Better Off Alone?

Better Off Alone?
Ingrid

When I wake up the next morning to a note from Amval already sitting on my windowsill, my mark hums the song we danced to last night. I barely feel tired, even though I know we stayed up late. I hum to myself as I open it.

Has Corwyn been visiting Yakup?

I shake my head and fold the note back up. If he needs to believe Kaloni was blackmailed, fine. It just means he’ll be standing right next to me when I prove she wasn’t. But I haven’t heard a peep from his cousin the whole time he’s been here; no matter what Amval wants, I’m not wasting my time on Yakup.

But even my irritation doesn’t have any heat behind it.

I glare up at the morning sun like the Goddess can still see me somehow. “This is all You, and I’m not going to fall for it.”

I shove the feeling aside.

Before going to write Amval a note back.



“You see?”

Amval’s veil drifts closer to his face as he sucks in a breath. “That is Lord Hajni?”

I nod. “I think that’s what he’s relying on to keep people from spotting him. That, and the scar.”

Amval narrows his eyes, tracing Corwyn through the lower hall we’re overlooking, lying on our stomachs. He can only sneak away so often, but I’m trying to make the most of the time we have. He needs to know our target

“He assumes everyone will move out of his way,” Amval says softly. “He always did, even when he came with Prince—ah, Luna Xandra.”

“He’s an asshole.” But as I watch, I realize he’s right. Corwyn has his head down, but that’s still a prince’s stride. People move around him.

I completely missed that.

Amval shakes his head. “That always irritated me, but Father thought he was a good match. We hoped—but I suppose I understand why he didn’t mate with any of my sisters now. He is an asshole.”

“And potentially the head of a conspiracy.”

“I’m not sure about that.”

I barely bite my tongue before I ask if he’s willing to admit it’s Kaloni. “Who else, Yakup?”

At least that makes him chuckle. “No, I do think you are right about him.”

“Finally.” After Amval’s note a few days ago, I spent all the time he was able to spare one day proving that, yes, Yakup wants the throne—but he’s too dull for an organization like Astralis to even consider using him, much less for him to be leading them. Once I convinced Amval, he asked if I couldn’t talk to Joli and get him sent home early. No luck on that front yet.

“Why can’t Corwyn be in charge, though?” I ask.

Amval inhales slowly, thinking. I wonder whether he learned that from Cirocco, or Cirocco from him, but they both do it.

I don’t know when I noticed that.

“He doesn’t inspire loyalty,” he says finally. “I would believe that he orchestrated the civil war by himself; everyone on this side of the continent knew King Alden wished Corwyn was his son. But outside of Tansy Beach, he never had many friends, and Tansy Beach doesn’t even exist anymore.”

“For someone who spent their life on the run, you sure know a lot of court gossip,” I say.

He shrugs. “There is a reason people like Lady Evangeline are always welcome in Lightning Cape. Gossip has its value–if you know how to use it.”

I grimace. “It might be better to be murdered than spend another afternoon with Lady Evangeline.”

“Ah, but then how would you know Corwyn can’t be the head of the snake?” His eyes crinkle in a way I know means he’s smiling under the veil.

“That’s what I have you for.”



My fingers ache, clinging to the stone on the outside of one of the spokes of Som Palace in the dead of night. Technically, Amval has conjured some kind of wind behind me that he claims means I’m not about to fall to my death. I think, if that’s true, I should be able to feel it as more than a gentle breeze.

“Are you afraid of heights?” he asks.

“No,” I reply quickly. “I sledded down one of Solberg Castle’s roofs once.”

“How high was that?”

I close my eyes, listen for a teasing lilt in his voice. Even Candace would tease me a little. Shit, I’m only fifteen feet off the ground—this is just practice for an idea he had about how we could get more information. But the ground seems so much farther away because I can’t see it through the night, and maybe because I can barely hear anything over my heart pounding in my ears.

Amval doesn’t sound like he’s laughing.

“I spent a lot of time in higher towers than this,” I mumble defensively.

“Towers have walls.” I feel a hand on my elbow. I peel open one eye—he scaled up next to me so fast I didn’t even notice. Which doesn’t exactly make the fact that my stomach seems to be trying to crawl out of my throat any more impressive. “Ingrid. Come down with me.”

Down sounds like a good idea. I’ll just climb down. Fifteen feet is a survivable fall if I slip.

But my hands don’t move.

Okay, I’ll go feet-first. Makes more sense when you’re climbing down anyway. I’ll just lift up my foot and—

My foot doesn’t move either.

“Ingrid?” he says softly.

“Oh, I’m here,” I say through gritted teeth. “I just think my body may be teaming up against me.”

“Does something hurt?” He sounds urgent, nervous.

