Breath of Winter, A (14 page)

“Does that look mean you don’t approve?”

He inclined his head, studying me.

“I told Ghedi you bumped your head harder than he gave you credit for.”

A snort was his answer.

“Zuri.”

I spun at the sound of Henri’s voice.

“Is anything the matter?” He crossed the room and joined us.

“Not at all,” I rushed to assure him. “I did as you asked. We’re set for the final six hours.”

“Thank you.” He was studying Fynn. “I thought you were with Malik and Braden?”

Fynn’s next hand gesture was one even I had no trouble reading. He patted his stomach.

“I sent word to the kitchen.” Henri held my gaze. “The food should be here soon.”

A few hand signs later, Fynn conveyed his thoughts on the matter.

“I’ll relieve Malik,” Henri told him. “Don’t worry about that.”

I butted into their conversation. “What sort of relief are you offering?”

“He caught Malik dozing near enough to the cage that your ward almost snagged his shirt. They planned to wait until Asher had at least six hours of sleep in him before posting him, but Fynn doubts Malik lasts that long.” Henri’s weary grin surfaced. “I offered to stand in for Malik after I’ve eaten.”

“I appreciate the gesture,” I said, and I meant it, “but when was the last time you slept?”

“I’m needed here.” Henri leaned against a table for support. “Here is where I must stay.”

Fynn’s fingers blurred with his opinion.

Henri clasped his shoulder. “I’m fine. Zuri worries too much.”

“Fynn, you aren’t seriously considering letting Henri in that room with our ward, are you?” If he had nodded, I might have thumped his newly mended head. “What if I took Malik’s place instead?”

Both males stared first at the stubborn set of my jaw before eyeing my leg.

“You aren’t—” Henri stopped, reconsidering whatever he’d planned to say. “I would prefer it if you didn’t take on such strenuous duties as of yet. I can last a few more hours before I rest.” He glanced the way he had come. “There’s no point in sleeping yet. Not when a response will arrive soon. I might as well help Malik while I wait.” He grinned at something Fynn told him. “She is.”

“Who is what?” As if I couldn’t guess who they meant. I was the only
she
present.

A flurry of gestures from Fynn must have told Henri what should have been obvious—I was fast becoming annoyed.

They sighed in unison, and Henri answered him…instead of me.

As my brothers had done before him, Henri latched on to their secret sign language as a means of excluding the lone female in the group. No doubt Asher and Braden would soon join in, and there I would be with nothing but the sound of my own voice for company. The thought set me to growling.

“If you’ll excuse me,” I said, “I have work to do.”

For lack of anything else to do, I returned to the table and began cleaning my station.

“Fynn told me you’re overprotective of those you care about, but not to let it worry me, I would get used to it in time.” Henri watched me for a reaction. “I assured him that wasn’t the case with us.”

I sucked in a sharp breath that hissed through my teeth when I narrowed my eyes on Fynn.

He winked at me. Winked. At me. As if he had done me a favor. As if I should be grateful.

Brothers.
If I’d had a knife and my aim back, I would have made his smarmy wink permanent.

Regaining my composure, I asked Henri, “How will you know when your answer arrives?”

“Don’t worry.” He appeared amused by my flustered state. “I’ll know.”

I raked fingers through my hair, wishing I could tug his. “You do realize non-answers generally make those on the receiving end of them think violent thoughts about the person who gives them?”

“My contact is…” Henri appeared to test several words before dismissing the effort with a wave of his hand. “It’s impossible for a person of his station to gain a private audience with the ruling pair without drawing suspicion. Therein lies the problem.” He rubbed his mouth, I think to avoid a yawn. “It would be better for him to wait until Lourdes is receiving, rather than request a private audience.”

“Hmm.” I couldn’t fault the logic of his scenario. “So you might be waiting for a while.”

He canted his head. “Was that non-answer sufficient?”

Fynn’s slight smile as he glanced between us annoyed me enough to change the topic.

“While we wait,” I said, “our skin gets to crawl at the thought of risers swarming the city.”

“It is impossible to breach Erania’s walls,” he informed me calmly. “It can’t be done.”

“But I thought…” I snapped my mouth shut while searching for more polite phrasing.

“When the Theridiidae stormed our city, our gates were opened by their kin from the inside. Their warriors strolled down our streets, welcomed by the traitors we left to guard our clan home. The risers will have no such help. No. The others aren’t at risk from an attack.”

“A riser found the hatch leading into the stables,” I pointed out.

His laugh was tired. “You see the problem.”

“We aren’t in the city.” I had seen no walls, no buildings, nothing but the summer stables.

“We are on the fringes.” He gestured around us. “All this is underneath the wall.”

“You’re saying the risers will trudge to the wall, bounce off it and stumble across the hatch leading to the stables and try their luck there instead?” I frowned. “What in the gods’ names led a person to think that was wise? Why bypass the city’s and the nest’s greatest defense? What is the hatch but a gaping hole in an otherwise—by your estimation—impenetrable stronghold? Who in their right mind thought excavating the nest and linking its tunnels through the stable was wise?”

Rapping his knuckles on the counter, Henri said, “Father used that exact argument against me.”

Having lost interest in our conversation, Fynn walked off, stretching his arms over his head, limbering up while he had the chance.

Turning my attention back to Henri, I asked, “What was your response?”

“That we live, and have lived, underground for three-quarters of every year since our elders founded our clan with the help of our foremothers. In the beginning, our clan was weak. We were also poor. To anyone who asks why we chose this inhospitable land to colonize, what choices did we have? The stronger clans ruled the southlands. There was no room for us to erect our own city. No safety for our people. No guarantees we could keep what we grew or what we made wouldn’t be taken. Our elders knew our survival hinged on our silk, molding it into a commodity that other clans would pay gold to possess. Armed with that certainty, they led our people through the veil, into the northlands.” His words kept a practiced cadence of one familiar with his history. “Here they befriended the Ctenidae clan, who led them to an underground cavern at the base of Mount Ereac. It was small and cramped, but their new allies taught them how to expand the existing tunnels and support them to lessen the possibility of collapse. From that day to this, our clan has never stopped expanding.”

