Frank picked up speed. The steps groaned as they descended, loud and forlorn in the silent castle.
Once they’d reached the bottom, Frank almost ran, pulling her along faster than her weakened legs could carry her.
Weakened. Ashes, she hadn’t acted like an addict at all. Had he realised? What if he did?
By now, the medicine could have dissolved in her system—at least enough that she could run through the castle.
Single gas lamps were spread between large areas of darkness in these halls. The ceiling was lower than on the upper floors, and the walls tapered closer together the father they went. The doors were situated near the lights and were about two thirds the height of regular doors.
Where were they? Could this be where the staff lived?
Frank all but yanked her into a room. The darkness inside was almost as absolute as the murky black in the hidden passageways.
“Don’t move,” he said.
A thump. “Shit.” He struck a match and lit a candle. Flickering orange light reflected in his eyes. “How do you feel?”
She was winded, the edges of her vision pulsed, and her muscles strained. Why had he brought her here? What was this place? Why the secrecy?
“Fine,” she said.
He set the candle on a table and pulled up a stool for her. Once she was seated, he took the bottle of ethirin from a pocket and set it on the table, just out of her reach. “We’ll talk. When I’ve said everything I want to say, you can have some of this. All right?”
She rubbed her forearms. Talk about what? Did he suspect her? Did he know what Pointy had said? Where Pointy was? Or was this about Nathan’s return to Collinefort? One way to find out. “All right.”
“I don’t know where to start.” Frank sighed as he sat next to her. “What I’m about to tell you, Cara, I’ve never even said out loud.”
Well, wasn’t this juicy. Frank had a secret.
He fidgeted with his fingernails, lips pressed together.
“You can tell me,” Cara said. Please, tell me.
“The only reason I want to tell you is because you’re the only one who might understand.” Frank made a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a choke. “And you probably won’t remember any of this in the morning, but I told you I’d explain everything. It’s time.”
His chest expanded as he inhaled, then blew out the breath in a whistle. “That night we found you, your friend Du Pont told me what you’ve learned of Celestine.” He dropped into a rushed whisper. “The lies, the plans, the manipulation. Everything he said is true, but it’s so much worse than you know. She’s evil, Cara. She’s been manipulating me from the start. I honestly have no idea how I missed the fact, but here we are. Isn’t it ironic how she raised you to be her little puppet, but I was basically the same thing? Kept complacent by my faith in her, but bent and shaped just how she wanted me.
“I trusted her with everything. Everything, Cara.
“Then, one day, someone slipped up. A missive delivered to the wrong place, and I read what I wasn’t supposed to read. The note was cryptic—the job had gone wrong, and alternate measures had to be taken. I thought nothing of it until later, when I received a report that there had been a fire killing one of my allies, Marquis Choquet, and his entire household. Celestine had mentioned something about Choquet weeks before, a throwaway comment about hands grasping what they had no right to. When I’d asked her about it, she’d said the Choquets had fallen out of favour in Belle’Victoire, but it was nothing I had to worry about.
“I don’t know why I started investigating the fire. It was a feeling more than anything, that niggling in the back of my head that something was wrong. Maybe it was fate—I don’t know. But I knew instinctively I’d have to keep my inquiries from Celestine. So, I went on as usual, but slipped into her quarters whenever I could, and rifled through her things.
“The truth was staggering.” He choked. “Assassinations on my order. Villages left unassisted when they’d begged for my aid. No, I only helped people who paid. Bribes and threats and beatings—all bearing my signature, but I’d never given any such orders.
“And Choquet. He’d granted us a large sum of money to launch an attack on the emperor’s villa in La’Chapelle. I took his money, apparently, but never went to battle. When he demanded to know why the resistance hadn’t made good on our promise, his house burned down. On. My. Order. But I had no idea.”
Cara opened and shut her mouth. What could she say? She, too, had gobbled up every lie. She, too, had been a victim. Yet, she hadn’t turned from victim to torturer. She’d never done anything to harm Frank, while he actively hurt her. Some boundaries weren’t meant to be crossed.
