Page 59 of Onyx Cage: Volume II
“Rowan—” Like the absoluteaaliothat he was, Korhonan was giving her a look dripping with sympathy and horror, focusing on her scars instead of answering her question.
“It’s fine,” she said quickly, pulling her ample curls around to hide them once more. For his sake. “I told you, they’re healed now.”
My fists clenched at my sides as the silence grew and my lemmikki reverted inward just a little more with each second.
I cleared my throat to answer the question that Korhonan hadn’t.
“It doesn’t get quite this warm, but yes, the sun shines in the summer, through early autumn,” I said, before deciding to tack on something else in an effort to pull her from whatever hell she had just lost herself in. “Though I’m surprised you didn’t know that already, what with your—what was it you said—interest in the weather?”
If the silence had only fallen before, it was a veritable avalanche now. Each of the Lochlannians went completely still, like if they moved, or even breathed, they would be answering the question I hadn’t yet brought myself to ask.
Rowan, however, tried to force an air of nonchalance into her shrug, her eyes still fixed on mine.
“I just know what the clouds indicate,” she said, unconvincingly.
“And here I had nearly forgotten about your weather-toe,” Korhonan cut in before I could respond, but I couldn’t even be angry about it.
Instead, I actually had to suppress a laugh.
Of all the terrible lies I had heard her tell, this one might have trumped them all. Something her sister and cousins seemed to agree on, given their states of near laughter or obvious disappointment.
“Weather-toe?” I pressed, drawing out each word like a question.
Rowan’s lips pursed in the way they always did when she was leaning into a lie. Then she squared her shoulders, nodding with all the confidence of someone who used the wordsweather-toeand expected it to be believed.
“Mhmm. It is...my toe, that I injured,” she said, her face going as scarlet as her hair. “And it...always acts up when a storm is coming.”
It was an effort not to laugh outright.
“Indeed,” I said, fighting back a smirk.
I was more than a little tempted to take it a step further by asking if there was a correlation between her weather-toe and herfeminine needsbut didn’t particularly want to share that moment with Korhonan.
When Gwyn quickly suggested a game of something calledClubball, it was clear that the subject was closed anyway.
So, I contented myself with being quietly amused as we rounded up the grazing horses and tucked them away in the nearby stables before our game.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It was subtle, at first, the way Avani stilled, her gaze drifting from her sister toward the nearby stables. One of the horses was agitated. It went back and forth between loudly grunting and neighing, and Avani’s shoulders stiffened. She let out a low whistle, Rowan and her cousins freezing on the spot.
A signal of some sort.
I darted a glance back toward the tree line behind the stables in time to see a group of men round the corner. Each of them wore navy uniforms, and I wondered for a moment if they were Korhonan’s men.
As they came closer, though, it was clear they were Lochlannian, and if the design of their uniforms and the color of their skin didn’t give that away, the blinding hatred seeping from their every pore would have.
My hand automatically reached for my sword, but Rowan shook her head, her delicate hand gently covering mine.
I tried to read her expression, to understand why she wouldn’t want us to be ready to face them, especially since the weapons in their hands made their intentions rather clear.
Swallowing hard, I forced my fingers to release the handle. It went against every single one of my instincts, but I did it before taking a small step closer to my lemmikki.
“Is there something we can do for you?” Avani’s voice pierced the silence. Her tone wasn’t unkind, but it held the kind of authority that belied her exact role in this kingdom.
The leader stepped forward as his nine men slowly fanned out around us.
“The Socairans took two of our own, Highness,” he said in a thick accent, his nose wrinkling in disgust as he nodded toward Korhonan and me. “We only wish tae return the favor, since yer parents are too soft tae bother.”