The Broken Realm
Page 47
“You assume I have the power to grant this wish.”
“I know you do.”
“Then you misjudge your king and his own wishes. He will not abide the bastard child of his wife toddling about these halls.”
“He is not my king,” Ravenna said with a swell of pride. “Nor do I really believe he is yours.”
Oldwin took a step closer to her. “He is the king of this realm, of which you and I are a part, whether we accept this or not.”
Ravenna exhaled. “Then it seems I was misguided in coming here. Have the guards escort me back.”
Oldwin shook his head. “That will not do, either. If you are seen leaving so soon after your arrival, it will be whispered that Oldwin’s cock no longer rises.”
Ravenna suppressed a gasp. Of course that’s what they assumed. She was the fool for not realizing it sooner.
“Perhaps I can grant you what you wish,” Oldwin said, stepping closer still. “But what I ask in return is not what you’re offering.”
Ravenna’s eyes widened. “You knew I would come.”
“It was not magic at play with that, little raven,” Oldwin answered. “I see how you protect the Warwick girl. There is some guilt between you, some lingering and complicated emotion that defies conventional logic of men. Don’t unfold it for me here. I have no care for any of it. The wiles of women have never interested me, but it did make clear your motivation before you voiced the words.”
Ravenna would kill for a chalice of wine. For anything at all to calm her. But she was here now, in this moment, on the edge of learning her fate, and she must face it with all her wits. “Tell me, then. What it is you would ask in return.”
“You must have asked yourself why I would give someone with your gifts over to a weak and sickly king.”
“Would you care if I had?”
Oldwin grinned. “You’ll marry the king tomorrow. After you’ve been passed around every Rhiagain man or boy who has reached their maturity. But the child born to you first will not be a Rhiagain.”
Ravenna frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Oldwin’s hands reached for the buttons on his blouse. “It will be my child. And if you want the Warwick bastard to live, and his mother to see them grow, then tonight you will come to my bed with gladness. Not only willingly, but enthusiastically, and that enthusiasm will be judged by me alone as sufficient or not. There will be no tears, no forlorn glances into the distance. Only you convincing me that I am the only man you have ever wanted in your bed. And when I spill my seed within you, and it quickens in your womb, bound by my magic, only then will I consider your promise fulfilled.”
Ravenna fought the acrid bile forming in her throat. Somehow he’d known. He’d known that the idea of lying with even a hundred Rhiagains would be more palatable than one night in this creature’s bed. “If your magic is so powerful, why the need for me to come to your bed at all? Why not light my womb with a wave of your hand?”
Oldwin was so close now she could smell his foul breath. “What would be the fun in that?”
* * *
Whitechurch did not strike Drystan as a town on the brink of war.
There was the same hum of energy that ran under the surface of any town. If the roads had been covered in snow, he thought it wouldn’t look so very different from Wulfsgate, other than the manors in the trees off in the distance. It had a more erudite feel than his home, every detail more carefully considered, from the carving of the eaves on each building to the craftsmanship of the roads themselves. The Easterlands had claimed home to all the important pillars of the kingdom, from religion to magic to education. He felt the shadows of this pride as he passed through.
Commerce had slowed for the evening, and what remained were the drunks stumbling from taverns and the occasional traveler taking advantage of the clear roads.
“I don’t trust this,” Ash whispered as they made their way down the main road, toward the gates to Arboriana. From here, the keep in the trees looked mythical, abstract, like in the tapestries that lined the halls of Wulfsgate Keep, or the great paintings he heard tell of but had rarely seen with his own eyes. “There is no way the Quinlanden men are not aware of the men camped just beyond the town.”
“For a man who once led us with such confidence, you’re notably absent of it since we left the Hinterlands,” Drystan quipped. He’d grown weary of Ash’s doom-filled proclamations, and now found it easier simply to reduce them to jests, or ignore them altogether.
“You’ll forgive me if my son’s life holds value to me.”
