"You will see us, Aunt Marie," Nolan swore. "When I am restored to my rightful place, you will occupy a place of honor."
"Because you say so?"
"Because you deserve it."
"Kiss my cheek, nephew." Her sudden demand was off-putting, but Nolan handed the box of books to Gia and obliged. Her skin was cool and dry, almost papery.
"Let's go."
The trio slipped from the room, Pyrrhus in the lead as he took seldom-trod hallways and staircases to the family garage. He pushed the other two into the car and started the engine.
As they pulled off into the woods surrounding Conleth, Gia was already opening the box of books and thumbing through the contents.
"I should have gloves on for this," she muttered, already beginning to read the first page of the first journal.
***
“Report.”
The young commando quailed under his Lord’s gaze. “I am afraid I don’t have much to add, my Lord.” His voice was raspy and weak—he fought down the urge to cough and wished for the ice chips the Medica suggested.
“If I thought that to be true, I wouldn’t be wasting my time with you. Report.”
“We breached the dining room at approximately 1900 hours. All present were caught off guard except Lord Alan, who summoned us to retrieve the traitor. We did not expect to see Lady Younger Zephyra there.”
Arias narrowed his eyes. “Continue.”
“Fighting spilled out into the hall. The target and the Lady fought their way through many of our guards—though in our defense, many of us were reluctant to attack our own Lady.”
“I am told you spoke to my errant sister.”
“I—“
“It is my understanding that she is who damaged your voice.”
“It is not permanent, my Lord. Yes, I spoke to the Lady. I begged her to reconsider.”
“And in return she did this to you?”
The man nodded, hoping his part was done.
“You should be ashamed of yourselves—Giada is weak and easily cowed. How she bested you is beyond me. Dismissed.”
“My Lord, there was one more thing…”
Arias raised an eyebrow, surprised at the man’s continued presence. “Speak quickly.”
The man held his hand out, the Lady Younger Zephyra pendant dangling from his fingers. “Wallace caught her, but they threw him over a cliff. He’ll survive—barely. He was found with this in his fist.”
He took it without a word before motioning for the man to be taken away. He sat for a moment, thinking about the reports from his people and the scathing call from Keopelani denouncing his numen’s involvement in the attack on Beachhead. His retort that they were attempting to capture a known traitor did not deflate her indignation in the slightest. Her barely veiled suggestion that he should disown his sister at last echoed in his mind as he held her pendant. Making a decision, he strode to the door and ripped it open.
“Bring me my wife and my sister,” he bellowed at the first servant to cross his path.
By the time the ladies arrived, he had calmed himself considerably. He’d also had a drink and retrieved items necessary for what he was about to do.
A tentative knock on the door made him smile. At least someone still respected his power.
“Enter.”
His wife came in first, her face tilted toward the floor. He admired the play of light across the glossy crown of her head. She was impeccably yet modestly dressed, as befit his wife.
“Shui, my dear,” he said, smiling at her involuntary flinch. “Have a seat. I have a task for you.”
His younger sister followed. Time back at home had smothered any spark of outrage or rebellion in her. She was wearing a black, long sleeved dress with a collar to her chin. Her swirling skirts hid her thin legs, and her hair was down around her face. She, too, refused to look him in the eye.
“Clara, dearest sister. Please, sit.”
They sat across from him, waiting for his next words. He laid the pendant out on the desk, prominently displayed.
“It is time to cast out the black swan from this family.”
Shui had been with him long enough to know how to stifle even the most heartfelt reaction. Clara was not yet that skilled. Her head shot up, catching his eye for a moment before she forced herself to nod.
“Yes, brother, you know best.”
“Indeed I do. I refuse to have a traitor in my family tree. Though I have no expectation of needing a spare heir, as my wife will surely bless us soon with a child…” His tone was just shy of threatening, and Shui shrunk back in her seat even further, “I refuse to let an accident of age allow the traitor to trade on her status any longer.” He pulled a small silver dagger out of its hiding place, eliciting gasps from the women across from him.
“Arias, please…”
“You dare?” he asked, still holding the dagger aloft. “You dare question me?”
“I do not. Forgive me, husband.”
Satisfied, he turned his attention to the ritual. He held the dagger in his right hand and deftly nicked the tip of his left index finger. “Giada Elisabetta Disanza, lately Lady Younger Zephyra, know this: you have chosen to defy your rightful Lord and master. For this reason, I cast you out. No longer will you be welcome at my Court, at my table, or in my life. If your new chosen Lord decides to abandon you, I will not take you back into our family. You will be less than a stranger—you will be an enemy to me and mine. May the gods judge you for your choice." As he spoke, he rubbed his blood over his signet ring, that which declared him the head of House Disanza. A flash of pale pink light met his pronouncement.
“And now, for the other order of business.”
He reached for the pendant with his bloodied fingers. This was his chance to cement in their minds his rightful place as Lord Zephyrus.
