He hissed.
That is, if anyone deprived him of his means of control. Of his curse-breaking.
The manservant stopped in front of the study. “Just a moment,” he said, turning to the ornately carved oak door and raising his knuckles to it.
Rolling his eyes, Brennan cut him off and threw the door open, leaving the manservant agog.
Inside, Father sat in a winged tufted leather armchair with a book. His coal-black hair, now dusted with shades of ash, was cropped short, and his black velvet doublet and wool trousers fit him well—he’d remained faithful to his training regimen, if to little else. Faolan Auvray Marcel could always be relied on to tend to himself, his fortune, and his women. His black leather boots, shined to high gloss, caught the late-afternoon sun from the windows. His crisp white shirt contrasted starkly against his deep bronze skin, a shade darker than Brennan’s.
“Father.”
Serene, he didn’t look up from his book. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
The manservant shuffled in, but Father dismissed him with a hand. “Leave us, Preston.”
“As you wish, Your Grace.” The man bowed shakily and made his exit.
Brennan strolled deeper into the study and grazed a finger along the leather spines of a shelf of books. One lay on the edge; he picked it up and continued scanning the rest while he gathered his thoughts.
The siege had broken two days ago. Maerleth Tainn was at least a week away by carriage. And yet here Father was.
Brennan found an empty space among the shelved books and easily slipped into place in the one he held.
To be here so soon after the siege broke, Father had to have been nearby. Invested. It all fit.
Brennan eyed the replaced book—one of a series of ledgers. “You made a play for the crown.”
After a moment, he resumed his perusal of the tomes. He’d give Father the chance to catch his breath.
The old man must have supposed him completely ignorant. Brennan could have laughed. Father had chosen decidedly loose-lipped tools if he’d wanted discretion.
Brennan stopped at the spine of the latest Court Duelist and smiled. Every Marcel property stocked the series for him. Once upon a time, he and Rielle had read the first couple volumes together, to each other.
It was the court’s worst-kept secret that the romantic duelist hero was based on Prince James. Jon’s father. Jon’s royal father.
Brennan repressed the urge to curse. He had no love for Rielle’s royal paramour, but Jon served a necessary purpose in filling the throne—keeping Father off it. A play for the crown was dangerous, and royalty came with responsibilities Brennan would never want. Never in his life would he have thought he’d support Rielle’s lover as king, but there it was.
When Father still didn’t answer, Brennan turned to him. He’d come for information and wouldn’t be so easily rebuffed. “No answer?”
“No question.”
He could hear the smug smile in Father’s voice. He grimaced. “I need to know where Rielle is.”
Father closed his book, laced his fingers, and looked at Brennan with an amused glimmer. “What, she’s not off dallying with another commoner?”
Brennan’s stomach clenched, but he banked the outrage and strolled to the window. He wouldn’t give Father such easy access to his emotions. It would be easier for the old man to irritate him and answer no questions, but he’d find no ease today.
Outside the window, beyond Azalée, the city was busy rebuilding. Men littered roofs, hung from walls, and ascended on ladders, repairing the siege’s damage. Courdeval had suffered before and rebuilt. It would again.
“Did you have anything to do with her disappearance?” Brennan asked calmly but firmly.
Silence.
He listened for Father’s heart, and it beat a little faster—realization.
“As part of a faction seeking what’s best for the kingdom, did I hire Gilles?” Father dropped the book onto a table. “Yes.” He rose and strode to the window to join Brennan. He scanned the horizon. “But your woman was never a part of the conversation.”
No irregularity in Father’s heart to suggest a lie. That was it, then. Father had hired Gilles. Endangered the whole family with his vain pursuit of the crown.
Brennan fought back a snarl.
But would he admit to treason and endangering the family, but lie about Rielle? It seemed unlikely. “And how much blood will your scheme cost us?”
“None.” Father’s voice was even. “I was careful.”
