes as well.
“This may well gain us nothing,” he warned, though the speed with which he packed bread and apples and jerky belied the caution. “But it’s worth investigating. We can reach Valcov well before dusk with a steady pace.”
They rode wide-chested, sure-footed trail horses with dark liver chestnut hides and striking flaxen manes. Ashlin was smitten with her mare as soon as she mounted, and spent much of the ride crooning to the beast in Celanoran. Cahal rode rear guard, his dark eyes moving constantly and a bow ready at his back.
East of Arachne the hills rose wild. The lower slopes of the Varagas were thick with silver firs and sun-hungry oaks and beeches decked in brilliant autumn copper; beneath the canopy ferns and fungus carpeted the ground, and moss cloaked falls of dead wood. A green twilight held the underbrush, broken by stray shafts of light. Woodpeckers drummed the grey bark of snags, a sharp tattoo to accompany the horses’ rhythmic four-beat gait and the dry-bone crunch of leaves. Wind swept the upper branches with a hollow rush, dancing spears of light across the ground and stirring the heavy scent of loam and pine and leaf must with the more immediate pungency of warm horse.
Lovely and scenic, a welcome relief from the city’s smells