Blade & Rose (Blade and Rose Book 1)

by Miranda Honfleur

  Timing it, she kicked the door in the same spot, and it bent inward a bit more. Again. Finally, she turned around and hit it with a back kick.

  It flew open. Far from smooth, but acceptable. With a glance down the hallway, she slipped into the room.

  Empty.

  With a sigh, she closed the door.

  Nearly every surface was littered with clothes, papers, cups, glass shards, bread, apples, sausage, cheese, the remnants of a broken chair. There’d been a struggle.

  On the far wall, curtains billowed in the breeze of the open window. She crept near and peered out between laundry on clotheslines at the fast-moving stream below. Following its path, she spotted a long, cylindrical case caught among some reeds.

  The Divinity used such cases for important documents transport. If the contents even resembled those she’d carried, it was valuable.

  With a curl of her finger, she focused on the water, guiding a steady trickle up and apart from the stream to bear the case to the window. She pulled in more and more water, lengthening the spelled trickle, until at last the case was close enough to grasp. Glancing around for any witnesses, she reached out and took it, then dispelled the trickle of water. It splashed to the ground. She turned back to the room.

  A man—

  Instinct took over. She cast an ice shard at the large intruder. It thudded into the wall. Behind Brennan.

  Where had he—

  He seized her arm and twisted it behind her back, sending her face and chest crashing into the wall and the case rolling on the floor. Pain spiked in her cheekbone and clavicle.

  He grabbed her other arm and leaned in.

  “Calm down,” he growled into her ear.

  Her heart racing, she thrashed in his hold, but he only twisted her arm higher, until it hurt. “Let me go.”

  He pressed her harder against the wall. “Are you scared?”

  A taunting smile lurked in his voice. Her chest crushed against the paneled wood. “Never.”

  “You should be.” Something like a laugh rumbled in his throat. “I could do anything to you here, and no one would stop me. No one would even know.”

  She clenched her teeth. “Then stop talking about it and do it already. Give me a reason to destroy you.”

  He scoffed. “Your magic does nothing to me, and you know it.”

  Immune to all magic, Brennan had proved himself something of an anomaly, besides being a werewolf. Or perhaps all werewolves were immune to magic. She’d never met another to test her theory. But he healed quickly on his own and never fell ill—so he never needed healing magic—and had collected a series of sigils to justify his magic resistance to others. An empty way to spend thousands of coronas, but he’d kept his secret even from his family.

  Brennan traced a finger down her cheek and then, with an effortless motion, unclasped her white cloak and continued tracing over her jaw, down her neck, and toward her shoulder. “You still think wearing white can ever make you clean?”

  She recoiled. He certainly didn’t lack for boldness when he didn’t need the favor of her blood before the full moon. What did he want? What was this stupid game?

  But he allowed her no reprieve. When he got to the collar of her white shirt, he yanked it down to her upper arm with a yielding rip.

  She flinched, and as he brought his nose against her skin and inhaled, she froze. Too far. She threw her head back into his face.

  He evaded, and she brought her heel down on his foot. He loosened his grip on her just enough for her to wrench free. Without a wasted second, he lunged, but she dragged a chair between them. Fire came to her palm—a shield between them like a scrolling, blazing rune.

  He stopped short, pure amusement on his hateful face. An entertained laugh followed. “Who taught you that move? That brainless Broadsteel clod?”

  “If you try to hurt me—”

  “Hurt you?” His mouth cracked in a too-wide, unnerving grin. “I already have. Irreparably.”

  She didn’t need the reminder. It had been years since she’d been able to show her face at home or at Gran’s, thanks to him. No—thanks to her own naïveté. Never again.

  Her eyes darted toward the cylindrical case. “What do you want?”

  With a heavy, dramatic sigh, he looked off to the side, flexing his biceps in his black velvet overcoat.

  He eyed her peripherally, flashing a crooked smile. “You know what I want.”

  Did he expect her to be afraid? She pursed her lips. No joy for him.

