Her peaceful mood evaporated when they entered the inner yard and the princess swept out from the main doors, elaborate skirts swishing, jewels glittering colder than the ice of the pond, as she made straight for Nix. Sweat popped out on her temples, chilling on her skin, and nausea gripped her stomach. The princess knew it and smiled cruelly, though she stayed clear of the geese, several of whom hissed and tried to nip her.
“How the mighty have fallen,” Natilde sneered. “A goose girl. Abase yourself before your betters.”
Her legs weak and trembling, Nix released Falada’s halter and knelt in the muddy slush, the geese standing tall around her.
“I hear you’ve been talking.” Natilde nudged her shoulder with a pointed shoe, the brightly expensive embroidery soiled. “But that would be stupid.”
“Yes, Princess Natilde.” She shivered and hated herself for being so afraid. So weak and worthless.
“Yes, you’ve been talking?”
“Your Highness—I’ve only spoken of small, daily things, so as not to be rude to my betters. Nothing of import.”
“Keep it that way. Remember who has the power now. Or do you and I need to take a little walk, so I can remind you?”
“I remember. I won’t say a thing. I promise.” Though she hated herself for it, she shook with fear at the cruel green gleam of the woman’s eyes, her skin crawling with the memory of those nails biting into her, the slices of the knife blade, the helplessness rising up to choke her.
“I’d have your throat slit now if it didn’t please me so to see you brought so low. The prince loves me—practically worships me—and after we fuck like bunnies we sit and laugh about how pitiful you are, how you are less than nothing.”
Nix said nothing, just wanting the confrontation done, the chill seeping through her skirts. Though her erstwhile serving woman wouldn’t realize how she contradicted herself, to insist that Nix was both insignificant and worthy of discussing with the prince. Truly, it gave Nix warning, that the woman would never cease fearing the truth. She couldn’t stay and hope to live. Nor could she protect Falada. The faery was right that they should leave.
“My lady wife?” Cavan’s voice rang across the yard and Nix groaned to herself in despair, mortified that he should witness this. Terrified that he’d make things worse. Everything rested on him never knowing. Or even giving the appearance of coming close to the truth. If the princess even suspected...
He strode up. “What goes on here?”
“I’m disciplining this servant,” the princess replied, in a haughty tone. “She stole a horse from the stables.”
“Isn’t that Nix’s horse—the one she rode here?”
“Both horses are mine. A goose girl owns nothing. She should be lashed.”
A silent pause made Nix risk glancing up. Prince Cavan wore a neutral expression, but his gray eyes had gone harder than stone. An honorable man and a gentle one—but no pushover, no fool. Danger crackled in the air, though his voice remained smooth. “The king decides all punishments.”
“Then I shall speak to him.”
“A fine idea. Let me escort you inside, lest you take a chill.” When Natilde didn’t budge, he picked up her hand, swept her a gallant bow and kissed it. “After all, you may already bear our child. We cannot risk such a precious burden.”
She softened and smiled, allowing the prince to cajole her with flattery as he led her back into the castle, leaving Nix to pick herself up from the mud, her skirts soaked through.
“If your mother only knew—”
“Don’t say it. Don’t speak at all, or she will find out.” Nix fought the wave of exhaustion that swamped her as her terror ebbed back into dull dread. She handed Falada off to a stable lad and slowly made her way to the goose pen. With no Conrad in sight, she fetched the grain and scattered it for her birds, following Cavan’s example and singing to them as she did, trying to soothe both them and herself with the trickle of magic, despite her chattering teeth and the shivers that wracked her body. As much from terror of the looming consequences as cold.
The pen door opened, making her start, and Cavan stepped in, closing it behind him. His fury showed plainly now in the steely glare he leveled on her. So handsome in the imposing force of his personality, the inherent nobility of his character. “What in the Twelve was that about?” he demanded.
Her heart fluttered at his harsh tone and she quailed, unable to withstand any more, fighting the urge to fling herself against his strong body for comfort.
