“Lasted two seconds longer that time,” Lydda said. “Get up and try again.”
By late afternoon, the shadows growing long and the sky taking on a touch of violet, Renata was holding her own. She hadn’t beaten the bounty hunter, not quite, but she hadn’t fallen either.
Lydda clasped Renata’s hand in a wobbly grip, both of them soaked with sweat and exhausted. “Good. That’s all for now. Save a little strength for tonight. Still have some surprises to get ready before those bastards ride in tomorrow.”
Renata nodded, her damp ringlets clinging to her neck, and drew a hand across her brow. “Not much longer.”
Less time than they thought. One of the villagers ran up, breathless, and pointed back over his shoulder.
“Renata! A crusader is here. Not like the others. He—he wants to talk to you.”
Frowning, Renata followed him down to the village gate, where Sykes and a few of the defenders stood like a shield wall. At a glance, Renata knew what he meant by “not like the others.” For one, the crusader sat astride a horse. Not like the tired nags who pulled carts in Mirenze, either: a thoroughbred charger, built for war and clad in steel barding. The man had steel of his own, from his filigreed breastplate and greaves to the massive two-hand sword strapped across his back. He scowled down at the assembly, a thin mustache drooping at the corners of his downturned lips.
Renata stepped forward.
“You’re looking for me?” she asked.
“You?” he said, looking down his nose at her. “You’re the peasant who murdered my cousin?”
His icy contempt didn’t worry her. Neither did the warhorse, or the blade on his back. What sent an electric chill down Renata’s spine was that she hadn’t seen this man when she made her midnight excursion to the crusaders’ encampment.
We didn’t have two days before the main column arrived, she thought. We had one. And we aren’t ready.
“I’m not sure,” she told him, fighting to stay calm. “Did your cousin need killing?”
“His name,” he seethed, “was Cosimo Segreti. Son of Duke Segreti.”
“He said he was a duke when we met. Did he get a promotion on the road?”
“It—it doesn’t matter. He was a nobleman by blood.”
Renata put her hands on her hips and took another step closer. Chin raised and eyes hard.
“Your cousin sneered at what little hospitality we could offer, demanded tribute that wasn’t his due, and struck an unarmed woman. He wasn’t noble and barely a man.”
Red-faced, hand trembling on the reins, he stared down at her. Then he took a deep breath and cast his gaze across the gathering.
“You are all complicit in crimes against the Church and the Holy Murgardt Empire. Your homes and your village are forfeit, as are your lives if you refuse to submit to righteous authority. Give us this woman, and your food, and you’ll be allowed to leave in peace. Otherwise, you’ll all share in her fate.”
Gianni shouldered his way to the front of the group, moving to stand at Renata’s side.
“I think I can say, Your Lordship, that I speak on behalf of all Kettle Sands when I say”—the barman put his fingers under his chin, flicking them at him—“go piss up a tree.”
The villagers snickered, and Sykes clapped Gianni on the back. The horse stomped back a step as the nobleman tugged the reins.
“You’ll have one last chance,” he said. “I will return at first light, bringing a hundred good men with me. Submit, or burn. The choice is yours.”
The horse wheeled around and broke into a gallop, heavy hoofbeats pounding as the noble raced off. They watched him go in silence. Renata took a deep breath and let it out as a deflated sigh.
“So we’ve got one more night to get ready,” Gianni said.
Renata shook her head.
“No, we don’t.”
Gianni’s brow furrowed. “How do you figure?”
“He coulda had a go at us right now if he had the stones,” Lydda said, echoing Renata’s thoughts. “Or chopped Little Miss ‘Liegekiller’ here down where she stood. Nah. Cowardice and pride is one bad combination. Mix that up and pour it into a nobleman’s over-entitled britches, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.”