  He rested his gaze just above her head. “I could feel you in the city. When you passed nearby, I was curious.” He gestured around. “A middling brothel? Really?” He exaggerated a skeptical eyebrow raise. “We both know you prefer to fuck commoners. Try a place in Copper End.”

  Pain radiated from her jaw. How could he talk to her like that? But he was trying to get a reaction. She knew it.

  She knew it, but she couldn’t control the tremors that shook her body. All of her lovers had been commoners to a man, but not a common man among them. They knew how to respect a woman, to treat a lover properly, which was more than Brennan could claim.

  “Jealous?” she cut.

  A mocking puff. “Don’t flatter yourself.” He drew in a quick breath. “You don’t yet reek of the new knave’s sweat. Not common enough for you?”

  Knave? She checked her urge to fight back. It would only whet his appetite for insults and draw more attention to Jon. And the last thing she wanted was for Brennan to take an interest in him.

  Slowly, she raised her chin. “You seem very concerned with who shares my bed, for a man who’s not interested.”

  “ ‘Concerned,’ ” he spat with derision, kicking aside the chair between them.

  She held the fire shield before her despite its uselessness against him. At the very least, it made her feel stronger.

  Brennan leaned in. “I’m only ‘concerned’ to the extent that it rattles you.”

  His vengeance would have no end. He would torment her to the end of her days, forever attempting to treat his old, festering wound with her misery.

  She squared her shoulders.

  “Nine years, and your ego is still bleeding.” She braced herself for an attack, but Brennan only donned a joyless smile. He stared at her, his gaze unbroken, for an intense moment. Then he sighed and looked around the room.

  “So what brings you here?” He paced the small room with a practiced nonchalance, opened a book on the table, and idly flipped a page. “Business? It’s certainly not pleasure.”

  A shiver shook her spine. All his animosity had disappeared, as though it had never been.

  What did he want?

  She dispelled her fire shield but remained alert. How to answer him? Investigating whether Leigh’s story checked out? No, she couldn’t tell him that. “I wanted to know who was staying here.”

  “Have you tried asking?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  With a shrug, Brennan approached the bed and then crouched to pick up a shirt. He brought it to his nose and breathed deep. A frown creased his brow. “The mage who pushed you down the stairs in the Tower last year. What was his name?”

  “Kieran,” she answered.

  But she had never mentioned the incident to him. On laundry duty, she’d been carrying a stack of folded sheets from the laundry to the fifth floor when Kieran had pushed her from the fifth-floor landing. She’d tumbled an entire flight of stairs and nearly cracked her skull open but for the sheets. She’d awoken in the infirmary. No one had come forward as a witness but for the apprentice who’d found her, bleeding and unconscious, and so before the Proctor, it had been her word against Kieran’s. No reprimand.

  Curiously, about a month later, Kieran had returned from the local tavern looking like one large bruise and had given her a wide berth thereafter.

  “How do you know about that?”

  Brennan crumpled the shirt in his grasp. “Rumor. People seem to think I’m interested in what befalls
you.” His hazel eyes brightened. “Your suffering amuses me.”

  Despite his words, she shook her head. Coincidence was no acquaintance of Brennan Karandis Marcel. “A month later, when he returned black and blue... that was you, wasn’t it?” She frowned. “Some sort of possessive reaction?”

  He rose and let the shirt fall to the floor. “If it had been me, only his shoulder would have been black and blue, from a congratulatory pat for a job well done.”

  She jerked her head back. Which was more shocking? Brennan making a trip to the Tower’s village to interfere in a small spat? Or denying it with such effort?

  A nervous laugh threatened to escape, but she contracted her belly, gulped a breath. He had always been intent on eliminating anything that threatened the source of his control over the curse. But she couldn’t see why he’d step into such a trivial matter, nor why he’d lie about it.

  It didn’t matter. She had more pressing concerns. Brennan had made his point; maybe now he’d let her work.

  “Kieran,” she repeated. “Why would he be here?” She shuffled about the room, looking through various items, and then opened the cylindrical case. It contained maps of Courdeval, its wealthy Azalée District, the palace grounds, and Trèstellan Palace itself.

