“They were Taliesin spies,” he said with difficulty.
“No, they weren’t! Or if they were, who gives a damn? Sebastian killed those kids and he enjoyed it!”
“Your majesty…”
“What? Spies or not, don’t you people have trials for something like that?”
“Yes, but–”
“But what?”
“It’s not the point.”
She stared at him, flabbergasted.
“This situation is… bad, your highness,” he said quietly, floundering for a moment before settling on the generic term. “The people are frightened. They are uncertain what to believe. The soldiers do not know for whom they’ve been fighting and they’re worried now that Darius’ accusations are true. For the monarchy to betray us like this–”
“You can’t seriously believe I ordered a surrender to Taliesin!”
“No, but my beliefs are not the ones that matter at the moment,” he said pointedly. “We have to fix this. Quickly. I do not know what was said; what perhaps Darius misunderstood. But our people cannot afford to doubt their leaders. Not now.”
“He didn’t misunderstand anything, Cornelius! He made it up! He just wanted to distract from the fact he and Sebastian are murdering the cripples who’re coming here thinking they’re going to fight the Blood!”
Cornelius was silent.
She watched him. “You don’t believe me, do you? You don’t believe he’s a feral.”
“I have known Darius Greyson for thirty years, Ashe. And these allegations are…”
He struggled again to find a word and fell silent when his efforts failed. Turning away, he sank onto one of the chairs the guards had left. Resting his elbows on his knees, he clasped his hands in front of him as he studied the ground.
“I can help you fix this,” he said carefully, nodding to himself. “Darius’ claims of your attempted suicide have frightened the council, and most of them favor keeping you here in custody for your own protection. But I can talk to them. Tell them it was a misunderstanding. That you had an argument, and Darius perhaps doesn’t know your personality as well as he might like–”
“I’m sorry, what?”
His gaze met hers sharply. “This is an extremely tenuous situation, your majesty. Darius is speaking of injunctions to remove your right to rule, something that hasn’t been done in ten generations. That you’re the only one of the Children left makes this even more serious, as there is no one of the royal family to take your place. You have to restore the people’s faith in your ability to lead, and in the cohesive bond between the council and the monarchy. That your disagreement with Darius–”
“Disagreement?”
“–escalated to the point of being seen by our people is a breach of protocol that is going to take months or even years to repair. The council is the voice of the people. The monarchy is their protection. To have those sides at odds with each other is disastrous. And now that word of your credence in the cripple theory of the Blood has come out, the people are at a loss to know what to believe.”
“The cripple theory of the Blood?”
“They found nothing, your majesty.”
“Were they looking?”
Cornelius gave her an exasperated look.
“Were they?” she repeated. “Did you see them go searching? Or the places the cripples were supposedly hiding? Do you know if anything Darius said actually happened, or are you just trusting his word that it did?”
He didn’t answer.
“Why are you here, Cornelius?” she asked after a moment of silence went by.
“To reason with you,” he said, a tinge of entreaty in his voice.
She scoffed.
“You nearly set fire to a councilmember in full view of your people, Ashe. If you hadn’t calmed down in time–”
“Calmed down? Cornelius, he threatened to kill a cripple for every day I opposed him!”
He blinked, looking down again as he worked to process the statement. Seething, she watched him as the seconds ticked by.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” she demanded. “All those months where they apparently found nothing, and you just …” she shook her head. “Do you even know the stories Darius was telling me?”
Cornelius glanced away. All expression fell from her face.
“It was determined,” he said with difficulty. “That, to keep your attention where it was needed, Darius would allay your concerns. Yes.”
She stared at him.
“You would have tried to go out there,” he continued, as though attempting to explain to himself as much as her. “You would have wanted to prove Josiah right, despite the danger and the increase of Taliesin forces in recent weeks–”
“The increase of forces,” she repeated flatly, her derision clear.
He glanced up. “The war has gotten worse, Ashe. That part wasn’t untrue.”