Brennan could have laughed. If only Father knew how many loose ends he’d left. Fewer now, of course, thanks to Brennan.
He was about to ask whether Father would stop his machinations, but he glanced down through the glass at the courtyard, at the servants bustling about. One carried in a gown box. No doubt for a mistress.
“Which one’s here? Gabrielle? Fleur?”
Father grinned. “Marie de Brignac.” He breathed her name like a satisfied exhalation.
Brennan raised his eyebrows. He had seen the woman once, a strikingly beautiful maiden in her late twenties with hazelnut-brown hair, dark-blue eyes, and light-bronze skin. Mixed blood was rare among the Houses of Emaurria, flowing only among the Faralles, the Marcels, and whomever they deigned to bed or wed—and her mother was an Emaurrian maid of the Royal Household who’d been granted a small manor house—Brignac—not far from the capital.
The king hadn’t elevated her to nobility, but the maid’s daughter, Marie, was said to be King Marcus’s bastard child. She certainly had his features.
For a mistress, the daughter of the king he had assassinated...
Many men held grudges; some men, however, buried them, buried them so deep in their hearts that to live was to grudge. Such a man was Faolan Auvray Marcel.
But Father hadn’t come here for pleasure.
Brennan watched the servants bustling in the courtyard, their lives made hectic by their lord’s stay. “Was it worth the coin? Killing him?”
Father exhaled another long breath. This one not satisfied but bored. “I’m not sure what you mean. Our family was unable to collect on a loan, and we’ve suffered losses.” He gave Brennan a shrewd look.
A clear lie. But alibis had to be secured. And this would work. A substantial sum to compensate a Free Company could have also been lost on a loan, if the right men were paid to produce the evidence.
“Now that Marcus is no longer standing in the way of progress, we’ll earn it back soon enough.”
“That’s not an answer,” Brennan pushed.
Father glanced out the north-facing window at the palace. “It’s all I have.”
The coup d’état had failed. He’d achieved the removal of King Marcus and other obstacles, but he hadn’t won the crown.
And he wouldn’t—not with the Order protecting their own so carefully. Any further plan was doomed to fail.
Brennan hadn’t come here to discuss failures. “Do you know where Rielle is or not?”
Father peered down at Victoire’s courtyard. “I didn’t even know she was missing.”
No irregularity.
Father turned to him. “You’re going after her, I presume?”
Even the thought of leaving her to some wretched fate was unpalatable. Brennan nodded.
Father rested a hand on his shoulder. “Take as many knights and men-at-arms as you want, as much coin as you want—whatever you need.”
Brennan eyed him. Father didn’t care whether Rielle lived or died, of course; what he cared about was that someone had dared take what belonged to the Marcels. And such slights could not go unanswered.
“Yes, Father.” He turned to take his leave and moved to the door.
“Brennan?” Father called from the window.
“Yes?”
“You are my only son,” he said, turning around to lean against the window frame. “If the rumors from Melain are true, the king is in love with her. He is young and foolish... He’ll break th
e marriage contract.”
There was no question. Jon would free her of obligation, give her the power of choice.
Once upon a time, forcing her into marriage had seemed an attractive option.
But he didn’t have it in him to force her into anything anymore.
It had been a game, toying with her and pushing her limits, hadn’t it? Trying to destroy her options had shown her his power, his worth, and the inevitability of their fate together—or it had, at one time.
Her determination, her resolve, the look on her face in Melain as she’d plunged the glass into her body now etched into his memory forever. Some nights, he lay awake, her resolute, powerful, broken face haunting him. And he’d been the one to push her so far, to corner her, to break her. His own hands might as well have been on that shard of glass.
Never again. He never wanted to see that broken face again. Not to marry her. Not even to break the curse. If the ghost of that face returned, he wasn’t sure he could ever see the world again but through the haze of that anguished specter.
No, he could never—would never—hurt her like that again. He splayed his fingers and then clenched them tight.
