by Kaplan, EM
"You have no proof against this man," Ott was shouting. It didn't sound at all like his voice to Marget. It had more of an outraged snarl to it. And gods, it was louder than she'd ever heard him speak. His voice penetrated right through the noise of the crowded hall. It didn't sound like the voice she knew, the voice that had at times made her sigh with longing when she was supposed to be fast asleep in the women's quarters.
"You will not proceed against him," Ott said, this time backing closer to Rob, putting himself between Rob and the house guards who had escorted him in. The trogs faced outward in a ring around them. And the woman Mel was standing amongst them looking icy-cold and inhuman, Marget thought. There was something not right about that woman. Marget had seen her on the first day the Masks had arrived at the great house. And now two of the Masks were dead. She'd heard rumors that Ott had taken Mel to his bed, but it was hard to believe. Of all the women he could have had, this one was surely icy and distant. Something about the way light shimmered around her made Marget a little queasy. Did no one else see it? No wonder people hated Masks. They were deathlike without their strange garb.
The house guards looked at the council members for guidance and with great uncertainty. Each one of them shifted in his boots with clear indecision. Most of them had known Rob his whole life. Most were his age or younger. But one thing was for sure, if she had been in any of their shoes, she would not have hesitated a minute before poking her spear toward the old bastards judging them from their high and might chairs.
For a minute, it looked certain that there would be bloodshed. The collective breath of the room was drawn. Many of them lusted for it, she could sense, which made her want to inch toward the door. But those people—any of them with an ounce of self-preservation —knew that they didn't want to be trapped in the same room as a group of angry trogs and a man accused of being a usurper.
One of the councilmen had risen gingerly and was now returning shouts. "He will pay for his offenses upon this house," the old man rasped, his bony finger pointed in the air. The crowd reacted with simmering anger. Marget's heart pounded and she eyed the doorway again. She was a second from fleeing as fast and as far as she could. But, still, she couldn't tear her eyes away. And the warmth of Charl at her back bolstered her. He no longer restrained her, now it was more of . . . an embrace. She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about that.
Another old man had joined the first on his feet, their rich robes doubly imposing from their elevation on the dais. Marget wasn’t too impressed. She could have knocked him over with her skirts. But then the first real jostling started in the crowd. Someone threw a shoe toward the front of the room, but the throw was bad, and Marget couldn't tell if it had been meant to hit the men on the stage or Rob and his followers. This was a bad place to be. She now was a hair's breadth away from springing through the door and pulling Charl with her. If there was going to be a brawl, people would press toward the door. She wanted to be the first ones out; otherwise they might never make it out. If there was a stampede, they could be crushed.
Rob had risen to his feet now, and the old men panicked and gesticulated with a mixture of fear and anger toward the house guards to restrain him. Several other members of the judgment council stood up in outrage; they would not allow anyone to demonstrate such disrespectful behavior toward them. No one could, Marget realized, or else their poorly constructed facade of authority would crumble into dust.
When a house guard put a meaty hand on Rob's shoulder—whether to push him back down into his seat or to spin him for a face-first punch, they would never know—Ott pinned the guard to the floor. Marget gasped at the quickness of the attack. One minute Ott was in front of Rob and the very next, he had pounced on the guard, his face pressed against the terrified man's, a snarl distorting Ott's face.
More guards moved to help their fallen comrade, but the defensive positioning of the trogs halted them in their tracks. The presence of the trogs, however, was not enough to tamp down the anxiety of the crowd, and a surge from the back of the room traveled forward until the frantic front rows of onlookers were pushed toward the trogs. And though the trogs did nothing to threaten the crowd, several shrieks of dismay and fear came from the people. Hands flew forward to keep bodies away, but ended up flailing against trog skin.
Marget's fingers dug into Charl's arm. She hadn't noticed earlier, but his hand had slipped off her mouth and was now gripping her tightly across the front of her shoulders. Then the doors of the great hall banged open, and a cold wind buffeted Marget’s skirts. The air traveled through the room, freezing each body in mid-action. Surprised faces turned toward the sound. A man stood in the doorway, and Marget recognized him as Guyse, the dark, glowering guard who had arrived with the Masks. His thick eyebrows were drawn down in a scowl. He had an air of the mystical about him, like a lightning ball surrounding his head. Marget's mouth dropped open. This man’s anger had caused the rush of cold air, his frozen fury rushing into the hall ahead of him.
He addressed the council on the dais and the crowded room at once, though Marget wasn't sure how. His voice carried easily, as if he were standing next to her. Magic of some sort, it had to be. She had always been a firm believer in it. There was small evidence of it in everyday life, but this . . . this was an occurrence that she would never forget. It was confirmation of something she'd always wanted to believe. And she wanted to know more.
"This man," Guyse said as he pointed at Rob, "is innocent of this crime."
A high noise of protest came from the woman Mel. Marget looked at her curiously. Otherwise, the room had fallen astonishingly silent for the large number of people crammed in it.