“What she means is,” Renata said, “he was lying. He has no intention of waiting until tomorrow, and he has no intention of letting any of us live. The attack will come tonight.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Nessa and Mari rode between the ivory vastness: the endless white sky above, and the endless plain of snow below that crunched under their horses’ hooves. The sun shone down, making the snow glitter like a diamond wasteland, but its heat no longer reached them. Only the gusting winds and the bitter cold, sprinkling frost against the riders’ reddened cheeks as they huddled close on the wagon perch with heavy furs draped over their laps.
“Tomorrow, or the day after, we should reach forest country,” Mari said as she tightened her grip on the reins. “Slower going, but the trees will hold back the wind a little.”
Nessa gave a weak nod, her shoulders shivering. Mari reached out with her free arm. Put it around Nessa and pulled her close, sharing her warmth. They rode in silence for a while.
“I’m—I’m sorry,” Mari suddenly said, jerking her arm back. “I shouldn’t—I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”
Nessa took hold of Mari’s wrist, moved her arm back where it had been, and leaned against her. It was her only reply.
Another hour. The scenery didn’t change. Just a white plain, stretching to every horizon.
“I could almost imagine we’re the only ones left,” Nessa mused. “That the entire world just…went away. And this is all that remains.”
“Only us,” Mari said.
“It wouldn’t be so bad.” Nessa shifted against her, pulling the furs higher on her lap. “We’d just have to keep riding. Looking for someplace warm.”
Night turned the icy sky violet. Mari used the last of the stolen kindling to set a fire, and Nessa prepared dinner while Mari drove stakes into the frozen soil and put up the tent. Imperial rations were next to tasteless—hardtack and some kind of dried fish, a herring maybe—but they were too cold to care. The food quieted the gnawing in their bellies and that was all that mattered.
Then they crawled into their bedrolls and tried to sleep as the freezing wind rustled against the tent and slipped its fingers through the tied-off flap.
Nessa was wide awake.
She glanced to her left. Mari lay curled up in her bedroll, shivering.
“Here,” Nessa said and slipped under the furs with her. Mari jolted, startled, and Nessa put a calming hand on her arm. Then she pressed up against her back, molding her body to Mari’s contours, the two of them fitting like a glove.
“Body heat,” Nessa whispered. “We’ll both sleep better this way.”
Mari rolled over to face her. Their foreheads touching. Eyes bright in the dark.
Their lips brushed. Then again, this time more certain, more firm. Hungrier. Nessa’s fingers caressed Mari’s hip.
“Nessa,” Mari whispered, “I’ve—I’ve never…”
“With a woman?”
“With anyone.”
Nessa paused. “Do…you want to?”
“I think,” she said, pausing. “I think I’ve wanted to since I met you. I’m just…a little scared. And I’m not sure what to do.”
Nessa took Mari’s hand, bringing it to her lips.
“I’ll teach you.”
They moved together slowly. Fingertips, and light fingernails, and soft kisses. Exploring by touch and taste. Nessa found a spot on the curve of Mari’s neck that drew a kittenish whimper, and she smiled in the dark.
Then her hand slid down, into the valley between her knight’s thighs, and every muscle in Mari’s body went tense.
“What is it?” Nessa cradled her cheek with her other hand.
“Will…will it hurt?”
War child, Nessa thought. Gro
wing up a refugee in your own homeland. The things you must have seen.
“No. When it’s done properly, between two people who…between two people who want to be together, it shouldn’t. It won’t hurt unless I want it to. And…I don’t want it to.”
Under her hand, she felt the muscles of Mari’s thighs unclench.
“Do you trust me?” Nessa whispered.
“I do.”
“Then lie back. And close your eyes. You’re going to feel something you’ve never felt before. Something special. I promise.”
And then she kept her promise. She clung close to Mari as her knight bucked her hips and thrashed her ragged hair and cried out in a torn voice, her back arched as she rode to a crescendo then fell, gasping for breath. Nessa held onto her, Mari still and trembling now, a blissful smile on her lips.
Mari wanted more. They resumed their discovery of each other’s secret places, fearless now, faster, hungrier. Not feeling the cold or the howling wind, just basking in one another. Not afraid. Not alone. Not broken.
