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“Getting back?” I asked, not quite keeping the note of uncertainty out of my voice at this unsettling comment. I glanced at Nik who had straightened, giving Hayes his full attention.
“If we’ve really decided to do this,” Hayes said, “then there’s one other condition from the capital.”
He glanced at Amara, but she didn’t protest, apparently having been worn down either by their arguments or my determination.
“The condition?” Nik asked when Hayes didn’t immediately speak.
“We are all to accompany Delphine part of the way into the desert and set up our own camp in a suitable location, to be determined by you and the tracker. But Your Highness is to accompany Delphine the rest of the way and to stay close enough to Grey’s camp to monitor her conversations.”
Nik went utterly still.
“Only me?” he asked stiffly.
Hayes cleared his throat. “I believe it was felt that only one person could safely conceal themselves so close to the camp. And since you’re the one with both experience of the location and the necessary skills…”
“Necessary skills?” I looked between them. “What do you mean? How can Nik possibly listen to my conversations if he’s not even inside the camp?”
“It seems Father has great belief in my ability.” Nik’s tone was impossible to read.
“Is he wrong?” Hayes asked quietly, not flinching in response to Nik’s closed expression.
I threw Amara a desperate look, hoping she might rescue me with actual answers.
“Plants mages with sufficient skill and power can use root systems to listen to conversations happening at some distance.” She looked at Nik curiously. “Can you really do it? You’ll have to create and maintain the root networks yourself, since they won’t exist in the desert.”
Nik hesitated for a moment before nodding once. “I can do it.”
Hayes smiled slightly, and I wondered if he had been the one to assure the king about his son’s growth in skill during his time away.
But my initial uncertainty still hadn’t been answered. “What does any of that have to do with needing a tracker to return?” I asked.
Nik’s eyes turned dark, although his mouth curved upward in a humorless smile. “I believe there’s another reason for sending only one to accompany you. It seemsHis Majestyconsiders me expendable.” He looked at Hayes. “Or is that coming from my dear friends among the Triumvirate?”
I frowned. If I wanted to understand Nik, I really needed to find out what troubled history lay between him and the three most powerful mages in the kingdom.
“Expendable?” I asked instead, knowing it wasn’t the time or place for the other conversation.
Hayes didn’t seem daunted by Nik’s observation, keeping his focus on the prince when he answered.
“That’s one way to consider it. I prefer to think that they’re giving you a chance.”
“A chance?” Nik raised an eyebrow.
“To prove yourself…Among other things.” For some reason Hayes’s eyes flicked to me, and Nik’s followed them, a strange look coming over his face.
What did Nik’s proving himself have to do with me? A sudden horrible thought occurred to me. Had Hayes picked up on Nik’s protective attitude toward me and reported on it to theking? Was King Marius attempting to win his son back by giving the order he thought his son would want—allowing Nik to stay close to me while also demonstrating that King Marius trusted in Nik’s abilities?
I shook my head at my foolish thoughts. Surely not. The king would be interested in protecting his son, not pandering to Nik’s strange insistence on shadowing me.
“Very well, then,” Nik said suddenly. “We’ll leave before dawn.”
“Wait, what?” I asked, startled out of my thoughts.
“Why?” Nik looked at me with a shade of amusement. “Are you feeling short on sleep?”
“Quiet, you.” I narrowed my eyes at him, but he just chuckled at my glare, his whole manner changed from the stoic, icy warrior who had observed most of the conversation. Whatever meaning he’d taken from Hayes’s words, it seemed to have shaken him out of his earlier mood.
“That makes me feel better, actually,” Amara said. “You should have mentioned it earlier.”