A council member pushed his way to the front of the dais where some of them had stood grouped together, taking strength from numbers and elevation. With his wrinkled, clenched hands, he pushed the other robes aside and said irritably, "What do you know about it? And who are you to speak for him?"
Guyse paused and looked around. He met eyes with Mel, who had suddenly gone deathly pale. For a minute, Marget detected something soft and vulnerable in the woman. As tall and beautiful as she was, as steely and unapproachable as Marget found her, perhaps she was human under that façade. She was someone's daughter. She was Ott's mate. Marget considered her with a renewed curiosity. Just now, an errant ray of sun broke through the gray clouds visible in the high windows above and shined like a halo around the crown of her head.
Gods, she looked like a queen.
Guyse said, “I am the killer.”
Chapter 77
Mel heard Guyse’s words, but she couldn’t comprehend them.
She had been prepared to help fight for Rob's freedom, to liberate him from imprisonment whether or not he had killed his father. She honestly didn't care. The old man, Col Rob, had been a horrible manipulator, and she had been suspicious of and repulsed by him at first glance. She didn't doubt he'd committed unspeakable acts against numerous people in the course of his lifetime. And she didn't need physical evidence—it had been etched in his face. Her mother had known it. Her father had known it. But what separated them from her was that they hadn't assigned guilt in that particular matter. No, they had been called into attendance by Col Rob to mediate a truce with the trogs. And in neglecting to acknowledge Col Rob's motives, her parents had gotten themselves murdered. Mel didn't care who had killed the man. All she cared was that justice had been done.
And that, she thought sourly, was what disqualifies me from being a Mask. As if she had any further doubt.
The room had fallen silent again. Guyse had confessed. He relayed the details of the murder with precision. So much so, in fact, that the guards were releasing Rob from his restraints.
Wait, wait, wait.
Guyse had murdered Col Rob? In his bedchamber. She heard his voice confessing to making the cut marks in the old man's gut. He told them how the old man had looked when he left him bleeding out into his lap rug. He described the dagger that he'd used. And then Guyse h
ad said in a low voice, "I am the one you want. I killed him."
And Mel recalled that a sound had escaped her throat. She had been listening and paying attention and absorbing every little detail. Even though he stood there as Guyse, she could not help but think of him as Jenks. Twinkling blue eyes and a ready smile. Yes, he looked and acted like Guyse now. But he was her father. And he had taken a life.
And now her only living blood relative was going to be exiled. No one, not even a Mask, could survive their so-called walk in winter, their death-sentence of an exile.
She stifled a sob as Guyse let himself be led away by the same guards who had been restraining Rob. He was taken away without a glance in her direction. He had to know she was standing there, shell shocked and watching him. She knew because she could feel him—his even heartbeat, his lack of perspiration, his resolution.
Before the room began to empty, Mel found herself flanked on one side by Ott and Rob on the other. They led her out past the frozen faces of the house maid and an angry young man whose face looked as if justice had been denied. And Mel wasn't sure whether it had or not. All she felt was loss.
Within a few minutes, she found herself sitting in Ott's lap in the cradle of his embrace, numb to it. They were in Rob's private chamber where Jenny had been waiting for news of their failure or success at freeing Rob. Their initial embrace was so intimate that Mel had averted her eyes. Ott hadn't seemed to notice. He was holding her tightly like she might float away and he was kneading her fingers like she'd been out in the cold. And maybe she had. She couldn't feel a thing.
Guyse. Her last living blood relative. Her natural father. And she would never see him again. The reality of her parents' deaths compounded with Guyse's confession threatened to overwhelm her. She was adrift, in danger of losing her grip on herself and allowing her mind to sever itself from her body. The trogs were unimportant. Her friend Rav would be safe in the hands of the midwives here at the great house. Jenny and Rob had each other.
Ott's fingers pressed hers again and again. He squeezed her fingertips and released them. Pressed the blood back into them. Gradually, she felt the gentle insistence of his arms around her, pulling her back to him.
He said softly into the back of her neck, "I can't go into your mind and rescue you from the river of blackness. I can't do that like you did for me. All I can do is ask you to stay here with me." When she said nothing, he pressed her again, "Can you do that? Stay with me?"
He breathed again into the back of her neck and that familiar scent of him feathered itself through her hair and brushed up into her face, filling her nose, her mouth, going into her throat and down into herself, reminding her that he was part of her. He was the reason she knew she was more than just a Mask. He was her reason.
She twisted in his lap and put her arms around his neck. She put her cheek against his chest and held him as tightly as he held her.
He said, "Let's go home."
Chapter 78
As Mel and Ott trudged through the half-foot of snow that had fallen overnight, she realized what he was doing—distracting her from thinking about Guyse's departure from the big house. She knew that right about now, guards would be leading Guyse off the house’s grounds. They would escort him a few miles away and leave him there to make the rest of the way on foot without food or water. Taking a walk in winter.