“It got worse with time. Now, instead of houses burning down, it’s villages. She had a village set on fire close to one of the outposts Varda and I visited. A message to me, because she was angry that I’d allied with the Dvarans. People believe it’s the emperor’s work, but how could he even reach some of these places, right in the heart of my territory? It’s her. And the people don’t know.
“Who can I trust with this shit? Nobody. So I keep it to myself. All of it.” His teeth chattered, and he swayed forward and back, forward and back. “I try to trust Nic, but how do I know for sure he wasn’t planted in my life by Celestine? I tell myself she couldn’t have, he met us just after we came through the Mantle. How could she have any agents on the ground outside? How could she have reached him? But Celestine is crafty. If anyone could have done it, it’s her.
“And Malak works for Celestine. Personally trained. I love Malak, I really do, but if we’re being honest, I’m not sure if she’d choose me or Celestine if it came down to it.”
Of course, she worked for Celestine, she was the one administering the ethirin. “But everyone hates Malak,” Cara said.
He snorted. “That’s her function. The people believe I’m too stupid to see Malak’s duplicitous nature, that she’s close enough to have access to all my secrets, and that she can trick me without too much trouble. So, when they try to turn on me, who do you think they seek out? The infamous Malak. Meanwhile, Malak informs Celestine, who disposes of the threat. Nobody knows the truth, not even Nic. Celestine wanted them all to believe the lie, too, in case one of them wanted to turn on me.”
Well. That was news. Malak was more dangerous than anyone had realised, and Cara was stuck with her every day. Ashes, what a mess.
Frank ran his hands through his hair. “Her agents are everywhere. In the years we’ve been here, she’s changed the entire network. They are all loyal only to her. How do you fight that? People who are supposed to serve me all actually serve her.”
She turned her thumbs. “And Pointy?”
“They’ve been under the Mantle for over twenty years, Cara. Who can say how much they’ve changed? I don’t trust Celestine, and I don’t trust anyone else who works for Intelligence, here or in Aelland. I trust only myself. And you. Intelligence is the enemy. And just so you know, I bloody saved Du Pont’s life by putting out that warrant. She wanted him dead. Now he has a fighting chance. He was gone before anyone could tell him he was a wanted man, just as I suspected he would be.”
Not a word about the third corpse, the way Celestine had played that murder to harm Pointy. Did Frank know? Had he ordered it, or would he later claim that Celestine had done it on a fabricated order?
Everything Cara wanted to shout at him died on her tongue. The way he trembled, the spittle in the corners of his mouth, the darting eyes—paranoid and on the edge of insanity. How long had Chastain been like that, until he finally leapt head first into the madness? How long until Frank did the same?
Then what? Drugged little Carabelle took the throne; a puppet and an addict.
This was what they had left Aelland for. Magnus and Sera and people who needed healing.
Frank licked his lips. “I’ve been rebelling. Quietly, but still. As I said, I allied with the Dvarans without even consulting her, and she’s been pu
nishing me. She made me drug you, and I’m sorry. I ordered it, Cara. I swear, I tried to fight her, but I’m afraid she’ll hurt you to make me do what she wants. I love having you here, really, but I wish you’d never come. I don’t know that I can protect you.”
He hadn’t protected her at all.
“If you can, I want you to stop taking the medicine. Throw it up if you have to.”
She almost laughed. Throw it up? She couldn’t afford to lose more weight.
He took her hand then pressed his forehead to the table. “I’m so sorry, Mouse. So sorry.”
Just a little too late, Frank. It was so easy to say Celestine had made him do it. She had, but for all his fighting, he’d still given that order easily enough.
Cara frowned, and her pulse raced. Celestine had made him do it once they’d reached Collinefort, sure, but she hadn’t known he’d found Cara and the others while they’d been at the outpost. Yet he’d given her a sedative out there, too. A different medicine than ethirin, but he’d still drugged her. No matter how good his intentions were, he’d also made a decision about her body without asking then.