As if reading her mind, Cavan cursed and waded through the feeding geese, taking her by the arms. “Don’t cringe like that. I’m not mad at you. Look at you—you’re soaked to the bone and shivering. Why didn’t you change into warmer clothes?”
“Th-th—the g-g-geese,” she got out between chattering teeth.
He looked incredulous. “Danu take the geese!” Taking the bucket of grain, he upended it and tossed it down. “Where is your room—through here?”
Answering his own question, the prince pulled her into her little room, turning his back to light her brazier of coals. “Get undressed and under the blankets. I won’t look.”
Almost too numb to move, she hesitated and he threw her a ferocious glance. “Move, Nix.”
Fumbling with the ties and catches, taking down her hair for extra warmth, she obeyed, sliding gratefully under the pile of blankets, frozen to the bone.
* * *
Fortunately, Nix saved him having to strip her out of those soaked clothes, rustling as she undressed and climbed into her bed. It didn’t save him picturing her slim, delicate body in all her naked glory, but it helped calm the fury that had gripped him at the sight of her kneeling in icy muck, white and terrified, as Natilde berated her.
“Are you covered?” He asked, setting her little teapot on the grate to boil.
“Y-yes.”
He set his teeth at the sound of hers chattering. Taking a deep breath, he turned to find her tucked in the corner of her bed, dwarfed by the mound of blankets pulled up around her so only her piquant face showed, framed by the fall of her ivory hair. Sitting beside her, he chaffed her arms through the covers. “I’m brewing tea for you. You’ll drink it and then you’ll tell me what is going on between you and Princess Natilde.”
Her enormous blue eyes darkened and swam with tears she didn’t shed. “Your Highness—please, no. There’s nothing to know. The princess was simply angry that I took her horse. I won’t do it again.”
That wasn’t it. Obviously it wasn’t, as Natilde hadn’t given a moment’s thought to the horses since she arrived. “Talk to me, Nix. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me the truth.”
“That is the truth.”
“You’re lying to me. So is she. Why?”
“Please, Cavan.” Nix leaned in beseeching him, seeming unaware that she’d used his name so familiarly. “You can help me by leaving me alone. You shouldn’t be here, talking to me.”
“You seem to forget that this is my castle, my kingdom and—after my father and the High King—only I decide what I shouldn’t do.”
She jerked back, a frustrated refusal that revealed a surprising glint of temper. The movement caused a lock of her hair to fall across his hand, a sensuous glide of silk. He wrapped it around his finger, somehow unable to help himself, mesmerized by the almost magical whiteness of it against his sun-darkened skin, the seductive texture. She made a small sound and he dragged his gaze up. Staring at him with emotion stark on her face, she filled him with a tide of longing he could no longer resist. Moving slowly, feeling like he walked in a dream, as if he knew her from those dreams, he slid his other hand behind her slender neck, urging her closer, brushing her mouth with his.
Cool and petal-soft, her lips yielded, then parted, allowing him into the startling fire within. He deepened the kiss, starving for more, and she moaned, pressing into him. She tasted of spring, how pink rosebuds look trembling against a blue morning, and she fit against him in a way that made him
feel both fiercely protective and desperate to pull the blankets away, to stroke her naked skin into heat.
But she tore her mouth away, pushing against his chest with surprising fierceness, so that the covers fell off her dainty shoulders. “No, you can’t!” She stared him down, full of regal command. “Think, Cavan. You promised.”
He’d promised not to touch her. Cursing himself, he rubbed his face. “I’m sorry, Nix. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“No.” She fought a hand out from under the blankets and laid it on his knee. Only she could go from chastising to comforting in a flash. “You didn’t. You never could. But your honor, your wedding vows—you can’t do this. You would never forgive yourself.”
