by Ellyn, Court
He tugged her into the room, locked the door behind her, and swept her up to kiss her sweet, sympathetic face. Briga whimpered, and her slender hands pushed against his chest. He let her go, mortified that he’d misunderstood. But why else would she sneak upstairs at this hour?
She was nearly faint with fear.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he demanded. Yesterday she adored him. Today she feared him?
Briga opened her mouth, trying to shape excuses, but nothing came out.
“Get out then!” Kethlyn flung himself down in his armchair. Where the fuck was his glass? Right. Empty bottle. He lurched toward the sideboard where he’d set the new bottle of sintha. “If you came to tell me you’re pregnant, I’ll have you shipped to Ixaka.”
“N-no, Your Grace, it’s not that.”
No? Then she did loathe him. Rejected by a chambermaid, Goddess help him.
“It’s…” Briga’s glance darted past him and out the window. “It’s nothing.” She raised her chin, drew back her shoulders, as if steeling herself. Presenting herself for service.
Kethlyn laughed at his bitter luck. All those Assemblies, all those festivals, all those dinners and balls during which Prince Valryk had clung to his cousin’s side in order to catch the windfall of ladies that flocked around Kethlyn like moths to flame. And this chambermaid shrugged him off like a wet shirt. “If you don’t want me touching you, Sunflower, crawl back to your little hole in the wall.” Glass full, he dropped into his chair. Sintha sloshed over his wrist. “But if you mean to stay, pour yourself a drink and get on with it. Life is short. Shorter for some than others.”
No woman in her right mind would put up with this kind of abuse, Kethlyn thought and listened for the door shutting behind her. At least then he would feel as if he’d given her a reason to eschew him.
But she lingered on the rug.
Kethlyn didn’t remember his head falling back against the chair; he was already slipping toward the precious dark of oblivion. He opened his eyes when he felt Briga lift the tumbler from his fingers. She gulped down the sintha. It took so much liquor in her before she could abide him?
“I’ll stay,” she murmured, “but His Grace is already drunk.” Was she disappointed in him? Cheeky. “Maybe he just needs to go to sleep.”
She had lovely eyes, innocent and soft and brown. Golden spokes circled her pupils, which were very large in the dim light. Why were they welling with tears? Did she weep all the time? How tedious.
Kethlyn’s limbs were too numb, too heavy to drag him out of the chair. Briga wrapped one of his arms about her neck and pried him to his feet. Her capable little fingers worked fast to unlace his shirt. She was customarily bashful, but tonight she was all business, and she kept glancing toward the door, toward the window, as if she expected someone to come swooping in.
“Relax, will you,” he said, or tried to say, as he grabbed her hand and drew her into his bed.
The poor girl couldn’t make up her mind. She was reluctant and greedy in turns, and from behind closed eyelids tears ran in salty rivulets into her hair. Kethlyn couldn’t stand it. “Stop,” he whispered in her ear.
That only made it worse. Sobs broke loose. “I’m sorry. So sorry.” She rolled free of him and curled into a ball. “His Grace is too good for me, and I’m sorry.”
He blinked heavily at her shoulders shivering with sobs. “Too good for you?”
She pitched around to face him again and flung her arms tight about him. “Please, let’s just go to sleep. There’s not long…”
Before dawn, Kethlyn assumed. She’d have to be gone before then. But it was hours yet before dawn, unless the sintha had dulled his sense of time.
She curled up against him, warm and snug, and Kethlyn stopped fighting the sweet black sea of forgetfulness…
…the slide of a window sash, a breath of crisp night-clad sea air, the give of the mattress and Briga’s kiss against his forehead. Her breath caught. She was still crying. Kethlyn tried to console her, but all he managed on the dark edge of unconsciousness was an insensible murmur.
“Go back to sleep, my prince,” Briga said. “You won’t feel a thing.”
Aye, sweet oblivion. It rose again to claim him.
The thump of a door shutting.
