A phoenix.
The bondservant shoved Sev roughly aside, gaze fixed on the firebird. The girl’s muscles tensed, but this was no attack. The bondservant stopped and pressed a hand to his chest, a gesture of reverence and respect, and bowed his head. The girl looked up at him, at the chain hanging heavy on his neck, and it seemed that she knew what he was. An unspoken understanding passed between them. They were both animages—only someone with animal magic could hatch and bond with a phoenix, and only animages were forced into bondage in the empire—and that seemed to unify them in a way that left Sev feeling cold and disconnected despite his own magic, standing in the shadows cast by their warm glow.
She gently stroked the phoenix, perched on her shoulder, and a hesitant glance seemed to invite the bondservant to do the same. He took a halting step forward, hand outstretched, when the loud smack of the door against the frame brought them all sharply back to reality.
“Captain’ll have our hides if we don’t get moving . . . ,” Ott was saying, as a second smack of the door told Sev that Jotham was following just behind, as usual. They’d round the side of the cabin at any moment.
Sev’s brain rang with alarm bells, and he couldn’t seem to untangle his thoughts and form words. “Bushes,” he managed, gesturing frantically for the girl and her phoenix to take cover in the trees. His sudden movement caused the phoenix to squawk and spread its wings in a defensive stance, but luckily, Ott chose that exact moment to speak.
“Kid?” he called, heavy footfalls crunching on dried leaves. “Where are you?”
The girl glanced at the bondservant, clearly trusting one of her own kind over Sev, and after the bondservant’s reassuring nod, she dove into the cover of the leaves, her phoenix flapping behind her. After making sure both were hidden from view, Sev whirled around.
The two soldiers approached, Jotham as stoic as ever, while Ott’s round-cheeked, pockmarked face scrunched in disapproval. “What’s this one still doing here?” he demanded, speaking to Sev about the bondservant as if he weren’t even there, gesturing carelessly at him with his crossbow.
Sev’s mind was still ringing, his hammering heart making it difficult to focus. “He . . .”
“I was looking for this,” the bondservant said, stepping forward. In his palm was a bent piece of metal that looked like it belonged on a buckle or strap. “From one of the saddles.”
Ott’s eyes narrowed, before shifting to stare into the trees behind them. Had he seen the girl, or was he searching for the end of the llama train?
“Listen, mageslave,” Ott spat, stepping into the bondservant’s personal space, though all this did was highlight the considerable height difference between them. “We’re the soldiers”—he gestured to Sev and Jotham—“and you’re the servant. Got it? Next time do exactly as I tell you, else I’ll fill you full of bolts and leave you for the crows.”
The bondservant lowered his hand in acquiescence, but Sev could feel the hatred radiating from him. Ott smiled at his subservient posture, too convinced of his own authority to notice.
“Now get outta here—and make sure that broken saddle gets fixed,” he ordered, before returning his attention to Sev. As soon as Ott’s back was turned, the bondservant met Sev’s eyes for an instant before staring meaningfully at the place where the girl and her phoenix hid. Then he left.
It was all up to Sev now.
“They’ll never respect your authority if you don’t exercise it every now and again,” Ott was saying in his oily voice, slinging an arm around Sev’s shoulders conspiratorially. Sev held his breath to avoid the stench of sweat and unwashed skin. “And if they don’t respect you, they best fear you. Eh, Joth?”
Jotham nodded placidly, his attention focused on picking his grimy fingernails. Then Ott shoved Sev roughly aside, laughing loudly as his gaze swept the area.
Sev remained perfectly still as Ott looked about, as if his own stillness could help the girl in the trees achieve the same. They were very nearly in the clear. . . .
“What’s this, then?” Ott demanded, squinting at a point just behind Sev’s shoulder.
Sev kept his features as blank as possible as he turned, though his gut clenched in dread.
Ott pushed past him to pick up a woven basket from where it lay on the ground, a collection of bulbous vegetables scattered around his feet. The girl must have dropped it when she’d first arrived.
As Ott held the basket up expectantly, awaiting an answer, Sev did the only thing he could do. He shrugged. While he was a decent liar, sometimes it was better to just say nothing at all. Stupidity—feigned or otherwise—could explain away any number of strange occurrences.
Ott peered around them, then back into the basket. He snorted.
“Some lookout,” he said, tossing the basket back onto the ground in disgust. “Wouldn’t notice a swarm of wasps until one stung him on the ass.”
“Time to leave,” Jotham said, his tone bored. For every ten words Ott spoke, Jotham said two. If Ott was the Fool, short and round and blustering, Jotham was the Scarecrow, his silent, lanky counterpart. Jotham’s gaunt face and long greasy hair added to the effect, while his leathery brown skin was crisscrossed with a maze of jagged, poorly healed scars.
The Fool and the Crow had been one of Sev’s favorite shows as a child, along with Princess Pearl and The Conman’s Bluff. Sev would squeeze through the legs of the crowds outside the theater on Mummer’s Lane and watch from between people’s knees as the actors performed. While most of the Arborian Comedies were still allowed, the Epics and Tragedies had been banned. They were popular and, since the war, controversial, featuring many famous warriors and notable figures from Phoenix Rider history—and that was exactly why they were forbidden. Rumor had it that some of the underground theaters and gambling halls in Aura Nova paid extra for the players to perform them in secret for the after-hours crowds, charging twice as much admission to make up for the risk.
As Jotham stalked away, Ott considered Sev.
“Since you’re no good as a lookout, you can make yourself useful and carry this,” he barked, dropping his crossbow into the dirt before grinning smugly and sauntering away.
Sev watched him and Jotham leave, not daring to breathe until the sound of their departure was swallowed by the forest.