Father studied him. “When you return, regardless of what happens with Favrielle, you’ll need to marry.”
Brennan nodded curtly and exited the study. He shut the door behind him, strode to the stairs, and gripped the banister.
To marry another woman would be to let the one he was destined for slip away. A contract, a love, and a curse had brought them together, three threads fate now stretched. The contract would soon be cut. But the love?
She’d loved him once. Of that he was certain. And he—he loved her, too. Had loved her.
Had? He ran his fingers over the engraved hazel leaves that he and Rielle used to admire together.
Could she still? Would she? Ever?
After all he’d done, could she ever love him again?
His breaths came slower, harder. He’d humiliated her. Hurt her. Abused her—physically, emotionally, psychologically. He’d been a vile, hateful monster, not worthy of love but a sword through the heart.
How could she still love him? She wouldn’t. She would never.
Tension vibrated through his arms—he wanted to rip the banister from the wall, tear apart the house, everyone in it, himself.
Himself. He wanted to rip himself apart.
Instead, he pounded down the stairs, ignoring everything and everyone, shoving aside the doddering old man with his gloves, leaving his horse behind. He stormed out of Victoire and strode through the defeated streets of Azalée.
In Trèstellan, when he had no longer felt her through the bond—when he’d thought her dead, it hadn’t been the thought of controlling the Wolf that had assailed him. It had been the thought of her, the concept of her removal from life itself, that unbearable notion.
She hated him, would never love him, for how could she? He’d destroyed all hope of that, hadn’t he? And yet, that impossibility, despite its neat certainty, wove through him like a shard of glass.
The cold air he’d once been impervious to now bit, its chill wind meeting his wet eyes. The agony he’d so long repressed rose to the surface, refusing to be denied.
Great Wolf damn the wind.
A few hearts beat around him, some voices whispered, and he looked about, at the faces passing by in the street in the biting autumn air. Let them talk. He didn’t care. Their words meant nothing—a lesson he should have learned years ago.
He rounded a corner and found a villa’s gate hanging off its hinges. He slipped in and trudged through the brush, ripping shrubs out with their roots, tearing up a garden as he sought the dark corner. There, he pressed his back against the cool wall and slid to a crouch, dropping his head in his hands. His face tightened to bursting, eyes stinging, every muscle in his body hardening to painful rigidity, and his fingernails bit into his palms, spikes of pain blooming the wetness of blood. The darkness welcomed him, embraced him, invited him to explore greater depths.
Here, away from prying eyes, he could at last be himself. Not the Wolf. The man.
He wanted her to love him.
He surrendered to the dark, wept as he hadn’t in years, letting the reality shred through him, cut its way out. He’d given her his love once, and she’d tossed it away. To live was to grudge. He’d crushed her mercilessly in turn, hurt her—how many times? And now, the cruel irony of it, he wanted her to love him.
It would be easier to crush that, too, to bury the grudge deeper in his heart. It was easier to hate than to hurt. That hatred could temper him to steel—sharpen him until he became only deadly edges. Like Father.
But it was delusion.
He hurt. Rielle had hurt him, and when he couldn’t have her love, he’d taken her hate.
She hates me.
Her hate had been easier to stomach than her rejection, hadn’t it? Having the upper hand had lessened the pain, hadn’t it?
I love her.
To deny it, he’d broken her, pushed her nearly into her grave. And now she was gone, could even be—
He dropped his gaze to the shrubs he’d torn up and discarded, studying their leaves.
Honeysuckle.
A raw, hoarse laugh rent free of him, and he dragged a sleeve across his eyes.
Rielle had to be alive. She had to be alive because she hated him and he loved her and the gods loved irony.
But first, in order to ever love him, she’d need to forgive him. He’d find her, alive, and earn that forgiveness.
Love her. Love those she loves. Convince her you want to make amends, and convince yourself. Then make them.
