Fox’s Tongue and Kirin’s Bone

Castle steps, Aaron had quickly realized, went by much more quickly on four feet than two. There was a certain satisfaction in stretching the wolf’s lanky body out from pawtip to pawtip and seeing how many stairs he could take in a bound. The castle’s endemic redcoat population was less enamored with this new hobby of his, particularly within the winding tower up to the royal wing, but he was rarely within shouting distance for long. And, being entirely unbriefed upon where a journeyman of the Late Wake stood with regards to the royal guard’s hierarchy, he felt rather immune to rebuke.

“Get a leash on that thing, Lieutenant Varghese,” shouted a final guard, as Aaron bounded past her and into the royal wing.

“He’s not a pet,” the good lieutenant said back. “He’s hardly even domesticated. And he’s certainly not mine.”

Aaron sat himself next to the good lieutenant’s legs. The other guard pointedly shifted her glare from Aaron up to the lieutenant. Lochlann let out a slow, controlled breath through his nose.

“I’ll speak with him,” he said.

“You’d best,” the guard said, and continued whatever it was that redcoats did when they only had each other around to stab.

Lochlann stared down at him. Aaron stared up. The Princess Rose, feeling quite left out, crossed her arms and glared at the both of them. For a change, she didn’t have to peer past her scarf to do so: she still wore one, but it had been done up to hold back her hair rather than to hide her face. She’d been wearing them like that more and more, inside the castle.

“I went to the courtyards all the time in the winter,” she said. “I do not see what problems would arise from continuing the habit.”

“The castle wasn’t full of lords in the winter, Your Highness,” Lochlann said.

“Most of them are my cousins.”

Most of them had never met her, and would probably react to the red spill of her fey-marked face as well as anyone who’d grown up on the fair border could. She knew that just as well as the lieutenant. That was not what this was about.

“I could escort you to the library,” Lochlann offered, like some kind of acceptable compromise.

“I do not need an escort to the library,” the girl said. “I’m not going to live my whole life in there, either.”

No, she’d only spent the first thirteen years there, so far as he could tell. She was even now carrying a book, its title too faded for him to read and mostly under her arm besides, which was a disappointment, which was a strange thing to feel over some lines tooled into leather. Learning one’s letters did strange things to the mind. He was forever trying to make sense from scribbles, now.

“We are going to our usual courtyard,” she said. “It is sunny. I desire to read where the sun is not a hypothetical.”

“Would a balcony suffice?”

“Aaron,” she said, with sudden sweetness, “how do you feel about the roof?”

He felt lovely about the roof, in fact, and wagged his tail quite accommodatingly.

“Wolves don’t grin, Aaron,” Lochlann said. “Stop that.”

He did not.

“Did my brother put you up to this?” Rose pressed.

Lochlann closed his eyes, just briefly, before replying. “The king does not wish to cause more friction with the southern lords.”

“And if I don’t wish to be hidden away? What are your orders then?”

Lochlann did not reply, that time. It was not the sort of lack in reply that meant an answer was lacking. Rose held his gaze for a moment, two, then turned her face away. Her hands twitched upwards, as if to pull her scarf forward, but she seemed to catch herself.

“As His Majesty wills, then,” she said. “Aaron, we can read elsewhere. Did you bring your population records?”

He did not. He did not have hands. Carrying a single letter to the meeting had been one thing; a book that could pass as a bludgeoning weapon, quite another.

“Your room first, then,” she said.

“I’ll escort you,” the lieutenant said, as if he didn’t trust them.

“As you wish, Second Lieutenant Varghese,” Rose said. “Do keep up.”

The girl swept down the hall, not sparing the man a second glance. Down the hall, and into his room, and Aaron made sure to trot by her side rather than the lieutenant’s. The princess opened his door, and strode across the room, and walked without hesitation straight through the stone wall. Aaron, his tail high, was at her side for every step.

There used to be a table there, in front of the entrance to the old ways, placed by some servant who’d only seen a blank spot on the wall. He’d made sure to move that little obstruction. One didn’t always have time to relocate furniture in an emergency. Or when making a statement. The good lieutenant’s exclamation followed them, as he finally saw with his own eyes a thing he must have suspected all along: that the princess really could simply step out from the royal apartments at any time, and not through any door he could guard.

“You forgot your book,” Rose said, which was a thing Aaron had rather hoped she’d not been serious about.

