Court of Shadows

by Miranda Honfleur

  “Tell me what I should have done, then, Brennan.”

  She’d pulled on the bond the second she’d faced Farrad, and challenged to a duel, she’d been unable to leave. “Could I have left to wander in search of you while someone fought a duel to the death in my place?”

  “Someone,” he bit out with a scoff.

  “Could I have?” she asked, quiet but firm.

  He shook his head. No answer.

  That’s right, because there had been no answer. She couldn’t have left even if she’d wanted to, and she hadn’t wanted to, not with Jon putting his life on the line for her sake. “Tell me what I should have done, then, in your eyes, to have pleased you, because I don’t know where to begin.”

  He held her gaze a moment, coldly, then looked away.

  He was alive, and she was glad for that, beyond glad, but his expectations for her had been impossible. Did he not believe she loved him? Cared for him? How could he think otherwise?

  She didn’t want to fight anymore.

  “Brennan, I…” She wrapped her arms around him. “You know I love you. I care what happens to you. And I want you to abandon this stupid mission—”

  He straightened. “Rielle—”

  “If those guards had chosen to behead you, would you… what would I have done without you? None of this is worth losing you, Bre—”

  He pulled her up and urged her onto his lap, forcing her gaze to his. “Listen to me. I love you, and that means it’s my duty to protect you. If the Divinity attacked your family, I need to know that to better protect you, and us, in the future.”

  His sincere hazel eyes didn’t waver; he meant it. Every single word.

  “We love each other,” she corrected. “That means we protect each other. And that starts with me telling you to abandon this mission. It’s proving too dangerous.”

  He huffed a laugh and grinned. “Opinion noted. And may I remind you: I do what I want.”

  There was no arguing that. Stubborn wolf. “You’re unbelievable.”

  “Thank you.” He stole a kiss, but his fading smile turned sad.

  He’d almost died. It was unthinkable, but it had almost happened.

  She covered her mouth, but a coppery tang infiltrated her nostrils. Blood. Jon’s blood.

  The deep, darkening red of Jon’s blood colored her white mage coat, having saturated the fabric, and she couldn’t tear her gaze away.

  She’d almost lost Brennan today, and Jon.

  She’d felt it, in her arms, his life leaving his body. The blood, that look in his eyes as she’d bent over him, holding him—she’d seen it before, been there before, but this had been…

  Tears hit her bloodied sleeve, brightening the red for a moment.

  Divine, if not for Olivia, he would have died in her arms.

  When Farrad had—Divine, why had Farrad been here?—challenged her, Jon had intervened, risking his life, and he’d done it without a second thought. Risked his life—the life of a king, upon whom so many relied.

  He hadn’t been himself recently. Something was amiss, but he’d fought anyway. Taken blow after blow, nearly died. He’d had an injury she couldn’t heal, some blow that must have had lasting and dangerous consequences that Olivia had healed.

  It was time she learned to fight her own battles—even when she couldn’t use magic. She wouldn’t be a liability to Jon, to Brennan, to anyone else, not if she could help it. And if she ever ended up cuffed in arcanir again, she wouldn’t be helpless. She’d have to become someone new, someone stronger, someone honest with herself and where she belonged.

  Brennan sighed, arms crossed, unmoving. “It should’ve been me,” he said gravely.

  “Should’ve…?”

  He scowled, staring into nothing ahead of him. “To kill that zahib bastard.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder. That night in Xir, she thought she’d killed Farrad. When she’d seen him tonight, it had been like seeing a ghost, and everything had come rushing back to her. The constant fear, the arcanir cuffs, the escape that night, always looking behind her… Samara standing up for her…

  “Samara!” She straightened in his hold as the carriage jostled over a bump. “She was here. I—We have to go back for her.”

  “Already taken care of,” he said, not releasing her. “At least I think so. As we were leaving, I heard Jon ask one of his guards to have the ‘young woman’ left in his care.”

  “Jon did?” She was about to ask why, when it hit her. “He considers himself responsible.”

  Brennan nodded. “He agreed to a challenge in which her father was killed.”

