“You’ve been bested yet again.” He set the tip of his blade against Byron’s throat. “But don’t you worry. I’m not going to kill you. Not until your treachery has been laid bare before all of Anthena.”
Aurora was barely conscious, on her stomach, spitting blood from cracked lips. Tritt stood over her, breathing heavy, his knuckles bruised, holding strands of her hair in his fists. He looked at the broken arrow still in his shoulder and kicked Aurora again; she curled against the impact, groaning and coughing.
“I’ll kill you!” Every muscle in his body tightened with rage. “I’ll have both your heads on pikes by sundown, I swear it!”
Eirik laughed. “Tritt, the girl isn’t going anywhere. Get the horses and the rope. I want to be back in Anthena before sunset.”
Tritt started up the hill, mumbling under his breath and clutching his wounded shoulder.
“You’ve got a long day ahead of you. You should get some sleep.”
The last thing Byron saw was the sole of Eirik’s boot before the blackness consumed him.
11
Roserine roamed the sprawling meadow to the west of the castle with Emily at her side. For most, the laborious part of the day had come to an end. Families stood nearby, chatting quietly and watching as the sun descended toward the watercolor ocean.
As they walked, Roserine looked back toward the north wall. She narrowed her eyes at the towering gate, willing it to rumble open.
“My lady, watching the pot isn’t going to make the water boil any faster,” Emily said.
Roserine sighed and stopped beside a white cow with uneven patches of short, brown fur on its head and ran her hand across its back as she cooed softly in its ear.
“I’m sure everything is fine. Your brother has been gone much longer than this.”
“Yes, he has, but never with Eirik on his trail. I just hope something didn’t go wrong.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know. Byron has a temper, you know.”
Emily stood in front of the cow, scratching its cheeks. “Who doesn’t know that?”
“Well, what if he…I don’t know, blows up and attacks Eirik? I don’t want someone to get hurt over this.” Her face fell. “I should have never sent him. What was I thinking?”
“You were thinking it’s time for Byron to step up and act like a king.”
“I don’t know, maybe.” Roserine gave the cow a final pat and sent it lumbering along. “Or maybe it was a way to spite him, a way to get the last word in. You should have heard the way he talked to me last night. You would have been beside yourself.”
“I heard him in the courtyard. Your brother has quite the temper.” Emily paused and cleared her throat before continuing. “But, if you don’t mind me saying, so do you, my lady.”
“That’s my father’s blood running in my veins.”
“That’s the only part of him you inherited. If anyone were to ask me, I’d say you’re all the best parts of your mother.”
“If you ask my father, it’s the other way around.”
“His way of getting under your brother’s skin; perhaps yours as well.”
“Perhaps.”
More families emerged from the central staircase, their little ones in tow. As soon as they touched down on the grass the children shouted and ran off into the field to join the others while their parents searched for a comfortable spot to plant themselves.
“You can sense it in the air; the unrest, the tension,” Roserine said.
“You speak of the Eval?”
“Yes. I look at those kids playing and I think of the damage the Eval could do if they were to launch an attack right now.” Roserine clenched her fists. “These people, they’re looking to my brother for answers, trusting him with their lives, the lives of their loved ones. Do you know how many young men we handed swords and armor to yesterday?”
“Forty-three.”
“Wait, really?” Roserine hadn’t been expecting an exact number; the question had been of a rhetorical nature.
“Yes. I asked Eirik for a count.”
Roserine nodded, impressed. “Most of them have never swung a sword. And now we have them up there on the wall.”
“Eirik took them through drills. He’s planning on continuing training until he feels they’re up to—”
“That’s not my point. My point is we’re working with scraps. Men that were hauling nets out of the water yesterday are standing on that wall today, willing to lay their lives down for Anthena. Meanwhile, their King is off doing gods knows what. And I had this thought, Emily…this horrible thought.” She choked on her emotion. “My mother would be ashamed of me.”
Emily hugged her, shielding her so people wouldn’t see her crying. “Hush now, my lady. I’m sure she’d understand. She met her wits end on more than one occasion while dealing with your father.”
“I was thinking…perhaps it’d be better if Byron didn’t return…ever. Like, if he just stayed out there, wherever he is. There’d be no more of this back and forth. No more of this uncertainty. I’d be forced to take the throne. Forced to reconcile Anthena with its fate.”
“What fate, my lady?”
“That’s the ultimate question, isn’t it? Either we shore up the defenses and hold fast, or we declare war and charge out after the beasts…take the fight to them. We accept our decision. We embrace the outcome, whatever it may be, as our destiny. But reaching that destiny requires a level of decisiveness my brother does not possess.” Roserine sniffed and regained control. “Gods, what’s wrong with me. I love my brother.”
“We all love him.”
“Tell me this will all work out.”
“It will. I promise you, one way or the other, it always does.”
There was shouting on the wall.
“Open the gates! Commander Eirik returns with the King! And there’s an Eval! They’ve captured an Eval!”
As the gates began to open, inch-by-rumbling-inch, the scene became chaotic. Soldiers descended from everywhere, weapons unsheathed. The citizenry, which had moments ago been watching their children play beneath the orange glow of the sunset, raced each other to the wall, dragging their offspring behind them.
