The Flute Keeper's Promise (The Flute Keeper Saga) (46 page)

“I’m sorry,” I said.

His wings twitched. He glanced over
his shoulder, giving me the bare minimum of acknowledgement.

My pulse sped up even more, but it
was out of anger rather than nerves. “I said—”

“I heard you,” he snapped. “If you
came here just to make an empty apology, I should have let Katriel do her
worst.”

I matched the anger in my voice to
the venom in his. “Empty? I’m admitting I was wrong, okay?”

“But you don’t mean it,” he said.
“You
meant
what you said when I left. I fully expected you to attack me
when I saw you earlier.”

I was stunned. “No! I…maybe I did
mean those things when I said them, but that has changed. We’re on the same
side now.”

Hugo overturned the table. Weapons
and supplies clattered loudly to the floor. He stormed at me with his wings
flapping half-open. “I was always on your side! Always! There was nowhere you
could have gone that I wouldn’t have followed! There was nothing you could have
done to make me turn away from you! And then, when I needed you to believe in
me, you told me all of that was a waste of time!”

I cringed. I couldn’t meet his
gaze. The anguish and the guilt were too much.

Hugo reined himself in. His wings
settled and he looked away again. “Now, since we’ve both decided not to waste
each others’ time anymore, what do you have to say to me? Because there is
nothing,
nothing
that you can say to make things the way they were.”

Every word hurt like the lash of
the whip. The knowledge that I wasn’t doing this for me was the only thing
keeping me together.

“I know,” I said. “Like you said
that day, this is much bigger than you and me. All of Faylinn is in danger and
unless we can agree to be civil long enough to work together, then I’m afraid
everyone will suffer for it.”

His black hair hid his face so I
couldn’t see his expression. He appeared to be growing calmer, if not any less
prickly. “Go on.”

I took a deep breath. “I know about
that tree that the mechamen took from the bottom of the ocean. My ancestors put
it there. It’s like the flute because the flute was made from it; it has
special powers. They couldn’t destroy it, so they sealed it away.”

He lifted his head a fraction. “What
kind of powers?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It can’t
be good, though. They performed sacrifices under the tree—lots of bloodshed.”

“That does sound like a Wren
talent,” Hugo said bitingly.

I cringed again. My skin was not
thick enough for this. I told myself I deserved it.
Deep breaths. You hurt
him. This isn’t about that, though. Move forward.
“Whatever power the tree
has, Robyn must want it, and if
she
wants it we can only assume that
it’s for the worst.”

Hugo huffed and brought his hands
to his hips. That’s when I caught the glint of something red in his belt. My
eyes were drawn to it. Immediately I recognized the red dagger that housed
Marafae’s soul. So he had stolen it, after all. I didn’t know what to make of
it.

Hugo caught me looking and drew his
coat closed over his belt. The red dagger vanished from sight. “What is the
purpose of raising the tree from the ocean?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Forget the
purpose. All we need to do is get rid of it or get rid of Robyn before she uses
it.”

He paced. I watched him as closely
as I dared.

“You make it sound simple,” he
said. “There are thousands and thousands of mechamen on that vessel. How do you
propose that we take them on?”

An itchy finger made me reach for
my shortsword. “I have a few ideas. Five, to be exact.”

A flash of interest showed in his
face. Then he scoffed. “The flute? Your monsters are no match for the machine.
To summon them against it would be a…” he trailed off. He seemed to be
recalling something.

I waited for him to finish the
thought but he kept staring into space, seeing things that I couldn’t. For the
first time, I recognized it as a trait he shared with my Spirit Mentor,
Linaeve.
His mother
. I’d never told him. I wondered if I should. After
all, she was as lost to me now as she was to him.

He came back to earth with a
twitching of wings. “Not yet,” he said in a tone of grim certainty. “Keep your
monsters. Alone they are useless and we are powerless.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

He scowled. “Do not question me. I
know. That’s all.”

His crankiness was welcome after
everything else he’d put me through. It brought back a little of our old
dynamic. He would be grouchy and evasive and all I had to do was put up with it
and try to get him to answer questions.

