The men gladly offered direction and pointed to a well-lit building just a few paces away.
Inside, the dockmaster, a man thiyawbed in indigo, cordially checked for departures to Emaurria. After a brief glance, he frowned.
“No passenger ships to Emaurria. No trade ships to Emaurria,” he said in High Nad’i.
Weary, he stood loosely, shoulders and hips relaxed. He glanced in Rielle’s direction. By the window, she touched a globe wistfully, tracing the Emaurrian coastline.
Brennan leaned in closer to the man. “Nothing at all?”
“With all the Immortals—the sea serpents, mermaids, and such—there are fewer ships crossing the bay. But let me look again.” The dockmaster raised his eyes and winced. “The only departure is the Liberté, tomorrow—”
Brennan stood taller. “Perfect.”
“A pirate hunter.” The dockmaster looked back to Rielle.
Brennan suppressed a wince himself. A pirate hunter? Certain vessels were allowed by a sovereign nation to combat piracy, specially outfitted to attack pirate vessels. Pirate vessels like the one that had borne Rielle from Emaurrian shores. But their work was dangerous. Although they often defeated and captured pirate vessels and their cargo, any fool with a ship could seek pirate-hunter privileges from a sovereign.
“The Liberté?” Brennan asked.
The dockmaster nodded. “Captain Verib has been hunting for three years and has seen remarkable success.”
So this captain was either smart and would continue to survive—until he came across someone smarter, or just luckier—or he was lucky, and his luck could run out with them aboard.
But they didn’t have any other options. And Rielle was, after all, a quaternary elementalist. Her mastery of hydromancy would help mitigate the risk—
If they could find her a resonance partner.
He held back a grimace. “Would the captain take us on?”
The dockmaster drew in a breath. “For the right price.”
Brennan nodded and thanked him. The man drew up a message for the captain and sent his messenger. Rielle looked up from the globe and raised her eyebrows.
He approached her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “The only departure is a pirate hunter, tomorrow morning, but he might take us on.”
She shifted in his embrace.
“How are you feeling?” he whispered.
She rested her head against him. “Exhausted.”
“We’ll find lodging as soon as we get word.”
She nodded against him. While the dockmaster did his work, they examined maps and looked out the window at the ships, and although they desperately awaited word, Brennan felt light on his feet.
Her nearness soothed him. These past few days had been difficult, but Rielle’s close proximity had been a healing balm. It felt right, her being close to him. Natural. And how many years of this feeling had he tossed aside in his weakness?
But it was temporary. Soon, they’d be back in Emaurria, and she—she would go back to Jon.
And I’ll go back to…
Being alone. He swallowed, resisting the urge to push the thought away.
That wasn’t his fate; he would win her heart. He loved her, was best for her, and she would see that.
The messenger returned and handed a letter to the dockmaster, who read it and nodded to Brennan with a slight smile. For a small sum, they could be on their way to Courdeval tomorrow.
Brennan handed the man payment, and then he and Rielle departed. They mounted their camels and headed into the town square.
“We’re going home,” she whispered, her voice quivering and breathy.
He looked out into the thinning night streets. If he did nothing, everything would soon be as it was. But if he was to claim her for his own, he had the length of the voyage to show her his true heart and hope she saw worth in it.
Chapter 38
Drina shifted her apothecary satchel on her hip and took a deep breath as she crossed Trèstellan’s inner bailey, crunching through the snow. The clouds were obfuscating the early dusk. The days had been a steady gray, with little to no wind, and nightly snowfall that froze to ice by morning. She could set her clock by the predictability of the weather. Had this anything to do with the announcement that the king was Earthbound?
If this was the extent of that power, it was nothing.
Ahead of schedule, Lady Vauquelin had summoned her yet again. The aphrodisiac lip balm would not arrive for another month, but the summons had been cryptic.
Perhaps she finally got her wish.
The shadows of birds crossed the shimmering snow. A peregrine falcon chasing a small pigeon. Did this bird of prey now know that it was the pigeon?