I shake my head—oh, shit, that’s too much movement. My whole world seems to flip inside out. Am I still holding onto the wall? Is there a wall to hold on to? When did I shut my eyes again?

“Follow my voice.” Amval sounds like he’s a thousand miles away, at the end of a hallway in one of those dreams where you can run as fast as you want but you never move.

“You can do it,” he says.

I swallow. My whole mouth tastes like bile. If I let go of the wall, I would have hit the ground by now, so clearly I’m still holding on, but I don’t know for how much longer.

“No.” My voice is thin and scratchy. “I can’t.”

“Then you’re going to have to trust me.” His voice fades, growing further and further away. “I’m going to catch you. Just let go.”

For him, my frozen hands uncurl. My frozen feet slip off the stones. And I’m falling.

With a rush of wind, I land in Amval’s arms as softly as if he’d just picked me up.

“There you are,” he murmurs.

I blink tears I don’t remember crying, but I can still only see the blurry outline of his face, unveiled because we’re the only ones awake at this hour. The breeze really did have me the whole time.

He had me the whole time.

I cup his cheek, lean up, and kiss him until my hand stops shaking.



Somehow, we work together for a full week without killing each other. Seven days after our dance, I wait inside the tiny staff door Joli pointed me to on my first day here, waiting to see if Amval will be able to sneak away on this break.

I lean against the cool blue stone, trying to figure out how I ended up spending what feels like half my life here, waiting for someone else. With the new schedule Amval suggested to his friend Tek, he has a lot more breaks though they’re shorter, but he needs to spend some time in the stables or his friends will get suspicious.

I could be following Corwyn right now. Or Kaloni. Hell, I could be spending time with Joli, who has been asking why I’m so busy lately. But I’m here.

My skin burns where Amval caught me a few days ago. If someone had held a crossbow to my skull, I would’ve sworn I wasn’t afraid of heights. Discovering I was wrong while someone watched? I’d rather take the crossbow to the skull.

But he hasn’t said a word about it since he made sure I was safe and put me back on my feet. Not a joke, not even an insinuation. He hasn’t mentioned climbing as part of our plans again either.

It’s a tiny detail, but I don’t know anyone else who would do it. Honestly, I don’t know if I would, if I was in his position. Usually, everything is fodder for jokes.

But I don’t think I’ve ever been scared like that before, even when I was watching the people of Dun’s Crossing flood into the streets after Kieran and Raven came home.

I rub my arms. It was his idea anyway—or, it was my idea, but I was mostly kidding. Mostly. Except that I’d kind of been planning how I would scale the walls while we were apart.

Which means I would’ve discovered that I’m a huge coward while completely alone.

The door creaks open, and he leans inside. “Ready?”

I shove off the wall. “Always.”

We creep through the halls together. I’ve gotten used to the wind licking at my ankles. When I complained, Amval turned it warm instead of cool.

But that’s the sort of thing that’s going to make me think this truce is more than it is.

After all our work, we’ve mostly managed to connect more of the nobles Corwyn talks to. The string-map in my wardrobe grows every day. None of my siblings’ kingdoms are on there, and we haven’t seen Corwyn in spitting distance of any of the Som siblings since that one meeting with Kaloni I saw—which does prove she saw me and they’re doing something more complicated now. But the relative distance between the people we love most and Astralis is much less comforting when I look at all the kingdoms that are involved. We’re up to eight now.

“Here,” I murmur when we reach the spot where I left Corwyn to go find Amval, the room of the one remaining diplomat from Whaleberry Harbor, Lord Rik. His Alpha and Luna left almost two weeks ago now, which more people in this palace should frankly find suspicious.

“Here?” he says. “Are you sure?”

“Yes?” I frown at him.

Amval glances around as if confirming something. “He was here at this time yesterday as well.”

I blink and then rip the journal I’ve been keeping my notes in off my hip. Paper hisses as I flip back. After lunch, Lord Rik. After lunch, Lord Rik. After lunch, Lord Rik.

“He’s here at this time every single day.” How did I miss that? Too much of this palace looks the same.

But Amval noticed immediately. Because every other day this week, he’s had to spend this break in the stables.

The door opens, and Corwyn steps out. A long meeting today—no, according to my notes, it’s been long every day as well.

“Perhaps watching can only take us so far,” Amval says slowly.

“What?”

“We could have a little conversation.”

My stomach flips. “If you’re looking for a torturer, you’ve got me mixed up with my father.”

Amval grimaces. “Why do you think our dungeons are empty? No, I mean a conversation. We could waylay him.”

Together.

The word hangs unspoken between us. I’ve just been following Corwyn alone because a year or so of self-defense training isn’t nearly enough to take on someone Finn couldn’t handle with help. But with Amval and his wind powers, I stand a chance.

We stand a chance.

“Tomorrow,” I say. “And I think I have an idea.”