I buried my knife deep in my betrothed’s throat,
And as he gasped for his last breath,
As his blood soaked into the earth,
There were no tears
Among any of us,
Especially none from me.
—The Lost Words of Morrighan
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
RAFE
It was a warm dark hole I climbed into as I had interrogated the prisoners that morning. It had no bottom, a free fall that invited me to let go. All I could see in the darkness as I asked questions were barrows full of bounty taken from Dalbreck’s dead soldiers. With every swing of my fist, I saw Lia sitting in a dank Vendan holding cell, grieving for her dead brother. And when I drew my knife on the Viceregent, I saw only Lia, bleeding and limp in my arms. Sven had finally pulled me back.
The Viceregent dabbed his lip with his sleeve, then smirked. “I had planned on killing you both, you know? An ambush staged to look like a common robbery by Dalbretch bandits on your way back home after the wedding.”
His eyes glowed with smugness. “You think I don’t have my reasons, just as you think you have yours? Don’t we all get tired of waiting for what we want? The only difference between you and me is I stopped waiting.”
The man is insane, Sven had muttered as he stopped my fist mid-swing. Enough, he said and pushed me away. He locked the cell door behind us and then turned my attention elsewhere, reminding me that I still needed to tell Lia.
* * *
I entered the quarters that Lia’s aunt Cloris had ushered me into earlier, still feeling like an intruder. It seemed wrong to be staying in the room that Lia’s brother had once shared with his bride, Greta. Most of their belongings had been removed, but in the corner of the wardrobe I found a pair of soft kid gloves sized for a woman’s hand, and on the bedside table, two delicate pearl-tipped hairpins. I took one look at the large four-poster bed and chose to catch an hour of sleep on the settee instead. I would have preferred staying on a bedroll in Aldrid Hall, where many of my men were, but Lady Cloris insisted I take the room, and I didn’t want to begrudge her hospitality.
When I walked in, Orrin was lying sideways across my bed, asleep with his mouth hanging open and his legs dangling over the side. Jeb was spread out on the settee, his eyes closed and his hands neatly woven across his stomach. They’d both been up all night securing the citadelle and assigning posts. Only Dalbreck’s soldiers were to guard the prisoners until we were certain there were no more Vendan soldiers among the ranks. Sven was seated at a table, eating a game pie and reviewing files seized from the Viceregent’s apartments. Tavish sat at the other end, his feet propped up on the table, sifting through papers in his lap.
“Anything?” I asked.
Sven shook his head. “Nothing of import that might help us. He’s a clever devil.”
I grabbed a boiled egg from a tray of food and washed it down with milk.
“Did you tell her?” Tavish asked.
Both Jeb and Orrin opened their eyes, waiting for an answer too.
I nodded.
“She needed to know, boy,” Sven said. “Better to hear it from you than have it spill out at an inopportune time.”
I looked at him, incredulous. “She’s going to address the assembly today. Now is a bad time.”
“So there was no good time. It still had to be done. It’s behind you now.”
It would never be behind me. Her dazed expression when I told her cut a hole through me.
I shook my head trying to blot the memory out. “It’s not an easy thing to tell the girl that you love more than life itself that you’re going to marry someone else.”
Sven sighed. “Easy things are for men like me. The difficult choices are left to kings.”
“The general’s a conniving bastard,” Orrin said, yawning, “who needs an arrow in his tight ass.”
Jeb sat up and grinned. “Or I could take care of him quietly. Just say the word.” He made a clicking sound—the snap of a neck—as if showing how quickly it could be done.
It was only a show of solidarity. I knew neither would ever assassinate a legitimate officer of Dalbreck, nor would I let them—though it was tempting.
“And what would you do about the general’s daughter? Kill her too?”
Orrin snorted. “All she needs is one look at my pretty face, and she’d call it off with you. Besides, I’m an archer. I bring home dinner. What do you have to offer?”