* * *
The sun rose over the endless white. Mari slept off her exhaustion in the furs. Outside the tent, Nessa paced, kicking up snow, her hands curled into fists at her sides. Muttering under her breath.
“Oh, was that not a part of your master plan?” Muskrat perched on the edge of their wagon, still in her ragged gray dress. If the cold bothered her, it didn’t show.
Nessa whirled to face her mother. “Is that supposed to be funny?”
“You just spent your first night in another person’s arms in seven years and four months. Believe me, I’ve been keeping track. And while I did stay outside of your tent—I mean, let’s not be gauche about this—it sounded like you were having a lovely time. So why are you angry?”
“She wasn’t supposed to—” Nessa spat, stumbling over her words. “That woman—”
“Turned out to be a woman, and not a plaything?”
“This wasn’t supposed to happen. I should have anticipated, should have had a better grip on the situation.”
“Oh, boohoo,” Muskrat said. “The great and terrible Owl finds herself facing a situation she can’t obsessively control. Swear to the moon, it’s like you’re five again. Do you know what your problem is?”
“I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.”
Her mother hopped down from the wagon and approached Nessa. Her bare feet didn’t leave a mark in the drifting snow.
“You’ve always been fixated on this,” she said, poking Nessa in the forehead, “and petrified of this,” punctuating her words with a poke to Nessa’s chest. “Relationships are messy. And random. And sloppy. And you can’t handle that.”
“Oh, I can handle it. I can handle it right this minute. Permanently.”
She stalked toward the tent. Muskrat rolled her eyes.
“What are you going to do? Cut her throat while she’s sleeping? Make the whole problem go away?”
Nessa wheeled around. “I could if I wanted to!”
Muskrat folded her arms.
“And do you?”
Nessa stood silent, deflated, as the winter wind swirled around her.
“No.”
Muskrat approached, taking gentle hold of Nessa’s arms.
“The world is a terrible and fell place,” she said, “even without the likes of us in it. It’s all right if you choose to face it alone. But don’t tell yourself you have to be alone.”
Nessa let out a faint laugh and shook her head. “For once in my life…I don’t know what to do.”
“That woman,” Muskrat said, pointing behind Nessa at the tent, “has given you her submission. Her strength. Made herself your sword. She isn’t a cheap blade to use in a single battle and then toss away. She’s a master-forged weapon, to be kept in velvet and polished until she shines. Share your strength with her, in your own unique way. Become each other’s strength. Trust…is not your greatest quality, let’s face it. But you can learn. Just give in, Nessa. Give in to your feelings and stop fighting.”
“I’m not sure that I can.”
“Only one way to find out. You own her, Nessa. Own her properly, or destroy her now. No half measures. Make your choice.”
“All right.” Nessa nodded, her voice soft. “I’ll decide.”
“Nessa?” Mari asked. “Who are you talking to?”
She turned. Mari had poked her head outside the tent, looking perplexed.
Nessa stood alone in the snow.
The witch smiled. One hand dropped down to her hip. Feeling the hilt of the dagger concealed under her dress.
“Come here, Mari.”
Mari slipped outside the tent and approached her. Curious, but trusting. Utterly trusting.
Nessa reached up and traced the curve of Mari’s throat with her fingertips. Her mother’s words echoed in her mind. Own her properly, or destroy her now.
Her fingers closed around Mari’s throat.
She squeezed. Not hard. Just enough to get her attention. Mari didn’t fight, didn’t pull away. Her eyes widened.
“Mari,” Nessa said, “listen to me.”
Her hand slid upward and caressed Mari’s cheek.
“I…am going to make you great. The strongest, most skilled, and most fearsome of knights. And one day, when I lead our people to Wisdom’s Grave, you will be riding at my side.”
Mari dropped to one knee in the snow, her head bowed.
“My liege,” she whispered.
Nessa savored the moment. Then she curled her fingers in Mari’s hair and gave a playful tug.
