“I made a promise,” my father replied, and he refused to meet my gaze.
“A promise?” I forced out. I wanted to scream. “A promise to who?”
My father glanced over his shoulder. Two riders emerged from the trees, cantering slowly toward us now that the combat had stopped. One was a woman, and even at this distance, I could tell it was Lady Hampstedt, her hair up in a bun behind her head, her signature arrogant posture. And riding next to her was…
No.
No no no no no.
“To Miles Hampstedt,” my father said. “Heir to House Hampstedt and as of this morning, newly legitimized son of Lady Robin. He made us swear to spare your lives.”
“And in exchange, that soft little nerd told us everything,” Razz boasted. “The Sisters. The tunnels. Everything we needed.”
Whatever adrenaline I had left drained out of me. I crumpled to my knees. The world throbbed at the edges of my vision. I felt like I was going to pass out. This was too much. It was just too much.
No one spoke as Miles rode into the courtyard, or as he climbed off his horse and walked toward us. I think we just couldn’t believe it. He wore a new tunic, all black, and had the golden owl of House Hampstedt pinned to his chest. My brain raced with all the possibilities. Maybe this was all part of his plan. Maybe my father was trying to trick me. Maybe this would all work out.
Then I saw his face. His eyes looked angry and broken, like something deep inside him had shattered. His mouth was clenched in a furious line, and his eyebrows blazed down in deep, angry furrows.
He’d sold us out.
Miles had actually sold us out.
“You piece of shit!” Jax howled, and lunged forward. Razz kicked him in the back of the leg before he could go anywhere, and Jax went sprawling out into the courtyard, where two of my father’s men tackled him to the ground. “You traitorous rat piece of shit!”
“I did what I had to do,” Miles said coldly. “For my House. For the West.”
How was this happening? I’d trusted Miles. I’d believed in him. After everything we’d done, everything we’d been through, was he seriously selling us all out just so he could get back in his mother’s good graces?
Then he walked toward me, his eyes burning, and I realized, no, that wasn’t it at all. This wasn’t about his House. This was personal. He grabbed me by the chin and jerked my face up, hard, so I was looking right into his livid eyes. “I saw you,” he hissed, angrier than I’d ever seen anyone. “With him. In the pool. I saw what you did!”
No. It couldn’t be. That was what this was about? What Miles was willing to sell us all out for? This was all about his stupid crush?
“Miles,” I whispered, “how could you do this to us? We’re your friends. We care about you.”
“If you cared about me, you wouldn’t have screwed Zell!” Miles yelled, and holy shit, something in him had completely snapped. He was like a child throwing a tantrum, totally out of control. Had this been in him all along? Had the promise of my love been the only thing keeping him loyal? He shoved me down onto my back and slammed his hands against the wall, howling in fury. “You said this wasn’t the right time! That we’d talk later! But all along, you just wanted him! Him! How could you do this to me? I saved your life, Tilla! I loved you first! You were supposed to be mine!”
“I was never going to be yours,” I whispered back.
Miles glowered at me, breathing hard, then spun around. “You still will be. You’ll see.”
He stormed away. I tried to pull myself up, but my father flicked his hand in the air, gesturing to his men. “Wait—” I said, and then one of them flipped his sword around and cracked me across the head with its hard wooden pommel, and the darkness swallowed me before I even hit the ground.
YOU KNOW THAT FEELING WHEN you wake up in a new place, and you’re confused because you don’t know where you are? Imagine that, except you’re on a hard floor in a cold room, and your head is throbbing from the blow you took, and, oh yeah, one of your best friends just horribly sold you out.
It’s not a great feeling.
I awoke with a start only to immediately be jerked back by a sharp pain in my wrists. Thick iron manacles bound my hands together, and a short chain hooked them into the wall behind me. I was in a small stone room with a single barred door, lit only by a pair of torches mounted in the walls. Through a slit of a window, I could see the night sky, which meant we were in a tower of some kind. Jax and Zell sat on opposite sides of me, both chained to the same wall, and Lyriana was across the room. Her hands looked tiny in the heavy manacles, and then I realized why: all her Rings were gone. She was powerless. We weren’t going to magic our way out of this.