She and Ott were bundled up, pulling a light sled of supplies behind them. Just a few provisions—food for the day, water, blankets, and a little firewood. He said he didn't think there'd be anything left at his sister’s former house, and the look on his face said he had his doubts the house itself would still be standing. The area was rife with looters, displaced miners and trogs, foraging for food and whatever wasn't nailed down.
It took them a couple hours to reach the little house, which was still there despite his earlier misgivings. A walk that would take normally less than an hour in clear weather now worked their legs until she started to feel fatigue in the muscles. Though her face was cold, she enjoyed the warmth of her heavy coat and hood. The gate was unlatched and braced back by a drift of snow. To Mel's eyes, the house looked empty, but unscathed, nearly the same as before. Ott, however, tsked as he inspected the railing on the front porch. He ran his hand over the door. She saw scratches, but they weren't bad, and at least the door was shut. He went in cautiously, checking for squatters, but the house was empty.
The kitchen had a broken window, and there were two more shattered in the back room, but the damage was minimal because the winds had been coming from the north and that wall was sheltered. The bulk of the winter was still ahead of them, so while the house would do for the night, it was still uninhabitable. Mel listened to the melodic rumble of Ott’s voice as he said the best thing to do would be to board up the spaces, and then come back in the spring to repair it. She worked on starting a fire in the fireplace while he scouted around for planks that weren't too frozen to board up the windows.
In another hour's time, they had the three windows closed up enough that the heat stayed in the room. It was still drafty, but it would do for the night. The blankets had been long ago stripped from the beds, but they had brought some with them on the pull-sled, and Ott's favorite old chair was still there—it was probably too heavy for anyone to drag out and too bedraggled to capture anyone’s attention. Ott shoved it close to the fire and sat down heavily, coaxing her to squeeze into it with him. The chair creaked when she sat. She didn't add much weight, but his bulk had increased substantially along with his height. The chair was a tight fit, but it was warm, and she savored being close to him.
For the first time in a long time, she allowed herself to seek him out, using her heightened sensitivity to try to read him. Just as she knew she would, she felt anxiety—that was ever-present in him, though few could ever guess it—but she also found hope and contentment in the solid rhythm of his heart, the sound of his breathing, and in his scent, that aromatic beacon that had entranced her from the beginning. He shifted her on his lap so he could spread out his shoulders better across the back of the chair. She laid the back of her head against his chest so they were both staring at the ceiling, her temple tucked against the side of his chin. For her, it was like sitting in a living, breathing chair, an embrace made of Ott.
"What do you think?" he said, lightly running a hand down her breastbone to her navel where he stretched his fingers out across her abdomen. Warmth curled across her midsection.
She stayed deliberately obtuse. She knew he was asking a bigger question than the one she pretended to hear. "About the house? Cozy. It's good for the warm seasons, but I think we should move back to the big house at wintertime." She was thinking ahead to next year, to the year after that, and more. His hand froze where it had been stroking her belly.
She half-expected another proposal of marriage, which he'd never repeated since that day. Maybe he never would. In some ways, she would be glad if he never did because it brought up the bittersweet memory of her parents and Guyse all in the sitting room, staring at him in amused surprise when he'd introduced himself to them. Instead, he said, "You like this house?"
She could feel him waiting very carefully for her answer. It mattered to him for some reason, so she thought about it before she spoke. "I like having our own place separate from them." They both knew what them meant—it was all of them at the other house, the trogs, Rob and Jenny, the tenants, the children, the household staff, other people, other eyes . . . no one to observe them, to force her to watch her behavior, to force either of them to please others. They could just . . . be themselves.
She twisted in his arms, feeling the immediate effect that her body had on his. She wedged a knee on either side of his hips and rose over him, stripping off her coat. His hands were on her hips slowly moving upward. She crossed her arms over her front, reaching for the bottom of her shirt.
"Don't," he said. "It's too cold in here."
She gave a wry smile, "Enjoy this. I don't need to feel the c
old, remember?" And she lifted her many layers off at once and swept them off her arm. She rose above him again and shook out her hair, fanning her fingers through it. She used the flicker of the fireplace light behind her to weave through her hair, shifting it slightly so he could see the catch of gold in the strands. She used the light to catch the sides of her body, to accentuate the tapering down to her waist and the flare of her hips. She used the shadow to tuck the lines into the sides of her belly and the dip of her navel. She moved her blood and felt the push of it toward the surface of her body, to a flush on her breastbone, to other places that drew his eyes.
She watched his pupils dilate and his breathing become more rapid. He said an oath under his breath as he stared at her with open, unadulterated lust and admiration. Arousal overtook the usual expression of respect and love he wore when he looked at her. A look of fleeting panic crossed his face. He wriggled uncomfortably, and she saw him struggle to push her way, yet keep his hands where they were tightly gripping her hips.
"I can't control it," he said. "My . . . anger, the battle fury. It's happening right now. I'm starting to see the red in my vision. This is what happens. You have to get away from me or I might hurt you." But she partnered up with his desire and overruled him.