Darkness … darkness…
Fires burning his city, and ships, ships, ships sailing shoreward. Sailors, faceless shadows, meant to hunt him down and hang him. He had to run. To warn his people. They were going to die in red gutters, and it was his fault. He ducked down in a derelict corner, don’t breathe, they’ll hear you, but they knew where he was. Someone stood over him, a shadow with long claws that would tear out his racing heart. Too late to run…
Kethlyn’s eyes snapped open. He was looking at the window. It was open to the night. One lamp burned. Why had Briga not blown out the lamp as she left?
Only this in the instant before he realized. Someone stood over him. A shadow with a beard and grinding teeth. An arm came down, and Kethlyn’s hand darted before his face. A bright blade punched through his palm. The tip winked an inch from his eye, dark with a blooming cascade of blood.
Kethlyn flipped sideways, inadvertently yanking the dagger from the assassin’s grip, and buried a heel in the man’s belly, hurling him into the wall. He recovered quickly and leapt for Kethlyn’s throat, fingers splayed wide to choke the life out of him. Kethlyn tore the dagger free from flesh and bone. Wrapping his arm about a neck reeking of salt and sweat, Kethlyn buried the blade to the hilt.
The assassin grunted and went rigid. With an elbow and a knee, Kethlyn shoved him off the bed. The man crawled toward the window, tried to pull himself through it, as if he’d rather fall to his death, but it was too late for escape. He was fading too fast to heave himself through the sash.
Kethlyn circled mindlessly, shrieking through his teeth as he clenched the wrist of his ravaged hand. Blood had sprayed his sheets, his chest, his face. Now it streamed in rivulets down his fingers and dripped in fat drops on his rug. In two steps he was at the bell rope and tugged it hard.
“Who sent you?” he demanded.
The assassin huddled against the wall, hands pressing the wound in his chest. He gurgled low in his throat.
Kethlyn kicked him in the thigh. “Who the fuck sent you!”
The assassin grinned with red teeth. “Long … long live the duchess.”
~~~~
3
Carah ventured into the wolf den only when her father was able to hobble downstairs on his own. She might still resent him for abandoning Rhian, but as long as she clung to Da’s side he provided a shield from the ugliness of scandal. Who would dare sneer at her in her father’s presence?
He took the steps of the grand stair slowly. Carah’s hands reached to steady him. Mum and Queen Briéllyn fussed just as badly. “It’s too soon, Kelyn,” the queen had told him that morning.
“Are the bones mended?” he’d demanded.
“Well, yes,” Carah said, “but—”
“Then I must move.”
“Impatient patients are impossible,” she’d grumbled and helped pry him out of bed.
Bathed and dressed and looking almost himself, he descended the stairs in time for breakfast. The highborns and commanders who were gathered at the trestle tables jumped to their feet and applauded when the War Commander made his entrance.
Eliad rushed forward to take his arm. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because I didn’t want you telling me not to.”
Carah tried to lurk behind him, but the eyes found her anyway. Or they pointedly ignored her, which was just as bad.
The White Falcon stood from his seat at the high table and offered the War Commander the empty chair beside Lady Ruthan. Carah winced and slunk into the chair between her parents. Because the chairs lined only one side of the high table, facing the room, she felt like a bauble on display. Lamplight burning from wrought-iron chandeliers and sunlight streaming through tall narrow w
indows seemed to spotlight her.
At one of the lower tables, Lady Maeret stared. Carah’s friend wasn’t known for her subtlety, and she seemed to be waiting for Carah to burst into tears. So that Maeret could cluck her tongue and say ‘for shame’? So she could offer clumsy condolences? Either were unwelcome.
A footman set a bowl of thin vegetable broth in front of Carah. She couldn’t stand it. How could life continue as if Rhian had never existed? And these insatiable snobs feasted on her torment.
Carah scooted back her chair in an attempt to retreat, but her da caught her by the wrist. It was a casual gesture, beneath the tablecloth. He hadn’t even looked at her. Few noticed it. He nudged her to pass him the decanter of morning wine, but wine was just an excuse. “Do not run from them,” he whispered. “Eat. Smile.” He nodded thanks for the decanter and refilled Ruthan’s goblet.
