“What an unexpected surprise. I thought you were busy securing our borders. Yet here you are.”
“The surprise was all mine, I assure you. I was already on myway here bearing important news from the southern front.” Yale’s lips curl with distaste, as though he’s swallowed something foul. “When word reached me last night regarding this deployment, I made extra haste.”
“An unnecessary exercise.”
“On that, we disagree.” Yale’s grip on his reins tightens. “Though we disagree on many things, it seems, if you’ve sanctioned more northbound soldiers without my input.”
“Oh? Do you have a problem with my orders?”
Yale bares his teeth in a bitter smile. “I’m merely surprised that you did not seek my counsel on the matter. Our forces are already stretched thin. We lost so many at Fyremas.”
“You do not need to remind me of those we lost, Yale. I fought alongside them as they fell. I watched the light leave their eyes, while others”—Penn pauses artfully—“sheltered inside the keep.”
“I was defending our queen.”
Penn scoffs. “You were defending yourself.”
I suck in a breath at the vengeance that furrows the general’s scarred features. The air between the men grows so thick and heavy, I think it will crystallize, then plummet to the cobblestones and shatter to pieces. My eyes move back and forth between them as they glare at each other from their mounts. A dozen paces divide them on the now empty street.
“Don’t you two have more important things to do than bicker over old battles?” I interject when I can no longer stand the silence. “Fyremas is behind us. We should focus on the future of Dyved, not the past.”
Yale’s eyes move to me. “What I discuss and who I discuss it with is no concern of yours, child.”
“You may outrank me in years, General, but if anyone here is acting like a child, it is you.”
“How quickly you bite back! Rather like the rabid bitch that took up residence in the stables of my boyhood home one summer. It looked innocent enough from afar, but as soon as your fingers were within range…” Yale shakes his head mockingly. “Ferocious little thing. Far better for everyone at the manor when it found itself another place to live, where it could no longer distract our purebred hunting hounds from their duties.”
Penn does not seem to enjoy the general’s personal anecdote, nor the thinly veiled implications behind it. A pulse of anger shoots through the bond, nearly strong enough to knock me sideways. In my peripheral, his fingers tense against his strong thigh as he leans slightly forward in his saddle.
“A warning, Jareth,” Penn says, the casual use of the general’s given name somewhat at odds with his biting tone. “You have long held the reins that steer our armies. But those reins can be passed to another at a single word from me. It would be unwise to forget that.”
“Just as it would be unwise to unseat the leader every soldier in Dyved has spent two decades looking to with trust and loyalty. You may now be their king, but it is me they answer to. It is me who ruled when your sister was otherwise occupied with the less bloody parts of sovereignty.”
“Do not mistake me for my sister. Queen Vanora may have been more concerned with her garden parties and grand balls than the oversight of our armies, but I have no plans to continue that neglectful strategy. It has not served us well.”
Yale reels back as though Penn has punched him, his expression stunned. “Are you implying that I am somehow responsible for the Reavers’ invasion? That I somehow failed in my task as commanding general?”
“I’m saying that perhaps if Vanora had shown more interestin the security of our borders, such a breach would never have occurred.”
“I did everything possible—”
“And yet.” Penn cuts him off. “Posts were attacked, our guards replaced in the dark of night by Efnysien’s red army, without you ever sensing something was amiss.”
I thought the air tense before, but it reaches new heights of animosity. Yale’s scar is stark white against the deepening flush of rage blooming over his expression.
“How easy it is for you,my king”—he spits the title like a curse—“to make judgments about my choices. To lay blame at my feet. But you have no right to judge me. You were not here. You were off in the Midlands, scouring the realm for signs of your precious wind weaver. And you found her—but at what cost?” His gold eyes cut to me for a brief moment, brimming with dislike. “I hope she was worth it. For her, you forsook your kingdom. For her, you abandoned your people. For her—”
“Enough!”
I flinch at the brutality of Penn’s roar as well as the shower of sparks that shoots from the tips of his fingers and scatters to the cobblestones between the two horses. Both stallions skitter nervously, widening the gap between the men as they shy away. Yale finally falls silent, perhaps wise enough to recognize he is treading on dangerous ground.
“You said you had an urgent missive.” Penn’s jaw is clenched tight with leashed fury. “Deliver it.”
Yale’s spine is ramrod. His voice is equally stiff. “Word arrived from Coldcross; scouts spotted the Llyrian army passing through the Avian Strait at nightfall.”
So Soren has returned.
My stomach flips.