Rielle opened her eyes. “You would do that?”
“Child, there is nothing I would not do for your sake.”
And that was the world. “I love you, Gran.”
“I love you, too.” Gran gave her shoulder a squeeze.
She wouldn’t proclaim her guilt about the fire in the Mélange, but Gran was right. The way to relieve her burden was to set it down. And she could do that by ensuring she never succumbed to fureur again.
It was time to test whether she could truly resolve it once and for all. Jon had promised to help rescue Olivia, and that would mean he’d be by her side in Courdeval—over six feet of arcanir and the man who loved her to stop her fureur if necessary. The perfect chance.
Just a few days. A few days more.
After their goodbyes, Rielle and Jon made their way across the city to The Copper Flagon. They needed to collect Leigh and finalize their plan for breaching Courdeval. It was finally time. We’re coming, Olivia. Just hold on a little longer.
After the hostler took their horses, Jon opened the door.
Leigh’s wide eyes greeted them from the dining area. “Well, well, such distinguished personages! To what do I owe the honor?” He threw back an ale stein and drained it. Dressed in an open, black master-mage coat over a quilted green cotton doublet and hose, he looked comfortable, if not assimilated with the clientele.
She headed straight for the table, shedding her white cloak, and pulled out a chair. “Nice to see you, too, Leigh.”
He eyed her. “Learned your lesson?”
“Working on it.” She pressed her lips together.
Jon joined them, his armor clattering as he settled into the chair. Given the letters, it was best to take no chances on the road.
“All healed?” Leigh asked.
“Better than ever.” Jon helped himself to some rye bread laid out on a tray between them and buttered it.
She nodded to the staircase. “Shall we?”
Leigh rose while Jon stuffed the bread in his mouth, and then he led them up a flight of creaky stairs, to the end of the hall, and into a room. The packs were piled near the door, and on the solitary table in the room, a map lay sprawled, a large candle anchoring its upper right-hand corner.
Jon moved to the table’s edge. He traced a winding path on the parchment with a finger. “This route takes us directly through bandit territory.” He looked over his shoulder at them. “The Black Mountain Brigands run the area east of the Kingsroad there, and they’re on the Crag’s payroll—we have the letters to prove it. Just a few miles west, and we could avoid them.”
She pulled the stack of letters from her satchel and handed them to Leigh.
He riffled through them and sniffed. “Why waste the time?”
Jon turned to him with a hand on his sword’s pommel. “The risk of battle and the time it would take to regroup. I’ve planned on quick battle before and found myself”—he eyed Rielle—“thwarted.”
Nevertheless. “We can’t risk late arrival at the capital,” she replied. “We will have to assume the risk and rely on healing for recovery, arcanir poison notwithstanding.”
Jon crossed his arms and eyed the map with a sigh. “Very well.”
“It is quite likely that you won’t need to draw your sword at all. Two mages can wipe out an army. What hope do a few bandits have?” Leigh shrugged. “Do we have a way in?”
“Yes,” she said. “I have made contact with the resistance in Courdeval, mainly the Black Rose. They will provide a diversion for a few hours on the south side of the city.”
“Can they be trusted?” Leigh set down the letters.
“They want the Crag out as much as we do.” Mentioning Nicolette’s involvement—and thus explaining how someone, namely Brennan, had made it over the city walls—was out of the question. She moved to the map and pointed to Courdeval’s northeastern gate, where they would enter. “We’ll come in here. We’ll have to extinguish the light at the gate tower to signal the Black Rose.” Moving her finger to the southeastern gate, she said, “Here, in the Coquelicot District, the Black Rose will stage a diversion, which will help us cross the Violette District, Alcea, Orchidée, then breach the citadel’s northern gate to enter Azalée and fight our way to the palace.”
“We’ll just ‘breach the citadel’s northern gate’?” Jon raised an eyebrow.
She and Leigh exchanged a smile.
Jon drew in a long breath. “Terra have mercy. Tell me how.”
