And we couldn’t afford to be left on the road. Marcel handed me a parchment with my description on it at our first stop. He’d found it nailed to a tree at a crossroads. The hand of my husband was everywhere and if I wasn’t careful, he would snatch me up again.
“If your father dies, someone has to inherit,” I whispered to Osprey when the cart started rolling again. “And if you are both alive, that would mean that Juste would inherit and the feather in your chest would kill you, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes,” his whisper was thready, and I couldn’t tell if it was pain or my words that were shaking him up.
“That’s one of the things that you fear – Juste inheriting.”
“He’s worse than the Emperor, House Apidae. No one realizes it. He keeps his inner self carefully hidden.”
“He doesn’t keep it hidden from me,” I said with conviction.
“No. I suppose he doesn’t.”
“But if the feather is gone, and someone were to harm your father, it won’t be able to kill you,” I said, relieved. “Let’s hope your father can avoid assassination for just a few more hours.”
What I didn’t say out loud was that I hoped my bee would be done in a few more hours. Instead, ignoring the searing pain that filled me, I leaned in close and gave Osprey a stinging kiss – one full of all my hopes and passions for him. And when it was done, and we broke apart gasping, I whispered my vow.
“Whatever it takes, I will sever your tie to them. I’ll find a way to undo what was done to you.”
“I trust you, House Apidae.”
After our second stop, I was rocked almost immediately by another vision. This time, Ixtap was speaking to a man in the shadows. They huddled together in a dark passage and the man looked agitated and afraid. Which didn’t surprise me at all. Ixtap made me feel both those things. I still felt them when I saw him, and he was across an ocean from me now.
I was grateful to blink back to the cart and out of the vision. Should I be worried that I was seeing so much of Ixtap? What could he be up to on the other side of the ocean? It had just been him and a few others in my visions lately and they weren’t charging up hills with blades drawn. This was no invasion. So what was he doing across the sea?
The road was busy, and Marcel often called to a fellow carter or stopped for a patrol to pass by. We were careful to be silent then, but whenever there was no one around, Osprey and I talked. He spoke of the beauty of the sea. Of the children of Canat who had been brought to his home – what they were like. What their passions were. How they had slowly become his friends. I spoke of my family and the homestead I’d hoped to have one day. A place for raising horses of my own. He thought bees would be more appropriate. I laughed softly at that and was rewarded with a smile.
My chest hurt constantly. And the closer I was to Osprey, the closer it seemed to burn with pain. When I kissed him – which I did almost too often, now that I knew that I could – it hurt five-fold. I began to tense even before our lips met. It was as if the marriage feather under my collarbone was trying to keep me from him.
He was in pain, too, his face often flickering with ghosts of it as we spoke or as we lay still, hiding.
Our conversations in between his bad spells were a surprising balm in the middle of our fear and tension. One moment we’d be lying beside each other, barely breathing, stiff as boards as a Claw patrol passed on the road with their carabaos jingling with tack and their commanders shouting harsh orders. Our fingers would intertangle for shared support and our hearts would race in time with one another. And then the next moment, they’d be gone, and we’d be relaxing again, and one of us would whisper a story. Osprey – or perhaps I should be thinking of him by his real name now that we’d kissed – was surprisingly good at being a friend.
The light was fading when I asked him about it.
“Should I call you Vasyklo or Osprey?”
“Call me what you will, House Apidae.” I wished I could see his eyes, but his blindfold was up – protecting us both.
“Do you have a preference?”
He paused for long moments before making a discontented sound. “I prefer neither of those. Osprey is my title – a title forged in blood and obligation. Something that binds me to the throne and Le Majest. Vasyklo is the name my mother gave me – a name for one born in treachery and betrayal. I would prefer another name, perhaps.”
“Then I will think of one for you,” I said.
Marcel’s whisper broke into our conversation. “The path is a little way ahead. I’m going to have to leave the wagon with a friend and then we go on foot to the gap.”
“What gap?” I whispered back.
“The only way to get you safe. It won’t seem like it will work, but you have to trust me.”
“Wait,” I said but he was already putting straw over us. “I’m still not sure I can trust you if you won’t give me details.”
“Become sure!” he hissed.
“I think we can trust him,” Osprey whispered to me. “We’ve come this far with him.”
I wanted to answer but a vision seized me, shaking me where I lay and I had to grit my teeth to keep from crying out as the feather in my chest flared with intensity at the view. At first, I was confused, thinking I was looking at Juste from someone else’s eyes, but I was still looking from the honeycomb as he studied himself in a mirror, shirtless and with his boots flung to the side. His black tousled curls were in disarray and his face was drawn and haggard. He ran a hand over it and inspected the honeycomb again in the mirror, ranting to himself through clenched teeth.
“You’ve put your mark into me forever, Aella of House Shrike. And I’ve put my mark on you. Trust me, I am looking for you, and I will find you. And when I do, you will be mine just as I have been forced to be yours. Oh, you like playing games. I see that now. And we are alike, you and me. For I, too, like to play with my supper and I will make you dance for me and then I will strip you down and take from you everything you are and everything you love and you will be paraded through the place that was once your home like a pet on a leash. No sustenance will you receive except from my hand, no affection unless I give it, no praise or comfort from any but I, and one day, you will grow to be as obsessed with me as your bees have forced me to become with you.”
His lip curled as he leaned closer to the mirror. “You thought you had won, didn’t you? You thought you had played me for the fool, putting me forever within your grasp with that clever series of moves – first the wound, then the healing, then the bond between yourself and my brother.” He leaned his forehead against the mirror, closing his eyes and murmuring to it as if he thought I was there with him. “But oh, my wife, I can turn your every game into a victory and I will. I will match you move for move, play for play until you are utterly at my mercy.
“Don’t you realize, wife, that if you manage the impossible and free him, it will only set in stone what I am trying to accomplish?”
I snapped back to reality with a shudder.
“Are you hurt somehow, House Apidae?” Osprey whispered.
“Osprey,” I was more breathless than I would have liked – and much more terrified. “If I get that feather out of your chest and break your tie with Juste – would that automatically kill your father?”