It did not help Mably at all that the guardsmen had seen him faced down by Sephi. This left him weak enough that the guards seemed to tolerate him instead of look to him for direction. The further from Tolsin he got, the less power he wielded and Resolute stepped forward to fill that void.
Resolute’s de facto assumption of leadership further discomfited Mably. The Vorquelf, with Dranae as his lieutenant, dispatched scouts and otherwise organized the guardsmen’s rotations. Only one of the Tolsin guardsmen offered resistance to Resolute’s orders—until Will quipped that defying Resolute was stupid, and that stupid people often break their legs in horrible accidents. The guardsman quickly acquiesced and found that Resolute actually knew what he was about.
Alexia would have been quite happy about events had Crow not worn so dour an expression. “Crow, you cannot actually think I was going to allow them to haul you off, can you? Do you think you would have made it all the way to Meredo?”
Crow frowned heavily. “Chances are I’d have made it a mile closer to the capital than Mably, but that’s not important. I didn’t want you caught up in what will happen to me. I asked you not to do this.“
He held up his left hand and thumbed the gold ring on his finger. “Kerrigan fashioned the rings, I take it, the way he was able to fashion the duplicate of the fragment?”
“He had to borrow the rings from the innkeeper and his wife to get the right sense of them, but yes.”
The white-haired man shook his head. “And then Will stole into the tavern and slipped it on my finger.”
Alyx nodded. “I was not there. I was serving to distract Mably and a few others. It all went off very easily.”
“Unless you had your leg broken.”
“I understand he was kicking you.”
Crow shrugged. “It didn’t hurt. He kicked like a girl.”
Her violet eyes opened wide. “If I kicked you, you’d not say that.”
“Like as not.” He glanced over at her, the flesh surrounding his left eye a sickly yellow with purple streaks. “But the fact is, you have kicked me. By doing this.”
“Crow, you’re not saying that being rescued has hurt your vanity!” Alyx threw her head back and laughed. “If that’s what you’re saying, you’ve been beaten more soundly in the head than I imagined.”
Crow raised himself, straightening his spine proudly. It was not easy for him to do, but the only hint of the difficulty came as the flesh around his eyes tightened. “You do know me better than that, Princess. I wanted you to walk away. I wanted to keep you safe from what will happen to me. I’ve been prepared for years for this, but you were taken by surprise. My doom is of my own making, and you shouldn’t be caught up in it.”
“You wanted to keep me safe. Why is that?”
“Because you are important. The world is depending upon you.”
She leaned forward, resting both hands on the saddlehorn. “If that were it, you’d have insisted I never go into combat.”
Crow sighed. “Combat is different. What will come is not something you’ve trained for. And there is more. You are a friend. I also told Resolute to walk away when this happened.”
Alyx narrowed her eyes. “How is it, Crow, that you can be loyal to your friends—that you can ride into combat with them and save their lives, that you can endure decades of shame searching for the one person who will rescue a world that has condemned you—and yet fail to understand why your friends would stand beside you? Do we seem that shallow to you?”
He raised a hand and the sleeve of his leather jerkin fell enough that she could see the bruises the manacles had left. “No, no, it’s not that at all. I just…” He swallowed hard and glanced away, catching his lower lip between his teeth. He started to speak again, then blew the words from his tongue in a huff of air.
She reached out and laid a gentle hand on his left shoulder. “Crow, it’s okay.”
“No, it’s not, Princess.” He drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I’ve known, from the moment they stripped my mask from me, that I was doing the right thing. Even so, when they took my mask—when they had my father strip my mask from me, it crushed me. I felt as if my face had been clawed bare of flesh. I had always sought to be worthy of wearing a mask, and here I had been stripped of it. Tarrant Hawkins was dead.
“After that, for the next few months anyway, I don’t remember much. I drank to oblivion, but always woke barefaced. I would have lost myself in the pleasures of the flesh, but no one would have me. I was turned out of inns. I was battered and beaten, spat upon, tossed into cesspits and sewers. Had I been on fire, people would have pissed on me, but only so I could suffer with the burns.”
His voice came barely above a whisper. A shiver ran through him as he spoke. Alexia felt it through her hand and thought her touch an invasion, but she could not bear to take her hand away. She really wanted to rub her hand over his shoulder, along his back, but refrained by reminding herself of his bruises.
The desire to comfort him confused her. Anyone else she’d have clapped on the shoulder and told to bear up. Among the Gyrkyme confession of this sort was unknown. There were so few of them, and they all lived in a small area, that everyone simply knew all there was to know. While the Gyrkyme held confidences sacred, secrets became news and spread swiftly. Sins were not hidden and were easily forgiven. Since coming into the wider world she had, on occasion, had comrades who felt the need to unburden themselves, and she listened for as long as seemed polite before escaping.
This was different, however. The pain in his voice slowly slid into her, tightening her stomach. His words defined a burden he had carried for as long as she had been alive, and she wished she could do something to help lift it from him.
In that regard, squeezing his shoulder seemed a wholly inadequate effort.
Crow continued speaking, his eyes focusing on the road. “Resolute had been north, scouting Boragul for any signs of Chytrine. How he found me, I’m not certain, but he took me out of Yslin, away from men, and into the mountains near Gyrvirgul. Why he put up with me, I don’t know. I did nothing but sleep or cry, and hated doing both. He just sat with me, silent when I needed, bracing when I needed, and often speaking of the future, which I needed most of all.”
Alyx squeezed his shoulder again. “Resolute is your friend.”
Crow nodded. “Yes, and a better friend than I had ever known. He built me back up. He created Kedyn’s Crow—citing some elven prophecy which I think he made up. But mostly he reminded me that I’d pledged that Vorquellyn would be redeemed in my lifetime. I resisted that idea for a bit, but eventually it took. I still knew, though, that this day would come, and I made him promise to walk away when it did.”
“How could he if you’re going to redeem Vorquellyn?”
“I just said it would be redeemed in my lifetime. The sooner I die, the sooner it’s done.”
Alyx shot him a sidelong glance. “I suspect Resolute doesn’t quite see it that way.”
“He only sees things his way.” Crow’s head came up and he glanced at where Resolute rode well ahead of him. “Resolute Faithbreaker!”
The Vorquelf half turned, cupped a hand to a pointed ear, then quickly pulled his hand away and shrugged.
Crow growled. “He can hear a gnat breathing twenty leagues away, but is damnably deaf other times.”
“It could be, Crow, he just doesn’t think that charge worth answering.” She gave him a quick smile. “Or it could be that he feels abandoning you would be a greater breach of faith.”
He shot her a sidelong look. “He doesn’t need defending.”
“I wasn’t defending him. I was defending me and my choice.” Her eyes narrowed. “You recall refusing to promise to slay me, were I to go over to Chytrine? You told me you refused because you didn’t want to give me any possible sense of security. You didn’t want my defenses to flag so I would become susceptible to her offers. Do you remember that?”