Nightborn: Totally addictive fantasy fiction (The Hollow King Book 2)

by Jessica Thorne

  It was like the floor fell out from underneath her. Grace locked her gaze onto him, but Bastien wouldn’t make eye contact with her.

  ‘Marry.’ Her voice was an empty echo. ‘Who?’

  ‘King Roderick’s daughter. His youngest. She’s a good match. Intelligent, beautiful, graceful.’ Lara’s attention returned to Bastien, fixed and pointed. ‘The noble families at home have agreed, the Hales, the Rosses, the Reeves… I sent letters to you. It is all arranged in line with the royal accords and just needs your agreement. The Valenti will support your claim to the Larelwynn throne. Rathlynn will be yours again.’ Was Lara watching her as she spoke? Grace could feel the woman’s knowing gaze on her. She couldn’t bring herself to confirm it. ‘You need Valenti support, my king. This is their price.’

  Bastien had pulled that royal mask of disdain over his features once more. ‘Well it’s too high a price. I thought I made that clear already. I sent letters as well, Lara.’

  Grace frowned at him. ‘They asked before?’

  His face froze, guilty as a child caught with his hand in the jar of sweets. ‘I told them no.’

  She shook her head. He’d been keeping things from her. Of course he had. She had once thought Bastien was full of secrets. He hadn’t changed that much. ‘That’s not what I asked.’

  ‘Yes, they asked before. Demanded, more like. The Dowager is forthright when it suits her.’

  ‘When, Bastien?’

  ‘When we first arrived,’ he said, more soberly now. ‘Three months ago.’ He still wasn’t meeting her gaze. This was a bad sign.

  Grace had always known this would happen. Whether Bastien wanted to admit it or not. He was a prince, he should be a king. She, on the other hand, was no one. A guard. An orphan. A nobody.

  She closed her eyes, trying to push back her emotions and think. If she wanted him to be safe, if she wanted to protect him as she had sworn to Marius she would, she would have to let him go.

  ‘Grace,’ he said, his hand on her shoulder.

  She pulled away. She had to. She needed to find Ellyn. That was something she could do, something on which she could focus. Something within her power. Politics and negotiations, and her royal lover… they weren’t so easy.

  Chapter 3

  The royal palace at Sa Almento rang with life, with laughter, crowded with all the nobility of the Valenti Islands. The Dowager’s Carnaefal ball was legendary. It was not the biggest – that was reserved for the Royal Ball which rounded off the festivities – but politically speaking, this was the one to attend. Grace had looked appalled when Bastien had pulled her away from the search for Ellyn and told her she needed to make an appearance with him.

  Bastien had reverted to his usual black. It was expected of him and he knew he had to make a show for this difficult audience. Grace had once told him that his clothes cost more than half the city had to buy food. But here, in this room, he was not out of place. Neither was she. The pale green silk of her dress contrasted with her red hair and perfect skin. She was beauty in physical form, although she couldn’t see it. To him, she was perfection itself. Her only adornment was the warrant and a sigil threaded on a chain. She wore them like a threat.

  If only she’d stop looking like she wanted to murder anyone who so much as glanced their way.

  Servants with glistening silver trays walked among the nobility of Valenti and their many guests. They carried food and drink, delicate canapés and confections, sparkling liquids in a multitude of colours. As Bastien and Grace entered, and Bastien’s title was announced, the entire company turned to study them. Grace almost shrank back behind him, before she caught herself and that familiar steel tightened along her spine. Divinities, she was magnificent, his lover. He didn’t tell her that enough. Whenever he tried, she blushed, looked away and clearly didn’t believe him. But it was true. In all his years, all those fragments of years he could now remember, he had never met anyone like her.

  A queen? He could think of no one better suited to the role. But all logic said he had to marry someone else. Lara was determined. He wasn’t thinking, she told him. Not like a king. And maybe she was right. His outright refusal did them no favours. But how could anyone compare to Grace?

  Her strength and compassion, her sense of justice, her pursuit of truth…

  ‘Don’t hide,’ he told her and she scowled at him. ‘Don’t scowl either.’

  ‘Am I allowed to breathe?’ she hissed.