“Besides a kingdom?” Sven mumbled.
“You could call it off and try to weather it out,” Tavish offered.
Sven sucked in a breath, knowing the consequence. My position in Dalbreck was precarious. Weathering it out was a risky option. I had everything to lose and nothing to gain. The betrothal was the general’s victory and my own private hell—the cost of saving Lia’s life. And while the general played his games, his daughter was caught in the middle of it. I remembered the fear in her eyes, and her trembling hand as she signed the documents. The girl was afraid and wanted no part of me, but I had ignored it because I was desperate and angry.
“Let’s move on,” I said. “What happens between me and Lia isn’t something that needs to be on the table. We have an unbeatable army marching this way.”
“You don’t believe that,” Sven said, finishing off his pie, “or you wouldn’t be here.”
“I got a look at the troops this morning, and it’s worse than we thought. Azia called it pathetic.”
Sven grunted. “Pathetic is a strong word. The few I saw seemed astute and able.”
“The few you saw is exactly the problem. It’s not that they lack skill or loyalty, but their ranks are depleted. This is their biggest training post, but they’ve been dispersed all over Morrighan in small units. Only a thousand are stationed here right now. Gathering them all back here will take weeks. Even then, it won’t be enough.”
“The Vendan army may not all be headed this way. Dalbreck is a closer target. We’ll sort it out. First things first. The assembly this afternoon. Strategizing a plan after that.”
A plan. I had decided not to tell Sven what I had done. It would either work out or it wouldn’t, and telling him would only incur a blistering lecture about being impulsive. But it hadn’t felt impulsive when I rode to the camp outside the city gates where the handler was ensconced with the Valsprey. After I gave him the messages, I looked back at Civica, and the weight of its history settled over me. I felt the centuries of survival. This was the beginning, the first kingdom to rise after the devastation, the one all the other kingdoms were born from, including Dalbreck. Morrighan was a jewel the Komizar hungered for, a validation of his own greatness, and once he had it, along with its abundant resources, no kingdom would be spared. My doubts vanished. He was coming here first.
Sven eyed me suspiciously, as if he could see the inner workings of my mind. He set his papers aside. “What did you do?”
We had been together for too many years. I sat down in an overstuffed chair and threw my feet up on the table. “I added a request in my message to the colonel at Fontaine.”
“A request?”
“An order. I told him to send his troops to Civica.”
Sven sighed and rubbed his eyes. “How many?”
“All of them.”
“All of them as in all of them?”
I nodded.
Sven jumped to his feet, jarring the table and spilling his cider. “Have you lost your mind? Fontaine’s our largest outpost! Six thousand soldiers! It’s our first line of defense for our western borders!”
“I sent the same message to Bodeen.”
By now Orrin and Jeb were both sitting up.
Sven sat back at the table and rested his head in his hands.
Orrin whistled at the staggering news.
I figured this was a good time to leave. Any more revelations, and Sven might burst a blood vessel. My decisions were made and there was no changing them now.
“Not a word to an
yone,” I said. “This isn’t an answer to all their problems. They need to remain earnest in their efforts.” I walked toward the door.
“Now where are you going?” Sven asked.
“First things first,” I said. As much as I hated to admit it, Kaden would be a critical part of the plan to save Morrighan. “I promised to make some peace.”
* * *
I checked his room. When he wasn’t there, I followed my next best guess, and I was right. I spotted him, one hand pressed to the wall, poised at the top of the stairs that led to the lowest level of the citadelle—where the prisoners were kept.
He stared down the dark stairwell so consumed by his thoughts he didn’t notice me at the end of the passageway.
He is Morrighese, I thought, just as Lia had claimed.
He was born from a line of nobility that went all the way back to Piers, one of the fiercest warriors of Morrighan lore. A Holy Guardian, Sven had called him. He had given me a brief history lesson the night before, when I noted my surprise at Kaden’s parentage. A statue of a muscled powerful Piers dominated the entrance to Piers Camp.