She said nothing.
“So yes, I kept it from you.” Cornelius paused. “I was trying to protect you.”
“What about them?”
He looked away. “The cripples made their choices,” he said, clearly struggling to make himself believe the words. “They believed Josiah and–”
“The Blood are real, Cornelius!”
“No,” he countered sharply. “No, they are not.”
“You–”
“Let it go, Ashe! For the sake of your family and their legacy… for the sake of our ability to win this war… I beg you. Let it go. Make peace with Darius. Just for now,” he added swiftly, holding up a hand to stop her protests. “I will have people investigate what you’re saying about the cripples, and what Darius may have done. We can do all that, but through the council and the channels that have kept our people together for half a millennium. Please.”
She regarded him. “You just can’t let it be true, can you? You can’t bear the thought Carter might have–”
“This is not about Carter!”
Closing his eyes, he drew a breath, forcing his composure back into place. “This is about Merlin. It has always been.”
He turned, pounding his fist on the door.
The lock clanked, and then the door swung open. “Think about what I’ve said,” he told her with a tight bow.
And then he walked away.
Brow furrowing, she stared after him, hurt and anger fighting for precedence and leaving only shock resonating inside. It stung, the way he’d yelled Carter’s name. The way he’d called him Carter, and not Josiah as he’d always done. The way he’d looked at her.
The way he’d lied. Looked her straight in the face day after day.
And just lied.
Numbly, she sank onto the bed.
He couldn’t let it be real. She knew that, no matter what he claimed. He had to believe everything he’d been told, because the alternative risked the idea that Carter might have died when Cornelius could have helped him, and that his cousin might have been right all along.
And she was just a child in his eyes. What did she know?
Quietly, the guards slipped back into the room, sharing grateful looks as they saw her sitting on the bed. She ignored them. They didn’t matter anyway.
Cornelius just wanted her back at the books. Back at the mission they’d set her to months before. And to hell with the cripples. To hell with the dead. She had no purpose but binding their enemies, and when it was done, they’d all go back to ruling while ostensibly calling her queen.
To hell with them.
Her gaze flicked up, burning into the door as rage seethed inside. She’d been sent here with a purpose, ordered to come here by someone she respected more than everyone in this building combined. And while part of that purpose had come to an end, she still had a job to do.
Find the Blood. Take them out. And save anyone she could at the same time.
Her gaze moved to the guards, who shifted worriedly at the look in her eyes. She didn’t bother telling them she wasn’t insane. They’d believe what
ever they wanted anyhow. But she let an apology flicker over her face as she prepared to rip their magic away.
“Oh, did I miss Cornelius?”
The faux-innocence of Sebastian’s voice in the hall hit her like ice water.
“Sir, I’m not certain you should bring–”
“Just open the door, peon. Opinions don’t suit you.”
The lock clanked. Nervously, the guards eyed her as she rose, her body trembling with fury. With a creak, the door swung wide, admitting Sebastian, who glanced to the guards and then waved a hand, dismissing them from the room and his attention simultaneously.
“Good afternoon, your highness,” he said as the other men left. “You miss me?”
She didn’t answer, her jaw muscles jumping.
At her silence, he grinned. Tapping a finger to his chin thoughtfully, he began to stroll around the cell.
“You should know,” he commented, “that I don’t take kindly to people accusing me of heinous crimes, draining the life out of so-called innocents and the like. I don’t appreciate it. I’m nothing if not forgiving, however. So I thought, now that our meetings about your ‘condition’ are over and you’ve had a chat with dear, loyal Cornelius… well, I’d see if maybe you’d settled into the new way things are going to be.”
“Go to hell,” she muttered as he circled past her.
“Or not,” he amended, still smiling. “But as a symbol of good faith, honesty, trust, et cetera… I wanted to give you the gift of meeting someone you could blame for your situation. Someone besides me and your precious fantasies.”
