“You’ve been riding hard,” Dallin said quietly.
Corliss took in the saddled horses, the workers, the boy, the silence….
“I’ve been praying they’d got it wrong.” She looked like she was trying not to believe her own eyes. Her sidearm was still holstered, but the tethers were loose and her hand hovered just above the burled butt. She shifted her glance to Wil, skimmed it over the rifle in his hand, Dallin’s grip on his arm. “Please tell me you’ve just arrested this man and were on your way to the Chester constabulary to turn him in.”
Wil looked up at Dallin slowly, more alert now, like he was taking in the things around him as well as inside him again. The look was rueful, anxious—caught and caged—but hope took up the corners, waiting for Dallin to negate reality. “I think perhaps you’re the only one in the world I do trust.” Dallin wished with his whole self that the next few moments wouldn’t belie that tender, too-breakable faith.
“Brayden.” The warning in Corliss’s tone was all too clear. “Say it and I’ll believe it. Don’t make me arrest you.”
Perhaps it would be wiser. Allow them to be arrested and then figure out a way to get them out of it. Or say what Corliss wanted to hear and then figure out how to get Wil away again. No danger of having to fire on Corliss and whomever the two others from Putnam might be. No danger of having to fire on soldiers beside whom Dallin would have been fighting ten years ago. No danger of either one of them getting shot while trying to escape.
Dallin shook his head and leaned in toward Wil. “Whatever happens, you get on that horse and you go, understand?”
“Brayden!” The horror in Corliss’s voice was enough to make Dallin flinch.
He turned his gaze on her, hardened it. “You don’t know what’s going on here.”
“I can bloody guess!”
Ever the mum, Corliss. Dallin pushed Wil back but kept his grip on Wil’s arm. “It isn’t what you’re thinking. At least, that’s not all of it.”
“So you are—”
“It’s bigger than that, Corliss, you’ve no idea what…. Didn’t Jagger tell you anything?”
“Chief Jagger was arrested when word came back from Dudley that you’d absconded with the prisoner.”
Dallin fell silent, stunned. Arrested. He shook his head slowly. “For what?”
Corliss’s mouth thinned. “For conspiracy.” Anger and betrayal flashed bright in her hazel eyes. “He wouldn’t speak against you, wouldn’t believe what they were saying, so they assumed he was in on it.” Her glare flashed at Wil. “He’s been in solitary confinement for weeks now—I’m not even allowed to see him.” She looked back at Dallin, gaze going softer, pleading. “Tell me it isn’t true. Tell me it isn’t true, and we’ll arrest this man and walk out of here together.” Her hand still hovered at her holster, but the other went behind her back—reaching, Dallin knew, for the shackles at her belt. “You can still get out of this, Brayden. Everyone slips up. It’s not too late to fix it.”
Perhaps if she’d said “Dallin” rather than “Brayden.”
Perhaps if Wil hadn’t tensed and caught his breath when Corliss’s hand came out from behind her back, cool metal clinking between her fingers.
Dallin pushed Wil farther behind him, keeping his eyes steady on Corliss. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I.” Corliss’s gaze turned sad and regretful. Her hand finally settled on her gun, drew it from its holster, and aimed it at Dallin’s chest. “Constable Dallin Brayden. By the authority of the Province of Putnam, Constabulary of the Commonwealth of Cynewísan—”
“Stop.” Wil very nearly hissed it as he raised his hand.
Dallin caught it. “No. Not her.”
He didn’t think he could stand to see Corliss with that blank look on her face.
“—you are under arrest on the charges of treason—”
Even though he’d known it was coming, it still hurt. Treason. Dallin couldn’t help the sharp wince and near flinch.
“Then what do you propose?” Wil growled.
“—aiding and abetting a—”
“Get yourself to Lind,” Dallin told him. “You know the way. You’ve got the money. Get out and keep running. Don’t stop ’til you—”
“Dallin!” Wil grabbed hold of Dallin’s arm with clutching fingers. “You can’t let—”
“Chosen!”
A booming shout from out in the yard.