He took her hand in his, trying not to look at how the blanket fell away from her bare shoulder, revealing the hint of the upper curve of her breast. If only he felt a shadow of this desire for his wife. A woman he grew to despise more with every passing hour. “How is it honorable of me to succor a woman—I don’t care about her bloodlines—who can treat someone else so viciously?”
“Because she is your lawful wife,” Nix said, with gentle implacability. “She will be your queen and you are too noble, too good of a man and a prince to treat her as anything but that.”
“I don’t know if I can do it, Nix,” he surprised himself by confessing, wanting nothing more than to lay his head in her lap and rest there a while.
As if she sensed it, she let go his hand and ran cool fingers over his brow, sliding them through his hair. “You can do anything. I believe in you. Two kingdoms depend on you, my prince. At least, Remus does. Princess Natilde—she made the journey here, marrying a man she’d never met, entirely to save the people of Remus. If you can’t love her, love them. They need you.”
“They have Queen Isyn still.”
“Yes, but she is very ill. Far more so than she wants anyone to know. Some of the lesser nobles are greedy and, with her not being able to hold court as often or as long, they take advantage. Not all the starvation is due to crops ruined by flooding. Not all the deaths are due to disease. Food and supplies are diverted, sold elsewhere to line corrupt pockets.”
He contemplated that, surprised at Nix’s perception and knowledge. “The queen knows this?”
“Yes. Or she would not have married off her only child to gain the protection of the Twelve. Erie is not only the closest kingdom to ours, but King Wyn has a reputation for fairness and putting the welfare of the people before all else. She’s counting on him seeing through the corruption quickly and cleaning it away. Something she lacks the strength to do, surrounded as she is by those seeking only to use her.”
He studied her. She looked so lovely, a white flame in the shadowed stable, calm and steady, her trembling fear forgotten in considering the problems of her former home. But hadn’t Natilde called her a foreigner? Something very odd there. “How do you, a mere servant, know all of this?”
She pressed her fingers to her mouth, eyes going wide. Then shrugged and picked at the blanket. “Servants gossip. Do you think Mrs. Crocker doesn’t know everything that goes on in the castle, if not in all of Marcellum?”
“True. You are wise beyond your years.”
She blushed, long ivory lashes like ever-frozen lacy snowflakes against her cheekbones as she kept her gaze down. It made him want to lift her chin, so she’d look at him again. So he could kiss her until she melted, but she was right. He could not betray his own self, his promises to his father, king and both their kingdoms, no matter his personal feelings. Turning his head, he pressed a kiss to Nix’s palm. Then resolutely moved away from her.
“You’re right, of course. I’m fortunate to have you be my moral compass, since I seem to have lost my way.”
“Not lost.” She smiled, but wounded grief lurked behind it. “Sometimes we are knocked off our road and need another to help us up again.”
“What is your road, Nix?” He hadn’t meant to ask it—and regretted the impulse even more when her expression darkened further.
“I don’t know. I think—I think maybe I have to leave here, to find it again.”
The thought of her departure stabbed him with a sense of panic. “No,” he said, too sharply. Reeled himself back. “I mean, not in such brutal weather. The distances are long between towns here and you would suffer from the lack of shelter. Wait until spring and, if you still want to go, I’ll see to it that you have supplies and an escort.”
A laugh quivered on her pretty mouth. “An escort for a goose girl? That would be a sight to see.”
He smiled back, though he didn’t feel it in his heart. “If you want to go back to Remus, you could travel with the troops and supplies we’ll be sending.”
She looked thoughtful. “Perhaps I could. Not back to Queen Isyn’s palace, but...elsewhere.”
“Promise me you won’t go yet.”
She shook her head, hair falling around her lowered face like a bridal veil. “I can’t promise that.”
“Then promise you won’t leave without telling me, without giving me the opportunity to see you’re safely supplied and protected.” He didn’t care if it made rational sense or not—he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t do all he could for her.
“All right,” she said in a soft voice, still not looking at him. “I promise not to leave without telling you. Now promise me you’ll go now and never tell Princess Natilde anything of this. Swear on my life.”