The awakening of the Immortals had meant the awakening of dragons, but there had been no confirmed sightings… until rumors had spread after the Battle of Brise-Lames. The soldiers and paladins there had seen a dragon.
Dragons were real.
And if dragons were real, then the Bell of Khar’shil was real as well. A sangremancy ritual to summon a dragon… to destroy any enemy.
Jonathan Dominic Armel Faralle would die, but if she didn’t leave Courdeval with his death in hand, she’d take his flesh or blood and no less. The bell would be perfect, but if it didn’t work, she’d still have her pick of sangremancy spells to end him.
A certain end, one way or another. Marko, you will rest well avenged.
Ushers opened the palace doors, and she made her way through the glum halls, where even the once-constant patter of courtiers was now sparse; they gathered around the hearths in lifeless conversation.
At last she arrived at Lady Vauquelin’s quarters.
Melanie answered the door with a quick smile and gestured her in, smoothing the wrinkles from her plain pink frock. “My lady awaits you in the parlor.”
Inside, Lady Vauquelin paced, dressed in an exquisite crimson velvet dress, trimmed in gold embroidery. A fine garment. Melanie moved to a console table and arranged a massive bouquet of marigolds.
Lady Vauquelin turned her head, gleaming dark tresses bouncing. “Mistress Vaganay! Finally you arrive.” Wide-eyed, the lady rushed her to the sofa and seated herself.
Finally? Drina suppressed a scoff. Upon receipt of the summons, she’d gathered her satchel and left the inn immediately. “Forgive my tardiness, Your Ladyship.”
Lady Vauquelin waved a slender hand. “Yes, yes, all’s forgiven if you can deliver what I need.”
Drina ducked out of her satchel’s strap and leaned forward. “Anything Your Ladyship desires.”
A grin from ear to ear. “You do not disappoint, Mistress Vaganay.”
Good news. “Then you’ve had success.”
Lady Vauquelin crossed her legs and relaxed in her seat. “Of a fashion. Melanie?”
The young maid started, a few marigolds dropping from her hands. “Yes, my lady?”
“Tea.” Lady Vauquelin closed her eyes and sighed.
“Yes, my lady.” Melanie disappeared, leaving the flowers on the table.
“They’re from him,” Lady Vauquelin said through a smug little smile. She gestured to her dress. “This, too.”
A grateful man? Or a guilty man? The marigolds suggested the latter. “Then everything has gone well.”
The lady took a deep breath and exhaled lengthily. “Not everything. I need… something that could impair judgment.”
Impair judgment? He was being cautious, then. “Wine?”
Lady Vauquelin shook her head. “Not enough.”
“Ithara.” The incense granted a blessed euphoria, a rapturous sensation of touch, and distortion of time and judgment unlike any other herb.
The lady’s face lit up. “Yes… Ideal.” Her eyes took on a wistful glaze, staring in reverie, and her mouth followed in haunting, a ghost of a smile.
Had the man she meant to impair not been Favrielle’s love, he could be pitied. Manipulated, hunted, run directly into the wolf’s waiting maw. Although
if he was indeed cautious, perhaps he hadn’t entirely taken leave of his reason.
“You can acquire it?”
Although the Emaurrian Crown had reluctantly allowed sen’a through its borders, Sonbahar’s ithara was illegal and spread from one shadowy hand to another, an expensive guilty pleasure secreted to the pockets of the rich and desperate. Yes, she knew such shadowy hands and could procure almost any treasure.
But this was Nora Marcel Vignon. Daughter of Faolan Auvray Marcel, Duke of Maerleth Tainn, who had an open door to Sonbahar and all its treasures. Why not ask him?
The woman’s leg bounced, her lips pursing, twitching. Self-conscious?
Naturally. She must trick a stallion to stud, an embarrassment she would not dare voice to her father. Or perhaps he did not know or approve of this scheme. Did she need protection her duke father could not provide? No longer provided?
Or protection because of her duke father?
“Well?” The lady straightened.