Wil froze, fingers digging into Dallin’s arm so hard Dallin vaguely wondered if they’d meet in the middle. Even the mare, happily teasing at Wil’s coat with her big yellow teeth, jerked up her head and snorted, dancing at the end of her rein.
A small gasp from Wil, a watery moan, then a broken whisper, breathless and terribly shaky.
“No… no.”
And with that one small puff of breath, whatever spell had held the stable workers in sway broke abruptly. Gazes sharpened, heads turned, confusion ran slow tremors over dozens of faces. Alertness honed their glances even as Wil staggered against Dallin, hand still clutching, holding himself up.
Dallin watched Corliss watching it all, watched her jaw set firm, watched her turn her eyes to Dallin and harden them. “I need help in here,” she called over her shoulder. “Woodrow, haul arse!”
Woodrow? She’d brought Woodrow?
“Mister Síofra,” she said with quite a lot more tact, “I’ll ask you to stay where you are until the situation is more tenable.”
“Wil.” Dallin pried Wil’s fingers loose, dismayed to his core to see the steady stream of bright scarlet dripping from Wil’s nose. Wil didn’t even seem to notice.
Damn it, he’d gone and pulled it back again. Didn’t he know that would kill him?
Dallin took hold of Wil and shook. “You have to go.”
“Chosen, dearest lost lad! Come to me now and all will be forgiven.”
The tone turned Dallin’s stomach. Paternal, just the right mix of command and kindness, condescending compassion. Dallin didn’t know why he was so surprised Síofra nearly pulled it off—he’d had fifty years to practice it, after all.
“Constable Brayden.” Corliss’s voice was coming closer. “You will surrender your firearms—”
“Wil, get up on your horse.”
Wil’s dazed eyes turned slowly to Dallin, that looming panic from earlier now fully bloomed and flowering steadily. “I—”
“You can.” Dallin snarled it. “You can and you will. Get up on that bloody horse, Wil.” He closed his fist over the reins in Wil’s hand. “Right now.”
“Brayden.” Right behind him now. A rolling click, the feel of a small circle of cold metal at his nape. “Don’t make me.” There was real pleading in Corliss’s shaky voice.
Dallin’s whole attention was on the fear flaring out of Wil’s pores, on the sadness and desolation Dallin had touched before, when Wil had been wandering inside himself.
“Wil. Wil! Get up on your fucking horse.”
Wil was still shaking his head slowly, tears crowding his eyes and dripping slow and thick down his blanched cheeks. “Don’t… don’t go away.”
It almost made the tears come for Dallin too—fast and hard. He swallowed them and gritted his teeth.
“It’s my bullet.” Dallin tried to smile and failed. “See that? You didn’t even have to throw me in front of it. So much for prophecies.” Wil opened his mouth—to protest, to scream, Dallin didn’t know—but Dallin cut him off. “I’m choosing you.” He firmed his jaw and made his voice as hard and fierce as he could. “Now get up on that fucking horse. Move it, soldier!”
He didn’t give Wil any more time for paralysis. He shoved Wil away, turned on Corliss, grabbed for the gun, and prayed with everything in him that Wil was lurching into the saddle as he did it.
Corliss’s shock and disbelief that Dallin would actually attack her helped. Dallin was able to close his hand over Corliss’s and prevent her from firing. He spun her and clamped his hand over her mouth. Corliss was fast and skilled in h
and-to-hand, but there was no denying that Dallin was simply bigger and stronger. He used it to full advantage even as some part buried at the back of his heart mourned for the years-long friendship he was in the process of severing for good.
Dallin craned a look over his shoulder, relieved to see Wil already mounted. He wasn’t leaving, though, only swiping his sleeve distractedly at the blood pouring from his nose and staring at Dallin with eyes gone impossibly wide. Dallin wished he had a hand free to give the horse’s rump a sharp slap and get Wil moving.
Corliss was writhing in Dallin’s grip, shackles clattering to the floor as her arm flailed back and whacked him in the head, digging the heels of her boots into Dallin’s toes first, then kicking back at his shins. She was growling and probably cursing against Dallin’s hand the whole while. Dallin ignored it all.
“Through the paddock.” Dallin jerked his head at Wil’s horse. “If she can’t jump the fence, push her. You know you can.”
