“Forgive me,” Olivia whispered. “I should have checked—”
“Yes, you should have.” Despite the brusqueness of his answer, it did no good to blame now, no matter how angry he was. Olivia had gone far beyond her duties in serving the kingdom and helping him; if she’d erred, it was because he’d overburdened her. He sighed. “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”
She kept her head bowed.
“Thank you for telling me.” He rose and cracked his stiff neck. “A lesser person would have kept such knowledge hidden.”
She raised her head. “I would never have forgiven myself. My mistake has come at a high price to two people I love very much.”
Mistake. Unintentional. He knew that.
He’d once blamed Leigh for Rielle’s disappearance—wrongfully. Despite Leigh’s guilt in thwarting the rite, he’d no more caused Rielle’s disappearance than any other circumstance leading her to the capital. All the blaming had done was cost Leigh his freedom when he could have been useful—
And keep me from facing my own guilt.
He wouldn’t make the same mistake with Olivia. She’d been involved in the situation, but she hadn’t caused it. That guilt lay squarely with Nora.
He offered Olivia a hand.
She took it, and he helped her to her feet.
“You’ve been a great friend to me, Olivia,” he said. “This kingdom—and I—wouldn’t be here without you.”
She flushed and pulled away. “I hope all goes well tonight. If you’d like to talk tomorrow, I’ll be in the Magic Library.”
He nodded. “Thank you.”
Her cloak in hand, she smiled warmly and took her leave.
All that mattered now was earning Rielle’s forgiveness, if such a thing was possible.
And dealing with Nora.
All this time, Nora had been playing him for a fool. Scheming. Lying to his face. Smiling at him in bed while harboring deception in her heart. Balling his fists, he turned back to the dining room door, opened it, then crossed his quarters to the bedchamber’s door.
Nora still lay sprawled in bed, grinning up at him, but her grin quickly faded.
“We’re done.” He strode to his privy wardrobe, unfastening his doublet, and sorted through his clothes. Something appealing. If Rielle planned to say goodbye, he wouldn’t make it easy for her.
“What?” Nora rose and knelt on the bed, sat back on her haunches. “Why?”
“How about treason?” he answered through clenched teeth.
Her mouth fell open, and she paled. Good.
“She’s alive after all.” She raised a languid shoulder. “I saw my chance, and I took it.”
Not a shred of guilt. He crushed the fabric of an overcoat in his grip.
He shouldn’t have expected otherwise. “You used your son to lie to me.”
She pursed her lips playfully. “Did I?” she asked mockingly. “Novice mages, especially children, are so unreliable. It’s difficult to know what they’ll say or do.”
Already planning her defense. “And yet, when there’s an arrow in the target and you’re holding a bow, there’s an obvious conclusion. One your judge would see clearly.”
The levity faded from her expression. “You wouldn’t try a widow, Your Majesty, surely? You’d have mercy?”
He pulled away from the clothes, straightened, and regarded her through slitted eyes. “You have my mercy, Nora,” he bit out, “unless word spreads of what happened. Then you will force your own arrest.” Despite his poor judgment, he couldn’t have others deciding he’d be easy to manipulate, nor lenient with treason.
She opened her mouth—
“You’re no longer welcome at court. Leave within three days.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And if I stay?”
“You won’t have my mercy.” Shoulders squared, he stood unmoving, gaze fixed on her. If she meant to test him, she would learn just how dedicated he was to following through on his word. Even if she had been his lover. Even if she was a widow.
She lowered her gaze to the floor.
A moment passed, and just when he’d decided to dismiss her, she left the bed, smoothed her gown, and bowed. “By your leave, Your Majesty.”
As she exited, he leaned against the doorjamb. Nora was leaving court. Aless would be as well, and his stalling tactic was on the verge of collapse.
And yet… Rielle was alive. Here. And meeting him tonight.
Whatever else happened, there was victory in that. Joy. Hope.