  Bastien allowed himself a smile. ‘It’s a good idea. It stops you passing out and causing a scene. I don’t think swooning is in fashion.’

  He caught a glimpse of her grin from the corner of his eye and understood the unspoken amusement. The thought of her swooning… the thought of her allowing herself to swoon… ‘Well, the heavens forbid I’m out of fashion, Bastien.’

  He couldn’t picture her swooning if his life depended on it. Passing out from blood loss perhaps. He’d seen that. She’d died and it had almost destroyed him. He had done the unthinkable to save her, drawn on powers that should never be held in a single form to do it. But swoon? No.

  He led her into the throng. There were a few faces he knew, diplomats and courtiers who had visited Rathlynn on occasion, who had courted him since he arrived here. They stared at him, the never-king of Larelwynn, the Lord of Thorns, the monster behind Marius the Good. They had no idea what else he was. He could count on one hand those who did.

  ‘There you are, Larelwynn,’ said a booming voice. ‘Divinities, man, it’s been too long, far too long. Look at you! The Lord of Thorns right here in my humble home.’

  Bastien flinched, just a little. It was the name that did it. He stopped himself before it was obvious, but he had no doubt Grace had registered it. Her hand on his arm tightened, almost imperceptibly, and then she released him. It would be easier for her to get to her weapons if she wasn’t holding onto him. If she needed to protect him, it wouldn’t matter where they were or who they faced. He knew that. He felt the same way about her. It was unspoken.

  The speaker shouldered his way through the crowd. There was nothing humble about his home. Not with marble floors, and gold-framed mirrors on the walls. King Roderick of the Valenti Islands was smaller than Bastien remembered, fatter too, and much older. Six years? He looked more like fifteen years had passed. Bastien thought he was only in his late forties but this man looked nearer sixty.

  ‘Your majesty.’ Bastien dipped his head. A king did not bow to another king. But that didn’t mean one did not show respect. Grace, meanwhile, was trying to fade into the background. Not an easy task when all eyes were on them now. She had trained all her life to be unobtrusive, to slip back and watch, to guard what she was told to guard, to hunt what she was told to hunt.

  ‘My word, look at you,’ Roderick said. ‘Just like your father. And is this your famous captain we’ve heard so much about? I see why you’ve been hiding her away. A beauty. A veritable beauty.’ Roderick leered at Grace in a way that, if it was anyone else, Bastien would have lashed out. It took everything he had to hold back. ‘Has someone got you a drink yet? Here, over here. Come now.’

  The servant with the drinks tray nearest to them swerved in their direction and they helped themselves, Roderick downing one before grabbing another. Bastien just held his. He didn’t want to drink anything now.

  ‘We’re thrilled you’re here. Simply thrilled. I told the Dowager you would be an excellent addition to our court. I told her that we’d be cursed if we turned you away. And she listened. Of course she listened. She may be my mother, but I am the king, you know.’

  ‘Of course you are, your majesty,’ Bastien said as courteously as he could. An excellent addition? He had agreed to nothing yet.

  ‘Come. Come and meet her. She’s my youngest, of course. She’s studied with the finest scholars. She’s been trained in this court all her life. Oh, you’ll love her. Everyone does. Beautiful girl. The beauty of the age, you’ll see. She even surpasses that Aurelie girl. Oh yes, come with
me, son.’

  Son? Oh, divinities. Lara had already signalled agreement. Bastien hadn’t even really made up his mind to go through with this evening and Lara Kellen had decided everything for him. He hadn’t even had a chance to discuss it with Grace. She’d been out looking for Ellyn all day, trawling up and down Iliz.

  The king glanced at Grace again, an assessing expression, lewd and unpleasant, and once again Bastien felt a bristle of… not jealousy, but something like it. Protectiveness. Possessiveness. Grace would be furious if she found out. But he had enough survival instincts not to tell her.

  He only hoped Roderick didn’t make the mistake of acting on his lusts. That would be a diplomatic incident he couldn’t clean up. Not even Lara Kellen would be able to do that.

  The Dowager Queen, however… well, she could do anything. But he didn’t fancy the thought of how she might manage that.