“Well, shit,” I said.
Jax turned to me. He had a big purple bruise on his jawline and a busted lip. I guessed he’d taken more of a beating than I had. “Yup. That about covers it.”
I closed my eyes. I had no idea how long I’d been out. My head hurt. But my heart ached more. “I don’t suppose you guys have come up with any great escape plan?”
“Not unless Lyriana can find a way to do magic without any Rings,” Jax said.
That seemed like a joke, but Lyriana’s eyes darted around, like she was struggling with a secret. “There are some circumstances where that might happen.” Lyriana jerked her chained hands, showing that she could barely move them at all. “But even without Rings, I’d still need my hands free to do the forms.”
I looked over at Zell, but he didn’t look back. He was just staring straight ahead, totally still, his gaze hard and focused on nothing at all. “I failed you,” he said softly. “I should have seen this coming. I let my guard down, and I failed you all.”
I wanted to reach out and touch him, but the chain was too short. “Zell, no. None of us could have seen this coming.” I tried to figure out what had happened. Miles must have walked in on me and Zell in the baths, sometime during the night. And then what? He’d snuck out, gotten on his horse, and rode off into the distance, galloping until he got to my father’s camp? Had he spent the whole time thinking about what he was going to say, the best way to betray us? Was he really willing to throw away everything we’d done just because I dared to sleep with someone else?
It was unthinkable, unbearable, but honestly, it made a horrible kind of sense. Miles had never cared about the mages or the war or even Lyriana. He’d just cared about me. He’d gone along with this whole plan because I’d wanted to, and everything he’d done had been to protect me, to get closer to me. I had been the only thing keeping him from running back to his mother.
And then I’d gone and broken his stupid heart.
“Don’t despair,” Lyriana said, and even she sounded like she was forcing it. “We’ve survived worse situations. We’ll survive this, too.”
I was about to tell her I wished I had her optimism, when a rattling sound came from the prison door. I pulled back against the wall, and next to me Jax jerked up his manacles to wield as weapons. I don’t know who we were expecting. A torturer, maybe, or a leather-masked executioner?
The door swung open, and Miles walked in. Worst option of all.
He was still wearing that impeccable black tunic with the obnoxious golden owl pinned to his chest. I suspected it’d be months until he took it off. There was a confidence in his stride that hadn’t been there before, almost a bit of a swagger. It pissed me off something awful.
Miles looked around the room, at how far we’d all pulled away from him, even Lyriana. “Come on, guys,” he said, and I couldn’t believe how betrayed he sounded. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
I wondered at his weird emphasis, and then he gestured behind him. Two guards, House Hampstedt men by their winged helms, came in, dragging a third man behind them. Galen. His face was a mess of dried blood and puffy bruises, his eyes so swollen I doubted he could see out of them. I can’t say I liked the guy much, but I hated seeing him like this.
He didn’t say anything as the g
uards dragged him across the floor, shoved him against the wall next to Lyriana, and clamped his wrists into the spare set of chains dangling there. I thought he might be unconscious, but I caught a glimpse of his eyes through those narrow, puffy slits. He looked pissed.
We all were. “Hey, traitor. I’ve got a hell of a secret for you,” Jax growled. “Why don’t you come close and I’ll tell you.”
Miles sighed. “Look. I’m not happy about how this played out. You probably don’t believe me, but it honestly upsets me to see you all like this. I was hoping you’d surrender peacefully. But it is what it is.” He gestured again to his guards, sending them out of the room, then turned to look right at me. “Don’t worry, though. This is just temporary, I promise. Soon the mages will be taken care of, and this will all be over. You won’t have to be in this tower for very long.”
I’d been trying to hold back the commentary, but now I just couldn’t help myself. “Seriously? What exactly do you think our parents are going to do to us?”
“I’ve got it all planned out,” Miles said. “I made sure my terms of surrender were very clear. None of you are to be harmed. Not even…not even the Zitochi.”
