She had locked eyes with Nicholas.
40
Water Aflame
Just as Nicholas was about to dive off the side of the boat, someone grabbed him from behind and yanked him back down.
Nicholas thrashed and fought to break free. “We need to go back! We have to get her!”
“You can’t!” Henri shouted. He pressed his forearm into Nicholas’s chest. “You’ll be killed!”
“We can’t leave her!” Nicholas writhed frantically, but Oliver joined Henri in pinning him to the bottom of the boat. “Elaina’s back there! We can’t just leave her!”
“The water is aflame!” Henri shoved Nicholas hard until he knocked his head on the wood. “You’ll kill yourself in the fire before you ever reach her. Then what good would it do her?”
When Nicholas finally focused on Henri, he could see tears running down his friend’s face as well.
“Let me up,” Nicholas said, shoving at Henri’s hand. “I need to see!”
After a long shared look with Oliver, Henri finally let Nicholas sit upright again, but he never let go of Nicholas’s arm. Nicholas watched in agony as the whale oil lit up the night, cutting the city off from view. His head hurt and his body ached, but that pain was nothing compared to the turmoil that was his heart.
“Cinders’s name is Elaina?” one of the women behind him whispered to another. She sounded surprised.
She had been so close. He should have known who it was when the young woman recognized their problem of too many bodies on such a small boat. Only Elaina would have identified such a challenge from a distance. And yet he hadn’t pursued her. Instead, he had watched her set them free.
Nicholas put his head in his hands and cried.
41
Like a Colt
Elaina’s knees hit the ground with a crack, but she refused to let the pain show on her face.
“So I was pulled from an important gathering to be told that you chose to play the hero.” Matilda’s voice was soft. Elaina hated it when her voice was soft. “You helped your friends escape. Congratulations. You just forgot one thing.”
The switch bit hard as it came down across Elaina’s back. She bit her tongue until it tasted metallic.
“Now you will be the only one here.” Matilda leaned in to whisper in Elaina’s ear. “I suppose I should rejoice. You’ve saved me from feeding five extra mouths. And as you don’t eat very much, I suppose that will save me quite a bit of coin.” Matilda stood and smiled sweetly, patting her dark hair into place.
But Elaina was only half-listening. Worse than the welts, which Elaina could already feel forming on her back, was the bile that threatened to escape from her stomach. She could taste it, sour and bitter in the back of her throat, but she clamped her mouth shut. She would die before allowing Matilda the pleasure of seeing her sick.
But truly, she was sick. Sick to her core, sick to her heart. She had been so close to freedom, only a few dozen yards. Humanity and the dignity of being called by her own name had been just within her grasp. Perhaps she would have been allowed to flee to whatever country had been her original destination of exile.
Below it all, though, even worse than the lost freedom was that she had been so close to him.
The switch came down hard on her back again, jarring Elaina from her thoughts. She briefly considered snatching the stick away and breaking it on her knee. But Ivor and Felix were standing just behind her, and she had no chance of overpowering them both.
“Why did you stay?” Alison asked from the doorway. She looked bored, playing with a curl of her coal-dark hair, her bony fingers pulling the curl to pieces, but something in her question made Elaina burn inside.
Elaina used all of her remaining strength to push herself off the ground. Slowly, shaking, she straightened until she was standing upright.
Matilda’s eyes grew round, and she raised the horsewhip again. This time, however, Elaina caught her by the wrist.
“I stayed because the Maker told me to.”
Matilda stared at her for a moment before barking out a strange laugh and lowering her hand. Felix and Ivor began to move toward Elaina, but Matilda waved them back, keeping eye contact with Elaina. “You are so special that the Maker speaks to you, does he?”
Elaina clamped her mouth shut tight. She had said too much. And from the look on Matilda’s face, they both knew it.
The courtyard was quiet for a few long minutes. Alison looked back and forth between Elaina and their mother before finally going in and hollering to Penelope that she was hungry. Ivor and Felix hovered uneasily behind Elaina. Elaina hoped they were most uncomfortable after having lost the majority of their charges, thanks to Drake’s expert use of the heavy tools.
“It’s getting harder and harder to smuggle help in,” Matilda said, handing the horsewhip to Felix and walking toward the house. “If the Maker himself bade you remain, then remain you shall. You will honor his wishes by making up for your lost friends. Measuring the flour for Penelope, mucking out the horse stalls, washing the bedclothes, mending the laundry, cleaning the fireplace, serving the tea, and going to market, among other things.” Matilda paused and then looked at the two guards. “Leave us.”
As soon as both men were gone, Matilda stalked back over to Elaina. “When you arrived here two years ago, I told you I would break you. And I guarantee that I will still break you like a colt if it’s the last thing I do.” She leaned forward. “I swear to that.”
42
Like a Man
Nicholas and Henri were quiet as they slowly made their way up to Nicholas’s chambers. Henri’s face still had a hint of gray to it, and the bags beneath his eyes only added to Nicholas’s guilt.