“Forgive me, Your Ladyship,” Drina replied, and a little crease marred the lady’s smooth brow. “I searched my memory for certain merchants, and yes, I do believe I can acquire what you need.”
A smile, blindingly white and wide, dominated Lady Vauquelin’s face. “Splendid.”
Porcelain rattled as Melanie arrived with the tea and served them.
“When?” Lady Vauquelin lifted a cup to her lips and took a soundless sip, only the slightest shift of her delicate throat betraying her.
“A few days, at the very least.” Before the lady could open her mouth, Drina added, “I shall need the time to devise a scent to camouflage the ithara. Unless you are unconcerned about its detection?” She drank some of her tea. Honeyed. Spiced.
Two perfectly sculpted eyebrows rose. “Brilliant suggestion, Mistress Vaganay. Your intelligence belies your station.”
Thousand thanks, haughty bitch. “You honor me with your praise.” She smiled thoughtfully and inclined her head.
“Soon, a new Court Alchemist will surely be appointed,” the woman crooned, setting down her tea, her grin flashing a dazzling brilliance, “and you should make a magnificent assistant.”
Assistant?
Before a scream could leave your lips, I could relieve your body of your head.
“I have some influence with the crown now, and I’m confident I could see it arranged.” She practically glowed as she grinned.
“Splendid, Your Ladyship!” She chuckled softly. “I should like that very much.” She straightened. “I should go and send the necessary letters, Your Ladyship, by your leave?”
“By all means.” The woman stood from the sofa with a toss of her shining locks.
“You shall hear from me anon.” Drina stood and bowed. “A pleasure as always, Your Ladyship.”
And she took her leave of the luxurious quarters. A couple of servants strode past in the hall.
The lady would have her weapon. She seemed a weakling, vulnerable, a pretty flower to be admired with little depth, but in the shadows of her petals hid a ruthless strength—ironwood. Without a husband and turned away from her powerful father, she did not recoil from shame and indignity if it meant attainment of her ends. Better to blush once than to pale a hundred times.
If the ends are worthy, all means are utile.
And if the lady attained her end—Drina smiled—it would but sweeten the vengeance. The death of a lover would be a sword through Favrielle’s heart, but the knowledge that her lover strayed and conceived a lovechild? A second blade. A third. Drina grinned.
At last the hall was empty, and she cast a shadow cloak over herself and crept to the dark wall.
Now it was time for the true work to begin. On the night of the Veris Ball, her blade would finally taste king’s blood.
A good plan included not only entry but escape. For that, she’d need a schedule of guard postings and rotations. At the changing of the guard, she’d make her exit. She planned to live to savor her hard work.
Cloaked in shadow, she made her way to Trèstellan’s east wing, where Guard-Captain Lambert Corriveau’s office was located on the ground floor. Guards strode in and out, clad in shining armor and Trèstellan’s sapphire-and-white tabards. She angled around a wall.
Voices neared from behind.
Whisper-quiet, she crept across to a statue, taking cover behind the massive plinth. Two guards passed toward the guard-captain’s office. They would enter and soon leave.
Opportunity.
She abandoned her satchel, then moved from shadow to shadow in the sconce-lit hall and took up position in the corner next to the door. Muffled conversation carried from the office for some time, followed shortly by footsteps, nearer and nearer.
The door opened wide.
One guard left the room. Another.
Drina slipped in toward the dark, the door shutting behind her. She crouched next to a cabinet.
Two candelabra lit the office, and Corriveau slumped over his desk, massaging his grayed temples. Thick brows furrowed, he stared at a paper, closed his eyes, breathed slow and deep. Such targets were butter to the knife, and were she here to kill him, his life would have earned its cost many times over.
Not tonight. Between now and Veris, as little had to change as possible. Nothing, preferably, for the sake of stability.
The high-backed chair scraped at last. His gaze settled on her.
She froze. Swallowed. Her fingers twitched over her boot, where her soulblade was sheathed.
To his eyes, she would be nothing more than shadow, camouflaged in the darkness cast by the cabinet.