“And what is to become of me?” Zell asked.
“You’ll be returned to the custody of your father so he may do with you as he sees fit,” Miles said, unable to hide a certain nasty satisfaction. “Lord Reza and the Princess will be held as high-value hostages, to be ransomed back to Lightspire when the time is right. And Tilla and Jax, you’ll be taken to Castle Waverly, where you’ll live as Lord Kent’s wards. You won’t be able to leave the castle, of course, but other than that, things will go back to exactly how they were. And once this war is over, if you’ve proven your loyalty to the West, you’ll be pardoned of your crimes and granted your freedom.” He gave a small shrug. “It’s a great deal. The best any of us could have hoped for.”
“I don’t want a great deal,” Lyriana scowled. “I want to prevent a war!”
Miles rolled his eyes. “Oh please, Princess. You can bull-shit the others, but you can’t bullshit me. There was always going to be a war, if not today, then a month from now. We both know it’s going to happen. You just want to make sure your side wins. Isn’t that right, Lord Reza?”
Galen craned his head up toward Miles and spat out a tooth. It left a long, bloody trail on the floor.
“I rest my case.” Miles turned to look at me. “We forgot who we were, Tilla. But I remember now. I’m a Hampstedt. I’m a Westerner. And I’m not going to sell out my family and my people for scraps from the table of some Lightspire King!”
I didn’t know which was scarier: the idea that Miles had so quickly embraced his family’s ideology, or the possibility he’d just been swallowing it down to woo me. I had to hope it was the first. “Miles, listen to me. It’s not too late. Let us out of here. We can still meet up with the mages and try to make this right.”
Miles scoffed. “The mages are riding straight into an ambush. This time tomorrow, they’ll be dead, and the West will be on its path toward freedom.”
Jax laughed. “Uh, yeah, except the mages know all about the ambush. Lord Reza warned them, remember? No way they’re going to fall into your trap.”
“You really are dumber than a bag of bricks, aren’t you, Jax?” Miles said. “The mages know all about Lord Kent’s first plan, ambushing them during the banquet he had Lord Reza set up. Which is why we’re going to ambush them when they ride through Pioneer’s Pass instead.”
The room was silent, and Miles’s smug smile was unbearable. “What are you talking about?” I demanded. “How are you going to ambush three companies of mages?”
“With a hundred mage-killer bombs, strapped to arrows, raining down on them as they pass through the valley’s narrowest point,” Miles casually explained, and in that second, he sounded exactly like his mother. “Why do you think we needed to take those Sisters of Kaia alive? Every one of them is a stack of mage-killers just waiting to get made!”
Lyriana gasped. I felt sick. “You piece of shit,” I muttered. “You heard your mom explain how they made those things! Those Sisters…those poor women…You’re going to let your mother drug them and torture them to death? All so she can kill more people?”
Miles looked away. Was that, maybe, a flicker of guilt? “It’s…a necessary evil.”
“I saw it,” Galen said, his voice scratchy and raw. “They’ve turned the Great Hall into a torture chamber, and they’re going through the Sisters one by one. It’s unspeakable.”
“Wars have casualties,” Miles said. “How many Westerners died last time around? How many more will your mages kill?”
He really was this far gone. “Who the hell are you, Miles? People are dead because of you! Those innocent women are being murdered! How could you do this? How could you betray us like this?”
A vein in Miles’s forehead pulsed, and his nostrils flared. I’d struck a nerve. “How could…how could I betray you? How could I betray you?” He walked forward, shaking a finger, and this was the other Miles now, the one who had grabbed me back in the hallway, the one who scared me more than Razz. “You betrayed me, Tilla! You betrayed me!”
“How? Because I was promised to you? By our parents?”
Miles’s eyes were wild, his voice fast and frantic. “When we kissed, back in that grove, you said we just needed to get to safety, and then we’d talk. There was an implication there that you felt the same way. Don’t deny it!”
