by K A Dowling
“You shouldn’t have risked it.”
“You would have been executed if I hadn’t.”
She is quiet at that, watching him.
“What is it about me that sets me apart from any other Cairan?” she asks at last.
“You don’t know?” His voice is quiet. His brows pull close together. Something deep within her flutters awake at the wounded look in his eyes. She thinks of the way he had kissed her in the street all those nights ago—the way he had pulled her to him, had used his kiss to say all that he couldn’t say there in the treacherous darkness, standing on the cusp of battle. She’d misunderstood him that night. She’d thought him inappropriate—lecherous.
She thinks of how he had followed her to her quarters, panic in his shoulders and desperation in his voice. The look in his eyes, then, had been telling enough.
You’ll love him, Nerani.
It will drown you both.
Nervously—hesitantly—she rises up onto her toes and plants a kiss lightly upon his lips. His entire body seems to come alive at her touch. He leans into her, the force of his weight robbing her of her breath. She can feel her lips part beneath his and suddenly the taste of him is dancing upon her tongue. His hands close gingerly around her chin, holding her in place. One stray finger trails against a fluttering vein in her neck, tracing the lines of her. She feels as though her bones are clattering upon the floor at her feet, left to be swept away by the screaming wind that howls just outside.
When he finally moves away from her, his breathing is clipped. His lips linger just inches away from hers. Her good fingers clutch at the golden collar of his uniform. She stares at the damp fabric within her hand, unsure of how it got there.
“Why?” she asks. Her voice emanates from a million miles away.
She does not need to clarify what she means.
“I think I’ve loved you from the moment I met you.” His voice is hoarse—low. His words pummel into her like a wave against the shore. Beneath her petticoat, she feels her knees wobble. She thinks back to that day in the square, when he had insisted on accompanying her to the cathedral. His cordiality towards her had been strange and confusing.
“But you didn’t know who I was,” she points out. “You thought I was a foreign visitor.”
He shakes his head, his gaze earnest. “You told me you were the daughter of a merchant, but I didn’t believe you. Your eyes were such a vivid blue. You couldn’t have been anything but a Cairan, but didn’t matter to me. It hasn’t mattered since the moment I saw you.”
“And my people?” She draws back from him just a step. Her good hand remains entangled in the gold buttons of his lapel.
“What of them?”
“How can you profess to love me but hate what I am?”
The word love tastes strange upon her tongue. She watches as a groove deepens between his eyes. He appears stricken by her question. “I don’t know that—” he starts, and stops, considering. His teeth graze his lower lip. “I don’t know what I believe. I don’t know who I am anymore.”
The look in his eyes frightens her. She thinks of Orianna and wishes she hadn’t.
Two golden men stand in a red sea.
Two golden men drown in the tide.
Gooseflesh rises upon Nerani’s skin in spite of the heat. She pushes all thoughts of Orianna away, glancing instead at the ghostly contents of the storeroom. The shadows are filled with discarded memories of James Byron’s childhood.
“I know who you are,” she whispers.
“Do you?”
“You’re James Byron, a fisherman’s son,” she says. His eyes widen in surprise. A small smile breaks out across his face. From this proximity, she can see the shallow grooves of dimples on his cheeks. She’d never noticed them before today. She has never seen him smile.
“I suppose I am that,” he assents quietly, and kisses her again.
The door crashes open with a resounding bang. There is a hoarse shout and both of them fly apart.
“Get away from her,” growls a low voice.
James steps back carefully, raising his arms in compliance. Nerani can see his empty belt at his waist. He is unarmed. She glances up at him. His eyes are hard and cold, his face empty. He stares at the newcomer in calculating silence.
“William Blaine?” he says at last, his words tinted with surprise. Nerani, too, turns to see the man. He looks familiar, and yet she cannot figure out how she knows him.
“What are you doing out here in the city?” James asks.