“I declare that Giada Elisabetta, formerly of House Disanza, is no longer worthy of the honour this pendant bestows. I beseech the gods to recognize my faithful sister, Clara Letizia, as the Heir to my seat. Lady Younger Zephyra, take the order of your office.” He dropped the pendant into Clara’s hands. “Never remove it unless it is to hand it on. Wife, call Lord Gravis and ask him to attend us here within the week. I have a business proposition for him I think he will appreciate.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
“Do we need to stop for supplies?” Pyrrhus asked as they followed the turn off to the Village in the darkness. Gia’s little pen light in the backseat and the glowing from the dashboard provided the only illumination inside the car.
“I think we should just get home,” Nolan said. “Gia?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you still reading back there?”
“Yes, of course—it’s fascinating.”
“Well, if we could have your attention for five seconds…get down!” Nolan barked, dropping his torso flat against his knees in the passenger’s seat. “Pyrrhus, go.”
“What is it?”
“Sam.”
The old chef was watching their car pass by from his porch, his eyes narrowed. Pyrrhus sped by as quickly as he could manage while not drawing even more attention to them.
“It’s five in the morning—what was he even doing out on the porch?”
“Do you think he saw us?”
“I don’t know—we’d better lay low for a bit. Gods, I wish there was a better way to get to the house without driving straight up the main damn road.”
Sam watched the taillights of the car follow the main road to its end and then disappear as if it had never been.
Nolan Aeron was back in the Village.
His first instinct was to charge up there, proverbial guns blazing (though a real gun wouldn’t go amiss) and take him head on. Experience, however, reminded him that this would be foolish at best and deadly at worst. No…
He had to be cunning.
He waited exactly one week to let their guard drop, then walked to the end of the road under the cover of darkness to look for
car tracks. As he traced them through the woods, he almost stumbled into a clearing holding a small, charming house.
Jackpot.
Despite the lateness of the hour, he went directly home and dug up the slip of paper from Lord Artifex. He dialed the number on it with shaking hands.
“Speak,” the woman answered, sounding bored.
Sam did his best to give only the facts. The woman made no noises on her end other than her soft breathing and the sound of something staccato clicking against something else—her nails, maybe?
When he was finished, she said only, “Understood.”
“I want to be there when you—“
A harsher click, and the line went dead.
“Damn it!” he snarled.
“Daddy?”
He turned to see his youngest, Allie, standing in the hall at the bottom of the steps. “Sweetheart, why are you out of bed? It’s late.”
“I heard you talking and I thought someone was here,” she said, letting him scoop her up and begin to carry her back to bed. “I didn’t want to miss anything.”
“You’re not missing anything except sleep, Alison Jane,” he said more sternly. “Now, go on with you.” He put her back on her feet at the top of the stairs and gave her a gentle push toward the bedroom she shared with her sister. “You didn’t wake Lindsey or your mother, did you?”
“Daddy, Linny and Mommy can sleep through anything.”
He laughed under his breath. “From the mouths of babes. Good night, Allie.”
She blew him a kiss and dragged her teddy bear back to bed.
He tried to redial the number, but got no response. Frustrated, he racked his brain for a way to ensure that he would be present for the capture of Nolan Aeron. He finally resolved to watch the house as often as possible until he could figure out a more permanent solution.
***
Kale knocked on the imposing wooden door for the fifth day in a row. "Leiani, I've brought you breakfast. Please open the door." His wheedling words might as well have been addressed to the door itself for all the good they did. She didn't speak. She didn't come out to see him, or let him in to see her. Just the silence of a solid mahogany door inlaid with mother-of-pearl.
He dropped the tray on the nearest side table with a growl and stalked down to Keopelani's receiving room.
"Lady Keopelani, may I ask for a private audience?"
She was only surprised he'd lasted this long. "Shut the door, Kale."
"My Lady, have you not charged me with the well being of your daughter, Leiani, Lady Younger Aqua?"
"I have."
"You have given me an impossible task."
She raised her eyebrow. "Explain."
"Leiani locked herself in her room—the room she and her former husband shared—the day you justly expelled him from this court, and she has not left it. The door has not opened for her to receive food or companionship. She carries an Heir to your blood, yet I am afraid she is putting the baby in danger by conducting a hunger strike." He fell to his knees. "I dare not cross proper boundaries with her without your approval, and yet as her subject, I can not do what I need to in order to keep her alive. I beg for your counsel in this."
Keopelani frowned. “I was not aware it was so serious. Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Kale.” She was quiet for a moment, and he stayed still, letting her think.
“You are correct—your current position is untenable. I have a proposition for you… a reward, if you like, for your diligent care of my daughter.”
***
Leiani was curled in on herself in her bed, hands cradling her stomach. She felt wrung out, like a dead and empty sponge. She couldn’t bring herself to eat, not even for Lani. She’d been drinking water from the bathroom tap, at least, but she wasn’t ready to face the world yet.
A rattling noise at the door made her sit up. Unlike Kale’s insistent knocks, this sounded like keys.
Her mother had come at last.
She defiantly kept her place on the rumpled bedding, ignoring her mussed hair and her tear stained, swollen face.
“Get up, Leiani.”
“I’d rather not. Where is Alan?”
“He is long gone, and you will not meet him again in this Court, I can assure you of that.”