“Lad.”
From the doorway this time, softly satisfied. Dallin didn’t even look, kept his eyes on Wil. He would have said Wil couldn’t look more terrified than he had just ten seconds ago, but the dread notched up as Wil juddered in the saddle. He started to turn his head—
“Don’t look at him, look at me,” Dallin snapped.
“Come to me, Aisling,” Síofra crooned. “He can’t protect you. You know what he is—you know his destiny. Come to me now, and I’ll take you home. All is forgiven.”
“Wil, look at me, damn it.” When Wil did, slowly, Dallin set his jaw and curled his lip on a derisive sneer. “Caught and caged, Aisling. Is that what you want?” He raised Corliss’s hand—Dallin’s around hers, hers around the gun—and pointed the barrel just over Wil’s head. “It’s either that or I keep my promise. Now move your arse, damn you. Go!”
The paralysis broke. Wil kicked his heels into the horse’s barrel, tugged the reins, and crouched over her neck as she wheeled to the side. They took off with a low grunt and a clatter of hoofs. Dallin didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when Wil shot his hand out on his way by the lad who’d saddled his horse, grabbed the crossbow from him, and just kept going, scattering beast and rider alike before him as he went.
A cacophony of voices burst from the yard, red and gold flicking past the open doors and through Dallin’s peripheral vision, shouts and orders he didn’t hear. He watched for a moment until Wil cleared the fence, then let out a long, tight breath and closed his eyes.
“I’m so sorry.” Dallin let Corliss go abruptly and raised his hands. He rested them atop his head, took a step back, and lowered himself to one knee. “Two revolvers,” he said as she spun, gun raised and aimed right between his eyes, “right thigh and left hip, a sword on my left, and a knife in my right boot.”
Corliss was breathing heavily, disbelief still twisting through the betrayal in her shocked gaze. “D’you know what you’ve just done?”
Dallin nodded slowly, looked her in the eye. “I chose him.”
HE’D NEVER been shackled before. Dallin stayed still, staring straight ahead, while Corliss guided his hands to the small of his back and snapped the iron about his wrists. He refused to allow his cheeks to darken, refused to allow his chin to dip. Dallin was proud of what he’d done, from the moment he’d made the decision to help Wil and not arrest him, and no humiliating procedure would dim that. Down on one knee, disarmed, searched, the ghost-weight of the badge they’d taken from his pocket uncannily heavy—all of it seared into Dallin’s chest, but the burn for what he’d come to see over the past few weeks as his real duty flared hotter.
The eyes of every worker in the stables were on him. Commonwealth soldiers looked on from the door. Woodrow and Creighton stared at their boots. And still Dallin kept his head up. Even beneath Corliss’s sad, disappointed gaze, Dallin didn’t wither.
“It breaks my heart.” Corliss whispered it as the clasps snapped home.
“And yet you’re doing it.”
She stood, stepped in front of him, anger flashing. “It’s my job.”
“I began by using that excuse myself.” Dallin met her gaze steadily. “Some jobs are bigger than others.”
“You’d do the same in my place. You’re First Constable of Putnam, Brayden—First Constable. Don’t you even remember what that means?”
He shrugged. “That title no longer belongs to me. I have another now.”
Corliss went nearly white with rage. “What could be so bloody important that you’d just throw all that away?” Her hands clenched into fists. “I could weep for you, but you’re too damned stupid to weep for yourself!”
Dallin merely looked at her calmly for a moment, accepting the rebuke, the hurt, the disappointment. “In your place,” he told her slowly, “I would have done you the honor of asking you that question before I’d done you the dishonor of shackling you and taking another’s word against you.” He paused, watching her gaze flinch and mist. “I weep only for the trust you owed me. Save your tears. I’ve no need of them.”
Corliss lifted her chin, jaw tight. “As you will.”
She left him kneeling in the center of the floor while the rest of the party watered their horses and milled about, awaiting instructions.
He loved Corliss like a sister, but Dallin couldn’t regret her anger, her betrayal at his supposed treachery, the loss of her regard—any of it. His entire life was lying dead in this stable so far from what he’d called home, shattered around him, and he could concentrate on nothing but whether or not Wil had got away clean, whether he was safe, what kind of welcome he’d receive in Lind….