“Ah.” At last I understood. “You ran out of room to safely expand.”

“We did.” He ran a hand through his hair. “We made do for several years, but the quality of living suffered. There were too many families, too many children, too many resources we needed to keep providing for both. Not to mention that a second, though minor by comparison, source of income immerged. Our stable masters turned our ursus stock into the finest in the northlands. The other northland clans buy their mounts from us. As that trade has grown, so has our need for separate areas for breeding, birthing and training the beasts. The underground stables were my solution.”

“It’s an impressive solution.” I meant it. “It’s a miracle of architecture.”

“Thank you, but as you said, it’s flawed.” He sighed. “The expansion was completed before my parents… It was finished some months ago. The plan was to expand the wall so that it covered the mouth of the stables as well as the other emergency hatches I planned for the new tunnels we decided to build. The projects began in the same month and we foolishly expected they would take the same amount of time. The underground workers were protected from the winter storms, and they completed their work on schedule. The workers on the wall suffered setback after setback. It had been decided they would build the new additions before tearing down the old section of wall. For that foresight, I am grateful. It has kept the city safe while we struggle to tame the elements.”

“Then you had no choice.” If too many people lived in too tight a space, especially in one as enclosed as the Araneidae nest was, living conditions would eventually deteriorate into squalor.

“I had other options. I didn’t want to hear them.” He grimaced. “I left my clan vulnerable to attack because of a design flaw. Both the rather conspicuous stable hatch you mentioned, as well as several of the single-person hatches, allow for outside-the-wall access to the heart of the nest.”

“How are those hatches secured?” I asked.

“They use the same locking mechanism as my laboratory,” he said. “I tested it here first.”

“Have any of the hatches been breached?” I doubted they had. “Even by your clansmen?”

“No.” His shoulders bowed. “They are unaware of the vastness of the network I have created on their behalf. Lourdes was kept ignorant until she became maven. I showed her one such hatch, after our sister…” He glanced my way. “That is how we lost our sister Pascale. Her beloved, the male who poisoned our parents, helped excavate those tunnels. He knew them well. Pascale and Kellen had used one for meeting in secrecy. She fled that route to be with him, after she realized our parents were dead. That tunnel—
I
—facilitated their escape. If Father were here, he would—”

“—tell you not to be so hard on yourself,” I finished for him. “Not when she made her own choices.”

“Perhaps, but he would be wrong, as I was wrong to argue with him for the expansion.” His eyes sparked with fresh anger. “If the Theridiidae hadn’t wanted to make a point by entering our city through its front gate, Kellen might have stolen my key and used one of my many hatches to allow them entry.”

“Might have.” I pointed out, “As in, he didn’t.”

“Kellen’s mother is the Theridiidae maven. Regardless of the fact her child had our maven and paladin’s blood on his hands, she is demanding my sister’s head for his death. Kellen murdered our parents, Pascale killed Kellen, and now our clan has gained a new enemy.”

“All over a tunnel,” I mused.

“I see what you’re doing, but our discord spans much farther than the length of a tunnel.”

I placed my hand on Henri’s arm. “You designed a plan that must have had merit. Your father couldn’t have swayed the elders’ votes. They saw the potential in your proposal, and they elected to pursue your suggestions—at a risk. It’s no more your fault your sister abused your project to escape than it’s my fault my brothers…” I released him. “The point is, you were helping. You wanted better, safer lives for your clan. It comes at a cost. All the rest… No one could have anticipated a betrayal on that scale.”

A muscle in his jaw leapt. “You have no idea.”

“Actually, I do.” I glanced over at my brother, reminded of all we had endured, and decided to trust Henri with one of my own secrets. “Our clan, our family, turned their backs on us.”

Henri held his breath as though afraid one wrong word would silence me.

“Ghedi and I were downriver the night Tau’s wife…” Tears threatened to spill down my cheeks. I bit them back as I always did. “Leona was found in the river. Drowned. Tau was blamed for her death. When our brothers stood up for him, our clan accused Kaleb, Malik and Fynn of conspiring with Tau to kill her. Leona was the paladin’s niece, and there was no consoling Chinedu. Without proof, he couldn’t order Tau’s death, but he also couldn’t bear to see Tau’s face. Chinedu banished them all. When Ghedi and I returned, we pleaded with our parents for aid, but they had disowned Tau.” I met Henri’s gaze. “That was when I knew I had to leave too. There was nothing in Halcidia for me or for Ghedi, so we left.”

In answer, Henri stared into his empty hands. All this talk of traitors and betrayals seemed to have drained the fire that had been fueling him all this while. The skin under his eyes bore black smudges as though he’d rubbed them after penning a letter, as he had often in the last two days.

After a while, he reached out and took my hand. “I am sorry for what you and your family have endured.”

Our talk had given me much to consider. Were risers smart enough to operate the hatches even with the help of a key? Or would a harbinger be needed to locate the hatches, then order the risers to complete the difficult—if not impossible—task of prying a lid from a tunnel? That scenario seemed more than likely to me.

Fynn walked up behind Henri, noticed we were holding hands and gave me two thumbs up from over his shoulder.

“Be careful.” I glanced between them, gaze settling on Fynn. “That goes for both of you.”

Maybe he really had cracked his head worse than we realized in that fall.

Fynn switched his thumbs down, then up, finally settling with them level with Henri’s ears.