The man laughs, his dark eyes twinkling as though he has just been delivered the punch line of a terrific jest. Suddenly, Nerani remembers where she knows him. He is a Cairan by the name of Blaine the Eager—one of Roberts’s Listeners. She presses her lips together, confused.
“Keep back,” Blaine snaps, brandishing a gleaming grey pistol. He holds it steadily, aiming it with unwavering purpose at James’s head. “I will be taking the girl with me.”
“Take her,” James says, and shrugs. Blaine gestures for Nerani to move closer to him. She hesitates, glancing instead over her shoulder. Her heart is in her throat, threatening to choke her. The nod James gives her is nearly imperceptible.
Go.
She takes a slow step in Blaine’s direction. Outside, there are footfalls on the street.
“In here!” Blaine shouts. The footsteps quicken, soft flesh against rough stone. Roberts appears in the doorway, flanked by a young woman Nerani has never before seen. Her white blonde hair clings to her face as she peers around the room. Her grey eyes alight on James and she flashes him a wide smile.
“Saynti,” Roberts whispers, expelling a relieved sigh as he races towards Nerani. He pulls her roughly into his arms, kissing the top of her forehead. Her lungs are nearly crushed beneath the weight of his embrace. “Thank you, Saynti,” he says again. His voice is gruff. “Damn it, I thought I’d lost you.”
It takes a moment for him to take notice of James, still standing with his hands raised in silent submission.
“What’s this?” Roberts demands. He takes a step forward, shoving Nerani behind him. His emerald gaze flashes with familiar anger as he glares at the general. “What has he done to you?”
“Nothing.”
“Good.” The malice in Roberts’s voice is frightening. He turns towards Blaine. “Shoot him.”
Nerani’s heart skips several beats, robbing her of breath.
“No!” She shoves past Roberts and skids to a stop in front of James. She finds herself staring, suddenly, down the unforgiving barrel of a gun.
“Don’t shoot him.”
“Ani,” Roberts starts, slipping in his suprise. His green gaze is riddled with barely contained fury. His words fall out from behind clenched teeth. “What are you doing?”
“You can’t kill him,” she chokes, unable to meet her cousin’s eyes. She is starkly aware of the pistol that sits inches away from her face. “He’s—he’s unarmed.”
The words fall flat upon the ground before them.
“Do you realize who this man is?” Roberts demands, his voice barely concealing his revulsion. “Do you realize what he’s done?” He is shouting now, spittle converging at the corners of his lips.
“Yes,” Nerani’s voice is barely audible, even to her.
A lover, Orianna said. A traitor.
“Damn it, Ani, he killed my sister!”
“He didn’t!” she shouts back, tears jumping unexpectedly to her eyes. “He didn’t kill her, Rob.”
“Move out of the way.”
“I won’t let you shoot him.”
“What do you propose, then? If we leave him here alive it won’t be long before he sets his dogs on us.”
James’s voice from behind her startles her into silence. The words that fall from his lips are perfectly controlled. Level. “I won’t. You have my word. If any harm befalls you on your way back to the Forbidden City, it will not be at my hand.”
“What good is the word of a Guard
ian to us?” snarls Blaine.
“His word is good,” the blonde woman says. “I can attest to that.” Nerani meets those pale grey eyes across the dusky room. She is staring past her, her face unreadable—her gaze trained upon James. Nerani refocuses on Roberts, still bristling angrily just before her.
“Please. You’re not a murderer. Let it go. Take me home.”
There is a terrible stillness in the room. She watches the rise and fall of Roberts’s chest beneath his wool jerkin. Finally, his gaze softens. Lines of exhaustion deepen across his face. He holds out his hand.
“Come, Elegant,” he says wearily. She takes his hand slowly, feeling her fingers shaking within his. She cannot breathe. Her head is swimming. “My cousin is right. We’re not murderers. We need to be smarter than this. Lower your gun, Eager.”
Blaine does so, looking hesitant. He turns to go, following out the door behind the blonde haired Cairan woman.