“The black arts are mighty.” With a grin, she pointed to the palace’s southeastern service entrance. “That’s our way into Trèstellan Palace.” She thumbed through the maps until she found the palace’s fourth-floor plan. Tapping the Archmage’s study, she glanced from Jon to Leigh. “Here are Olivia’s quarters... We can check there for anything related to the rite.”
“And the Lunar Chamber?” Leigh’s eyes searched the map.
She found the maps of the palace’s lower levels and traced the edges of a large room, separated from the dungeon by a sealed space. “Here. I’ll perform the rite, then we’ll break through these sealed chambers”—she indicated them on the map—“and make our way to the dungeon. Once we find Olivia and release the Black Rose prisoners, we have a few exits.” She pointed to two staircases, an entrance to the catacombs, and three sewer grates.
“Sewers?” Leigh shuddered. “It won’t come to that.”
“It might,” she replied.
“It shouldn’t,” Jon said. “Once I reach Monas Amar, I’ll convince the Paladin Grand Cordon to seize the opportunity provided by the Black Rose’s diversion. It’s the kind they will have been waiting for.”
“It’s as good a plan as we’ll get.” She anchored her hands on her hips, staring at the dungeon on the map. Olivia, please be all right.
Leigh pushed away from the door. He went to the table and rolled up the map with the letters. “Let’s go.”
Downstairs, Leigh paid the innkeeper, picked up one of the packs, and left. She and Jon grabbed the remaining bags and headed for the stable.
Brennan lounged on a bale of hay in full black leathers, his eyes flitting up to hers and hooding as he grinned. She threw down her bags and glared at him.
Jon took her arm and leaned in close to her ear. “What is he doing here?”
“We’re about to find out.” She pulled away and approached Brennan. “You could have found us inside.”
Brennan huffed a half-laugh and spread out his arms. “I’m quite comfortable here with the rest of the beasts.”
Leigh pushed his way past Jon. “What are you doing here?”
Brennan dismounted the hay bale in a fluid movement. “I’ll be joining you,” he answered, his voice matter of fact.
“No,” Leigh said.
She glared at him. That was her no to say.
“Marquise Laurentine is my fiancée,” Brennan said firmly. “If I allowed her to enter a besieged city without my support, my father would raise an uproar the likes of which the realm has never heard... the brunt of which I would be bearing”—he looked Leigh up and down—“and sharing with Her Excellency, the Grand Divinus.”
“Fuck the Grand Divinus,” Leigh hissed.
Brennan’s eyes narrowed even as he smiled, but she shook her head at him. If he so much as touched Leigh, all bets were off.
Brennan’s smile widened as he clasped his hands behind his back and straightened his posture, drawing himself up to his full height. “I’m a skilled fighter.”
Leigh crossed his arms. “You’re no mage, you have no weapons—”
“I am the weapon.” Brennan locked eyes with him. “I have trained with a Faris grandmaster of hand-to-hand combat since early childhood.”
House Marcel bred expert fencers, including Brennan, but the duke had employed a hand-to-hand combat master from Sonbahar for well over a decade.
Leigh turned to her. “And you’re all right with this? After all he’s done to you?”
There it was
. Out in the open.
Brennan, to his credit, pursed his lips in what seemed a valiant attempt to beat back a proud grin.
Something had changed in Brennan after his duel with Jon, after she’d... stopped him. Had he accepted that he could force nothing from her? Had he finally resolved to befriend her?
She glanced at Jon.
He held her gaze for a blazing moment, then at last grunted his displeasure and looked away.
“Yes.” The period of utter stillness after her answer may have lasted a decade in the span of a minute. A horse snorted a few feet away in one of the stalls.
Leigh rolled his eyes but shrugged. “Very well.”
She caught sight of her horse in the farthest stall, cleared her throat, and strode to it. She opened the half-door, reached for a dandy brush and, wishing to vanish, did her best to make it come true as she brushed her mare. More for herself than the horse, but she received no complaints.
“If he so much as looks at her wrong, I will gut him.” Barely audible, Jon spoke several feet away.