“What do you suggest then?” I asked,
careful not to show any impatience.

“We wait.”

It was such an unexpected answer
that I had to bite my tongue to keep from exclaiming, “
What?!
” I took a
deep breath and tried to remain calm. “Explain,” I said. “What can be gained by
waiting?”

“Knowledge, and a better weapon,
perhaps. They key to a successful strike is as much about timing as strength.
You know that.”

I remained silent. When he said ‘
key
’
I thought of the red dagger again. I wished he’d give it back.

He mistook my silence for
agreement. “I will speak to Lord Finbarr. I can tell him what you’ve told me,
or you can tell him yourself. Until we are threatened here, however, I say we
wait.”

And that was that. He looked rigid
and irritated and mean again, which meant it was time to go. I let out a little
sigh of relief. I’d survived the apology. I felt no less guilty for it, though.
At least I’d tried to make things better.

There came a loud thud on the door
as something heavy rolled into it. Then I heard a bunch of hisses and Slaugh
curse words.

“That’ll teach you to get in my way
you mangy trollop!”

It was Valory’s voice. I gulped.

With a huff of exasperation, Hugo
threw open the door and glared at the two Slaugh girls who were entangled at
the bottom of the stairs. Valory had the upper hand at the moment. She had
pinned Katriel to the bottom step and held her prone with a knee jammed in
between her wings.

Katriel writhed and cursed. She had
a bloody lip and—my stomach turned—some of the piercings had been ripped from
her ears. The only damage to Valory was a black eye.

“Filthy, stump-sucking country
trash!” Katriel screeched. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you! How dare you claim to
be equal to our king? How DARE you?”

Valory grinned. “I didn’t say I was
equal. I said I was
better
.”

Hugo pulled Valory back by her
shirt collar and then shoved her into my arms.

“GET HER OUT OF HERE!” he bellowed.

Katriel jumped up and tried to leap
at Valory, but Hugo held her back. Valory and I made a quick escape up the
stairs. When we were safely in the next room, Valory started laughing.

“Did you see that tattooed mongrel?
I had per pinned like a fish on a skewer! See, I came to check on you and she
gave me a hard time so I—”

“I saw what you did!” I said. “You
shouldn’t have come to check on me. Everything was fine.”

Valory stopped and stared at me, oblivious
to the shiner growing dark under her left eye. The expression on her face was
one of pure, childish curiosity. For somebody who resembled Hugo so much, she
couldn’t have looked more different at the moment.

“What did he say?” she asked. “What
did you say? Does he still hate you?”

“Absolutely.” I tried not to wince
as I said it. “I don’t think we’ll ever be friends again, but we sort of have a
truce. I think we can at least work together now without all our, um, history,
getting in the way.”

“That’s good, right?” Valory asked.

I sighed. “It’s good enough. Don’t
go back there though, okay? I really think Katriel might try to kill you next
time.”

“Not likely,” Valory said with a
snort of contempt. “I think she just likes to fight. Didn’t she challenge you?”

 “Yeah, she did, but we didn’t make
it that far.”

“Next time I’ll land a good one of her,”
Valory said. “She won’t know what hit her!”

Valory never got the chance because
the Slaugh rarely ever mingled with the rest of us. They kept to their own
quarters, took their meals at separate times and never sought out company in
the common areas of Woodman’s Hall. Most days it was like they weren’t even
there.

Sandrine’s crew was a different
story. Yert became a permanent fixture in the kitchen, driving Anouk crazy with
her singing and her deplorable cooking skills. Joyboy and Wimbleysminch took
over the effort of retrieving the ship from the trees and repairing it. Bayard
and Sandrine often appeared at meals to regale whoever was present with tales
of their exploits on the high seas.

Bayard got the cold shoulder from everyone
once word got around that he was the shamed Sword Bearer who had brought the
curse of the Cian Varsha to Ivywild, but he tolerated the whispers and stares
in good stride. Bizarrely enough, I ended up being the person he talked to the
most. Over the course of a week, he grilled me about all the things that had
happened since he’d been gone. The news of Commander Larue’s death saddened him
so much that he spent a whole afternoon moping about and cursing the duke. He
roused himself out of it in grand fashion, proclaiming that he’d scalp all the
red capes he could get his hands on and use their teeth as buckshot for the
ship’s cannons. That made him a bit more popular.