Guilt like salt in a wound that already burned incessantly. He had been so close to her. So close to saving her from the wretched end Henri had described for him. And yet he’d stood helplessly by, allowing the boat to carry him to safety as he watched them take her, knocking her down against the large ship’s deck and tying her like an animal. And the more he remembered the look on her face, the less Henri’s argument about the oil on the water mattered. He should have at least tried.
A servant ushered them into Nicholas’s receiving room, where he went and stood by his southern window while Henri collapsed onto a low sofa.
“I leave you for one week. And you go to war?”
Nicholas jumped at the sound of the familiar voice, but Henri groaned.
“It wasn’t war, Eloy. It was a rescue mission.”
“Then why do you look five years older than when I left you?”
Nicholas took a steadying breath and turned to face the man Henri often referred to as his beloved captor.
Of course, Eloy’s official title was Bodyguard to the Royal Children of Destin. And that bodyguard was giving him the fiercest glare he had ever seen.
In spite of himself, Nicholas felt a little shiver run down his spine. Henri liked to tell Nicholas of how slight and young his bodyguard had been when he was first asked by King Everard to guard his children. But if he had ever been thin before, Henri saw no sign of it now. Muscle bulged from his bared dark arms like another layer of armor. His only true armor was a breastplate over his clothes, though Nicholas knew Eloy carried at least a dozen weapons on him at any given time. His dark eyes gleamed a little too brightly as they settled on Henri.
“He came to help me,” Nicholas said, unwilling to let his friend take the brunt of his bodyguard’s wrath. Henri would have enough to deal with from his father alone.
“Of course he did,” Eloy snapped. “Now my question is what he did while he was helping you.”
Nicholas glanced at Henri.
“I helped him find a young man who had gone missing from the dock several days ago. We found him and now we’re back.”
“And put yourself in the middle of a war that is not yours!” He turned to Nicholas. “What were you thinking of, putting him in danger like that?”
“Eloy, I wanted
to go.”
“No.” Nicholas shook his head. “He’s right. It was irresponsible of me to bring you along. Especially with what I knew of the Shadow.” He sighed. “I just didn’t expect to see him on this particular mission.”
At the mention of the Shadow, Eloy whipped his head around to Henri. His voice was barely above a hiss. “You saw the Shadow?”
“Yes, I did.” Henri stood and faced Eloy. “And what I saw chilled me to the bone. There is a darkness in him that must be stopped, or it’s going to spread beyond Ashland’s borders to every kingdom. Including ours.”
Eloy scoffed. “Your parents will stop it if it tries.”
“My father is a busy man!” Henri scowled. “I don’t see why I can’t stop it myself if I need to. Because I did.”
Eloy’s voice went flat. “What do you mean you did?”
Nicholas rubbed his eyes. He had never meant for all of this to happen. “Look, Eloy—”
But Eloy didn’t listen. Instead, he grabbed Henri’s hand and flipped his palm up. Leaning over, he examined it closely. “Henri, you didn’t.” This time, his voice was haggard.
Henri didn’t answer, just yanked his hand back and turned to stare out the window.
“He saved a man’s life,” Nicholas said.
“It was the right thing to do,” Henri added stubbornly.
“Henri, Sorthileige is not a game!” Eloy grabbed Henri by the arms, his face losing its color. “You could have been killed!”
“You think I don’t know that?” Henri shook his head. “Have you forgotten who my real mother was?”
Eloy sighed and put his hand gently on Henri’s shoulder. “You don’t understand how special you are. How much people would sacrifice to use you.”
“I understand when my friends need my help. I understood that it was the right thing to do.” Henri looked at Nicholas. “I don’t regret a thing.”
Eloy shook his head, then reached into the leather pouch he carried at his waist. “Your mother sent me to give you this.”
Henri took the parchment and broke the seal. After reading it, he looked up at Nicholas. “My mother wishes for me to come home sooner than I had planned.”
“You should go,” Nicholas said, mustering up a spent smile. “You might have helped me change the course of the war.”
“But Elaina—”
“I know where she is now, and that she’s alive, thanks to you.”
Henri eyed him suspiciously. “Are you going to go after her yourself.”
Nicholas shook his head. “My father has made sure no boat will carry me out of the eastern harbor. Not without his permission, at least. He’s already notified the captains that disobedience is punishable by exile.” He ran his hand through his hair. “He keeps me on a short rope as it is.”
“Then what will you do?”
Nicholas glared at the door. “I’m going to win this war.” He turned back to his friend. “Now go. Give your family my best.”
After Henri had gathered his things and left with Eloy, Nicholas took a long drink of spiced wine from the goblet his servants had prepared and left on his bedside table.
Eloy was right. Nicholas had endangered Henri in a way he himself would never be at risk. But if anything was to be learned, it was that Nicholas had been going about this war all wrong. He had been going about it like a boy. It was time he started acting like a man.
“Ask my father to meet me in my study,” Nicholas told the servant as he strode out of his chambers. The servant bowed and hurried away to do as he was told. After a long hour of thinking and praying and wishing that the Maker would talk to him through the stars, too, Nicholas had a plan. If only his father would see it as such.
When the servant returned to Nicholas’s study, however, he was still alone. “I am sorry, sire,” he said, keeping his eyes on the ground. “But your father is . . . otherwise occupied.”