Roserine joined the rush, Emily pulling her along by the hand, clearing them a path. “Move aside! Lady Roserine is coming through! You’re ordered to move aside!” The ones that didn’t move were forced into compliance by elbow strikes; she was deceptively powerful for a woman her size.
Two horses entered through the gates. Atop the first was Eirik. Behind him, draped face down across the haunches, his hands and feet bound, was Byron. On the second horse sat Tritt, one shoulder wrapped by a bloody bandage. There was an Eval woman being pulled behind the horse by a noose that’d been tied around her neck; her hands were bound as well and she’d been badly beaten.
The crowd gasped when they saw Byron tied across the back of Eirik’s horse and they grew angry at the sight of the Eval.
Byron was shouting, “Sister, help me, please! Help me! Kill this man! I command you to kill this man!”
Roserine broke free from Emily’s grasp and stepped in Eirik’s path. She drew her sword. A line of soldiers formed at her back and more surrounded Eirik’s horse on either side. Eirik pulled back on the reins and looked down at her, a bemused expression adorning his face. He sighed, slid from the back of his horse, and approached with his hands high in the air.
“You better have an explanation for this or I’ll kill you where you stand.” She set the blade against his neck.
“I simply did as my lady asked and this is the thanks I get?” Eirik’s bushy goatee pulsated like a nest of spiders as he worked his jaw back and forth, surveying his men with contempt.
“I asked you to follow him and report back! I did not ask you to assault and abduct him!”
“You sent this animal after me? This is your doing? I will have you cast out! Exiled! Men, release me, now! I command you!”
“Hold! I command
you to hold!” Roserine shouted. “No one moves until we find out what’s going on.”
Unrest had begun developing among the crowd.
“What happened out there?” Roserine asked through clenched teeth.
Eirik lifted two fingers and pushed the blade away from his throat. “My mind doesn’t work so well under duress.”
“You better speak fast or it’ll be more than duress, Commander.” Roserine took a step back and lowered the sword to her side.
“Tritt and I followed the little King as you requested.”
“Not my King.” Tritt sneered.
Roserine allowed the treasonous declaration to go unanswered, eager to hear the conclusion to Eirik’s tale.
“We found him snuggled up with the Eval girl. Kissing on her. Whispering gods knows what in her ear. When we confronted him about what we had seen he started going on about how he intended to make her his queen.” Thankfully Eirik was only talking loud enough for Roserine and the soldiers to hear him. “We asked him and the Eval to come along peacefully; figured we could interrogate her for the location of our missing men. Both of them drew their weapons. She shot Tritt with an arrow and your brother tried to take my head off my shoulders.”
She didn’t want to believe it, but it made perfect sense. Her brother’s random disappearances. His insistence on being alone. His defensiveness whenever she questioned him about it. It all made perfect, nightmarish sense.
“Move aside. I want to speak to my brother.”
Eirik stepped away, hands folded at his waist.
A hush fell over the crowd and time seemed to stand still as Roserine walked toward the back of Eirik’s horse. Byron tried to raise his head to look at her, but he was too exhausted to hold the position for more than a few seconds at a time.
“Is it true?” Her voice was cold and distant.
“I love her,” he sobbed, his tears splashing the dirt. “She can help us. She can help us win.”
It was a punch to the gut. Hearing the words fall from Byron’s lips so freely, with no attempt to mask the truth, changed everything.
“You know our laws when it comes to the Eval, Byron.”
“She’s not like them! She can help us! Tell them, Aurora! Tell them you can help us!” He was screaming and bucking against the back of the horse.
Aurora said nothing in return. Her head was down. Her long, black hair shielding her face, clumped together by mud and blood. She seemed resigned to her fate.
“You’re a fool, Byron. A damned fool.” Roserine was angrier at herself than she was at him; she’d allowed herself to be played. “Lock her in the dungeons.”
“And your brother?” Eirik asked.
Byron was sobbing, snot dangling from his nose. She felt nothing for him; just pressure squeezing in from all sides, threatening to suffocate her.
“My lady?” Eirik’s tone was growing impatient.
“Confine him to his room,” she snapped. “I want him under guard. He is not to leave.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Roserine turned and stormed toward the castle, Emily running after her.
12
Roserine moved rapidly up the staircase on the east side of the throne room, her crimson hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. Eirik was waiting for her at the top, leaning against the banister, appearing a bit too buoyant, considering the circumstances. She mumbled a profanity under her breath and kept her head down, intent on moving past him without breaking words.
“A moment, my lady?”
“Unless it’s vital, save it for later. I need to speak with my brother.”
“Actually, it’s about your brother.”
“Speak,” she sighed.
“What do you intend to do with him?”
She shook her head, confused. “What do you mean? I intend to speak with him.”
“My lady, no offense, but your brother is a traitor.”
She took the final two steps up to the landing and met Eirik face-to-face. “My brother is the acting King of Anthena and you will give him that respect!”