Her father knew a thing or two about combatting scandal, yes, by the Mother, he did. That he should have to school her in those methods shamed her deeply. Carah raised her chin and drank the broth. Between spoonfuls, she forced a smile to her mouth. Belatedly she realized she was smiling through conversation that did not merit it.
“…from the trenches, m’ lord?” asked Eliad from the lower tables. “Still no word.”
“Then I suggest you send another runner.”
“Immediately, sir.” Eliad bowed and departed. After he’d pouted so poorly, Da had placed him in charge of communications. Eliad’s couriers delivered reports and relayed orders at all hours. Apparently, the Miraji had taken the entrenched ogres by surprise, and Haezeldale’s cavalry had brightened those trenches with blood, as everyone had hoped. But that was yesterday. The morning had been bereft of news.
Captain Tullyk turned on a bench. “M’ lord, if I may?” When the commander of Bramoran’s city watch had returned with Da from Bexby Field, so emaciated and pale was he from his imprisonment that Carah had not recognized him. “I hadn’t wanted to trouble you earlier, sir, but … is there any hope of receiving a team to rescue my men?” How many city watchmen had Lothiar captured while Carah and the other highborns fought for their lives in the King’s Hall? “Getting into the walls would be difficult, but I know the secret ways in and out of—”
“Tullyk!” Da’s bellow was startling, perhaps even to himself; his hand pressed his ribs. “You must reconcile yourself to the fact that your men are lost. It is regrettable, but we cannot afford to risk our fighters to extricate prisoners. And let this comfort you. I think they are still alive. Lothiar used them as leverage only to convince you to provide a distraction. I doubt he had any intention of killing them to punish you for failure. Why kill them when you did exactly as he desired? He knew you would never return to Bramoran. He expected you to die, along with the rest of us.”
Tullyk gaped with incredulity. “You mean to let them languish, to die slowly in the rat-infested shithole?”
Da laced his fingers under his chin and met Tullyk’s eye squarely. “I mean to focus on the objectives that will help us win this war.”
Breakfast proceeded quietly after that, conversation subdued, but Tullyk remained full of big ideas. He presented them to the War Commander shortly after the plates had been cleared away. Some of the highborns had excused themselves, Lady Ruthan among them, whispering excitedly with Etivva. The shaddra and the untrained avedra were thick as thieves these days. Carah supposed they had common interests. The word “Mother-Father” escaped their lips often.
Mum followed them shortly, conspiring with Queen Briéllyn on ways to best keep the War Commander from overtaxing himself.
Da lingered at the table, perhaps not looking forward to the effort it would take to return upstairs. Tullyk eased off the bench and limped to the dais. He had found a walking stick somewhere and leaned heavily on it. “I understand, about my men. Truly. Damn shame, though. Has His Lordship some campaign in mind? Something decisive to bring that damnable elf to his knees?”
Did he really expect Da to spell it out for everyone to hear? Carah stood, having every intention of whisking her father upstairs where this thoughtless man could trouble him no more.
“He must have some weakness we can exploit,” Tullyk added, “something that will shake him.”
“You were with him in Bramoran,” Da said dryly. “Did you detect any weakness?”
Tullyk scratched at his ginger beard in lieu of replying with a ‘no.’ “I don’t suppose it’s as straightforward as presenting a prince on the field.”
There was a small intake of breath from Da, almost undetectable. Two chairs down, the White Falcon glanced up sharply.
Carah didn’t understand Tullyk’s reference or why it upset those around him. Tullyk himself rambled on, oblivious. “Bloody brilliant, that was, m’ lord. Probably my favorite account to come out of the last war.” He choked on sudden silence, as if he only now remembered whose company he was in. His freckled face flushed red. “What I mean is, using Prince Nathryk that way, against his own father, it were wrong. I’m sure he was a fine lad, didn’t deserve it—”
Arryk’s hand thundered down on the tabletop. Throughout the hall, the milling and gossiping stuttered to an abrupt halt. The White Falcon lunged to his feet and glared with a fury that Carah did not know he possessed. “There will be no further mention of my brother! I will not suffer his name to be spoken in my presence.” His glance flicked toward Carah, but did not settle on her. “I killed him, and that’s the end of it.”