“Forgiven,” Drystan muttered. He didn’t know if Ash was right or wrong to be worried. What he did know was the eerie calm settled over Whitechurch was more hospitable to his plan than chaos. If the town had been swarmed with guards, they’d be subject to checkpoints and questioning. In the quiet of the middle of night, they were unmolested as they made their way slowly toward Arboriana. The eyes roaming the streets at this hour were diverted toward their own dubious intentions.
Ash was mercifully quiet as they continued on, past the high spires of the town reliquary, and then the towering arches of the guildhall. If he was home in Wulfsgate, Drystan would be treated to the lingering scents of spit-roasted boar, or the metallic taste that sometimes hung in the snowy air long after the day’s smelting had finished. The call of home had never been stronger than it was now, and he couldn’t help but wonder what his mother was doing at just that moment. Was she thinking of him? Had she long ago abandoned hope of his return?
He would be ashamed to face her now. I left everything for Ravenna, and then she left me. And even that, his wanton act of disobedience in the name of love, felt like an act committed by a boy, in another time. He loved her still, but in the way it was safe to love a fond but distant memory, and he’d accepted that she was the necessary catalyst to spur him toward his true purpose. It was a boy who’d loved Ravenna Ravenwood. It was a man who walked toward his destiny. It would be a man who took one life so that many others could be saved.
“If you intend to enter as servants, we cannot take the main entrance,” Ash said. He’d stopped advancing, and Drystan looked up to see they were closing in on a large stone wall with tall wooden gates bisecting them.
“Why do they have gates as high as the sky around Arboriana?”
“Not what you’re used to in Wulfsgate, is it?”
“We have gates, but we rarely close them. All are welcome at Wulfsgate Keep.”
“I would wager they’re closed right now.”
“Even then it would not feel as this does.”
“You stand upon land belonging to Quinlandens now, Drystan. Of which you are, even if you were not raised so. These are your people.”
Drystan shook his head. “They will never be my people. I’m a Dereham, no matter what blood runs through my veins. It will be a Dereham who saves the Saleen. When it is written in The Book of All Things, this victory will belong to the Northerlands. Hadden’s Bane ends with me.”
Ash squeezed his shoulder. He looked in another direction, away from Drystan. “The guards ahead will be better trained to spot outsiders. We’ll need to divert east. There’s an alleyway that runs half underground. There used to be a metal grate preventing passage, but they were dissolved enough to step through. We’ll know soon if they’ve been replaced. If it’s been left the same as it was when your mother was sneaking to meet me, it will lead us in through the kitchens.”
“We’ll enter that way,” Drystan said. “But when it is all over, we’ll stand proud at these gates as we watch the Saleen return to their lands. As the Easterlands rejoices in their freedom from tyranny.”
* * *
Storm’s head pounded as she stumbled through the undergrowth, swaying on her feet. She ripped open Brandyn’s tent, her eyes confirming what her heart already knew.
“Lord Warwick!” she screamed, drawing her sword. She backed away, turning slowly in a circle as she strained to see in the darkness. Trees,
tents, supplies. No sign of the assailants who had knocked them into oblivion. “Steward Oakenwell!”
And why spare them at all? This question tickled the back of her mind, and she knew the answer mattered. But that was not what mattered now. “Lord Warwick!” she screamed again.
She flipped around, sword raised, at the sound of crunching behind her. But it was only Joran, a trail of blood dried upon his forehead, moving unsteadily through the remnants of a night still not ended.
“Where’s Brandyn?” she demanded.
“You know this answer already,” Joran replied, closing his eyes through a long, painful exhale.
“You knew? You let them take him?”
“Storm, we both know the risk we took in arriving before our reinforcements.” Joran winced, lowering himself to a log. He clutched his face. “You’ll find Lord Warwick deeper in the forest with the Quinlanden defector. Oakenwell.”