Even if she wanted nothing more to do with him, tonight he’d give her the one thing she’d wanted more than anything for as long as he’d known her.
Chapter 51
The Great Bell chimed half an hour to midnight before Rielle woke and sat up from her short rest. Perhaps her eyes wouldn’t be so sore anymore.
Next to her, Brennan lay face down on the bed, but he jerked awake and raised his head to look at her.
She held up her hands, and he rubbed his tired face with a palm. All day, he’d watched her as though she might break. She’d already done that once, and didn’t plan to dwell on it. Nothing would come of more weeping and wailing; reality was what it was.
And yet, having a friend near, Brennan near, had been a comfort she’d needed.
She glanced at the window.
There wasn’t enough time to take a carriage to Trèstellan. She’d have to ride. Squinting in the dark, she tried to decide what to wear; Brennan had brought what things she’d had on her mission to Monas Amar. Something among those would have to do.
A cotton shirt, a dark-blue brocade vest, wool trousers, and a knee-length, wool-lined, skirted black leather overcoat. She stepped behind the screen and hastily changed.
As she laced her boots, a rustle came from the bed. Brennan rose, his form silhouetted in the ambient streetlight from the window. He pulled on his overcoat and met her at the door as she threw on the strandling-lined crimson wool cloak he’d gotten her.
“What are you doing?” she whispered, rushing to braid her hair.
“You’re leaving,” he answered. “Where you go, I go.”
Overprotective. She rolled her eyes but headed into the hall and down the stairs, then out to the stable. With a grimace and jittery fingers, she saddled a horse.
This morning had been… Divine, she’d shouted at him, wept, lost complete control of herself.
Not fureur.
No, thanks to Jon, she’d made peace with herself four months ago. She felt love, rage, and grief, and she owned it, was strong enough to own it, instead of curling up while a shadow self took over.
Shackled in arcanir, she’d had four months to feel the power of those emotions and to take ownership of them. She was whole, and that was in great part due to his love and guidance.
On the night of Spiritseve, Jon had loved her. It was as certain as her beating heart. And her disappearance wouldn’t have changed that overnight. Every moment they’d spent together since Bournand had proven his love.
And some spiritualist had made a mistake and declared her dead. What had happened when he’d heard those words? In her time at House Hazael, if one of the many pieces of news she’d translated had declared him dead, what would she have done? With no room to grieve as she’d planned to save herself and Sylvie, might she have distracted herself with something, too?
The bay stallion nipped her elbow. She yelped and tried to calm him.
“Sorry,” she whispered, taking better care in his saddling.
Brennan made quick work of saddling his horse but waited to give her a leg up.
“I’ll be fine.”
“All the same,” he answered, “until that bitch is dead, I’m coming with you.”
That bitch. Shadow. He worried Shadow would hurt her if he didn’t come along.
As much as she wanted to protest, she wouldn’t turn away his help.
“All right.” She urged the stallion out of the stable and toward Trèstellan, shivering at the biting
cold outside.
The Great Bell chimed midnight when she and Brennan made it to his quarters. A sealed message from Jon waited there, asking her to meet him in the Grand Library.
“I’ll wait for you here.” Brennan laid his cloak over a chair.
She hugged him and kissed his cheek before she thought not to. He raised his eyebrows, but to his credit, he quickly smiled.
“Go,” he whispered.
The message in hand, she shuffled through the halls as quickly as she dared, presenting the message whenever stopped.
Tonight, at least, couldn’t go as badly as last night had.
At last, she made it to the Grand Library’s ornate gilded doors. Jon’s guards stood outside and, when she showed them the message, opened the doors for her.
A dazzling abundance of candles illuminated the vast library, splendid floral arrangements bountiful with red roses gracing the enormous tables at the center. Floor-to-ceiling windows faced the courtyard, frosted but for the steamy pane before Jon.