“The people will not follow him. Word of his betrayal will have spread across Anthena. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a mob forming as we speak. Do nothing and you will be fighting a war on two fronts.”
“And which side of the battlefield will you be standing on?”
“I’m not your enemy, my lady. I’ve been protecting your family since you were walking on shaky knees; that will not change. But there’s no coming back for your brother. He stood shoulder-to-shoulder with an Eval and attacked me. He stood by and watched as she nearly killed one of my men. The people heard him declare his love for her. Do you see any way to move forward from that?”
He was right. Byron would never be King. He’d be lucky to remain an Anthenian.
“You know the punishment for treason, my lady. Our laws are clear.”
“He is the King’s son!”
“Our laws were written to encompass all men.”
She shoved him and he stumbled. “You’ll have to kill me too!”
Eirik’s face grew red as he recovered his balance. Guards appeared at the bottom of the stairs in response to Roserine’s shouting.
“I’m fine,” she said to the guards. “Isn’t that right, Commander?”
“Get back to your patrol, boys.” He ran his tongue across his gums and nodded. “We should consult King Shalewind and see what he has to say about it.”
“My father is a sick, old man. He’s not in his right mind. I’ll let him know of this when the time is right.”
“My lady, all due respect, but I swore an oath—”
“That’s right, you swore an oath. And part of that oath is following commands. My father is dying and my brother is a traitor. That leaves me to rule. I’m commanding you to leave my father out of this. Are we clear?”
“Yeah, we’re clear…my lady.” The words were insincere, but Roserine would take whatever cooperation she could get.
“Good. You’re dismissed. See to the wall; make sure our men are ready, just in case.”
It was a short walk to Byron’s room. She found him sitting at the bottom of his four-post bed, staring at his feet; his skin and clothes were still stained by dirt, grass, and dried blood. He didn’t look up as the door clicked shut at Roserine’s back.
“Sister, please,” he whimpered, “they’re going to kill Aurora, you have to—”
“Shut up!” Her tone cut like cold steel, severing the words from his tongue. “What were you thinking? This is the reason you’ve been abandoning your duties? The reason you left the throne empty while our people were attacked? For one of them?”
“She’s different.” He looked up; chin trembling, eyes bloodshot, the dirt on his face streaked with tears. “I love her. I want to marry her.”
“How long have you known her?”
“Awhile…the days have run together with her…she’s so—.”
“How did you come across her?” She wasn’t interested in their tale of romance, she was simply gathering intelligence, trying to find out how much Anthena had been compromised.
He shrugged. “I was just out riding, taking in the morning.”
“You found her or she found you?”
“I found her. I came upon her in the fields; startled her.”
“What have you told her? Anything that could endanger Anthena or its people?”
He shook his head. “Roserine, she’s not one of them. She’s different.”
“What have you told her?”
“I don’t remember. Nothing important. But you have to listen, she’s different. She’s not with them. She wants—”
“She’s an Eval Naturae! Our enemy! They killed our mother…our people! And what do you do? You fall head over heels for one of them like a stupid boy!” She hovered over him. “You’re pathetic! If you had any decency about you, you’d have cut her down on sight! Yet here you sit, whimpering for her while better men rot in the ground, her arr
ows still fresh in their backs!”
“She’s killed no one!” He punched the mattress.
“And how do you know that?”
“She told me!”
“Oh, she told you? Was she shaking her tits in your face while these revelations left her lips?”
He shot to his feet and bumped Roserine back with his chest. “It’s not like that!”
“What’s it like, Byron?”
“She wants to help us!” His shoulders rose and fell in time with his panicked breaths.
Her hand was on her sword, protecting it. She didn’t know what he was capable of. As she stood there staring back into her brothers jittering eyes it hit her: she no longer knew the man in front of her. He sounded like Byron. He looked like Byron. But the words leaving his lips weren’t Byron’s. They were the words of a weak, twisted, little man. The Eval whore had clipped his balls and forced him to his knees.
“How do we find the Eval?”
“She…I don’t know. She hasn’t told me. I don’t think she remembers. She was young…you have to—”
“What does she know about the attacks? About our missing men?”
“She doesn’t! She’s not one—”
“What did you tell her?” Her voice was rising steadily; she was a soldier interrogating a prisoner.
“Nothing! I told her nothing!”
“I’ll ask you again and you better answer me if you know what’s good for you! Where do we find the Eval?”
“I don—”
“Who leads them?”
“I d—”
“Where are our men?”
“I already sa—”
She slapped him across the face with the back of her hand and he fell to the bed. “Where are our men?”
Byron attempted to come back to his feet and she hit him in the nose with her elbow.
She drew her sword. “Move again and I will cut you in two!”
“I’m your brother!”
“You’re a liar! A traitor! Now loosen your tongue or I will have the guards come and loosen it for you!”
“I don’t know!” He wept, slamming his head back against the mattress. “I’d tell you if I did, but I don’t! I love her, Roserine!” He covered his eyes with the heels of his palms, shaking as the sobs crackled in his throat. “Please don’t hurt her.”
Blood & Stone: The Saboteur Chronicles Book 3 Page 9
