The Boon of Alon

CHAPTER FORTY NINE

I don't clean and sheathe my sword until I've reached Iamon. That done, I trust for the moment that he'll watch my back and slump against his shoulder, pressing my face against his scales.

"This was a hell of a first day as a rider," I think.

"You handled it well," Iamon tells me fondly. "I will not tell you how close you came to disaster, however."

"Oh, good. Because I don't want to hear it." This has been a long stressful day as it is, treading the edge of a knife, and there's still more to do. Like deal with what the fuck I just did.

The crown prince of Pangessa is dead. What now?

"Y'know, you told me the prince's location would be irrelevant," I start. "Those villages..."

"Largely irrelevant," Iamon corrects. "This war has hundreds of fronts. A situation like this could have been contrived at most of them."

But it might still have put innocents in danger—I hope Chama can talk down whoever's left. "I guess it's good we caught him out now instead of letting him wreck things as king," I say, "but everything's going to be a mess now."

"Out of which we will draw a better future," says Iamon. I hope so. If Iamon says it, it must be true, or at least possible.

"Della?" Chama has caught up, so I pull myself together and turn to meet her. She looks me over; I make a little magelight to compensate for the failing sunlight.

"Did he stab you?" she asks, indicating my shoulder and the hole in my jacket there.

"He tried." I pull out the scale to show her—there's not a scratch on it.

She half-laughs—I think she's more relieved than amused, though. "Well, that's lucky. Let me see your shoulder, and then you'd better get down to the capitol and find Tack. I'll get things sorted out here."

"Okay." I start to shrug off my jacket—it's still frigid out, but between all the excitement and Iamon at my back, I barely feel it. But Chama stops me with a hand on my arm.

"Kid—well done," she says seriously. "I know you got thrown into this without as much preparation as either of us would've liked." She lifts her hand and I resume taking my jacket off. Iamon unfolds his wing over us, which immediately helps with warmth as well as privacy. "Aside from the wound, how are you feeling?"

"Fine, I guess?" I say. "I feel like—I could've tried harder to convince him, maybe? But at the same time, I don't think there's anything I could've said that would've worked."

"It's often like that," Chama says ruefully. "But there's never as much time as you want. You just have to make do."

I bet Iamon prompted me to do it because I would've kept dithering about it. Someone would've stepped in to stop me eventually.

With my clothes out of the way—including Suthi's shirt that I've hardly taken off since I last saw her—Chama takes a look at my shoulder. Like I thought, the cut isn't deep, and I think the cold is helping to numb it, but it does hurt.

"I'll patch you up before you go," she says.

I watch the lights of the camp over her shoulder as she does—little spots moving back and forth behind the thin membrane of Iamon's wing. All those soldiers with fate uncertain. It only takes a minute, and then I dress quickly and Iamon folds his wing again, exposing us to the cold.

"Okay," Chama says, patting my bandaged shoulder. "Go. Tell Tack what happened. I'll handle things here and follow when I can."

I hope that nothing I'm going to face at the capitol will be as tense as meeting the prince alone was. I still would rather have Chama there to help me—but I do have Iamon, and I'll have Tack when I find them.