With the day’s horses shod and the forge quenched, Nikolas would normally have begun work on the cottage, but today he washed and dried Vasili’s clothes and stitched the tears together as good as mostly new. Admittedly, he was not as proficient with a needle as he’d made out to Vasili, but the repairs were passable.
Vasili had spent much of the day in the courtyard, brushing down Adamo, preferring the horse’s company to Niko’s. The sight of him in Niko’s oversized shirt had all manner of complicated thoughts springing into Niko’s head. None of which he lingered on.
Niko left the folded clothes on the kitchen table and tended to a passing customer wanting to purchase a pair of door hinges. By the time he was done, he had returned to find the clothes gone and the kitchen tidied. Pans that he’d left on the side had been neatly stacked on shelves, their handles facing the same way. The herbs had been organized in alphabetical order. Even the stove had been freshly stoked and logs stacked beside it. Vasili had been in the cottage for less than a day and already he was changing everything.
The sound of boots rapped down the cottage stairs.
“I liked the pans the way they were.” Niko folded his arms.
Vasili—all neatly reclothed in his stitched-up finery—cast a gaze about the kitchen as though he had no idea what Niko referred to. “However did you find anything?”
“I knew where everything was. I didn’t need to find it.”
Vasili waved a hand. “It’s done.”
“Your horse is fed, watered, and reshod.”
The prince’s gaze skipped to the back window overlooking the courtyard where Adamo dozed at his post. His cheek fluttered, thoughts drifting toward his next move. He took his cloak and threw it over his shoulders, clasping it closed at his neck. His fingers were quick, smooth. No wonder he was deadly with daggers.
“Where will you go?” Niko asked, then wished he hadn’t when Vasili’s intense gaze swung back to him.
“You do not need to know.”
Fair enough. He didn’t need to know. And didn’t want to. Niko leaned back against the sink, leaving Vasili’s path to the back door clear. He could leave anytime he pleased. There was nothing here to hold him back. It was time.
Vasili’s fingers still fiddled with the cloak clasp, unnecessarily adjusting it.
Where he went next was not Niko’s business.
As soon as the prince left, that would be the end of it.
“I should thank you, I suppose.” Vasili looked up.
By the three, Vasili really must have been shaken from his fall. “What for?”
“The library—”
“I didn’t return there for you.”
“The flame, of course. Loreen should thank you. But as they don’t know of your service, my word will have to do.” Vasili lowered his hand from the clasp and straightened. “A griffin must forever hold the flame. You have been instrumental in its protection. Thank you, Nikolas Yazdan, for your service to the griffin.”
His first instinct was to tell the griffin where it could shove its thanks. Vasili’s thanks didn’t erase the abuse and lies and betrayal. But he’d never expected the prince to even acknowledge his help in any of it, and now he had, he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with that. Maybe he had changed in a year.
Vasili’s gaze skipped away, and then the prince ducked out the door, in motion and leaving, exactly as Niko had wanted. So why in the ever-loving fuck was his heart racing like he was about to make a terrible mistake in letting Vasili go? Why did his body give a damn that the prince was adjusting the saddle Niko had supplied and would soon be galloping away, probably into obscurity?
Niko stepped into the doorway. He’d gone into the burning palace to prevent something terrible happening. He’d risked his life to protect Loreen from the nightmare of the Caville curse. And now he was about to let half the source of that curse leave with no guards, no advisors, no protectors? Vasili only had that damned devil horse that would probably one day throw him just for the hell of it, and Niko was just going to let him go?
Vasili had been alone since the moment the elves stole him from the palace gardens. Even if he wanted help, he probably didn’t know how to ask for it. Cruel and vicious as he was, he also bore the weight of a terrible burden. One few knew of. The cuckoo in the nest. Free our bird.
Niko cleared his throat. “I suppose, if you wanted—”
Vasili slotted his boot into the stirrup, grabbed Adamo’s reins, and hauled himself into the saddle. Adamo stamped his hooves, sensing his rider’s tension. Vasili turned the horse away from Niko and settled the reins loosely in both hands.
He smiled. “I’d like to say it’s been a pleasure knowing you, Nikolas, but it really hasn’t.”
Niko arched a brow. “Fuck you too, prince.”
Vasili’s smile flourished into a grin. He nudged Adamo with his heels, clicked his tongue, and urged the horse to trot out of the yard.
Niko loitered at the yard wall. The prince pulled his hood up, and Adamo trotted down the road toward the forest on the outside of the village. Dusk painted the sky red ahead of him, turning the trees into silhouettes of jagged teeth. Lamplight flickered in the windows of the cottages he passed. Darkness would soon settle across the land.
And the three gods be damned because Niko’s heart raced harder, anxiety gnawing on his nerves.
He hated the man, but he’d also seen the truth inside him, and whatever the future held, Vasili was unlikely to survive the flame alone. He’d told Niko as much. He knew his future was dire. And still he walked toward it with his head held high.
The horse and rider were distant now, about to disappear over the brow of a hill.
Vasili had saved Niko from the elves. He’d said it was because Niko was his tool, but there were other tools, other men Vasili could manipulate. Yet he’d stalked the elves and trampled one to death to save Niko when he should have returned to the palace to stop Julian, the real traitor to the griffin. Instead, Vasili had taken Niko to safety and sat by him as he’d recovered, wasting time and risking the palace’s security.
Was the man as much a viper as he appeared, or was he something—someone—else? Someone so damaged he didn’t expect help and wouldn’t ask for it. He was a brat of a prince, there was no doubt in that, but he was also a thousand other complicated pieces of a puzzle that Niko barely understood. He’d seen moments in him, softer moments from the man beneath the ice. He did exist, but he was damned difficult to get to beneath Vasili’s tendency to push everyone away.
However, for all their disagreements, they did believe in one thing: protecting Loreen.
The rider was out of sight now, and night was fast approaching.
Vasili was gone. He didn’t need Niko anyway. Snakes like him always survived.
Niko returned to the cottage and stopped at the sight of the pans on the kitchen shelves. Small to large, each neatly placed. He had half a mind to shift them around again.
He would tomorrow. But it was late and there was little left to do but retire for the night.
Sleep wouldn’t come. His mind played over the image of Vasili riding into the dark. He’d go south. East was out of the question. Elves waited there. The rigid mountains lay due north. West was eventually the ocean, but with little between Loreen and the sea. South… to the hot, exotic city of Seran, where the houses were built on top of one another around dusty, sand-strewn streets, against a backdrop of glittering ocean.