Back through he went, past the lieutenant, to his own bedside table. The book thunked against the floor, a bit too unwieldy for wolf jaws. He dragged it, step by step, back towards the wall.

“Are you serious,” the lieutenant said, rather flatly.

Aaron offered the man a one-shouldered shrug as first his tail then his rump disappeared back into the stonework, the old ways opening as readily for him as they had for the princess. As they distinctly did not for the good lieutenant, who took it on faith or perhaps sheer stubbornness to follow after them, and hit his outstretched hand into a solid wall.

Second Lieutenant Lochlann Varghese was left staring at where they’d disappeared. He might have been somewhat more self-conscious of his resulting expression had he known that, from their side, the stone was somewhat more transparent. Aaron set his book down.

The princess had already left her handprint up on the wall. She offered her knife down to Aaron, who sliced his paw, and added his own next to hers. Thinking it was as good as saying it: blood knows blood. The castle knew its own. Its magic flared in hungry outline around his paw, leaving another print of blood and a healed slice on the pad of his foot. He set it back down, and shook himself. The doorway behind them was closing, the stone settling back to a solidness that ate the light bite by bite.

The princess’ hand settled on his scruff. “I left the lantern by my room.”

His tail wagged again, in the darkness. It wasn’t so bad, with her hand in his fur, and wearing a cloak that used its nose even more than its eyes. He could smell the traces of her, all over this place, even more than in the royal apartments; the old ways were hers. He could smell his own trails as well, where he’d walked here on four legs and two, his scent nearly as strong as hers now. It was his right to be here as much as it was hers. Their right, together.

And under that, older but not yet forgotten, the single scent trail of his father, who’d left as much blood here as either of them, if not in quite the same way. The stone had drunk it all the same.

Rose had checked, and double-checked, that the man’s current cell was not connected to the old ways.

“I’m coming down after you,” Lochlann called, either trusting his voice to carry through the stone, or needing to get the words out even if it didn’t.

Rose snorted, in a distinctly un-princessly way she would not have used, outside these walls. Aaron chuffed his agreement.

Let Lochlann follow, by more common stairs. And what then? Drag her back up, against her will, in front of all the castle and those southern lords?

The princess would not be confined to her rooms any longer. She couldnot be confined.

They paused outside her rooms, as she lit the lantern, and carried his light for him. Also his book. He was grateful for both, if one somewhat more than the other.

“He wouldn’t even read it, would he,” she asked. A question for which she did not need a reply: no, King Orin had declined to read the letter she’d sent him. “He’s been avoiding me.”

She had also been avoiding her older brother, a fact that Aaron couldn’t exactly say. So far as he knew, that was the largest difference between these cloaks and true doppeling: he was wearing some dead soul’s skin, but their voice had left with them. He would have kept his wolfy jaws shut on this particular point, regardless.

“He’s hiding me, like father did. I won’t stay hidden.”

She was leading them down flight after flight, towards the exit nearest their sparring courtyard. He let her lead, until the final turn: then he nipped a corner of her sleeve between his teeth, and tugged.

There were times to stay hidden. Aaron knew that. There were times to listen, and keep one’s head down, and be as little and cowed as anyone could please.

The point of those times, in Aaron’s estimation, was to pay ahead for these times: when one walked through walls, and straight out of what anyone anywhere quite expected one to do.

“Oh,” she said, when he let go of her sleeve.

They stood at the exit that let out under the guard tower. Out of the castle entirely. As far as he knew, it was a route she’d only taken once before. He turned his snout up to her, and waited.

Her letter had said a lot of words. She’d talked them over with him, even if he hadn’t been saying much back. She didn’t want to be caught in the castle, didn’t want to be hidden away, didn’t want to be a secret or a burden or a shame on the O’Shea name. She knew she wasn’t human enough for the militia. But there was another, rather more discreet option.

In conclusion, and after much reflection, she’d written, after a rather detailed breakdown of her arguments, I request your due consideration for my apprenticeship to the Late Wake.

And after all, Aaron had given the king her letter, and not been sent back with a “no.” After the king himself had approved his status as a royal messenger, no less.

The Lady had given Aaron a mission. She’d never said he need do it alone.

And so they stepped out of the castle wall, a fey-marked child and a wolf, each with exactly as much formal Late Wake training as the other.

After a moment, Rose ducked back inside, and left their books and lantern behind.