  She closed her eyes. Samara would be safe with him, but… “I need to see her,” she whispered.

  Brennan shrugged and turned away, blinking, before glancing back at her. “What about your brother? Didn’t Olivia mention something about him?”

  He was trying to change the subject again.

  He didn’t want her visiting Samara. Visiting Jon.

  And if he was changing the subject, he didn’t even want to discuss it.

  Then it could wait. Much had happened tonight, and too much fighting.

  And Olivia had mentioned Liam. “It’s strange that he didn’t write.”

  Brennan covered his eyes with a hand and sighed.

  She shifted in his lap. “What is it?”

  “Maybe he did write,” Brennan murmured. “Mother checks all the correspondence first.”

  Brennan’s mother might have withheld a letter from Liam? She curled a fist, still sticky with blood. “She’d better pray she didn’t throw it out.”

  Jon paced the villa’s candlelit library, carving his block of linden into something now approximating a bird, pausing every so often to eye Olivia. “You want me to—”

  “Yes,” she said, with an emphatic nod, sitting before him at the table with her books. “Please.”

  Terra have mercy, what she suggested—it was antithesis to everything he believed in, everything he’d rededicated himself to after Veris. “You want me to become a… a werewolf?”

  “Why not?” She raised her chin. “I’ve read about it. A bite can transmit the curse, and if you survive, you’ll be transformed… in peak health. Immortal.” She crossed her legs and shrugged her shoulders as if to say everything would turn out just fine.

  Right. Huffing a breath, he looked away and continued pacing. “It’s not what you think it is.”

  Brennan’s curse was a special case, from what Rielle had told him and what he’d heard of the werewolves since the Rift.

  He faltered and braced a hand on a nearby chair.

  She shot up to her feet and rushed to him. “You lost a lot of blood, Jon. Even with healing, you still need to rest. Let me walk you to your quarters.”

  No. Anywhere but there. “I’m fine,” he said, sinking into the chair. He’d eaten just about his own weight in food since returning from the castle, and with a good night’s rest, he’d feel better.

  But until he and Olivia had that talk, they were going nowhere near his quarters.

  Frowning, she plopped back into her chair. “He’s a werewolf, and he seems perfectly normal,” she said, flinching. “Well, as normal as can be, considering.”

  “You don’t understand,” he replied, rubbing his chest over his heart. “You’ve heard the reports of werewolves in the heartland. They’re violent beasts, bound to the whim of their emotions. They have a lesser grasp on their actions than actual wolves.”

  “But he—”

  “He is different.” Jon paused, paring away some linden shavings. “His family was cursed by Rielle’s ancestor. She… she gives him her blood every month to help him stay in control.”

  “Her—?” Olivia’s eyes widened, then she looked down, knitting her eyebrows together. After a moment, her face lit up. “Well, can’t she give you—”

  “No.”

  “You won’t even—”

  “No.”

  Olivia folded her arms and sco
wled at him. “It’s the least she could do after—”

  “No, Olivia,” he snapped. “And that’s final.” He’d seen all too clearly what the bond between Rielle and Brennan had been last year—brutal, cruel, inescapable. They were on good terms now, and he wouldn’t insert himself permanently into her life, even if he could bring himself to try becoming a violent Immortal beast.

  Besides, the ritual to create that bond… it had been sangremancy. Deadly sangremancy, that had claimed a life in its casting. He wouldn’t risk Rielle’s life, or anyone’s, for it.

  Olivia threw her hands up and exhaled sharply.

  “Her ancestor sacrificed her life to cast that sangremancy curse.”

  “But if he is the one to bite you, perhaps you’d be of his line? Maybe she could give you control, too, or someone of her bloodline could?”

  This line of thinking was becoming desperate. “We don’t know if that would work, and there is no one else of her bloodline.” Well, there was Liam, but—

  Olivia blinked sullenly and hesitated. “When she and Brennan have a—”

  He scowled at her, and she quieted. In what world did she think he would ever expect such a thing of a child?