“You realize, of course,” Síofra told Dallin quietly, pacing slowly across the floor to stand in front of him, black boots shining as they clicked and clacked across the wooden boards, “that I will find him and bring him home.” He crouched down in front of Dallin, smiled, all charm and understanding. “You can’t be blamed entirely. He’s a very convincing liar.” He chuckled sadly. “I can only imagine what he’s told you.”
I’ll just bet you can. Dallin kept his teeth clamped tight and stared straight ahead. Síofra really was a smarmy-looking man. Narrow and pale, he might have been considered decent-looking at one time, but arrogance and calculation had turned fair looks tight and pinched. Dark hair worn longish in the custom of Ríocht, combed straight and tucked behind his ears; thin lips over straight white teeth that flashed brilliant with a practiced smile that could almost pass for charismatic; too-sharp blue eyes that could either look right through you or look right past you, but Dallin would wager they never in truth saw anyone.
I see you, though. And far too well. Too bad we didn’t meet when we were both back in Putnam. Wil wouldn’t have even had to tell me why he was running from you. And it wouldn’t have taken me so damned long to decide to help him.
Síofra looked far too young for what Dallin assumed to be his years. He had to be at least two decades older than Wil, and yet he looked as though he hadn’t yet seen his fortieth birthday.
Right, and I bet I know how you managed that, you soul-sucking weasel.
“He can’t help himself,” Síofra went on. “You mustn’t blame him. The poor lad can’t tell fantasy from reality most of the time.”
That’ll happen when you’re force-fed mæting all your life, but you didn’t manage to kill or steal his mind, did you? I’ll bet the brilliance of it was like a shining gem just out of your reach, and that’s just eating you up, isn’t it? He fought you, and for more than fifty years you couldn’t beat him.
Despite himself, Dallin smirked. It made Síofra’s smile slip a bit, made the rage and hatred behind his eyes flash out just for a second, before he schooled his expression back to one of charm and concern. He leaned in close to dip his mouth to Dallin’s ear.
“I know what you are.” The whisper was a thin, silky drawl. “I know where you’ve sent him.” He pulled back just a little, softening his smile, almost intimate. “I wonder if he’ll think you’ve betrayed
him when he finds what’s waiting for him? Ah, but then, he won’t make it, you know, so I don’t expect we’ll ever get an answer to that question. Pity.” He sighed. “It’s all been for nothing. He’ll never even get out of the city, and you?” The smile twisted. “I believe the punishment for treason is at least one thing upon which Cynewísan and Ríocht agree.” Síofra waved his long, pale hand. “Gibbets are the same everywhere, I expect.”
None of it was surprising; none of it would get the rise out of Dallin that Síofra was obviously looking for. Instead Dallin leaned in himself and let his smirk curl wide and cocky. “He knows what you’ve done,” he whispered back. “He knows what I am—he knows what he is. He knows everything.” He mimicked Síofra’s own little performance, pulling back, returning the smile, and letting it twist smug. “He knows you’re coming. And he’s ready for you this time.”
Dallin was a much better bluffer than Síofra. Síofra’s face darkened, rage suppressed beneath charm boiled up, and flowed over into the glitter of his eyes, the clench of his teeth. He stood, mouth tight, and glared at Dallin for a long moment before dragging his gaze away.
He turned to Corliss, who was waiting over by the storage cabinet, watching. “I’m done here, Constable.” Clipped and thin. “I’ll want to continue with this one at the constabulary. Bring him along with your men—I don’t expect he can cause much trouble anymore. Let the local law deal with the other Linder. And after they’ve completed the search of the city and found the Chosen, see that these brave soldiers are housed appropriately in one of Chester’s better establishments. On Ríocht’s coin, of course.”
With one last narrow look at Dallin, Síofra left the stable. Dallin watched him go, just barely keeping a snort under control. That man actually thought he was going to interrogate Dallin? Fine. Let him ask his questions. They’d just see who got more information than whom.
Corliss made her way back over, and Dallin had no problem turning on her with a derisive sneer. “Taking orders from Dominion scum now?”
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