He strode from the hall, heels striking the tiles like curses. His guards fell in behind him, their white cloaks swirling. With a snap of the king’s fingers, three mastiffs heaved themselves up from the hearthside and padded after him.
“Good Goddess, man,” Da muttered, gaping at Tullyk. “Have you no sense at all? Be glad that Lady Athmar and Lord Haezeldale are engaged elsewhere. They might see fit to shut your mouth for you.”
“M’ lord, I …”
“Don’t bother. You’re more fit for the barracks than a lord’s hall. Sit down and tell me what you know of Lothiar.”
Head ducked, Tullyk slunk into the chair that had been Lady Ruthan’s.
Highborns sought to escape the tension, and the hall emptied quickly. Only then did Uncle Thorn drift in from a side door and begin picking at platters.
Carah resumed her seat and tried to listen to Tullyk’s chatter, but all she could think about was Arryk’s face, the loathing blazing in green eyes, the grinding of teeth, the raw note of rage in his voice. Though she had heard many rumors detailing his older brother’s death, in that moment she believed him utterly, and his confession terrified her. He’s not capable of murder … Don’t be stupid, of course he is. He has but to speak, and it is done.
Talk at the table turned to another king, other murders. Carah listened.
“…whatever Valryk knew,” Tullyk was saying, “whatever his part, he’s no longer in favor. Of that I’m sure. I saw neither hide nor hair of him, and Lothiar made no mention of him, either time we spoke. I think … I fear … our king is dead. I did hear Lothiar mention … the duke?”
Da sat up straighter. “My son?”
Carah peered around her father. “What about Kethlyn?”
Uncle Thorn climbed the dais with a plate in hand. He stood across the table instead of claiming one of the chairs, and popped morsels into his mouth as if the conversation was of nothing more important than the weather.
Captain Tullyk cleared his throat, aware this time that he tread on thin ice. “Well, why is he called ‘duke’? Her Grace still lives.”
Da waved away the question. “What did Lothiar say?”
“Something to one of his lieutenants, rushed and quiet, you know. About keeping the fire on the duke, to make sure he paid.”
A spark of hope ignited in the pit of Carah’s belly. “Da?”
“Hush.”
“That was all,” Tullyk said.
Uncle Thorn sighed, replete from his scavenging. He dusted off his hands and ambled ou
t of the hall. Carah wanted to shake him. His nephew’s life was at stake. Did he not care?
Kelyn turned in his chair; his hand clamped down on Carah’s shoulder. “Do not breathe a word of this. Especially to your mother.”
“But, Da, if Kethlyn is innocent—”
“He is not!”
“But if he is Lothiar’s enemy too—”
“Then where is he? Why did he not come when we called for him? Why does he not come now? He has betrayed us all, and we cannot know Lothiar’s meaning. We will not fill your mother with false hope. Promise me.”
Carah pinched her mouth shut against argument. She didn’t have the opportunity to promise. The hall’s main doors swung open, admitting Eliad and two Elarion. The Miraji messenger, in golden scalemail, was spattered with mud and sweat. Azhien, Laniel Falconeye’s cousin, hurried alongside to translate. “Sheannach,” he said, addressing the War Commander, “it is grave news. Quickly.”
Da swore and nudged Carah. “You’re dismissed. Not a word.”
Carah wasted no time in tracking down her uncle. A footman pointed her out into the glaring summer sunlight. She caught up to Thorn as he crossed the courtyard. Horses and wagons, humans, dwarves, and Elarion bustled past, intent on one mission or another. “We have to send Kethlyn some kind of message,” she told him.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Thorn aimed for the inner gatehouse and began climbing the tower stairwell, round and round.
To keep up, Carah hitched up her silver robe and took the steps two at a time. “But didn’t you hear what Tullyk said?”
“I did, and it means nothing. Or it might mean the worst.”