As for Hugo, I only saw him in
passing a few times when I went to see Lord Finbarr. He regarded me with frosty
indifference. If he truly still hated me, he didn’t put much energy into making
me feel it. It was all business now.

Except for it wasn’t. It bothered
me that he had the red dagger. As much as I felt sorry for how I had treated
him, I thought I deserved to have the dagger back. He couldn’t understand its
power. He wasn’t there when all that was left of Marafae flowed into it. He was
punishing me by keeping it from me.

I mulled it over one hot night as I
lay on a hammock on one of the hall’s many terraces. The late spring had
brought much warmer temperatures than I was used to in Ivywild. Thanks to the
tidal wave, there was far less shade than there had been before. Woodman’s Hall
baked in the sun all day and scarcely cooled down at night. We were all growing
lazy and short-tempered. To make matters worse, there was no news from the team
that had gone to Helm Bogvogny. They’d been gone over three weeks.

So I was very irritable as I lay in
the hammock, dwelling on a dagger. I’d come outside to escape the worried looks
of Mrs. Larue and her daughters. Anouk was depressed, too. Just that evening
she’d broken down into tears over the potato soup and no cheery melodies from
Yert could stop the outburst.

My back felt sticky with sweat.
With a groan I rose from the hammock. I heard odd noises. A Fay boy and a girl
younger than me were making out in the shadows of the terrace below. I thought
about alerting Mrs. Larue to the forbidden activity, but then I decided not to.
They weren’t bothering anyone else and it wasn’t like there was anything else
for them to do.

Off in the distance I heard another
noise. I scanned the treetops and saw a winged figure pouncing on a squerbil. I
thought at first that it was Valory but then I caught the gleam of metal
piercings in the moonlight.

“Hello, Katriel,” I said under my
breath. “And who’s minding your king while you’re away?”

A strong temptation took hold of
me. Who was guarding Hugo’s door if his watchdog wasn’t there to do it? The
moon was high. He might be asleep. If I recalled correctly, he preferred to
wake and hunt around midnight. He was a heavy sleeper, too. It had surprised me
when I found that out. I’d figured all Slaugh were twitchy at rest as when they
were on their feet, but not him. I grinned, realizing it was something he and
Valory had in common.  

It had been much easier not to think
of him when he was far away—out of sight, out of mind. Besides, I’d been too
focused on survival over the past few months to think about anything else. Now
that we were back under the same roof I kept getting distracted by his
presence. I couldn’t walk the halls without my breath catching at the sound of
his footfalls or my ears perking up at the muffled sound of his voice behind a
closed door. I caught myself taking more time with my appearance in the
mornings, something Valory had to comment on, of course.

“Good grief, Em. You brush your
hair anymore and it’s gonna fall out. Whatcha washing your face again for? You
took a bath last night, didn’t ya?”

I’d gotten angry with myself then.
It was stupid. There was no reason for me to try and impress Hugo. Why would I
even want to? Things could never go back the way they used to be. He’d said so
himself.

And yet…

I still had feelings for him. I
hated him for that. I hated me for it, too.

It came as a welcome surprise the
next morning when Lord Finbarr called up an emergency meeting and invited me to
attend.

To keep a level of peace between
the taciturn Slaugh and the anxious Fay, Lord Finbarr treated King Hugo as an
equal in the business of maintaining Woodman’s Hall. He was always in
attendance whenever Lord Finbarr held council.

Today was no different. Hugo waited
in the back of the long, narrow room that Lord Finbarr used for meetings. A
couple of other Slaugh were there, including the lovely ray of sunshine known
as Katriel. Also in attendance were Mrs. Larue, Anouk, Yert, and the team of men
who’d found Valory and me in the woods. I had since learned that the men were
the remnants of a military group called the Terra Cartisans. Their specialty
was in mapping and exploring, not combat. Their leader, the man who had marched
me into Woodman’s Hall, went by the name of Macon Tully.