He leaned against the frame, dressed in finely tailored black tiretaine wool and cotton, his arms crossed, biceps straining against his sleeves. His eyes, fixed on something in the courtyard, bore none of the verve she so vividly remembered. They were subdued, and perhaps now, so was he.
He glanced her way and straightened as the doors closed. The radiance of the candlelight cast a warm glow on his bronze skin.
“Rielle,” he said, deeply, hoarsely. A world crept in the shadow of that one word.
She bowed.
He winced but gestured to two high-backed chairs at the end of the long center table, one at the head and one to its side. When she approached, he helped her out of her cloak and pulled out the closer chair for her, then seated himself. She took off her gloves.
For a moment, he just looked at her, eyes sullen beneath a creased brow. “Are you well?”
Well? A small part of her cracked at the question—there was no well after what had happened. Not even close.
But she silenced that small part and nodded. “Brennan said I’ll need to eat about two loaves of bread a night for a few weeks until I look like myself again.”
Jon crossed his arms and covered his upturned mouth pensively with a finger. “He’s not wrong.” He nodded toward a platter of cakes and tea service on the table. “Help yourself.”
“I don’t plan to make up all the difference now.”
He laughed under his breath while she poured herself some white tea and helped herself to some spiced custard tarts, her favorite. Not a coincidence. She took a sip of the tea—jasmine—with an inward grin. He tried to put her at ease. It was working.
For a moment, he watched her with a pleased smile, then poured himself a cup.
Straightening, she set hers down. “I don’t want to waste your time, so—”
“You couldn’t, even if you tried.” He set down his own cup. “Where have you been?” He nodded to her hands.
Her golden-brown, tan hands. She sighed. “Sonbahar.”
He leaned back in his chair and rested his ankle on the opposite knee, tracing a soft circle on the table with a finger.
Her eyelids fluttered closed—she remembered the softness of his touch on her skin the night before Spiritseve, camped on the Mor Bluffs—and fluttered open again. The night they’d conceived Sylvie.
He raised his eyebrows. Awaiting further answer.
She cleared her throat. “And then we, um, took a ship home.”
A faint line deepened between his eyebrows. “You were in Sonbahar, and then you took a ship home.” He took a deep breath. “That’s it?”
She shrugged. “I killed a kraken and met some mermaids.”
“Rielle—” He frowned and shook his head, his bearing hardening. “Tell me what happened. Don’t you have any idea how worried I’ve been?”
She stiffened. Worried. He hadn’t sounded worried in his quarters last night. “I had some idea, Your Majesty, yesterday.”
His eyes blazing, he raked his fingers through his thick hair. “I thought you were dead.” He clenched his fists, then crossed his arms again, keeping them tight against his chest, as if they’d betray his will. “I died a slow death waiting for any news of you. Any. And I had no reason to believe the spiritualist Olivia procured would lie—”
The rising pressure boiled over. “So you gave up?” The question choked out of her.
“It had been nearly four months since you’d been gone, with no word from you, no word about you from Brennan. When the spiritualist told me you weren’t among the living, Terra have mercy, but yes, I believed him.” His eyes shone, a violent tempest raging in his sea-blue depths.
He looked away and dragged in a deep breath. “I should have come after you myself.”
A thousand times. She’d thought a thousand times that he was coming after her. In the dark, in the cold, in the heat. In danger. In humiliation. In fear. She’d held on to that thought. That she needed Jon, and he was coming for her.
But a fragile part of her, a selfish part, had always wanted to come first for him, above everything and everyone. And it was that fragile, selfish part that couldn’t ignore him setting her aside, even for the sake of a kingdom.
Yet he couldn’t have put her above the entire kingdom. She knew that. Deep down, she knew that. But she’d sold herself dreams and delusions, tranquilized herself with a fanciful tale of a man who loved her coming to save her. It had been naive, pathetic, but it had been hope, when she’d sorely needed it.
Rain tapped against the massive windows, washing over the frost, blurring it.
