Two Crows Watch from the Gallows Tree (part 7)

“I understand,” Ky said gently, nodding. She hesitated. “I’m… happy you have a home to go back to.”

It was genuine, not bitter. Even though it did hurt a bit to think about.

"I just wish I could get there now." She glanced up. "Ash wants me to help with the war. Do you think he'd let me change my mind?"

Ky hesitated, considering. “I can’t speak for him… but he’s very reasonable on the whole, so… maybe?” She was quiet for a moment. “… helping him would get to Tarr faster, though. He was terrible to—“ there was no point in gossiping about Lyra. “Well, every one. He…” She frowned. “I want him to lose.”

"You know him too?" Ada looked at her, surprised. Had she had the same experience at some point? When?

“Um, I mean, that…” Ky shrugged. “I guess I can’t claim to know him, properly. But I had to go to his Keep when he was hiring my previous master, so… I saw how he is. He’s very cruel. And juvenile.”

"What was he hiring him for?" Ky's master must have been just as much of a brute. She hoped he was dead.

“To spy on Gaius.” Ky flushed a bit, looking at a tree rather than Ada. “Back when he was fighting with Tomhas instead of with Tarr.”

Ada paused, thinking this through. Her brow furrowed. "Your...adoptive father was working with Tarr?" Maybe she didn't want to meet the Loquiturs after all.

“He didn’t know how terrible Tarr is,” Ky said firmly. She adamantly refused to believe that Tomhas would have given Lyra to Tarr if he’d known. He couldn't have known. “He broke alliance with him when he came and saw how bad he was… and how terrible Aleth was. He rescued me from them both.”

For now, anyway. She’d been thinking about the situation with Tarr a lot. And she’d decided that if Tomhas lost, if he didn’t have any choice but to let Tarr have Lyra, then she was going to try to intervene. To claim it was her right to get married first, as the eldest daughter, and see if Tarr would accept her in Lyra’s stead. Ky was used to men like Tarr. If any of them deserved him, it was her. She’d rather get hurt than know Tarr was harming Lyra.

"Good," she said firmly. "But shouldn't he have known that beforehand? The Lords here go to meetings at the palace and things, right? They'd have met before, right?"

“I don’t know,” Ky admitted. “He acted different in front of Tomhas, though. We got there a few days before Tomhas did and he pretended to be nice I’m front of Tomhas. So if they’d met, maybe Tarr tricked him? I don’t know… but Tomhas couldn’t have known. He couldn’t have.”

"I don't think Tarr's smart enough to pretend for very long," Ada mused. "He's too arrogant. He thinks we're all feathers in his cap."

Ky nodded in agreement. “He’s terrible… even Aleth didn’t like him. Even though they acted the same.”

"That says a lot?" She glanced at Ky. "That this terrible man thinks this other terrible man is terrible? What happened to that one?"

“Aleth liked a lot of the people that hired him. He thought it was funny to watch them torment their slaves and children. So it does kind of say a lot that he was so terrible even Aleth didn’t like him… too much like looking in a mirror, I think.”