Kale was standing at her mother’s shoulder. His expression was kind and concerned, but there was a spark in his eyes that made her focus on him.
“What is he doing here?”
“You cannot be trusted to care for yourself or your unborn daughter. Kale is your new betrothed—he will care for you until she is born, then you will wed.”
“Five days, Mother? That’s what my marriage was worth to you? Five days?” She was screaming now, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. “Get out!”
“I have given Kale permission to deal with you as a husband would his wife, providing that your child comes to no harm.” She turned and nodded to Kale. “As we agreed, she will not leave this suite unless I command it. You alone will have access...and myself, of course.”
“Yes, Lady Aqua.”
“What? Mother, no! Please!”
“Come, Kale.”
Keopelani left her stunned daughter behind as she led him to the door. A blast of her numina, and the mahogany door was shattered into splinters. She raised her arms and swept a wall of water across the open doorway. It poured down to the tile before curling in on itself to race to the top, beginning the process anew. The churning water was mostly opaque, with only vague hints of the hallway beyond.
“Place your hands against it.”
Kale obeyed, and he was suddenly stumbling through to the hall, completely dry. Keopelani stepped after him.
Leiani leapt from the bed and rushed to follow, but the wall of water may as well have been concrete. She bounced off of it onto the floor.
“This is for your own good, sweetheart,” Keopelani said. “Kale will make a fine husband.”
They left her sitting on the floor, weeping as though her heart was breaking all over again.
***
Angus stiffened his spine under the forbidding glare of Arias Disanza. "No."
"No? You dare? My sister's bloodline alone makes her worth one hundred of you! The mere fact that a Lion would be considered for the Disanza line should have you groveling at her feet!"
Angus ignored Arias and his Ailurophobic remarks and bowed his head in Clara's direction without meeting her eyes. His gaze fell on the Zephyra pendant, stark white and silver against the black of her dress. "No disrespect meant, Lady Younger. You are a beautiful, intelligent woman, and anyone would be lucky to have you."
"What—"
"However," Angus stressed, ignoring Arias' sputtering protests, "marrying you while I am in love with your sister would be the height of bad form."
"Giada is a whore and a traitor. You can't possibly prefer her. Regardless, your marriage would be brief—she will be executed for treason, I guarantee it."
Angus watched Clara out of the corner of his eye. She'd turned even paler at the word 'executed', and the long sleeves of her gown didn't quite cover the bruises on her wrists. In that moment, he saw in her the young Gia he first met—abused, shy, without a friend in the world and under her brother's vicious thumb. Out of nostalgia and longing, he made a snap decision.
"Very well. I accept your substitution of the younger girl for the older."
As Arias reached his hand out to shake on it, Angus pulled his back. "I have a few conditions."
"You—"
"I believe you've already said all you need to say about my unworthiness," he said coolly, taking a seat and staring up at Arias with more than a hint of insolence. "Like it or not, I have conditions. Is it worth going through them, or would you like to take your sister and go?"
He held his breath, hoping Arias wouldn't call his bluff.
After a moment of indecision, Arias sat down to face him, motioning for his sister to remain standing.
"Na
me them."
"You will turn Clara over to me today. I will take over her guardianship as her betrothed. She will return to Caer Anglia—I refuse to marry a girl who is not considered a grown woman. You will send her things along to Caer Anglia within the week."
"I understand your desire to take possession of her now," Arias said, the emphasis making Angus slightly sick to his stomach. "Is the Rite of Passage truly necessary, however? She won't be better in bed or at bearing children because of it."
"No, perhaps not, but it's what I wish. In exchange, I will support the Disanza-Zephyrus faction in Council."
Arias sat for a moment, his hands on his knees. Clara stood behind him, her head bowed.
"Do you expect a dowry?" he asked once he’d turned Angus’s deal over in his mind.
"No. I expect your support of my reforms and of my continued presence on the Council... and Nolan Aeron's head on a platter. Do we have an accord?"
This time, they shook in the age-old sign of agreement. Pale yellow light burst from between their clasped hands, sealing their deal with their numina.
"You may take her with you as soon as you like. I will be in touch." Arias left the room without another word.
As soon as the door shut behind him, Angus leapt to his feet and practically pushed Clara into the chair recently vacated by her brother.
"Clara—are you okay?"
She couldn't answer at first—she was too busy trying to keep what little food she had in her system down. When the nausea finally passed, she whispered, "Why did you do that?"
"No one deserves to be treated like that by their own blood. Besides... you remind me of Gia."
"Are you really going to marry me?"
"If it gets to that point, yes. Let's take things a step at a time, shall we? I am your guardian now, as your intended. First things first, let's get you cleaned up and fed. You Disanza girls always look like a strong wind could knock you down—ironic, really."
He offered her his hand.
"Are you really going to support Arias?"
"I don't believe that was the deal I agreed to, is it?"
He could see the wheels turning in her head and she replayed the conversation. "You never said you would support him. You only said you would support the Disanzas. That could be me, or Gia!"
The Complete Chosen Trilogy (The Chosen #0) Page 47