Could she forgive him?
Maybe one day, but not today.
Would he thank her if he knew she hadn’t been using the ethirin? Would he be relieved to learn Cara was sober, but had lost her faith in him?
His eyes shone, and his lips quivered. “But now you can help me fight her. We might have a chance together. If you distract her, I can build alliances behind her back. We could be strong enough to take her down. Will you help me?”
She considered him. For her brother, she’d walked away from the only home she’d ever known. For him, she would’ve done anything. Everything. The problem was the king of Mordoux.
Even now, he was in there, disguised as Frank. Even now, he would do whatever it took to promote his own agenda, even hurt her. He could have changed the plan, exchanged the ethirin for something else, even just talked to her before he made her drink it, but it had been easier to skip the thinking and proceed with the doing.
He’d left a broken, scared-to-death mouse in Aelland, and hadn’t seen her evolve. Frank didn’t believe there was more to her, which was why he’d so easily manipulated her. Used her.
No, Cara couldn’t play the game like Sera could. She couldn’t command a room the same way either.
But she could cut open a body and repair something under the skin. She could study cases and prescribe remedies, make connections nobody else had made. She’d walked through the damn Mantle, for Creator’s sake. Four times. Maybe none of that meant anything, but no mouse could do what she’d learned to do. She’d grown into something more—a fact obvious enough to others that they’d named her their queen.
Frank didn’t know how she’d grown because he didn’t care to know. He hadn’t even thought of the possibility that she could pretend to be under the influence of Celestine’s drug, he’d just given it to her. Forced it on her.
She deserved more than that. What was she going to do, though? Pointy hadn’t come to their meeting, and he was in danger. She had to get to him, had to get to Nathan, but how?
“Will you help me, Mouse?” Frank smiled. “Please.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “What do you need me to do?”
“Convince Nic that you’re falling in love with him. Convince all of them. They must believe you’re over your physician, or Celestine will force me to have Nathan killed.”
Ashes.
Chapter 32
Varda shuffled past the ever-growing crowd between the tents.
A pair of shouting giants blocked the way just ahead. Sven and Sauvageon. Neither seemed to understand the other, but that was no deterrent. They simply upped the volume and gestured with more vigour.
Halfway to the castle. Couldn’t they have chosen the training grounds for their little display? At this rate, Varda would be late.
Their followers swarmed around them. They had camps now, these followers. Interpreters from both groups translated the argument as it happened, and people placed bets on who would gain the upper hand in this round.
Nobody knew what had caused the mammoth quarrel, and Varda still hadn’t gotten a straight answer out of Sven. Whatever it was, it grew tedious. Especially since these arguments had also become the festering ground for rumours.
Whatever gossip could be heard was heard here. Whatever rumour could be started was started here. Each tale spread and spread, altered and grew until the next time—maybe in an hour, maybe in a day—when Sven and Sauvageon would once again create a scene so the people could swap their stories, break away one more shard of Frank’s reputation, and chisel at the rift splitting the resistance.
Noble against commoner, Mordian against Mordian.
The questions grew more intent. What was the king’s goal?
Everybody had seen the princess by now, out on her daily stroll with Nic. Varda had seen her. The corpse pallor, the gaunt cheeks, and barely-there stare. The people gossiped about the drug Frank gave her, ethirin, but they didn’t know their rumours were fact.
Apparently, they didn’t need to know for sure. Truth or lie, their trust was cracked, and flaked away bit by bit, worse than ever because of the newest stories. Details shared by a survivor from the outpost near Artagnon were repeated by every mouth, and reports from the surrounding outposts trickled in. Reports from the trenches.
Two regiments prepared to leave, to retake the lost outpost, but the soldiers were far from happy about it. They now knew they’d likely been sent to their deaths, and for the first time, they questioned. Why? Why should they go? What was in it for them?