  She rummaged through the drawers and every space she could think of for anything more. In a knapsack were mage’s coats, some men’s clothes, and toiletries, among other things. Her fingertips brushed the unmistakable texture of leather. A book. She pulled it out and opened it. Revelations in Hydromancy. Inside the book was a placeholder—orders from Magehold.

  Hydromancy. She paused. The heretics in the ruins had mentioned something about a hydromancer. As long as that hydromancer is dealt with before he reaches his destination. Was this the work of the heretics?

  Brennan walked to the edge of the bed and lifted the mattress, then pulled something from beneath it.

  Glass.

  He held up a vial on a chain, with a dark-red liquid inside. Blood.

  She set aside the book and took the vial. “Why would he have this?” When no answer came, she glanced back at Brennan and then at the open window. “There’s no sign of Kieran. You think he took a trip out the window?”

  “Defenestration?” Brennan approached the area, bringing a breeze-borne curtain to his nose. “Could be. I’m guessing this mage didn’t break off the key in his own door, either.”

  “Are there any other scents here?”

  “Dozens,” he answered. “But chief among them, I smell your master.”

  Leigh? He wouldn’t harm another Tower mage... but she didn’t rule it out. He’d been prone to indulging Tower whisperings of conspiracy and hidden factions and black operations—rumors he’d once dismissed with a wave of his hand, as she did.

  Perhaps he’d investigated the room. But why hadn’t he said anything? If he’d wanted it kept secret, why hadn’t he destroyed the evidence? She clutched the orders. She’d learn her answer, one way or the other.

  She unfolded them, her eyes widening as she read.

  Orders to infiltrate the capital and the palace—along with instructions to perform the Moonlit Rite in the catacombs of Trèstellan Palace... All to prevent a catastrophe referred to only as the Rift. Bearing the sign and seal of the Grand Divinus herself.

  Her breath caught. The Rift? The relief of pressure from the other side that came with Hallowday—was that because of the Moonlit Rite? What would happen if it wasn’t performed?

  It was less than a month away.

  She’d just seen Kieran the night she’d captured Jon. He must’ve gotten the orders soon after and made better time to Bournand somehow.

  A sudden coldness struck her core. Berny bursting from the Proctor’s quarters. It’s the cap—

  The capital. Had the Proctor known about the situation in the capital when he’d sent her as Jon’s escort? Had he intended to keep her from Olivia?

  No mention of Olivia in Kieran’s orders. But if Magehold was sending someone to perform the Moonlit Rite in her stead, the implications weren’t promising.

  Teardrops fell to the parchment, and Rielle sniffed, folding it up to stuff into her shirt. She wiped her face with her sleeve; she didn’t need Brennan’s ridicule.

  At a distance, he eyed her, eyebrows drawn, fingers twitching. If he’d wanted to see her upset, then he’d gotten what he’d come for. It was far from her first—or worst—humiliation in his presence.

  She clasped the chain bearing the vial around her neck and tucked it into her shirt. With a glance at Brennan, she fastened her cloak, pulled up her hood, and exited the room.

  Olivia hadn’t escaped. And if the Divinity had sent Kieran to perform the Archmage’s duty—

  No choice. She pressed her lips together. She would see Feliciano and certainly relapse under his ruinous demands, but no matter the price, she had to know Olivia’s fate. If she’s alive, excommunication or not, even if I have to bind myself to Brennan for the rest of my life, I’m going into Courdeval.

  Chapter 24

  Soreness climbed up Olivia’s arms. An attempt to flex her fingers yielded nothing but pain. Voices diverted her attention, but she kept her eyes closed, feigning unconsciousness. The dark—whether of closed eyes or dungeon—was no stranger to her and honed her hearing.

  “Coordinate with the Heartseekers in Melain and take one with you to handle the problem, should they make it past Bournand. Make certain her charge is dead.” Gilles.

  “All this for Shadow, sir?” The saccharine soprano of the illusionist.

