He bows to his sister and to Cardan.
“Wren was just telling us of her powers,” says Jude, voice hard. “And we asked for the return of the bridleyouborrowed.”
He’s missed something and not something good. Did she refuse them?
“I have sent one of my soldiers for it,” Wren tells him, as though in answer to the question he did not ask.
Perhaps they are only annoyed at the reminder of how many traitors to Elfhame serve in the Court of Teeth. If so, they must be doubly annoyed when a falcon swoops into the room, becoming a man as he lands. Straun.
Oak’s former prison guard gives him a smug look as he holds out the bridle to Wren.
The prince can still conjure the feeling of the straps against his skin. Can still remember the helplessness he felt when she commanded him to crawl. How Straun watched him, how he laughed.
Wren takes it from the soldier, letting it lie across her palm. “It’s a cursed thing.”
“Like all Grimsen’s creations,” Jude says.
“I don’t want it,” Wren says. “But I won’t give it to you, either.”
Cardan raises his brows. “A bold statement to make to your rulers in the heart of their Court. So what do you propose?”
In her hands, the leather shreds and shrivels. The magic departs from it like a thunderclap. The buckles fall to the dirt floor.
Jude takes a step toward her. Everyone in the brugh is looking at them now. The sound the destruction made drew their attention as surely as a shout.
“You unmade it,” says Jude, staring at the remains.
“Since I have cheated you out of one gift, I will give you another. There’s a geas on the High Queen, one that would be easy enough for me to remove.” Wren’s smile is sharp-toothed. Oak isn’t sure what the nature of the geas is, but he is sure from the spark of panic in Jude’s face that she doesn’t want it gone.
The offer hangs in the air for a long moment.
“So many secrets, wife,” Cardan says mildly.
The look Jude gives him in return could have peeled paint.
“Not only the geas, but half a curse,” Wren tells his sister. “It winds around you but cannot quite tighten its grip. Gnaws at you.”
The shock on Jude’s face is obvious. “But he never finished speaking—”
Cardan holds up a hand to stop her. All teasing is gone from his voice. “What curse?”
Oak supposes the High King may well take a curse seriously, since he was once cursed into a giant, poisonous serpent.
“It happened a long time ago. When we went to the palace school,” Oak’s sister says.
“Who cursed you?” asks Cardan.
“Valerian,” Jude spits out. “Right before he died.”
“Right before you killed him, you mean,” Cardan says, his dark eyes glittering with something that looks a lot like fury. Although whether it is toward Jude or this long-dead person, Oak isn’t certain.
“No,” Jude says, not seeming in the least afraid. “I’d already killed him. He just didn’t know it yet.”
“I can remove that and leave the geas alone,” Wren says. “You see, I can be quite helpful.”
“One supposes so,” says the High King, his thoughts clearly on the curse and this Valerian. “A useful alliance.”
Oak supposes that means Wren is still pretending she’s willing to marry him.