Nicholas took a deep breath to keep himself from uttering something that might sound like treason. Then he nodded at the servant. “Very well, then. Summon the admirals. Have those who can meet me here in no less than two hours.” If his father wasn’t going to take this seriously, he would.
In two hours, the majority of the admirals had convened in Nicholas’s study. They spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the night coming up with a strategy Nicholas would never before have considered. But the image of Elaina’s thin face and the memory of the gifted stranger writhing on the ground pushed him forward. He was going to end this evil once and for all.
It wasn’t until the next day as Nicholas prepared for the magistrates to meet with him that his father arrived.
“So kind of you to grace me with your presence,” Nicholas said without looking up from the parchment he was studying.
“I’ve been waiting for years for you to take this rebellion seriously,” his father responded, his good mood unaffected by Nicholas’s sarcasm.
“So the dozens of times I went into battle alongside our admirals was what exactly?”
“Son, you were thinking small. Now you’re taking charge! And I like that!” He smiled as he pulled random books off the shelves and, after a glance, tossed them to the side.
Nicholas put down the parchment. “Father, you don’t even know what I found in Solwhind.”
“You brought back Appleby’s son. What else is there to know?”
“You need to come with me.” Nicholas stood and stalked out the door.
His father followed at a more leisurely pace. When they began descending to the dungeons, however, the king lost his self-satisfied grin. “What are we doing here?”
“I want you to see the young man I brought back with me.” Nicholas stopped in front of the last cell.
Inside, a figure skulked in the far corner between the wall and his mat.
The king squinted in the poor light. “Who is that?” The figure inside turned at the sound of the king’s voice, and Xander jumped. “That’s impossible!” He leaned in a little closer, but the hunched figure inside leapt at the bars, sending the king stumbling back. “How did this happen?”
“You know that distraction I’ve been working on all these years? It appears that our culprit is the Shadow himself.”
“Who told you that?”
“Willard, here, before the Sorthileige took his mind during the boat trip back.”
His father shook his head. “Sorthileige? I don’t understand. What does the Shadow have to do with Sorthileige?”
Nicholas related to his father all that had happened to them while in Solwhind. His father’s expressions ranged from outraged to skeptical to horrified to annoyed. “You don’t actually believe Henri Fortier. His father is always going on about the dangers of—”
“Do you see this?” Henri pointed at Willard, who was now growling at his own foot. “Would you call that an exaggeration?” When his father didn’t answer, he added, “Jackson went mad just over a week after he had received his gift.” He leaned forward. “Father, we need to stop this. Now. I don’t know what this Shadow wants, nor do I understand his actions, but I am confident that if we do not stop this war soon and apprehend him, we’ll be seeing an age of darkness we’ve never seen before.”
The king stared into the cell for a long time. When he spoke, his voice was distant. “I looked over the plans you submitted with the admirals last night. It is bold, I’ll give you that. But . . .” He scratched his head thoughtfully. “I will sign off on your plans so that the funds may be allocated to the navy. But at the first hint of opportunity for negotiation, we will drop our weapons and agree.”
Nicholas shook his head in disbelief. “Negotiate with the same evil that’s murdered hundreds and caused a civil war?”
“If that’s the fastest way to return to peace, then yes!” Xander started walking toward the dungeon’s entrance. Nicholas followed his father back up the steps. They stopped halfway up, however, and Xander took Nicholas by the shoulders. “Look, son. All I have ever wanted from the d
ay you were born was to hand you a kingdom of peace and prosperity.” His voice was unusually gentle and his eyes bore into Nicholas’s. “But I cannot do that if the country itself is in shambles.”
For the first time in a long time, Nicholas looked at his father. Truly looked.
Xander’s midsection and neck had grown far thicker than Nicholas could ever remember them being, and his breathing was loud and labored. Even now, he leaned on the foot with less gout, and his eyes had become glassy and red.
“You wouldn’t have to worry so much if you took better care of yourself,” Nicholas said, swallowing the emotion that threatened to surface. Turning, he continued up the stairs. He didn’t have time to feel sorry for his father when it was the man’s own fault he was in such poor health.
“That ship sailed long ago.” Xander coughed. “So what is the next part of your scheme to stop the Shadow?”
“We ask King Everard to return and help us root out—”
“Over my dead body.”
Nicholas turned at the top of the stairs, surprised at the vehemence in his father’s voice.
But Xander only growled and shook his head, stomping up ahead of Nicholas.
“Why ever not?”
“That king is one of the most arrogant pompous fools I’ve ever had the misfortune of dining with. And his continual offers to save us are grating on me.”
So Henri’s father had not been ignoring their state after all. Nicholas groaned. “You mean to tell me that you’ve been rejecting his offers all this time? Father, how many lives could have been spared on the battlefield?”
“This is my kingdom, and I will see it saved myself!” Xander roared, his words echoing down the halls and making the servants scatter.
“You haven’t been there to watch the blood flow!” Nicholas was shouting now, too. “I have! I have watched hundreds of our people bleed to death while you sit in your—”
Cinders, Stars, and Glass Slippers: A Retelling of Cinderella (The Classical Kingdoms Collection Book 6) Page 30