Amends. Tomorrow, he and a blade would visit the mage, he’d meet with his squad of soldiers, and begin.
Chapter 72
Drip.
Leigh watched as another droplet of blood rolled languidly down his arm all the way to the tip of his fifth finger and plummeted to the arcanir-coated stone floor.
Drip.
It had been over a decade since he had last seen the inside of a cell. Even then, it hadn’t been for very long. With no word on an audience, caged in a prison built for mages and cuffed in arcanir, the future was decidedly bleak. Even for someone like him.
It was ridiculous.
There was no other word for it. He closed his eyes sluggishly, shook his head, and snarled. The Divinity. No one had wanted to see it, to understand, to realize that—with no fight at all—they were giving away their freedom to a power only too happy to take it. For over a thousand years, the Divinity of Magic had played in the shadows of global politics, offering means and support to what it deemed just causes and just rulers, taking presence, influence, and respect in exchange.
Countries and their people gleefully accepted peace while closing their eyes to atrocities. The anarchic North became a mess of warlords and clans because its rulers had refused to send mages to a Tower and had thus refused the Divinity’s so-called “aid.” Mission after mission eliminated “dangerous” leaders in the North, anyone who might have united the clans and formed a nation independent of the Divinity’s influence.
And yet countries like the Kezan Isles and Sonbahar, which dealt in piracy and slavery, gained the support of the Divinity easily, despite resisting any change to their brutal ways. The Kezan Isles did so by paying tribute and sending mage children across the Shining Sea to Magehold in Silen. Sonbahar did it by welcoming a Tower into its harsh land, without abolishing slavery. What did that speak of, if not the Divinity’s cold pragmatism?
So many mages in the Divinity’s service had dark pasts heavy with alienation and sorrow. While magic had always had its price, it had become markedly steeper since the Divinity began to centralize mages.
Drip.
Leigh rested his head against the cell wall. It had taken him years to realize the Divinity was to blame for his own heart-wrenching loss of his family. But he had seen it as a doyen, year after year, novices in his classroom wearing the
somber expressions of orphanage and depression. Even the one who had once captured his heart.
But even she had refused to see the truth.
Rielle still hadn’t come to see him yet, but her exacting monster of a fiancé certainly had. Leigh sighed and shook the blood from his hands, tired of the ceaseless dripping. The monster had come with a blade, a blade that had been insistent and relentless in its questioning—whom he was working with, what his plan consisted of, how he had planned to evade capture, and so on.
Its sharp edge was unsatisfied with the answer: the entirety of his “plan” had consisted of revealing the Divinity as unneeded, rallying three Archon lines—the so-called “heretics,” and trusting his former apprentice to believe him and join him.
Yes, the blade had been unsatisfied. Very unsatisfied. And he had the injuries to prove it.
Light footsteps echoed from down the hall. Perhaps Rielle had finally deigned to visit. She never could be upset with him for long.
“Did you come for an apology, or did you just miss me?” he called out.
“Neither,” was the answer, but its speaker was not Rielle: Olivia. “Someone told me you were down here. Leigh Galvan in chains had to be seen to be believed.”
Clad in a green velvet gown with a high neck and long sleeves, she was vivid in her austere modesty. Always conservative. Always buttoned up, held in, restrained, as if she feared her body would flee her dominion if not for the constraints of fabric. But that had always been Olivia.
Fitted as it was, the dress illustrated the difficult conditions she had survived. Her flame-red hair, gathered in its large plaited bun at the nape of her neck, and her bright-green eyes made Olivia Sabeyon stand out anywhere.
“Deriding your former master?” He shook his shackles. “Forgive me for not kissing your hand.”
Olivia clutched the bars, flinching at the arcanir. On her fifth finger, she bore the Ring of the Archmage, a large emerald intricately set in recondite. She squinted to view him in the dim light, then unhanded the bars and cast a healer’s soothing light spell. “You look terrible.”
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