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“Well.” Bram cleared his throat. Silence lingered after that single word. Then it stretched as Meira refused to speak. He laughed, though it was more a release of air. “So, you’re not done. I was hoping you’d be over this ridiculous bout of single-mindedness you’re on, but apparently not.”
Frustration flared in her chest. It was accompanied by the rush of power through her veins, the feeling she’d long taught herself not to give into. “Single-minded? By being on this mission I’ve doubled this legion's chance of survival. If anything, you owe me an apology.”
“Remember who you’re speaking to,” Bram said, his posture going taut.
She wanted to laugh. She wanted to scream. If ever a man was talking right out of his ass it was certainly here and now.
“You don’t think you owe me an apology? Or do you think it is beneath your title? Think carefully, Bram.” The last bit hadn’t been meant to come out sounding like mockery but some of her ire slipped into her tone.
“I’m not convinced of your health.” Then softer he added, “M, you were out for a long time. I thought you were dying. How am I supposed to just let you get up and jump on the back of your dragon and fly across the Empire for some stupid nothing of a mission?”
Since when had whatever they were, whatever their relationship was, contained feelings? This worry…it was the budding sign of something greater. Something far more frightening and dangerous for Meira to even consider.
“Would you have made Lowell or Quincy stay back if it was them?” Meira hooked her thumbs around the straps of her pack. She stepped over a decaying log, the pitter-patter of tiny paws scurrying through it already behind her as she sped up her steps. Her anger was giving way to something else. Emotions that she didn’t want to confront, and doubted Bram did either, made her chest tight with worry.
He kept her pace, surpassed her even, to hold aside the length of a thin stretching branch that crossed their path. “Of course, I wouldn’t let the health of one rider put the whole legion at risk. This isn’t special treatment, no matter what anyone else thinks.”
“Don’t lie.”
“I’m not.”
“Bram—”
“M. I don’t think we’re going to agree on this.” He caught Meira’s eye. “Perhaps not ever.”
That all depends on if you’re always going to be a controlling fuck or not. But instead of saying that she answered with, “Likely not.”
The city lights were starting to shine where the trees began to thin. It was an easy way to end the conversation. She didn’t want any more of her relationship, or lack thereof, to be broadcasted to any more of their legion. It was clear they were sick of it too if Lowell’s hasty exit meant anything.
The Deadwoods came to a sudden and clear end, giving way to overgrown yards and a few worse-for-wear houses. Past those there was a road. Movement shifted in the dark space that separated the woods and the homes. Lowell drifted forward, eyes darting between us.
“Follow and stay in the shadows. This isn’t meant to be a publicly known mission.” Bram started between two of the homes, pulling his hood up over his blond hair.
On the outskirts of the city, it was still relatively quiet. Even once they’d made it onto the main road that led them farther and into a slightly more populated area, Meira could still pick up the sound of the wind through the trees, bugs chirping, and the occasional call of an owl. Distantly, the true call of Olden came. Though winter was well upon them, carriages still carried people out and about before an echo of laughter drifted down the street. Lampposts were lit, illuminating the cobblestone road.
The three scale riders drifted from shadow to shadow, moving from the decaying edges of the city toward a row of well-kept manors, each one larger than the last. Meira couldn’t see any definitive line between where the crumbling homes ended and these large, showy houses started but it existed nonetheless. In one step she’d crossed some threshold into the lives of the wealthy. She wondered what the people who lived in these four-story manors with their iron gates and matching shutters thought when they looked out the window and saw the destitution so close. Did any of them care?
Once she’d been in a simple home somewhere between the two sides of poverty and wealth, but that home was many years gone, hardly even a memory she could recall at this point. Time had made that long-ago place more like a dream than something that had ever been real. Mount Ridmond was her home now. Her place was amongst the scale riders who snuck down darkened streets.
Bram looked at every house they passed, stopping once they’d come to the end of the road. Built on top of a hill, the Warlord Vigor Brendal’s mansion looked down upon the city. Certainly, from this vantage point, he would notice the unkempt homes.
The mansion stood like a ghost against the night that surrounded it. Each brick that had built all five stories of it was painted a ghastly gray color. The shutters were a navy that matched the door. From their stance on the street, she caught the gleam of the gold door knob and knocker. Curtains were drawn over the windows, but light still trickled through and smoke billowed from the chimney.
So this was the home of the warlord’s brat. She couldn’t help but glare at it. The riches of a warlord so clearly flaunted over his failing territory. It was no wonder he was sending his son after the great merchant’s death. Though he might be able to solve his own problems if he didn’t horde every coin and diamond for himself.
Bram pushed through the unlocked gate. It opened soundlessly. A paved path branched from the road and led them up to the wide staircase that took them to the navy door. The gold knob and knocker were so well polished that Meira was able to see bits of her reflection in them. She watched the disdain mirrored in her green eyes until Bram fisted the knocker and let it bang against the wood.
Shifting on her feet, she brushed against Lowell who stood next to her with his arms crossed over his broad chest staring straight ahead. The three of them waited without a word as the quiet stretched into several minutes and no one came to answer the door.Lowell exhaled and took a step back to look up at the back glow of the curtained windows. The gentle flicker of lantern light didn’t give way to the silhouetted shape of the home’s inhabitants.
“Is anybody even here?” Lowell whispered.
“This is the right house.” Bram glanced up then back at the street. He repeated, “Yes, this is where we are supposed to be.”
“Knock again,” Meira urged.
Taking hold of the metal again, Bram pounded against the door. This time the noise echoed back louder, giving her the impression that the home itself was empty. He dropped the knocker and stepped back. Before he’d even lowered his hand to his side the door cracked open an inch as though it had never fully been latched shut in the first place.
“Hello?” Bram called through the door, poking it open further with the tip of his finger. “Warlord Vigor? Valen?”