  But even so, it didn’t matter. “If… If she and Brennan have a child,” he said, “that’ll break his curse. Even if we went through it all, I’d be human again anyway.”

  “Then maybe you’d be changed into a healthy—”

  He shook his head. “None of this matters anyway. I don’t want to be anything but human, but myself. When my time comes, it comes. The end.” He wouldn’t become some monster, immortal, a shade of himself. And if something went wrong? He’d end up a burden to all those who loved him, and to his kingdom. Never. “Death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a man.”

  Being left behind—

  “The girl,” he said, thinking back to the young woman from the great hall. She’d lost, too—her father, no matter what kind of man he’d been—because of him. And he had to make that right. “Did she agree to come?”

  “She did, but she’s gathering her things to move them here. No one in your household speaks more than a few words of Nad’i.”

  “Is there no one who could translate?”

  Olivia cleared her throat. “Brennan and Rielle are fluent.”

  If the girl was who he thought she was, then Rielle would want to know she was safe, and to see her. “Let them know she’s here.”

  Chapter 34

  As Rielle entered the mansion from the dark outside, light footsteps echoed nearer.

  Caitlyn dropped a book on the floor, her large eyes practically round as she scrutinized Rielle from head to toe. Her skin paled almost as far as the blush-pink hue of her gown. “Y-you’re drenched in blood,” she said, her palm meandering to her chest.

  She was about to be drenched in more if she didn’t get Liam’s correspondence.

  “Is Mother here?” Brennan bit out, striding into the mansion.

  Caitlyn blinked slowly and trailed her gaze back to Rielle. “Yes, why?”

  “My word.” Duchess Caterine’s voice came from the hall, flanked by Vietti and a squad of guards, and next to her, Una gasped.

  “We were just about to save you,” Una said quietly, looking her over. Wisps of hair strayed from her usually perfect bun.

  “As you can see,” Brennan murmured, “the saving’s done.”

  “Tell the barrister we’re fine,” the duchess told Una, who nodded and immediately left. Statuesque in a long, silvery dress with her hair pinned voluminously atop her head, the duchess calmly gave Rielle a once-over, then asked Caitlyn for some privacy.

  “Your Grace, I may have had a letter from a Captain Verib,” she said carefully, trying to restrain the growl in her voice.

  Duchess Caterine raised an eyebrow and made a show of contemplating. “Ah, yes,” she said, brightening. “Well, it was from a bordello in Il Serpente. You couldn’t possibly have business with such riffraff, so I assumed it was trash.”

  Assumed it was trash. The duchess, chin raised, held her gaze.

  She would get that letter and see Liam. And then, with only three days before the second trial, begin digging into research on basilisks and—

  “Vietti,” the duchess said to the steward, “bring the letter from this ‘Captain Verib’ to my son’s quarters.”

  “Yes, my lady,” Vietti said with a deep bow. “I shall fetch the correspondence forthwith.” With a final inclination of his head to Rielle, he strode away.

  Liam had written her, and forthwith wasn’t nearly soon enough.

  “Brennan, give us a moment. Have Stefania run her a bath.” Duchess Caterine approached her, looking her over.

  Brennan pressed a kiss to her temple, gave her hand a squeeze, then walked backward toward the stairs, tilting his head toward his mother with a knowing smile before heading up.

  Leaving her alone. Alone with his mother.

  Divine help me.

  “Are you all right, child? What happened?” With a gentle hand, Duchess Caterine guided her to a nearby bench and quickly issued instructions to her household—fetch hot water, clean cloths… There was a soft comfort to her words, her touch, and as intimidating as she had been, right this moment, she… wasn’t. Or at least didn’t seem to be. But she’d still hidden Liam’s letter.

  “I’m sure Una told you,” Rielle explained, “but… After the first trial, there was a duel… King Jonathan was gravely injured.”

  A maid returned with a bowl of steamy water and a washcloth, and the duchess dipped it in the water, then took one of Rielle’s hands and rubbed it gently. “Are you hurt?”

  Rielle shook her head. “I’m fine… but it was so… there was so much…” The washcloth had turned a deep red.