“On your life?” He smiled at her, trying to tease an answering smile from her, but she only regarded him gravely. “All right then, I swear.”
“Thank you,” she answered softly and it seemed to him she said something else behind the words.
He left her, knowing it to be the right and honorable thing, wondering why a sense of terrible foreboding plagued him.
8
Falada’s scream of fury woke Nix from a dream of sweet kisses and warm springtime. Fervently grateful she’d dressed again in dry clothes, she flung herself through the honking, spitting geese, threw open the gates to the pen and ran towards the sounds. The geese poured out after her, an enraged escort for her headlong rush to the source of Falada’s cries.
Which went abruptly silent.
A sob lodging in her chest, compressing her heart so it could not beat, she rounded the corner of the back part of the stables. Where the knacker worked in a pool of blood, finishing the job of ending Falada’s life.
A high keening filled her head, echoing against her skull, and the knacker glanced up in shock. Then rushed to catch her as she swayed in an onrushing faint, smearing her sleeves with fresh blood.
Falada’s blood.
Falada was dead.
It couldn’t be.
“Oh dearie,” he said kindly. “This is not a sight for a young girl. Sometimes it must be done, but it’s not for all to see. Look away.”
She couldn’t. All the world narrowed to one searing truth. Her final, excruciating failure. She’d failed Falada. The least she could do was force herself to look.
“Wh—why?” She gasped past the blade in her heart.
The knacker’s voice came from the end of a long tunnel. “She seemed to be a fine horse, yes, but Princess Natilde worried at her vicious nature. Once a horse turns mean, becomes a biter, they can be a danger to all.”
Nix laughed, a hysterical cackle that made the man flinch. Natilde. The hated name, once hers and now all that oozed evil in her world, hissed through her brain. Not enough for her to win, the woman had to destroy. She wouldn’t rest until she’d robbed Nix of everything that mattered. And Nix had let her.
Enough of this.
A memory of her mother rode the wild burst of hatred. The ailing queen taking the sharp knife, cutting her finger, the drops of heart’s blood falling, staining the white cambric. Heart’s blood, shed in sacrifice to protect her daughter. She could do no less for Falada.
She grabbed hold of the knacker, whose kind eyes went white around the edges
in apprehension. “Will you do something for me?” She demanded. Not asking, not really. Phrasing it as a question but infusing it with all the royal command she possessed.
“Of—of course,” he stammered, a man willing to promise anything to escape the hysterical crazy woman. “If I can.”
“You can,” she assured him, reinforcing the directive. “Did Prin—did she tell you to hang the head somewhere?”
“Yes—” He looked from side to side, seeking an answer. “How did you know?”
“Where?”
“Over the gate that leads to the goose pond. I don’t know why.”
Nix knew why. “I will meet you there to watch. Don’t do it before I get there.”
He frowned, confused, and worked at removing her hands from his bloodied apron. “All right. If it will please you, I can’t see as it would do any harm.”
“You’ll do it now, while her blood is fresh. I’ll gather my geese.”
Clearly willing to do anything to get her to leave, he agreed. Nix turned away from the sight of Falada’s broken corpse and, raging grief blackening her thoughts, she set to rounding up the geese. When Conrad showed and began complaining that the geese had run loose, she turned and hissed at him, like one of her charges. He blanched, taking in the blood stains on her hands and clothes, and backed off, meekly assisting and following her bidding.
By the time they made it to the gate, the knacker waited with a ladder and Falada’s head steaming still in the frosty air. He seemed anxious to get it over with, but she made him wait a moment longer.
Casting her mind back to her mother’s chamber, to the day she sent Nix away to a marriage that would never be, she tore a bit of fabric from her cuff where Falada’s blood stained it bright and crimson. Pricking her finger with a knife as her mother had done, she sang an old song under her breath.
The Twelve Kingdoms: Heart's Blood Page 6