Numb, her heart racing like a hummingbird, Nerani allows herself to be led from the shop. The stale smell of fish clings to her gown, infiltrating her skin. She glances over her shoulders only once, and when she does she sees James standing stalwart in the doorway, his golden figure blurred by the falling rain.
CHAPTER 28
Chancey
It does not take long for the summons to arrive.
James Byron stands outside the gleaming wooden doors of the throne room, conscious of his chest rising and falling beneath his golden uniform. His cloak weighs heavily upon his shoulders. The two Guardians that idle before him do not meet his gaze. Their hands are clasped behind their backs. Their eyes are shaded. They stare at the freshly polished checkered floor beneath their feet. He remains frozen in the grandiose hallway, trying to act as though the coldness of his inferior officers does not bother him.
He hears a noise from behind the door—a low coughing sort of sound. The Guardians jerk upright, squaring their shoulders at this strange and wordless cue. They pull open the wide set doors. Light spills across the hallway, momentarily blinding him.
“Enter.” Rowland’s voice sweeps across the vast emptiness of the throne room, pursued doggedly by its own rippling echo. He takes a measured step into the room. The two doors slam at his back. Five golden shafts of sunbeams split the room into partitions of shadow and light. He can hear the low chuckle of the king, dry and humorless, from somewhere at the far end of the room. He walks forward, his footfalls loud in the silence. Out of the corners of his eyes he can see the looming, noiseless silhouettes of the king’s lords and ladies. They move in a shapeless mass of shadow, fans fluttering against the stifling heat of the room.
As he approaches the throne, the figure of the king becomes steadily visible. Rowland Stoward leans forward in his chair, his stomach protruding from beneath his lapel of rich, white fur. He rubs his forefinger and his thumb together absently, his black eyes studying James as he draws to a stop near his feet.
“On your knees,” Rowland commands. One corner of his lip curls upward. James drops to the floor, head bowed. On his way down, he catches a glimmer of a silver and gold shadow lingering at the right hand of the king. Corporal Anderson. He fights to keep his face blank, his mood darkening considerably.
“What a mess,” he hears Rowland say. “What a dreadful, dreadful mess.”
He remains silent, his head angled downward.
“Twice now, is it?”
James swallows hard and says nothing. He is not expected to say anything, not yet. He can feel the polished marble through the fabric of his breeches. It is solid and cold against his kneecaps—the stretched white of his flesh presses hard against bone.
“Twice, yes,” Rowland breathes. His tone is that of a disproving father—one who has only recently caught his youngest son stealing bread from the kitchen maid. “Twice I have sent my herald out into the streets of Chancey to declare the execution of a gypsy witch. Twice, I have failed to deliver.”
A brief, oppressive silence swallows the inhabitants of the room. It is punctuated by a throaty laugh.
“No,” Rowland corrects. “It is not I that failed to deliver, is it, James? It is you.”
The time to speak has come. “Yes, your Majesty.”
“On your feet,” comes the brusque command. James rises slowly, heavily, his golden cloak weighting him to the marble floor like an anchor. He raises his gaze to meet his king. Two round black pits stare back at him.
“She escaped without a key,” Rowland says, turning suddenly to glance in the direction of his courtiers. His words have adopted a misplaced tone of cordiality, and yet the faint wisp of menace is still redolent upon his tongue. “And yet she escaped somehow in spite of this, and without any damage at all being done to the cell hold.”
The courtiers begin to comment amongst themselves—trained monkeys giving a trained response. The fluttering fans pick up speed as whispers move across the room in a murmuring wave.
“Witchcraft,” someone says, too loudly, and a fan snaps shut with an alarming sense of finality.
“Witchcraft, yes, perhaps. It certainly seems to reek of something evil. Perhaps the gypsy summoned the forbidden old magics, as you say, Lord Reynolds.” Rowland’s black gaze returns to James. “Then again, I find that treason has a similar stench.”
James remains quiet. He fights to keep his fingers still at his sides.
Rowland proffers a weary sigh. He leans back into his chair, dragging one heavily ringed hand down the length of his face.