  The duchess curled an arm around her, brought her head to rest against her shoulder, and Rielle closed her eyes, almost let herself take a moment’s comfort before the steely smell of blood gave her a start. Red stained the duchess’s gown everywhere they were in contact.

  She gasped, pulling away. “Your Grace, I’m so—I’m so sorry, your gown—”

  The duchess shushed her, rubbing her shoulder before tipping up her chin so their gazes met. “A gown is nothing. You matter,” she said firmly, her green-eyed gaze uncompromising. “And I think we’re past ‘Your Grace,’ don’t you?” She smiled warmly. “Call me Mother.”

  Rielle’s chest tightened, as if the very breath had been stolen from her lungs. Mother. Brennan’s mother was so much more complicated than the face she wore today, too complicated to trust so easily. “I—I—”

  A magnanimous smile, and the duchess patted her hand. “It’s all right if you’re not ready yet, Rielle. When you are…”

  “No, no,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m—Thank you… Mother.”

  The duchess paused, beaming, and it reached her soft eyes. Perhaps she was being genuine.

  A maid came and whispered in her ear, and the duchess helped her stand. “Your bath is ready, and Vietti left your correspondence in your quarters. Why don’t you wash up, let the hot water do its work, and maybe we can have some mulled wine together later? Would you like that?”

  That sounded… wonderful. She wanted to see Liam as soon as possible, but she could go to him bright and early tomorrow. She certainly wasn’t going anywhere sticky and drenched in blood.

  She nodded. “I’d like that.”

  The duchess enveloped her in a warm embrace, then guided her to the stairs. “Come find me when you’re finished, all right? And have Stefania burn some incense for you, something calming.”

  With a final nod, Rielle rested her hand on the banister and went up to the quarters she shared with Brennan.

  His mother had finally accepted her, then. Had it really been as simple as Una had told her—to show their mother how much she loved Brennan?

  When she entered their quarters, the large, luxurious bath was already full and steaming, with an array of candles casti
ng their glow nearby. Next to them lay a message from The Red Veil in Il Serpente. She cracked it open and read:

  Staying here until the end of the trials. Visit when you can. Verib.

  It was dated four days ago. For four days, she could have been spending time with Liam. And worse, did he think she’d been ignoring him? She’d write him tonight.

  And after this first trial, her anima had dimmed, not much… but enough that she’d want resonance if there was some other mage suitable for it at The Red Veil.

  After hastily peeling off her clothes, she scrubbed off the worst of the blood. When she’d cleaned up, she stepped into the tub, submerged her feet, her legs, herself in the hot water. The heat soothed into her, wrapping her in a warm caress, and she sank deeper, letting it clear her mind. So much had happened today—too much—and even a moment’s rest would be a luxury before she dove into research… after her mulled wine with the duchess.

  A few footsteps, and then came the telltale splash of Brennan entering the bath. They hadn’t been together since the night of their argument—the one about Veris.

  She opened her eyes.

  He settled on the other end of the tub, stretching his legs out on either side of hers. A smug grin flashed across his face as he relaxed and leaned his head back against the rim.

  Ah, you noticed, he’d said to her in the carriage.

  Did he think she didn’t care? When he’d returned to her alive, whole, well, her heart had leapt. Hadn’t he heard that? Didn’t he know just how much she loved him?

  When she’d mentioned wanting to visit Samara—where Jon was staying—he’d changed the subject. To Liam, yes, but changed the subject nonetheless. He didn’t want her anywhere near Jon, she knew that, but didn’t he trust her? She loved him, and she would never betray him. Ever.

  If he didn’t know that yet, then she’d have to show him.

  He’d nearly died today, nearly been sacrificed for the sake of pursuing the truth. Her truth. But when she’d asked him what he’d do with evidence of complicity in the regicide, whose side he’d be on—

  He hadn’t answered her.

  He risked his life going to the Archives for her, but if he found evidence of the Divinity and his father arranging the regicide, he hadn’t been able to tell her he’d do the right thing.