Catching Up

Catching Up
Amval

Ingrid and I lurk above Lord Rik’s rooms, waiting. I inhale slowly, exhale slower. According to Ingrid, Corwyn doesn’t have any powers, but he has the favor of at least one mage.

We both hope the mage abandoned him. Or, at least, that he is cocky enough not to waste a mage’s power on a message-run he completes every single day.

On my next inhale, I slip my hand into Ingrid’s. It is time to act. We both know it. But this is the first thing either of us has done that truly risks everything.

The door opens. Ingrid squeezes my hand. As Corwyn steps out—alone, thankfully—I spin a breeze around our feet, and we take off after him.

He doesn’t always take the same route from here, but he always uses servants’ passages when he can. Ingrid arranged with a few maids she’s made friends with to block one of the two most accessible from Lord Rik’s room, ensuring Corwyn takes the other.

Like clockwork, he does.

I tap beats on the back of Ingrid’s hand. We didn’t have time for a cleverer plan than timing our attack to the drinking song that has become so much a part of my life.

We trail after him as the hall slowly empties. Apparently, she’s made more than a few friends amongst the palace staff. Somehow, with only a day’s notice, she’s managed to get this passage all but empty by the time we reach the spot we were hoping for.

The one length of hallway without any windows.

Just as the song reaches the first call-and-response.

Like a summer storm, we both explode from stillness into sudden motion. Ingrid draws a blade as loudly as she can while I spring away from her, wind coasting me along the walls like I barely weigh more than a leaf. I’m just out of his line of sight as he whips to see who’s behind him.

“Princess?” he says confusedly, as if he could possibly maintain his ruse now.

“Oh, good.” Ingrid smiles. “It would have been awkward if I recognized you and you had forgotten who I was.”

Corwyn’s posture drops into something menacing, almost feral, but he’s too late. I’m behind him, grabbing a heavy fire poker leaning against a nearby wall. The heft of metal in my hands is familiar—when we couldn’t train with swords, Father trained us with whatever we could lay hands on. So I know exactly how to rush the wind to send the point of it whistling faster than any human arm could swing.

Thud.

A dull, hollow sound follows—but not a wet one. Corwyn drops to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Ingrid rushes forward and shoves her blade under his nose.

She exhales. “He’s breathing.”

“I told you I knew what I was doing.” I smile and twirl the poker in my hand. For what he’s done to my family, I should have brained him. A quiet, worthless death is all he deserves.

But Ingrid is right. We need to know what he knows.

So I help her lift him up, sling an arm over each of our shoulders. She’s wearing a maid’s dress, like she was the first time I saw her. Between us, he looks like an overindulgent steward whom we’re escorting away before somebody important sees him. Corwyn’s head lolls forward limply, and I don’t bother picking it up. The fewer people who realize exactly who our…friend is, the better. And I don’t envy him the headache he’ll have when he awakens..

Ingrid grunts. “Come on. This plan is not falling apart because I don’t have the arm muscles.”

I shift a little more of his weight onto my shoulders, and we take off again. We use only servants’ passages, our heads low. I dodge everyone who approaches us, making sure I don’t replicate his mistake. He mumbles once, but he doesn’t wake up.

Finally, we reach the tiny room Ingrid stayed in when she first arrived at Som Palace and dump him in a chair.

“We should tie him up,” she says.

“With what?” I glance around the mostly empty room. “The sheets?”

Ingrid blinks. “You’re a groom. Don’t you have rope?”

“No!”

She groans. So does Corwyn.

“He’s waking up.” She rubs her face. “All right. We’ll stand between him and the door. What’s he going to do, try to rush us?”

I grab the key from her pocket and lock the door, just in case. For a plan that came together in twenty-four hours, a little missing rope is hardly the worst thing we could be dealing with.

As I turn back around, Ingrid slaps Corwyn fully across the face. He shouts quietly and blinks open his eyes.

“Wh—Princess?”

“Glad we didn’t knock all the memories out of your head,” she says.

Corwyn looks at me, clearly trying to fit the pieces together. I fight every instinct in my body to attack him. If he can tell who I am, we have to kill him, and everything we’ve done falls apart.

He shakes his head and turns back to Ingrid. I exhale a sharp breath of relief.

“We have a few questions.” She prowls back and forth in front of the door like a big cat, graceful and dangerous. “Answer them, and I won’t feel compelled to let my brother and his wife know exactly where the traitor they’re hunting crawled off to.”

Abruptly, I realize Ingrid has never done this before. She may not have even led a negotiation. She is coming on too strong and offering too little stick at the same time.

Corwyn laughs. “Finn and Xandra rule over a broken kingdom miles away. What do I have to worry about from them?”

I step forward. “You have to worry about just how much Lightning Cape relies on our trade agreements with Moonlight Beach. Luna Kaloni would be obliged to hold you if they asked, and it wouldn’t be hard for Princess Ingrid to gain control over your accommodations due to her personal connection.”