“I am afraid I don’t quite understand what happened in the dungeons that afternoon. Perhaps you will enlighten me, James.”
“I cannot say, your Grace, I am as in the dark as you.”
Rowland leans forward in his chair with frightening immediacy. For a moment James wonders if the great king will topple onto the ground. “You cannot say, or you will not? Which is it?” Splotches of red have begun to prickle his cheeks just above the black line of his beard.
James squares his shoulders, keeping his gaze level with the king. “When I went down to the dungeon to retrieve the Cairan upon your Majesty’s orders, I found that she had disappeared.”
“And how did you find the cell? What state was it in?”
“It was just as you said, your Majesty. The cell door was closed and locked.”
“How?” The echo spirals through the grandiose room—ricocheting off of the vaulted ceiling and landing with a thud at James’s feet.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know.” Rowland leans back, the spine of his throne creaking against the pressure. A twisted smile pulls across his face. He glances down at Corporal Anderson and laughs a great, wheezing laugh. “He doesn’t know!” he repeats. “My great and fearsome General, who always has an answer for everything—he doesn’t know.”
The room is stifling. James swallows, reminding himself of the name that dances upon his tongue. Reminds himself that—if he is perfectly careful about how he proceeds—he holds the key to his own salvation.
Before him, Rowland has managed to pull himself together. He wipes at his eyes with his fingertips, his chuckles subsiding into silence. The only sound that remains is the lingering laughter of several courtiers who, missing their cue, have continued to loudly find humor in the rather humorless situation. Rowland claps his hands together and the sound comes to a choking halt.
“Corporal Anderson explained to me that you intercepted him in the torture chamber and sent him away.”
“I did, your Majesty.”
“What would compel you do such a thing? He was there upon my orders. Have you no respect for my authority?” The king’s voice is low, dangerous.
James delivers the response he had prepared earlier that morning, just after the summons arrived at his quarters. “I felt as though Corporal Anderson was not doing an adequate job at obtaining the necessary information from the Cairan.”
“Ah. Then I assume you were able to make the gypsy girl talk.”
James keeps his gaz
e blank. “No, your Grace.”
The king cups one large hand around a reddening ear, folding the elastic flesh of his lobe into a makeshift funnel. “Speak up, James, I’m afraid I could not hear you.”
“I was unable to gather any information from the Cairan. She was faint from the injuries she had sustained, and her mind was no longer clear. She lost consciousness shortly after I arrived. I’m afraid Corporal Anderson lacks the necessary finesse needed to draw out information slowly.”
“What did you do with her, then?” Corporal Anderson asks, his face flushing in irritation.
“I am asking the questions, Corporal.” Rowland rebukes before James can reply. He shoots an angry glance at the Guardian out of the corner of his eyes. The figure that hovers besides his throne blanches slightly, bowing his head.
“I apologize, your Majesty, I meant nothing by the intrusion.”
Rowland ignores him, turning his gaze instead back to James.
“What did you do with her?”
“I returned her to her cell.”
“Why did you not try to revive her?”
“It did not seem important at the time. I had no idea that she would have escaped when I next returned to continue the interrogation.”
“Clearly not!” Rowland snaps. The whites of his eyes grow visible behind his irises as he stares down upon James.
“No.” Rowland’s nostrils flare in an effort to remain calm. “No, it was not dark magic that helped her escape. It was a mortal man. It was a traitor to my throne. It was a man who would shoot one of the my own Golden Guardians dead from within the walls of the palace.” His lips curl into a sneer. “I suppose you also have not a clue who might have gained authorized entry to both the armory and the parapets.”
“Clearly, your Majesty, it was someone with unfettered access to the palace, otherwise he would have been apprehended long before reaching the battlements.”
“Indeed.” The sneer widens. The black gaze stares pointedly at him. James expected this—he prepared for this. Why not? After all, it was he who fired the gun. Rowland is not incorrect in his scarcely concealed accusation.