She froze, her hold on the brush loosening.
“Personally, I’d prefer a force-magic spell crushing him to a fine paste,” Leigh retorted. “But your way’s good, too.”
Jon exhaled a deep, calm breath. The unmistakable heavy footfalls of his booted heels followed. She raised her head just high enough to spy him fuming. He hadn’t tried to impose his will on her, but he needed to cool off.
“Folly, isn’t it?”
She swung her head toward the sound.
Brennan crouched in the corner of the stall. His ability to move about in stealth never failed to amaze.
“Nothing to do with you, of course,” she hissed, returning to her task.
He examined his nails. “I wanted to tell them that they’re so obsessed with the fifteen minutes of pleasure you gave me three years ago when what they really should be doing is trading stories with each other. Now that would be cause for obsession.”
The brush slipped from her hand. She tried to catch it only to bounce it farther away. Clenching her teeth, she glared at him before fetching it. She’d rather fight a hundred duels than listen to even one second of the nightmarish discussion he described.
“What?” he asked quietly, loosening his shoulders. “I knew you wouldn’t go for it, so clearly, I abstained.”
She seized the brush and picked the straw out of its bristles. The insuperable barrier between Jon and Leigh about their romantic experiences with her was a gift from the Divine. “Why are you here, Brennan?”
He scoffed. “You know why.”
She tossed aside the last of the straw, and he grasped her hand. Held it until the searing heat of his contact forced her eyes to his. “I’m here for you, Rielle,” he said, his voice so quiet she wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly.
She pulled her hand away and returned the brush to its place. “What new trick is this?”
“No trick. I want to ensure you make it to the other side of this, and not just because I want this curse broken. I want to make amends.”
“You don’t mean that,” she whispered.
“I do. I want to earn your forgiveness, if I can.”
Forgiveness? She shook her head. Brennan thrived on bitterness. Could any man who’d enjoyed hurting someone for so long have a change of heart like this? She was a fool for even wondering. Playing right into his hands. Paws.
“You’re lying.” She rose and coaxed her mare out of the stall.
He sidled up next to her.
“Would I lie to you?” he asked, his voice a lingering caress as he moved past.
“ ‘You didn’t think I meant all that, did you?’ ” She snarled his own words from Tregarde back at him.
His upper lip stiffened. “One time. Am I never to get another chance?”
“Another chance at what?” Her hands shook; she fisted them. At marriage? At love? Never. She’d already given him two, and he’d squandered both.
“At peace between us,” he hissed, invading her space. “I know I hurt you. I’m sorry. Let me try to make it up to you.” He brimmed with tension, coiled tightly beneath his skin.
Make it up... If he wanted peace—whether real or false—it was better than cruelty. She wouldn’t turn him away. But she wouldn’t trust him entirely either. “Fine.”
The tension dissipated from him in waves as he relaxed. “Good. Let’s be friends, Rielle.”
Kind words from him had turned bitter far too often. But maybe his intentions were sincere this time. Maybe...
Leigh walked his horse out of the stable.
With a final glance toward her so-called friend, she followed and paused near Jon. His eyes caught hers just as he managed to get his horse out.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice low, still rumbling.
She slumped her shoulders. “Are you?”
He inhaled deeply, as if the intake of air were panacea to violence. Perhaps it was.
“I can handle myself.” She could feel his eyes on her, but she didn’t have the heart to meet them.
He stroked her cheek softly. “You don’t have to, not alone. Not anymore.”
Together. They would face the world together. She looked up at him, and slowly, he leaned in and kissed her, his lips playing softly against hers. His gloved fingers moved from her cheek to cradle her head, inviting her closer.
She surrendered to him, let him pull her in as his back met the stall’s wall. Deep breath after deep breath, never enough. The warmth, the dizziness of him, the sting of arcanir—His hand wandered lower, pressing into the small of her back, pulling her close. How she wished to feel his body against hers again, lamenting all between them.
His eyes narrowed at something over her shoulder.