A deep frown settled into Jon’s face, holding back, holding in. For a while, he stared into nothing with searing intensity, before taking several deep breaths.
The rain eased.
She stared at the window, doubting her own eyes. Uncanny. “It’s strange, but the rain…”
“I am Earthbound.” His voice, deep and hoarse, rang hollow.
Earthbound. She and Jon had talked about it in Bournand—but not in real terms. According to legend, the Earthbinding was a ritual performed at a Vein by a king, a ritual that would bind him to the land to influence its health, prosperity, and strength.
Bound to the land. Jon and the land are one.
Courdeval had been freezing, colder than she’d ever remembered. Frigid.
She stared at Jon, her mouth falling open. Was that how he felt? Cold, detached, without warmth of feeling? His heart frozen to its core?
“Losing you was”—he shook his head—“waking death.”
She? She was… the reason?
She slumped in her chair, but Jon bolted upright.
“No,” he breathed, his eyebrows drawn together. “No, please. Don’t think it. Don’t think it a second more.” He reached across the table before he caught himself and pulled back his hand, slowly curled his fingers inward. “It’s my responsibility to master myself, to become what this land needs me to be. No one else’s.”
She glanced at his tense hands. Would they feel the same as she remembered? Warm, strong, a little coarse, firm on her body, safe, secure… wrapped around her own hand, so perfectly, like it belonged there.
Divine, she loved him. Loved him so much it hurt. “What do you want from me, Jon?”
“I want you to be happy.”
She looked away.
The moans and cries from his quarters haunted her.
“Too much has happened,” she whispered, her voice breaking. And it wasn’t just about his lover, or that he hadn’t come to her rescue.
She, too, had done things that would hurt him. For her own survival and Sylvie’s, she’d surrendered to Farrad. She’d kissed Brennan—and more—in that pretense the night before the party. Hopefully Jon would understand, but… she understood why he’d turned to another woman, and yet the pain of that night hadn’t dulled.
And she kept knowledge of Sylvie from him. It was wrong, and she’d tell him all of it… after she defeated Shadow. It would
be as Olivia said—all wounds faded with time.
He leaned in. “I… I have a few things for you.”
She tilted her head. What could he possibly…?
He reached around his neck and raised a necklace bearing a ring. A signet ring. Hers. He held it out to her, letting it hang from his grasp, and she held out a palm for him to drop it into.
The Laurentine signet ring, engraved with the rose encircled by a chaplet of honeysuckle, was warm in her hand. Jon’s warmth. She rubbed its band softly before donning the necklace over her head, pulling her braid out over it.
He then removed a ring from his hand and placed it on the table in front of her. The Sodalis ring.
“I can’t accept this,” she whispered. He’d given it to her once in Melain, with his love.
“Accept it, free of any conditions.”
“Jon—”
He shook his head. “It’s yours. I’ve only held it for you in your absence. Please.”
She reached for it and placed it over her thumb, the only finger it wouldn’t slip from easily. “I will treasure it.”
Finally, he slid some parchment from the far corner of the table toward her.
“What is this?” She read the script.
“A grant of your petition to dissolve your marriage contract.”
Her lips parted, but her breath caught. How often had she prayed, even aloud to Jon, that the new king would grant her petition? And here it was, the freedom she’d so longed for.
Freedom.
She’d no longer be promised to Brennan, and he no longer promised to her. She would be free to marry someone else, or no one at all, if she so desired. And he would be free to find a new bride.
She swallowed. Just five months ago, she’d hated Brennan so fiercely that she would have done anything to dissolve the betrothal.
But since Xir…
Since Xir, he’d been a new man. Kind, sincere. Loving. Honorable. He’d become the man she’d always imagined he’d someday be, back when she’d been just a girl. The kind of husband she’d always imagined he’d be. The man her parents had wanted her to marry. The man Gran wanted her to marry.
By Dark Deeds (Blade and Rose Book 2) Page 54