  Bastien looked up and saw her gazing at them. Still dressed completely in black, still mourning a husband forty years dead, she had none of the fat of her son. She was a skeletal figure, her pale skin and silver-white hair a stark contrast, but her eyes were what grabbed attention. Pale and grey, and hard as steel.

  Her expression was furious.

  No one seemed shocked or appalled, so perhaps that was her usual look but Bastien wasn’t sure. Beside her sat a young woman, no older than twenty, with the same pale, sharp features, and the same grey eyes. A beauty, yes, if you preferred ice to fire.

  More beautiful than Aurelie? Perhaps, but that was a dangerous statement. Only a king in his own kingdom, drunk on power, paternal affection and far too much wine, would say something like that to a member of Aurelie’s family. Even one in exile. What one of her infamous brothers might have done didn’t bear thinking about.

  Bastien might hate Marius’s widow, but he was not so foolish as to agree, especially not when he was here to navigate such a politically charged situation. Grace was right. If she could set aside her feelings in this, so could he.

  He had to. Otherwise he would never be able to go through with it. But most of all he had to remember that this was his choice, his decision. No one else’s, no matter what Grace and Lara thought. He would decide. He took a steadying breath.

  The Dowager Queen beckoned once, a curt and commanding gesture. Roderick grinned like an idiot. And Bastien followed him towards the thrones. What else could he do?

  Grace moved as his shadow, her footsteps matching his.

  The Dowager Queen, Rhyannon of Gellen, was a legend in her own lifetime. Her husband had been the kindest man, ruling an impoverished archipelago of islands, and somehow he’d persuaded the daughter of one of the richest houses in the land to marry him. Rhyannon had transformed the Valenti archipelago. She had taken control of everything, made her husband rich in his own right and built everything for the two of them. Word was she’d loved him beyond reason. So when he died after only ten years of marriage, she had plunged into mourning. And into something else.

  She’d built a network of spies and now traded in information. She was the spider at the centre of the web. She knew everything about everyone, playing kingdom against kingdom. She was the power at the heart of the world and no one dared to cross her. She had brought down kings.

  Rhyannon had eyes that looked right inside him. And the mind behind them was a trap from which no one could escape.

  ‘The Lord of Thorns himself,’ she said and offered him her hands. He dutifully bent and kissed her fingers. A king might not bow to another king. But to this woman… survival sometimes made the unthinkable necessary.

  ‘Your majesty, you honour us with your invitation.’

  Us. That was the word that did it. She looked up past him and her mouth was a flat, hard line.

  ‘Captain Marchant.’

  Grace couldn’t have looked more like a startled rabbit if she had tried. Her face froze and her eyes had that wide, panicked glaze to them.

  The Dowager saw it, no doubt about that.

  ‘Grace,’ Bastien said and held out a hand to her. She joined him, beautiful by his side, strong and elegant. His beloved.

  ‘We have heard great things about you, young lady. And not so great. Your queen seeks your extradition. She has made numerous accusations.’

  Bastien was sure she had. Aurelie had sent threats to him as well. She wanted him, but she wanted revenge on Grace more.

  ‘We… we did not part well, your majesty,’ he said carefully.

  ‘Rival claimants to a throne seldom do,’ she said with a sly chuckle. ‘But enough of this. Have you met my granddaughter? Rynn, step forward, girl. Curtsey.’

  Bastien glanced at Grace again to gauge her reaction, and caught a flicker of annoyance cross the Dowager Queen’s wrinkled face. Damn. He should have hidden that better. Now she thought he was comparing them. Yes, Princess Rynn was beautiful, exquisitely so, but in his mind she would never compare to his lover.

  He would always choose the fire in Grace Marchant over anything.

  Colour crept up the princess’s cheeks but she looked angry rather than embarrassed. Oh great, he had upset her as well.

  ‘Your royal highness,’ he said in as calm and courteous a voice as he could manage. His magic simmered beneath his skin and he used it carefully, winding Charm around himself and hoping for the best. It wasn’t the princess’s fault. And if he used a little mageborn power to smooth over the rough beginning, so be it.