Kaden didn’t look powerful now. He looked beaten.
But last night—I swallowed, remembering how they looked together when I went to check on Lia during the night. I had seen his hand resting on her bed and her hand curled over his. Both of them were asleep, peaceful. I backed out of the room quietly so they wouldn’t see me. Maybe that was what had given me the courage to tell her the truth. I knew she didn’t love him in the same the way she did me. I had seen her eyes when she first saw me in the armory, and then the hurt when I told her about my betrothal, but she cared about Kaden too. They shared something that she and I didn’t—the roots of one kingdom and their love for another.
He still hadn’t noticed me. Instead he stared into the darkness and his hand absently fingered the sheathed dagger at his side, as if a scene was playing out in his head. I could imagine what it was.
I swallowed my pride and approached him. I had told Lia I had already made my peace with him. Now I actually had to do it.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
KADEN
I didn’t hear him coming until he was upon me. I startled and turned. “What do you want?” I asked.
“I’m here to talk about—”
I swung, catching him in the jaw, and he flew backward and fell, the sword buckled at his side clattering on the stone floor.
He slowly got to his feet, his expression livid, and he wiped the corner of his mouth, blood staining his fingertips. “What the hell is the matter with you?”
“Just preempting a shot from you. I seem to recall that the last time you snuck up on me wanting to talk, you punched me, then slammed me up against the barracks wall, accusing me of all kinds of delusional things.”
“Is this a preemptive strike or a payback?”
I shrugged. “Maybe both. What are you sneaking around for this time?”
He studied me, his chest heaving, rage sparking in his eyes. I knew he wanted to take a swing, but somehow he managed to keep his hands at his sides. “One, I wasn’t sneaking,” he finally said, “And two, the reason I came was to thank you for staying by Lia’s side.”
Thank me? “So you can take her back to Dalbreck now?”
The anger drained from his face. “Lia is never going back to Dalbreck with me.”
I was suspicious of the sudden turnaround in his demeanor almost as much as his declaration.
“I’m betrothed to another,” he explained.
I huffed out a disbelieving breath.
“It’s true,” he said. “The news has been heralded all over Dalbreck. Lia will never be going there.”
It was the last news I expected to hear. He was moving on? “Then why are you here?”
His lips quirked in an odd way. He didn’t look like the arrogant farmer or emissary, or even the prince I had known.
“I’m here for the same reasons you are. The same reason Lia is. Because we want to save the kingdoms that matter to us.”
“They all matter to Lia.”
His expression darkened. “I know.”
“And that pains you.”
“We’ve all had to make hard choices—and sacrifices. I recognize the one you made helping us escape from Venda. I’m sorry I didn’t say it before.”
The words came out stiff and practiced, but were still an apology I never expected to hear. I nodded, wondering if he was still going to take a crack at me. There hadn’t been time when we met up at the cottage. Finding Lia, Pauline, and Gwyneth had been all that mattered.
I reached out cautiously, offering my hand. “Congratulations on your betrothal.”
He took it with the same caution. “Thank you,” he answered.
Our hands returned to our sides in the same measured moves. He continued to eye me as if there was more he wanted to say. I had heard him come in last night and saw him when he quietly left the room. For someone betrothed to another, he didn’t hide his feelings well.
“I’ll see you out in the plaza,” he finally said. “What she faces there today will be harder for her than the traitors she confronted last night. She won’t be facing those she needs to throw in prison, but those she needs to rally. She’ll need us both there.”
He started to leave, then glanced down the dark stairwell and back at me. “Don’t do it,” he said, his gaze meeting mine. “The time will come, but not now. Not this way. You’re better than him.”
And then he walked away.
* * *
I left my weapons with the guard before I entered the cell. My father’s eyes locked onto mine, and immediately all I saw in them was calculation again. It never ended.
“Son,” he said.
I smiled. “You really think that will work?”