Ingrid glances at me sharply, trying to figure out what I’m thinking. Corwyn looks between us, trying to guess our relationship.

If they don’t say no, act like they said yes.

“What is your relationship with Lord Rik?” I cross my arms and lean against the door.

“Friendly.” Corwyn sneers at me.

“Friendly enough to visit for hours every day? I’m sure the gossipers would love to hear that,” Ingrid says.

She may not have led a negotiation, but Finn and Xandra seem to have given her some insight into him. Corwyn goes just slightly pale, and I nod.

“Luckily for you, we’re not interested in gossipers,” I say. “We’re interested in Astralis.”

He narrows his eyes. “I don’t know what that is.”

I squeeze my hands behind my back so I don’t lurch across the room and demand to know if he thinks we’re fools. That close, I don’t know if I could keep myself from tearing his throat out. I can almost smell the blood on his hands.

Ingrid scoffs. “You’re telling me Lord Denidor was leading your little operation in Tansy Beach?”

“That fool couldn’t lead himself to the bathroom,” Corwyn spits.

Goddess, he’s cocky. And Ingrid knows exactly how to use that against him. She is brilliant.

“How did Astralis first get in contact with you, then?” I ask.

“There is no paper trail for you to find, if that’s what you’re asking,” he replies. “As I said, Denidor was the fool, not me.”

“So they sent someone.” I nod slowly. “Is that what you’re doing here?”

Ingrid grins. “Are they making you train your own replacement because you failed?”

High spots of color appear on Corwyn’s cheeks. “They understand the risks of what we’re doing. Some failure is a guarantee. They know how valuable I am.”

Ingrid clicks her tongue. “Sounds like I’m right.”

I put a hand on her arm. Corwyn’s pride is wounded, but if we hit it too hard—well, he might not try to rush us, but this room is small enough that whoever shifts first wins the fight.

Corwyn tracks the gesture with his eyes, then looks up at me again. “Looks like loyalty is a bit less important in Dun’s Crossing than King Kieran keeps pretending it is.”

I smile under my veil. If he thinks Ingrid has abandoned her mate, he has no idea who I am. It’s good to know that all my effort and hiding has been worth something.

“And what if that’s true?” I say. “What if we’re just…curious?”

Corwyn’s eyes light. Ingrid’s arm tenses under my hand, but I smooth my thumb over it. There is more than one way to use his pride against him.

“Why would I believe that?” he asks.

“You’re not tied up, are you?” Ingrid replies. “Finn told me what you’re doing, and I want to know more.”

He eyes us slowly. “He told you about Gavin?”

My heart skips a beat. King Gavin is dead, isn’t he?

Ingrid nods. “But I’m not sure I understood.”

“Of course, you didn’t.” Corwyn shakes his head. “I wasn’t saying so they’d understand. They can’t. It’s simple—King Gavin was right. All these kingdoms, these warring interests…it’s a waste of time. But people don’t like being told what’s good for them. And, frankly, his tactics were messy. Wasteful.”

Wasteful. Untold thousands of deaths, nothing but waste. My kingdom swallowed whole by the enemy, a simple mess. My blood boils.

Corwyn grins. “Only three people have to die to enact a regime change, you see? And once the right person is in power, they fall in line. Take orders from those who are really in charge.”

My knees turn to jelly. Those three deaths—four, really, counting the groom who died in my place and Iltas in my parents’ “accident”—those are excusable. Justifiable. Right, so a mysterious group can rule the whole world from the shadows.

“More than three people would have to die to put me in power.” Ingrid’s voice wobbles slightly, and I pray Corwyn doesn’t notice it.

“By my math…five. Kieran, Raven, the kids, and Anwen. Candace can’t inherit, and Finn is too needed in Moonlight Beach to extend himself.” He shrugs. “We could arrange it in about a month.”

“How?” I ask through gritted teeth. “Dun’s Crossing is the most secure kingdom in the world.”

“In a fight between one wolf and twelve wolves, does it matter how strong the one is?” He smiles, all cocky confidence.

I am going to shred him.

How did I not notice this poison seeping into my very home?

“So?” Corwyn says.

“Let us discuss.” I nod to the door.

Ingrid, grimacing, follows me just outside. “Do you believe me now?”

My eyebrows shoot up. “Believe you? He all but admitted they blackmailed Kaloni.”

“Where did you get that?” she hisses.

“They only need someone to report to the true power.”

She shakes her head. “That doesn’t mean blackmail.”

“But it could.” And the sister I spent so many nights falling asleep hungry beside could not possibly hope to emulate the man who put us in that position. “Regardless, what matters now are names. If they are working to get lesser people in positions of power, we just need to get rid of these people first.”

Ingrid heaves an irritated sigh. “Okay.”

She reopens the door—to show an empty chair and an open window.

Ingrid whips an accusatory look back at me.