“On your feet, and let’s pack up. Many miles yet to go before we stand in Winter’s Reach.” She tilted her head and grinned. “And we’ve got a lot of people to kill.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Livia strolled through the gardens of the keep, watching marigold butterflies flit from flower bed to flower bed. She could still see, here and there, the fresh plantings to replace the flowers crushed by the fall of bodies on the night the assassins struck. The memory was as close as the scent of new roses on the air. The torches going out one by one, the robed figures with their garrotes and their nooses, the cries of her loyal Browncloaks around her.
And the feeling of raw magic erupting in her heart. Summoning a whirlwind of inky shadow that dragged the killers into its maw before whipping shut.
The spell that killed me, she thought, wearing a faint smile. It was easier to take the Owl’s news if she thought of it that way. She had been doomed to die that night: either by her own misfired witchcraft or by an assassin’s strangling hands. She’d chosen her doom, instead of having it chosen for her.
“I wouldn’t think you’d want to see this place again,” Amadeo said, walking alongside her. Behind them, a brace of Browncloaks shadowed their footsteps in silence.
Livia bent down to sniff at a vibrant purple blossom. “It’s not the flowers’ fault that something ugly happened here. And it reminds me. Every day since that night…it’s a gift, isn’t it?”
He thought about it and nodded.
“When Carlo sent his assassins after me, and I jumped from the roof of the White Cathedral to escape,” he said, eyes going distant, “there was no reason I should have survived. I should have drowned.”
“The Gardener willed it. Your work wasn’t done.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “I am not so egotistical as to think I was saved by divine intervention. Anything I can do for our creator, another man can do better. Point is, I died that night. And so many of my old fears and worries just didn’t make sense anymore. A man who’s died once isn’t afraid to die twice.”
He glanced back toward the stone-faced Browncloaks and then to Livia. Choosing his words carefully.
“I imagine you can relate.”
“There’s nothing to fear. These people…these corrupt clergymen and petty coin counters, they think they can stop me. And they’re wrong. I intend to transform this Church, over their de—” She paused. “Over their s
trongest objections, if I have to.”
Amadeo pursed his lips. And thought about the cabal of men in the king’s confidence, planning her execution.
“Excuse me,” he said, “I have some work to attend to.”
He took his leave, heading inside, and nearly bumped into another Browncloak. Then he did a double take, recognizing the face under the hood.
“Freda?”
The freckled girl—the self-appointed shepherd of the Salt Alley urchins back in Lerautia, who had escaped alongside him on the night of the Alms District massacre—gave him a big smile. “Father Amadeo! How are you?”
“Concerned,” he said, pointing at her cloak. “Why are you wearing that?”
She laughed. “I’m a Browncloak now! Isn’t it wonderful? Once Kailani heard about how I helped you and Livia break into Carlo’s office, and how I was in the city on Crucible Eve, she said I should have been a member from day one.”
“Crucible…Eve?”
“You know. The night of the massacre. That’s what we call it in the ’Cloaks, because that’s the crucible we were forged in.”
“Do you…have a lot of special words for things?”
“You should join up and find out for yourself,” she said, giving him a wink.
“Freda, this is serious. Assassins have already made two attempts on Livia’s life. You could be hurt, or killed. This is nothing to play at.”
She frowned. “I’m not playing at anything. Which is exactly what Carlo’s gonna find out when we take back the Holy City.”
“So you’re going to fight? Freda, this is…this isn’t for you. You’re a girl, not a soldier.”
“Girls can be soldiers too. Father, I’ve been in this fight since the day you brought me to the papal manse, and I want to see it through. Kailani says there are only two things you can choose in this life: what you fight for, and who you die for. Besides, I wanted to follow Livia even before I knew the truth.”
He was afraid to ask, but he spoke the words anyway.
“Freda, what’s ‘the truth’?”
She lowered her voice, glancing over her shoulder as she leaned in, her voice dropping to a reverent whisper.
Terms of Surrender (The Revanche Cycle Book 3) Page 19
