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Harbor (On the Wind #3) 3. Orestes 6%
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3. Orestes

CHAPTER THREE

ORESTES

I t was an insult. It had to be.

The servant took me to a room that was barely fit for rats, ducked low without meeting my eyes, and practically ran off after mumbling something about these being “my quarters.”

He was terrified of me, that much was clear, and I doubted he’d have deliberately done something he feared would disappoint me. Urial’s pathetic excuse for a leader, on the other hand... He would enjoy making me angry, I suspected.

Like any man who’d ever been to war, though, I’d slept under worse circumstances than the tiny rectangular room with the threadbare cot. There wasn’t much else to it, really. A rickety table that could barely hold up the oil lamp that sat on it. No fireplace. No extra blankets. No chairs or other furniture. Just four bare walls, cot, table, and door.

Well, and my chest when I set it down.

I hadn’t been inclined to ask the servants to carry the overlarge, heavy trunk for me, since it was my responsibility and held my things.

My biggest concern wasn’t that I’d been shown to a room that was obviously intended as an insult. What did I care what the prissy, arrogant ass of a king of Urial thought of me? No, what bothered me was that the room existed at all, and had been outfitted as sleeping quarters.

In the Crane Palace, this room would’ve been a broom closet. In the Hawk village, it wouldn’t have existed at all—the Hawk Clan didn’t build rooms they had no use for, efficient little buggers that they were.

Still, I reminded myself, I’d slept in worse.

I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself without thought.

Well, except for the cold.

There was no fireplace in the room, so no way to warm it up. I truly hoped this had never been anyone’s quarters before in the history of this great ugly castle, but I didn’t hold much hope for it.

Shrugging, I turned to my trunk and opened it up. Nothing for it but to play the hand I’d been dealt. At least I wasn’t back on the wall playing cards with cheating Crane bastards.

If I kept telling myself that, maybe someday I’d believe it.

Yes, my life had been in danger every day there. I’d fought and bled and suffered. But the Crane had been my family. We’d loved each other, every person on that wall my sibling, all of us fighting to protect Nemeda. This? This was not that.

I wasn’t fighting for Nemeda here.

I was out of Nemeda’s way here. Exiled for the crime of being my father’s son, and the worst part was that I agreed with them. Being my father’s son was the next best thing to a crime. I’d always hated it, for every moment I’d lived it. The moment Minerva, Chief of the Raven, had gutted him... It had been this strange pit in my belly, like I was falling. Flying. My life as I’d known it was over, and I’d known that. My family was entirely gone.

But I was free.

It was like spiraling down out of the sky, wings tucked against your sides in a dive, but not diving for a target, just diving. Down and down and down and the only certainty was that somewhere at the bottom of the drop was the cold, hard, unforgiving ground.

I’d done it sometimes as a teenager, when I’d just learned to fly, diving toward the ground without aim, pulling up at the last minute. Sometimes, I’d wondered what might happen if I just... didn’t stop.

But then I’d gone to the wall and found a purpose. Found family. And thoughts like that had faded away over the years.

Still, considering it, I had no urge to do it again. Perhaps Nemeda didn’t want me anymore, but I still had my family. They would have kept me in a second, if they’d had that choice, and I couldn’t let them down. I’d get the bastard Albany his oranges, or whatever Paris had said he wanted, and find some way to get something for Nemeda in the deal as well. Perhaps more of those clever sleighs Paris had shown Brett’s people how to make. Or maybe a little silk, which the nobles of Urial seemed to have in endless supply.

I glanced over at the cot, with its one thin blanket. It was barely as thick as the one I’d used back in Crane lands, which were... warmer was too pale a word to describe the comparison. The coldest day in Crane lands had never dreamed of being as cold as I was right then. They were breezy and you might choose to wear long sleeves, but you hardly needed a blanket, even then.

Here? That skinny thing wouldn’t keep me alive.

A noise behind me grabbed my attention, making me spin to face the door, clutching the hilt of the dagger I kept tucked into my boot.

In the doorway was a beautiful, ethereal creature. Red hair, the brightest, bluest blue eyes, and skin like fresh cream with a perfect complexion, as though it wouldn’t dare have a blemish.

Tybalt, my mind supplied. Paris had told me about him once, Brett standing behind him, eyes narrowed in an annoyed scowl, as though the very description of the man was too much to bear. Looking at him, I could understand it.

He was beautiful, and I’d have worried about Paris thinking fondly of his former lover if I’d been Brett.

But Paris hadn’t. Oh, he hadn’t hated the prince. He’d felt a little ill-used in the end, but that hadn’t exactly been the prince’s fault, by my estimation. Paris hadn’t mentioned any lifelong promises they’d made each other; only that he’d been with the prince, and the prince had been... everywhere.

The notion of multiple partners was nothing new to me like it had been to Paris, or even seemed to Brett. He’d been on the wall with me for years, but I supposed he’d been a little on the naive side even then, fighting in a war. The bed-swapping that happened on the wall was legendary. It had been rumored that Killian’s mother had a dozen lovers in her bed at any given time, trading in and out like suits of clothing, sometimes two or three at once.

When you live your life knowing any moment might be the last, who spent last night in whose bed somehow seemed less important. I’d dreamed of a day when I’d have something more, but after the wall, I could never look at it the same way. Why couldn’t someone find fulfillment with more than one partner? As long as everyone knew what they were getting into, people should do what made them happy.

Really, though, I’d have been happy with one. One love was hard enough to find. I had doubts I’d ever get there, especially now that I was stuck in Urial for the foreseeable future.

So I didn’t glare at the prince and tell him I didn’t want any part of his lovely body because I didn’t like to be used. I’d used and been used many times in my life, and it had largely been a good experience.

Disappointingly enough, tales of his wantonness had been greatly exaggerated. He didn’t seem terribly interested in jumping on me. He was staring around the room, nose scrunched adorably in what had to be disgust. Lovely. Even he thought the room was a nightmare. Well, at least it meant the people of Urial knew squalor when they saw it.

Also, his clear distaste for the room soothed the sting of the idea that a man who’d wanted to sleep with Paris, Brett, and that old bastard Killian didn’t want me.

“Something I can do for you, Prince Tybalt?” I drawled, turning and closing my chest, then sitting atop the sturdy wood of the thing. I might not have a chair, but I could make do, at least for long enough to deal with this. Whatever this was.

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