  “All this because I wish it, Phantom, and you’d do well to remember I keep you well supplied.” He forced out a breath. “And never forget who keeps your son alive. Displease me in any way, and I promise you, he will know it. Keenly.”

  Phantom. Another of Gilles’s mage captains?

  “Sir.”

  “And to the other matter, make them understand—I don’t care how many paladins they have to kill. Tell them to keep at it.”

  “Yes, sir.” A rustle of clothes, and footsteps retreated.

  Olivia’s heart shrank. That she was privy to an exchange between Gilles and one of his mage captains could mean only one thing. Utter failure.

  Defeated, she dragged her eyes open, squinting against the abundant torchlight in the familiar macabre comfort of her dungeon cell. The iron bars repaired, it looked the same.

  She hadn’t escaped. She hadn’t even been moved to an arcanir cell. When she attempted to raise a hand to her forehead, pain lanced her arm. With a grimace, she peered at her hands. No, the misshapen oddities that may have once been hands, now ugly, grotesque. She could do naught with them but make them hurt more.

  “Ah, Phantom took some... liberties during her custody of you, Lady Sabeyon.” Gilles maintained a pleasant mask on his stubbled face.

  Olivia’s stomach rolled, and she grimaced, repressing the whimper that threatened to emerge. Her attempted escape had failed spectacularly.

  But all was not lost. She had planned with dual purpose, after all.

  Gilles held up the arcanir shackles, so small in his large palm. “Still locked.” He peered at them, dark eyes gleaming. “I’m impressed, Lady Sabeyon. It must have been quite painful to slip these.”

  She pasted on a smile and forced herself to meet his gaze squarely. “It was easy.”

  As she raised her chin, something moved around her neck. And stung. Instinctively, she raised her hands to it, but agony tore through her arms. She winced and repressed a vocalization, glancing down at the item awkwardly. She could just make out a padlock. An arcanir collar?

  “Ah, yes. Phantom’s idea. Not so... ‘easy’ to slip.” He smiled pleasantly.

  A sour taste formed in Olivia’s mouth. “But I’m poisoned. You shouldn’t need anything but that.”

  A knowing grin. “Always seeking information, aren’t you, Lady Sabeyon? The arcanir poison will have already worn off. Phantom used a diluted formula on you. We’re saving the conc
entrated poison for something… special.”

  Her chest tightened, and she fought to slow her accelerated breathing. Now was not the time to show fear. If she wanted to get into an arcanir cell, she’d have to bait him.

  “You think I will allow you to use me against James indefinitely? These bars are nothing to me,” she said, purposely adopting a languid pose. “I escaped once, and I will escape again, or your men will kill me. Either way, you will have nothing left to use against James.”

  “You are a clever woman, Lady Sabeyon,” Gilles said, pacing the cell. He toed an intricately carved box on the floor, and Olivia’s blood ran cold. “And because you are so clever, if you truly hoped to escape on your own power, you would not posture so recklessly.”

  Perceptive. She had to hedge. “I am confident.”

  “Confidence, when on the back foot, is for fools and schemers.” He speared her with a piercing stare. “And we are not fools, are we, Lady Sabeyon?”

  She swallowed and fought back a shudder. Yet everything inside her trembled.

  “Am I to believe, then, that you are so eager for death?” He rested his hand on the pommel of a massive five-foot blade he wore. “The new Archmage, a fresh twenty-six years of age?”

  She looked away.

  “Wrong answer, Lady Sabeyon.” He crouched until his face was level with hers. “You want to be locked in an arcanir cell.”

  She drew in a deep breath. “Why would I want that, General? Escape, then, would be truly hopeless.”

  “So would spirit magic.”

  She fought to keep the disappointment from her face.

  “I want the marquise to find you, Lady Sabeyon. I want her to come.” At that, he rose.

  Had it all been so artless? “Why? Why do you want her to come? What do you gain by all this?”

  He leaned against the bars. “I gave my word to Shadow once that I now intend to fulfill. Keeping my word is its own reward.”

  How forthcoming. He was helping Shadow with some personal vendetta?