He headed toward her.
She tensed, her fingers grazing the pommel of her soulblade.
Closer, closer—but no, he went to the cabinet. A drinks cabinet.
She suppressed a relieved sigh as he poured a glass of brandy, drank it down, and poured another. With a turn to the windows—they faced the gardens—he sipped the second glass. Slowly.
Last year, in the office of the General of the Blackblade mercenary company, she had crouched for seven hours, waiting for the general to abandon a document long enough to steal it. The name of a pirate captain and slaver who could not be bought. One without heart. Whose word was iron.
Pity Faolan Aldair Marcel’s machinations hadn’t planned on a hidden heir. He hadn’t reached out to her about assassinating Jonathan Dominic Armel Faralle, but he would hardly complain about a dead king, least of all when it would likely lead to the reestablishment of the Marcel dynasty of kings.
Corriveau drained the dregs in his glass, set it down, and moved to his desk. He pulled out a key, unlocked a drawer, and arranged various documents within. He locked it, doused the candles, and made his exit.
Finally.
His footsteps faded in the hall until silence reclaimed the office. She headed for the desk. The locked drawer.
She grinned.
Magehold surely missed its skeleton key. She seized the thong around her neck, pulled up the recondite artifact, and inserted it into the lock. Open. She turned the key.
Unlocked.
Correspondence, orders, complaints, rotations. For the next couple of months. Including Veris.
And just like that—entry and exit. For a royal assassination.
In their room for the night, Rielle bathed while Brennan sat facing away from her at the table, eating. A lot. She smiled.
As she washed, her hand shook like a novice over her first healing spell, but she ignored it. They’d asked around the inn about mages, but the innkeeper said they all stayed at the zahibshada’s palace or the barracks, where even foreign mages were welcome to lodge, brighten their anima, and learn. Of course.
Brennan had thanked him and said they’d visit there tomorrow, a wise answer to deflect suspicion. And then he’d sent a message to the captain of the Liberté, asking whether there’d be another mage aboard for resonance.
No word yet. She’d have to keep her trembling under control.
After
rinsing her hair, she left the tub and toweled off. In their packs she found a floor-length crimson chemise that had to be a nightgown. Ostentatious, but she put it on. It was soft, at least.
Smoothing its fabric against her body, her palm lingered over her belly. Her flat, empty belly.
The pressure behind her eyes pushed.
It would pass. It always did. It would pass.
Her fingers shook, and she fisted them, forced her hands to her sides. She raised her chin, took deep breaths, blinked and blinked and blinked until it passed.
She still bled, but less and less, and the painful cramps had lessened. Her body was recovering, even if nothing else was. But she couldn’t afford to give herself over to grief. Not now, not yet, not until Jon was safe and Shadow was dead.
She wasn’t alone. Brennan was here. She could talk to him, keep her mind occupied. Worry about the resonance partner she sorely needed.
“I’m decent.” She stepped out.
Brennan continued eating, making quick work of a heaping plate, but the table was…
There had been enough food for a small army, but there was enough just for her now. She hid a smile and sat.
He glanced from his empty plate up to her. “What?”
She picked some of everything for her own plate. “Nothing.”
He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, eyeing her with a crooked smile. “Clearly it’s something.”
Ever since his first Change, he’d eaten like a… Well, like a wolf. But it had been so long since she’d sat down to an intimate meal with him and actually watched him. She took a sip of her mint tea. “I’d forgotten how much you eat.”
He huffed a breath, his hazel eyes gleaming. “Watching my figure?” He held her gaze.
Her face warmed, and a shiver shook through her frame. He was attractive and he knew it. Half the women in Emaurria knew it. She did, too, especially after their night at House Hazael.
But this wasn’t about that. She lowered her eyes and drank her tea silently.
“You care about me,” he said, his voice low.
Gulping, she tried not to choke on the tea and set it down while it trailed down her chin. Of course.
By Dark Deeds (Blade and Rose Book 2) Page 40
