“Does the regiment commander tell you about every order that comes from the king?”
His eyebrows jerked up. “Well…”
“Perhaps you should talk to him. Or the king himself.” I steppedforward. “In the meantime, I’d advise you to get the fuck out of my way.”
He did.
I could have said anything, as long as it involved the words “king” and “fuck”—in no particular order. I’d already defeated him in voice, bearing, and the unspoken promise that I could beat his face in before he touched me.
I crossed the empty yard with the load in my arms. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. When I came to the first alley, I yanked out the pillowcase and stuffed everything in as the walls around me turned from gray to a softer yellow.
We were running out of time.
Five minutes later, I opened the door to our room at The Iron Mare and found Eury seated on the bed with a tray of empty dishes before her and the dragon’s tooth in her lap.
She eyed me up and down like that guard. “Thought you got caught.”
I pushed the door shut. “I nearly did.” I tossed the pillowcase onto the end of the bed. “Picked the smallest boots I could find.”
She pushed aside the tray and pulled the pillowcase toward her. “Nothing in the guard ever fit me right. My mother tailored my uniform.”
“Then—”
She pulled out one of the jackets and held it up. “Focus on dressing yourself. I’ve got my methods.”
I had no doubt of that.
We dressed in silence. The larger uniform and boots fit me well enough, if not tight across the chest and shoulders. My toes pushed up against the boots’ front. Meanwhile, Eury’s clothes hung off her. She rolled the sleeves and tucked the legs into her boots.
Then she did something I hadn’t expected. She pulled the extra uniform tight at her low back and pressed the dagger through it like a clothespin. When she swept on her cloak, she turned to me and said, “We only need to get through the gates.”
She actually looked passable, like the shirt had been tailored for her. Everything about her suggested the scouts I had seen riding through the inner district during my childhood. Of course it would—she’d been a guard before she became a queen.
Everything worked, except for her lack of hair.
She must have noticed my gaze on her scalp, because she lifted her hood. “I’ve seen them ride like this when it’s cold.”
“We only need to get through the gates.”
A faint smile appeared. She turned toward the mirror. “You know, I wanted to be a scout more than anything.”
“Why?” I already knew, but I craved the sound of her voice.
“When you live behind a wall, you imagine the world. Your imagination becomes the world. But when youseethe world…”
“The truth replaces imagination.”
She met eyes in the mirror. “But the scouts wouldn’t take a woman.”
“Their loss.”
“My best friend’s parents died when she was a girl. Both of them were scouts. After that, no more women scouts in the southern district.” She turned back toward me. “Bet you didn’t think we poors have scouts, too.”
“I’m sure I thought a lot of things.” I pulled on my cloak. “But I can hardly remember what those thoughts were.”
So much had happened. The boy I’d been felt obliterated.
“We need to leave.”