“This is really titillating, but I need to get by.” Brennan’s voice.
She broke away. Brennan stood behind her white mare and held the reins of a dappled gray destrier. The massive horse bobbed its head and tapped the ground with an anxious foreleg.
She could do nothing but nod and lead her mare out of the way, but Jon stepped in front of Brennan and eyed him coolly.
“Commoner,” Brennan said dismissively.
“Monster.” Jon alighted upon the word with a grim twist of his lips that could no longer be called a grin. He took a bold step forward and leaned in. “If you so much as look at her wrong, I will have your head.”
Brennan remained rigid. Controlled. “It won’t come to that. My betrothed and I have an understanding.”
She fought back a shiver.
Jon blew out an amused breath, but in an instant, his face turned hard, unforgiving. He held Brennan’s impassive gaze for a moment longer, then turned his horse aside.
Wordlessly, Brennan led his destrier past and only gave her a passing glance, calm and unaffected. Who was this Brennan who held his tongue? Well, mostly?
Jon approached her, and together they exited the stable. Brennan had tried to kill him only a few days ago. If Jon needed time and some coarse words, then she wouldn’t complain. And Brennan had earned a lot worse.
They mounted their horses and set a course for Melain’s southern gate and their perfectly planned route.
Chapter 55
Jon scanned the horizon as he headed into the woods. Empty. Quiet. The day’s ride along the outskirts of the Forest of the Hart had been long and uneventful, made bitter by the late-autumn chill. And the monster that stalked Rielle.
Brennan pitched the tents. Completely unobjectionable. She watched, too, casting a wary eye from time to time while she laid the camp wards. If she didn’t trust him, good. She shouldn’t.
Even now, Faithkeeper ached to be drawn. His hand hovered over the hilt, but he curled his fingers.
A low babbling hum came from nearby. The quiet flow of the stream. He took a deep breath. And then another. And then another. And headed deeper into the woods. No campfire yet. No firewood. Something to do.
He wove through the t
angled shrubs and thorny bushes of the dense mixed-oak forest, searching the ground for hardwood, so their fire would burn long tonight to combat the ever more biting cold.
He passed Rielle, who dispelled her earthsight and gave him a soft smile. A thin smile. He knew that look—a brave veil over doubts. All day, she’d been unusually quiet and positioned herself carefully between him and Brennan; she didn’t trust him to control his temper.
Then again, after Melain, he’d given her little reason to.
He nodded to her but didn’t disturb her as she warded. Later, in the relative privacy of their tent, they’d talk.
A sizable oak branch, thicker than his arm, lay split not far from the stream, where Leigh had brought the horses. Leigh glanced over his shoulder. “You’ve been quiet.”
Not for lack of words. Jon crouched and splashed his face. Terra have mercy, it was bone cold. He shook off the chill. “In Bournand, when you told me about Tregarde... You could have mentioned his fiancée was Rielle.”
Leigh rubbed his horse’s back pensively. “Did it matter?”
Had he known...
Had he known, he would have still fallen for her. Perhaps there were men who believed they could decide whether or not to love a woman. Foolish men. “No, I suppose it didn’t.”
Leigh crouched, cupped his hands, and brought some water to his mouth. He shook out his hands and stood. “I’m glad you two worked it out.”
“Glad?” Jon arched a brow. “Then what was all that ‘she’ll rip your heart out’ business?”
Leigh patted him on the back. “Oh, she will rip your heart out. Only it’s not yours I care about; it’s hers.”
“Touching,” he replied. “For you, anyway.” With a nod to a grinning Leigh, he crossed the stream toward the split oak branch. He grabbed both pieces and dragged them back while the setting sun shined its farewell rays. The sky darkened.
His and Rielle’s plans relied on many variables, too many to rest comfortably. What if the worst happened? He gritted his teeth. What if the Divinity excommunicated her, he couldn’t get a knighthood, and the new king didn’t break her engagement? Where would that leave them?
Blade & Rose (Blade and Rose Book 1) Page 48