He motioned to a pair of new guards outside the door. Reaching past the doorframe, the men drew a woman with them as they came into the room. Straight blonde hair hung past the woman’s shoulders, extending from darker roots several inches long. Specks of diamond jewelry dotted her ears and neck, the gems glittering too brightly to be real. In her pale fingers, she clutched a yellow plastic food tray, and beneath lashes coated in thick layers of mascara, she glared daggers at the floor.
Ashe’s brow twitched down in wary lack of recognition.
“Your highness,” Sebastian said. “I’d like you to meet Tanya, the wife of Howard Bartlow, the man who sold your family’s location to Taliesin and got them killed.”
Ashe froze.
Shrugging off the guards’ hold, Tanya turned her baleful gaze on Sebastian.
“Oh, come now, Tanya,” he chided at the woman’s silence. “I’m sure, as a fellow prisoner, the queen wants to say hi.”
The woman glanced to her, the hate in her eyes joined by a flash of satisfaction so strong it made Ashe’s blood go cold.
“I mean, after all, your highness,” Sebastian continued, shrugging charitably. “If you’re going to have delusions of persecution, they might as well be directed at the appropriate people.”
Trembling, Ashe looked at Sebastian. Beneath the pseudo-naïve expression, a grin hovered on his lips. His eyes scanned her face, devouring her shock and anticipating the pain that would surface afterward.
And amid her hurt, cold thoughts rose, giving her focus. There was no reason to believe Sebastian. She remembered Howard. He’d been Lily’s doctor for years. And, even if he had betrayed her family, there was nothing to say he’d done it alone. Darius could’ve been behind it. Or someone else on the council. And whichever it was, they would pay. But right now, the man in front of her was craving her pain, so much she could almost see him salivating at the idea of seeing her shout or cry. He’d do whatever he could to make her suffer, knowing that if she tried to hurt him in return, she’d just prove everything Darius said right.
Icy resolution settled in her veins.
He wanted to see pain.
She’d show him the queen her father would have wanted her to be.
Drawing a breath, she forced herself to hold her voice steady as she pushed the words past the choked feeling in her throat. “Is that true?” she asked the woman carefully, ignoring Sebastian.
Flicking her gaze away from the floor, Tanya gave her a look that told her where to put the question in no uncertain terms. Trembling at the expression, Ashe drew another breath, fighting to keep her hands from bursting into flame.
Because she’d be damned if she gave Sebastian the satisfaction.
“Tell me,” she ordered, her voice quivering slightly.
Tanya glanced up again. “Why do you care?”
“Was he working for them?” Ashe asked with a jerk of her chin to Sebastian.
The woman’s snort was answer enough. Ashe paused, uncertain whether to be glad.
“Oh, honestly, your majesty,” Sebastian scoffed. “What do you take us for? The mafia? You think we ordered a hit on your daddy? Howard betrayed them on his own, and it’s not like it matters why. He did it. He gave up sweet Lily, all your strong and loyal bodyguards, and your beloved father. He just handed them over to the fun of the Taliesin. I mean, for all he knew, they could have raped you and that precious little girl before they blew her head off or–”
“Shut up!” Ashe snapped.
A smile of pure enjoyment twisted around his mouth, belatedly suppressed. He chuckled as he continued ingenuously. “I’m not trying to upset you, your majesty. I just thought surely you’d want to know why everyone in your family is dead?”
Rage pounded through her, keeping time with her racing heartbeat. In the back of her mind, she could hear herself screaming. See herself running through the house with her dad, and leading her sister out to the yard where they’d watch their father die.
Ashe drove a breath into her lungs. She had one weapon, short of blowing them all to hell.
It had to be enough.
“Tell me why,” she said to Tanya, her voice rigid with control.