“I made a terrible mistake. But a man can change. Of my sons, I loved you the most, because I loved your mother. Cataryn—”
“Stop!” I ordered. “You don’t throw people you love out like garbage. You don’t bury them in unmarked graves! I don’t want to hear her name on your lips. You’ve never loved anything in your life.”
“And what do you love, Kaden? Lia? How far will that get you?”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know that blood is thicker and more lasting than a fleeting affair—”
“Is that all it was with my mother? The one you claim to have loved so much? A fleeting affair?”
His brows pulled together, plaintive, sympathetic. “Kaden, you are my son. Together we can—”
“I’ll make you a deal, Father.”
His eyes brightened.
“You sold my life for a single copper. I’ll let you buy yours back right now for the same. Give me a copper. It’s little enough to ask.”
He looked at me, bewildered. “Give you a copper? Now?”
I extended my palm, waiting.
“I don’t have a copper!”
I withdrew my hand and shrugged. “Then you’ll lose your life, just like I lost mine.”
I turned to leave but stopped to tell him one last thing. “Since you plotted with the Komizar, you’ll die by his justice too. And just so you know, he likes those facing execution to suffer first. You will.”
I left and heard him calling after me, liberally using son in his appeals, and I knew if I hadn’t left my knives behind, he would have been dead already, and that would have been too easy an end for him.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
“Sit,” I ordered.
“Where?”
“The floor. And don’t move. I want to speak with her alone first.”
I looked at the soldiers who had accompanied me. “If he moves so much as a toe, you are to cut it off.”
They smiled and nodded.
* * *
I walked through my parents’ living quarters and opened the door to their bedroom chamber.
My mother lay in a disheveled heap at the foot of the bed, looking like a child’s rag
doll that had been emptied of its stuffing. My father lay in the center, pale and immobile. Her hand rested on the bedcovers that swallowed him up, as if she lashed him to this earth. No one, not even death, would sneak past her. She had already lost her eldest son, her other sons were missing and in grave danger, and her husband had been poisoned. How she had managed to gather the strength to stand with me yesterday I wasn’t sure. She had drawn from a well that looked empty now. There is not always more to take, I thought. Sometimes so much can be taken that what is left doesn’t matter.
She sat up when she heard my footsteps and her long black hair fell in disarray over her shoulders. Her face was gaunt, her eyes veined from tears and fatigue.
“It was you who ripped the last page from the book,” I said. “I thought it was someone who hated me very much, and then I realized it was just the opposite. It was someone who loved me very much.”
“I didn’t want this for you,” she said. “I did everything I could to stop it.”
I walked across the room, and when I sat beside her, she pulled me into her arms. She held me fiercely, a quiet sob lifting her chest. I had no tears left, but my arms locked around her, holding her in all the ways I had needed to in these past months. She said my name over and over again. Jezelia. My Jezelia.
I finally pulled back. “You tried to keep the gift from me,” I said, still feeling the hurt. “You did everything you could to guide me away from it.”
She nodded.
“I need to understand,” I whispered. “Tell me.”
And she did.
She was weak. She was broken. But her voice grew stronger as she spoke, as if she had told this story in her own mind a hundred times. Maybe she had. She told me about a young mother and her child, a story I had only seen from my vantage point.
Her tale had seams I hadn’t seen; it was colored with fabric in shades I’d never worn; it had hidden pockets heavy with worry; it was a story that didn’t hold just my fears, but hers too, the threads of it pulling tighter each day.
When she had arrived in Morrighan, she was eighteen, and everything about this new land was foreign to her—the clothing, the food, the people—including the man who was to be her husband. She was so filled with fright she couldn’t even meet his gaze the first time she met him. He had dismissed everyone from the room, and once they were alone, he reached out and lifted her chin and told her she had the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen. Then he smiled and promised her it would be all right, that they could take their time getting to know each other, and then he delayed the wedding for as long as he could, and he courted her.