I glanced away, a little out of guilt but mostly because I couldn’t keep looking at him. He wasn’t totally wrong. I could have been more honest with him. I could have had the hard talk. And maybe I did let him walk away thinking there was more of a chance than there was. But did that in any way justify this? Was any of this even close to what I, what we, deserved?
“When you told me you needed more time, I listened.” Miles jabbed his finger in my face like a dagger. “I respected you. I was a perfect gentleman. And then you…you choose Zell? A Zitochi murderer?” Miles turned away, and the bitter resentment just oozed out of his voice. “Why? Because he’s so much better looking than I am? Because he’s got those dreamy eyes and those perfect abs? Well, what the hell am I supposed to do about that? What can I even begin to do about that? I saved your life, Tilla! I tackled a mercenary for you! I did so much, and still, still…him?”
I closed my eyes. “I can’t deal with this, Miles. Not now. And sure as hell not shackled in a tower. If you wanted to talk to me like a person, like a friend, you could have. But that chance is gone.”
“Actually, it isn’t.” Miles ran his hands along his shaved head, like he had done back when he’d had hair. “When I saw you with Zell, it felt like you’d ripped my heart out through my throat. I’ve never been more upset. I rode off, no idea what I was doing. I honestly thought about just throwing myself off one of the cliffs.”
“Shoulda done that,” Jax grumbled.
“And then I realized this just didn’t make sense. The Tilla I know, the Tilla I loved, wouldn’t hurt me like that. That just wasn’t her.”
“But it is me, Miles,” I pleaded. “The Tilla that you know is this weird, elaborate fantasy you’ve built up over the years, because you thought we’d be getting married.” Jax cocked an eyebrow at that. “You don’t love me. You love an idea of me. But this is who I am. And Zell is who I really choose.”
“No. No. You’re wrong. You’re confused,” Miles said with the creepy reassuring quality of someone talking to themselves. “This whole thing, with your father and what we saw and then the Dolan brothers…it’s messed you up. Tangled your mind. Made you hysterical. What you’re saying, what you’re doing, it just doesn’t make any sense.”
“Sense? What sense is there in betraying your friends?”
Miles acted like he hadn’t heard me. “Just think about it. Use your head. If we ally ourselves with our parents, we’ll be better off than we ever could be in Lightspire. Their revolution is going to succee
d. The West will be free, your father will be King, and we’ll both be nobles sitting on the highest court in the Kingdom. You’d give all that up to be…what?” He gestured his hand around the cell, at Zell, at Jax. “Queen of the bastards?”
“I don’t want to be the queen of anything,” I growled.
“And that’s something only a deluded person would say.” Miles’s face had never looked more punchable. “That’s why I’m not mad anymore, Tilla. I forgive you.”
And holy shit, wow, I didn’t think it’d be possible for Miles to make me angrier with him, but there he went and did it. It was bad enough to paint me as some kind of betrayer. But to act like I was crazy, like my choices weren’t my own, like he knew me so much better than I knew myself? “You forgive me? Are you serious?”
“I am,” he said. “And when we get back to Castle Waverly, you’ll see. You’ll remember. Everything will go back to how it was.”
“How it…” I repeated, and then I understood what he was implying and I actually had to fight back the urge to lunge at him. “No. No way in hell. You don’t still expect us to get married, do you?”
Miles turned away. Now he couldn’t look at me. “You’ll see. You’ll remember.”
“No, I will not see!” I yelled. Maybe when he’d walked into this room, I’d had a glimmer of pity for him, the tiniest part of me that still felt bad for what he’d been through. Not anymore. All I felt was burning, pulsing, white-hot anger. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to hurt him so bad. “Let me make one thing crystal clear, Miles. I don’t care if you’re Lord of House Hampstedt or King of Noveris. If you drag me down the altar, I will kick and spit and scream the whole way. And if you pull me into your bed, I will slit your throat the second you’re asleep.” I couldn’t see his face, but I could see his shoulders shuddering. Good. “Listen to me very clearly, Miles. I will never want you. And I will never, ever love you.”
Royal Bastards Page 24