For all Frank’s talk of being a good king, those outposts proved his dark side existed. A side that spoke but didn’t always listen. A side that promised but provided only when he gained. A side that smiled but hid something sinister.
Even Varda couldn’t deny they were right. Had he not promised to marry her in exchange for their alliance months before? Had he not spoken of how they’d cut down the emperor, then ceased all attacks for the winter? He offered pretty words, then took them back, and he treated Vendla with no respect.
The Dvarans were angry. The Mordians were angry. Yet, Frank walked around with his most charming smile and paid no mind to what he had to know was going on among the people.
A woman with a thick blond braid spoke fast and low to a group of four others. “—eye-witness saw those two attack Du Pont. Intelligence. They were trying to kill him, and he acted in self-defence. The witness, someone respected by all of us, helped him hide the bodies. They knew this was a ploy to discredit Du Pont with the nobles. And look, it’s working. They’ve never supported the king as passionately as they do now, just because he’s entertaining them. But there is more to Mordoux than Belle’Victoire.” This earned feverish agreement.
She continued, “And the third corpse—the one in the castle—how the hell was Du Pont supposed to have pulled that off? I know he’s good, but shit people, he’s not a ghost who can slip through walls. He’s being framed. We know the truth, right? Du Pont would never harm house Lenoir, and why would he even need to, when Lenoir is harming Lenoir? What the king is doing to the princess is wrong.” She paused when more mumbles flared up, then held out her hands. “I don’t know where Du Pont is, but he needs our help. Meanwhile, there are other rumours. The king’s drugging the—”
Varda rushed through a gap among the people. These rumours were going to end Frank.
She’d tell him at dinner.
Dinner. Had he invited her because he knew she’d followed Malak out of the keep the day prior? Was this some sort of move in his bloody game that Varda didn’t understand? Or was it just as the invitation had said—an opportunity for them to talk, properly, for the first time in weeks?
Varda’s heart throbbed at double-tempo while icicles grew from her spine. She wanted to go to Nita, to claim that ripe body, and to accept Nita’s offer of fun. But could she? She had to marry Fran
k, come what may, because her gods demanded it of her.
The vision she’d had in Olaf’s tent flickered in and out of focus in her mind, now hazy now clear, in a repeating loop. There she was, strained between Nita and Frank, while they pulled and pulled until she was armless, and but an inch from splitting.
Worse still was Olaf’s latest vision. Fishes and roosters and armies, and a dragon. A bloody dragon, of all things. What did it mean? When would these visions come true?
The Mating was but two days away, and the Dvarans returned to Collinefort for the event—more of them every day. With each of time’s ticks and tocks, a frightening fate approached. What would happen when they’d all come, when they could swap out outpost stories and compare notes about Frank? Some of them didn’t even know Varda wasn’t yet the Mordian princess consort, that Frank would probably only marry her when it suited him.
Would her people bring the war Vendla had seen?
She stomped into the castle.
Ash and damnation, she wasn’t ready. Not for what her mother had predicted. Not for whatever it was Olaf had seen.
But she was Varda Ahlström, maiden-heir of Dvara, soon to be princess consort of Mordoux. Whatever fate awaited her, she would follow the will of her gods, and she’d emerge on the other side, victorious.
She squared her shoulders and made her way to the dining room.
Soldiers filled the space, spread out between the tables, but Frank was absent.
A runner rushed her way. “Excuse me, maiden-heir, but the king is waiting in his suite.”
She raised her brows and took the hall to his door, then shook out her hands and knocked.
“Enter,” he said.
Varda opened the door.
A round table stood on a rug near the fireplace, set with fancy porcelain and cutlery for two. He’d even lit candles.
Frank stood to pull her chair. The top two buttons of his dress shirt were open, revealing black hair on his chest, sharing his spice-and-musk scent. Flickering candlelight reflected in his eyes and the corners of his mouth turned up. “You like it?”
A Trial of Sparks & Kindling (Fall of the Mantle Book 2) Page 25