Storm’s chest heaved with the urgency driving her heart. “What are they doing in the forest?” When Joran closed his eyes, she added, “Tell me, you old bag!”
“You would do well to calm yourself, girl.” He nodded at her bobbing sword. “You’ll not survive ten steps going in alone. They managed to capture one of the men from the ambush. That’s why they’re in the forest. Best to leave it be, so you don’t disrupt your sensibilities with the business of men.”
“I will not be reduced to being called a girl by a man who failed his order, his lady, and now his lord,” Storm spat and marched away from him and into the forest.
She didn’t know in which direction to go, but quickly spotted their trail by moonlight and traced their steps. Within a few minutes, the animalistic moans of a man’s desperation reached her, and after a few more paces, she saw the cause.
Khallum twisted a dagger into the arm of a man held down by Oakenwell. Oakenwell pulled his hand from the man’s mouth as Khallum leaned in.
“Last chance. I’ll nay offer another. Tell us where they’ve taken the boy, or I leave you to die with a thousand cuts. It will be a blessing if the wulves donnae getcha before the blood runs dry.”
“And how to get us there, quickly,” Oakenwell hissed.
“It’s as I said!” The man heaved forward, but Oakenwell pinned him from more than this futile movement. “I don’t know where they’ve taken him. I cannot get you in. They’ll know... when I don’t return with the others...” He struggled for breath. Khallum twisted the knife once more and the man howled. “They’ll know you have me!”
“Then show us a way in that willnae catch the same attention, you slithering scrotum.”
Storm stepped forward. Neither Khallum nor Oakenwell paid her much mind beyond a brief glance of recognition. She knelt before the Quinlanden guard and stuck her lone dagger under his chin, sinking the tip into his flesh. “These man here? They’re good on their word, you know. Lord Warwick, he’ll leave you just as he said he will, with a parting gift on top. But me? I’ll go find your wife. Do you have children? If you’re fortunate I won’t be as thorough in my work as I intend and there’ll still be someone in the kingdom with your blood up to the task of seeing them through their dead-given rites.”
“The servant’s quarters! That’s the best you’ll find, that’s—”
Storm flipped her knife to his neck and sliced him from ear to ear.
“Girl, what is wrong with you?” Oakenwell demanded. He dropped the dying man to the ground, rising toward Storm as the dead weight fell away. “Did you not see he was going to talk?”
“Oh? Is this not your land, Steward Oakenwell? What could he tell us that you would not already know?”
“Whitechurch is not as I left it. It would be a fool who marched in, pretending it was,” Oakenwell countered.
Khallum stepped between them. “Enough. I’m spent of patience. Brandyn will be dead before dawn. Our scouts were slaughtered in the night. Tyndall has not returned, and may very well be dead. We need to get word to Rutland and Law. They donnae send word to Hamish and the Warwick Guard to strike until Brandyn is safe. No matter what happens. They wait for my order.” He turned to Storm. “Girl, you’re the scout now.”
“I’ll suck on your mother’s cock before I leave Brandyn’s fate in anyone’s hands but mine.”
“I very much doubt ye would speak to your own mother with that filth in your mouth,” Khallum retorted. “Joran, then.”
“You think the Magi will take orders from you?” Oakenwell asked.
“Unless he wants both his lord and our next king’s blood on his hands, he’ll swallow his distaste for me and do what’s necessary.”
* * *
Ravenna watched Oldwin from across the room. His pale flesh glittered against the flicker of candlelight. The warmth of the light did nothing to soften him. With one hand, he stroked his cock, and with the other, he propped himself against his pile of pillows. Waiting.
This would not be like her first time with Drystan, soft and inviting. Or with Jesse, ardent and demanding. She could conjure the image of one or both of them to help her through this act, but it would tarnish what little purity still lived within her. She loved both men, in her own way. She would not leave Oldwin’s stain upon either of their legacies.
She slipped out of her dress. The chill whipped her to the bone. Oldwin didn’t seem to notice, or be bothered by the cold. He needed no tapestries on his walls to trap the warmth. His blood was ice.