“He made a deal with Taliesin, your majesty!” Sebastian exclaimed. “I mean, it must’ve seemed perfect to him. As Lily’s doctor, he had to care for her even while she was in hiding. After all, the poor thing was so damaged after the start of the war – though no more than yourself, I suppose, with your little amnesia problem and all. But he was one of the only people on the planet who knew where you were hiding, except maybe Tanya, since I can’t imagine he’d keep that secret from his wife.”
Sebastian sighed. “And to think he turned out to be a cold-hearted murderer who callously offered up your family to the slaughter.”
“That is not true.”
His eyebrows twitched up as Tanya’s growl pounded the words as though nailing them to the wall. “Oh, really?” he asked.
“He had to have been protecting us,” Tanya snarled. “Howard would never–”
“Tanya, Tanya,” Sebastian sighed. “Not this again. ‘Protecting you’. Honestly. And how do you explain him sneaking away from the bodyguards we gave you all, only to show up on the royal family’s property just as they wound up dead? Besides yourself, your majesty,” he added conscientiously. “You obviously managed to survive even if your father and little sister didn’t.”
With everything she had, Ashe ignored him. “Why do you think that?” she asked Tanya.
The woman rolled her eyes, not answering.
“Why!”
Sebastian choked on a laugh, but Tanya just scowled.
“Because he wouldn’t have,” the woman stated as though it was obvious.
Ashe swallowed, hearing an implication in the words.
“And you?” she pressed quietly. Sebastian’s snickers were making her hands grow warm and she couldn’t stop it.
The woman’s eyebrows rose sarcastically. “What? You want me to admit something? Give you an excuse to leave my daughter an orphan and prove this ‘noble compassion’ crap you’re trying is just an act?”
“Now, Tanya,” Sebastian chided.
“Screw you, councilman,” the woman snapped. The guards shifted warningly and she glared at them too. “You all think you’re so good. Better than Howard, blindly loyal as he was, and better than me. Well, Howard would’ve died for us, so if he
’s dead then that’s what he did. And you can go to hell for thinking otherwise.” She ran her gaze up and down Ashe. “All of you.”
Ashe flinched as, with a resounding crack, Tanya slammed the tray down, splattering cream corn and mashed potatoes over the concrete floor. Turning sharply, the woman stormed across the room, only to be brought up short by the guards.
Seething, Tanya spun. “I’m sick of this, you bastard!” she shouted at Sebastian, her voice breaking. “You have nothing! No proof! Nothing but my husband’s dead body at her goddamn house and you’ve locked us up for months over it! And what? Her family is dead? So what? So is mine! You lost a little sister? Well, I’ve got a five year old who can’t figure out why everyone hates daddy all of a sudden. And while you’ve had countless lackeys kissing your feet in your sorrow, your highness, we’ve been the only ones mourning an innocent man!”
Sebastian’s enjoyment was almost too much for him to contain. Tears shone on Tanya’s red face and her hair quivered with the ferocity of her trembling. Ashe could hear the staccato snickers bursting from the councilman, while his guards stared impassively at the wall.
Magic coursed through her veins, begging to be released. And it hurt. Oh, it hurt to breathe. To stay calm, if only on the surface. Somewhere inside, she wanted to smile at the knowledge Howard was dead. To rejoice that someone who even might have endangered her family wasn’t still alive. She wanted to punch the woman for mocking Lily, her father, or anyone else she loved as being less important, simply because she remained here to mourn.
But Sebastian brought Tanya here for a reason.
And any reaction would mean he’d won.
Drawing a careful breath, she forced herself to meet the woman’s gaze.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she whispered.
Tanya stared. Rage and confusion chased themselves across her face and her hands balled into fists as magic rose around her. Muffling his chuckles tightly, Sebastian darted glances between them.
The air around Tanya crackled with electricity. By the door, the guards backed away, eyeing the councilman questioningly.
Ashe didn’t move.
Overhead, the lights buzzed, the ambient charge making them burn brighter till one of the bulbs burst in a shower of sparks.
Taliesin Ascendant (The Children and the Blood) Page 16