  ‘Your highness,’ she murmured in response. No one quite knew how to address him. He wasn’t a king. Or at least not a king in the way Rynn’s father was, with a throne and a crown. If they knew what kind of king he really was, they’d never be so friendly. They certainly wouldn’t be parading their daughters in front of him.

  Rynn would never sit on her father’s throne. She had several older siblings. She’d never be the woman her grandmother was, either. Bastien knew that just from looking at her. Her duty was to marry well, into another royal house.

  Did the Dowager have her sights set on the throne of Larelwynn? That would be a mistake, too. He didn’t want it. It was not his.

  And the throne that was his… well, no one would want to share that. But they didn’t know the truth of the Hollow King, and what the Larelwynns had made of him.

  ‘You will dance with her, Prince Bastien,’ the Dowager Queen said. It wasn’t an invitation but an order. She was still looking past him at Grace. Challenging her.

  ‘Grandmother,’ Rynn interrupted suddenly. ‘You can’t ask him to abandon his companion. It would be rude.’

  She genuinely looked appalled. As did Grace. Although in Grace’s case it was more likely to be because the attention of the Dowager was back on her presence there. If Grace could fade into the walls here, she would, this very instant. Bastien felt like joining her but knew that would never be possible. For either of them.

  ‘No one asked your opinion, girl,’ the old woman snapped. Rynn flinched and bowed her head. ‘You’ll do as you’re told. Or face the consequences.’

  Consequences? What did that mean? Was she threatening her own grandchild? It shouldn’t surprise him. She had that reputation and she wasn’t afraid to wield it.

  But Grace interrupted before he could reply. ‘The Lord of Thorns is free to dance with whomever he wishes, your royal highness. And I am not much of a dancer. I’m here for his protection, nothing more.’

  Well, they all knew that was a lie. Bastien turned to her, ready to tell her otherwise, but her face was like granite.

  ‘Grace?’ he said, his confusion getting the better of him. It probably saved him from making a severe blunder.

  She gave him the blandest smile in her arsenal. ‘We discussed this before, your majesty…’

  A warning. He was doing something wrong. Making a mistake. She could see it and she was right. Damn it. She was always right. Her survival instincts were so much better than his. Years of surviving on Rathlynn’s streets rather than in its palace, hunting the worst of the mageborn. And yet s
he had navigated the palace at Rathlynn as carefully. This was no different.

  He lifted his hands to Rynn in invitation.

  ‘Well then, common sense prevails,’ the Dowager Queen laughed. Everyone else tried to look anywhere except at him. ‘But it is not time yet, Prince Bastien. You must wait a little longer.’

  She smiled, a wicked, cruel smile. And he knew he’d been played again. Prince Bastien. The message in that was clear enough. It sent a chill through him. They wouldn’t recognise him until he did what they wanted. He would be a king only when she decided that he was one. On her terms. Everyone here bent to her will.

  ‘Rynn, you will dance with the Lord of Thorns as soon as the musicians are ready. You’ll like them, Prince Bastien. They’re mageborn. Enjoy yourselves this evening. We will speak again soon. I feel we have much to discuss.’

  And like that, they were dismissed.

  Bastien swept Grace to the edge of the room as quickly as he could. ‘What happened? What was all that about?’

  She didn’t meet his gaze for a moment. ‘Bastien,’ she sighed, looking for an escape. ‘You have to think. You said we can’t afford to offend the Dowager Queen.’

  ‘I remember.’

  She leaned in close and her voice was a breath against the skin of his neck. ‘Then think. Think, my love. What do you think is happening here?’

  ‘Nothing is happening here. Not yet. Not now.’

  She looked into his eyes then and the weight of sorrow in her gaze made him take a step back in alarm. ‘You’d be safe. With them behind you. Safe from Aurelie and Asher.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘It was always going to come to this.’

  He caught her arm before she could pull away, and he didn’t think about the way it would look. Or about the many eyes watching them right now.

  Grace didn’t move. He released her carefully. She didn’t appreciate being dragged around by anyone. ‘You can’t risk your position here for me,’ she told him. ‘I’d be derelict in my duty if I let you. I’ll step outside if that’s easier. I’m here if you need me but—’