Ravenna stepped across the cool stones, drawing closer to the bed. It would have been a task, but a far easier one, to simply lie beneath him and let him do as he pleased with her. But what he demanded of her was far more. It was everything.
She willed her lips to curve into a seductive smile. They knew the movement. They’d drawn these lines before. Oldwin’s grin in response conveyed his pleasure in the act so far. Maintaining it would be the difference between life and death for Esmerelda’s child. Esmerelda had posited, just that evening, that surrendering to a path without force did not mean there was any choice involved.
Ravenna slid up the end of the bed. Her tongue traced a slow trail over her lips. Oldwin released his hand, leaving his erection towering for her in invitation.
Her flesh brushed his as she moved up toward him, and she was not surprised it was as icy as the air around him. Her plastered smile never wavered as she moved higher, dropping her legs over his hips.
“Esmerelda can never know this is what bought her child’s life,” Ravenna said.
“Tell me what you want from me, Ravenna Ravenwood.”
The burning in her chest screamed at her. It dug a pit deep in her belly. She ignored it. “I want your cock buried so far inside me that it is lost forever.”
“What else, Ravenna?”
Ravenna splayed her fingers at her hips, digging them deep into the soft flesh to keep them from shaking. “For your seed to fill my womb and bear fruit.”
Oldwin’s smile split his face in half. “Then take it.”
As Ravenna lowered herself over the sorcerer, taking him in, a part of her died.
She let this part of her go.
She no longer needed it.
It wouldn’t serve her this night, or the next.
42
Making Peace with the Magic
Gretchen secured the last satchel to the saddle. Her breath unfurled before her in white tufts, giving color to her doubt. She’d stopped looking behind her when she reached the barn. There wasn’t anyone to stop her. All the men had ridden off to war, and Aylen, too. The thin guard Holden left for her hadn’t even noticed her slip away in the dead of night.
The horse neighed, swishing its head back and forth. She didn’t know this one’s name. It had been left behind, picked over for better, stronger beasts for the ride to war. She was a mare, with a light gray mane and even lighter eyes. Instead of resisting the call of a new rider, Silverwind, as Gretchen now thought of her, seemed eager for whatever attentions lay ahead. She lifted and dropped her feet, chuffing softly in anti
cipation of the unspoken but nonetheless promised adventures the two would have.
Gretchen had left letters for Nyssa and Torrin. Oh, how she’d agonized over the words. Wondering if she’d chosen the right ones. She tried to make them understand that if it had been either one of them, she’d do the same. She had no choice.
To Earwyn she left a separate letter. In the event I should not return. She began with those words because they were the ones etched most clearly upon her fears. She would either return with Pieter, or she would not return at all. Earwyn had her instructions for what to do should the latter prove reality. She had played the role of second mother to the twins for years; to assume the mantle of their only would not be so hard for her.
There were letters, also, for Drystan and Lisbet. Earwyn would hold fast to them, as they’d all held to their hope. Should they never be read, they’d be sent for inclusion in The Book of All Things.
Her last letter had been for Christian. She didn’t leave this one with Earwyn. She’d slipped it into his chambers. This one was for his eyes only.
For Holden, she left nothing. She’d tried to find words for him, but none came, and the night was drawing short.
Gretchen fought back the wish that she had someone to accompany her on this journey. She at first told herself she couldn’t trust anyone enough to take them along, but as she packed the things she would take, deciding what would be needed to sustain life for two, she began to accept that she’d shied away from including anyone else in her scheme because it would have been unfair to them. Pieter was her son. She could not ask anyone else to risk their life to find him.
Gretchen Dereham rode out of Wulfsgate without resistance. No one there to stop, or, or even wave her off on her journey. No one to ask where she was headed, alone, at this time of night. None but her and a horse she’d never ridden before, and a path she’d only taken with her husband at the helm.