DeliveredIntoHisHands

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  “Were there any injuries?” he asked the young second lieutenant who came riding up the hill to join him.

  “No, General.”

  “Everything went well, then?”

  “Aye, Sir.”

  “Everyone accounted for? What of the lodging?”

  “Aye, Sir, and each is being assigned accommodations as you indicated.”

  “Good then fetch Lady Warwyck and bring her to me,” he ordered. “I’ll be leaving for Maechin.”

  The young man looked away from the blaze. “She isn’t with you?”

  Slowly Garrick turned his head toward the young man. “What?” he asked.

  “I thought Lady Warwyck was with you. You were with her when I—”

  Everything around Garrick seemed to come to a sudden stop. All sound ceased. He saw men paused in mid-walk, horses in mid-gait. Fiery embers hovered motionless in the air above him. The man sitting beside him astride the roan mare had his mouth open but it wasn’t moving and nothing was coming out.

  As slowly as he turned his head toward the lieutenant, he turned it just as slowly to the keep. The flames no longer licked from the windows. Smoke did not rise, did not billow. No one moved on the periphery of the fire and the cries and sobbing had gone utterly silent.

  “Antonia?” he whispered, his eyes locked on the window of their bedchamber where flames hung suspended. He called her name again but it was just his lips moving for no sound came from his suddenly dry mouth.

  He could feel his heart pounding savagely in his chest but he could not hear the thump of the beat. Fear struck at him like a sharp lance.

  “Antonia?” he questioned the night air in a voice that was more plea than query.

  He shook his head. This wasn’t happening. She was safe. He knew she was safe. She was down there with the milling crowd, assuring them, helping them. She was not trapped inside the burning building. She had not stayed behind when everyone else had gone.

  “You have two choices. You can either stay here or run to safety with the other rats gathered below. It doesn’t matter one way or the other with me. Castle Blackthorn ends this night.”

  His words came back to him like lasers.

  “No,” he said. “No. She wouldn’t have stayed. She didn’t stay.”

  He nudged his mount forward and down the hillside yet nothing else moved around him. The sound had been sucked from the air as had the stench of burning wood. His hands were tight on the reins as the stallion picked its way down the incline.

  “She’s safe,” he said. “She’s safe. I know she’s safe. She’s down there with her people.”

  The alternative was impossible. It was unthinkable. It would not be contemplated.

  As he cleared the hillside and the horse trotted across the meadowland that separated the hill from the keep, he kept his eyes on the bedchamber window. The fire wasn’t burning. It was suspended, the light in the window bright but unwavering. The people were stationary—turned toward the keep—and the smoke hung thick but unmoving around him as he urged the beast to a faster gait.

  He passed the inhabitants of Castle Blackthorn but when he looked at their faces there were no features looking back at him. No eyes, no noses, no mouths. Only blank ovals perched atop black silhouettes. Their eerie stillness and shadowy bodies reminded him of vampires left in the Sun to die.

  Reaching a place where a table had been set up and two of his men were taking names, issuing accommodations, he reined in his horse and dismounted, letting the leather straps drop as he strode toward the table. The men sitting there were as motionless as statues, their faces gone.

  Heart trip hammering, he reached for the papers and began to scan his eyes over the names—looking for that one name he sought.

  But it wasn’t there. He looked around him, latched his attention on each and every faceless person there but she wasn’t among them. He would have known if she was.

  He looked toward the keep. At the bedchamber window.

  And saw her.

  He sucked in a breath for she was standing at the window with her hands on the panes, looking down at him.

  She screamed and her scream unleashed the terrible force of the keep’s destruction. Sound rushed back like an advancing tornado. The flames streaked across the lower level and thrust outward from the windows of the rooms on the floors above. The people around him began to moan and wail, pointing their fingers at the room where she stood framed in the window.

  “Antonia!” he yelled and started forward, digging his heels into the earth as he sprinted for the keep.

  Someone grabbed him, stopped him and he fought them, hissing and growling and slashing at them with fangs and claws but they drew him back away from the blazing inferno.

  “Antonia!” he screamed.

  There was a horrible cracking sound and he struggled harder. Five men were holding him, dragging him. She was beating against the window, trying to break the glass. Behind her, flames undulated.

  “Let go of me!” he bellowed.

  Another loud crack ricocheted through the air to signal the roof timbers were giving way.

  “Let go of me!” he screamed. “I have to save her!”

  A series of crackling pops.

  A loud groan.

  And the roof caved in.

  The window of the bedchamber dissolved and the entire level dropped like a rock.

  “No!” he shrieked. “No!”

  “There’s nothing you can do, General,” someone said. “She’s gone.”

  Though they held his arms, he sank to his knees, his head raised to look at the destruction he had caused, he had wrought.

  “I am about to issue the order to bring this wretched pile of stones to the ground. Every stick of furniture, every drapery, every painting, everything that remains will be put to the torch. There will not be one block, one timber, or one girder left standing when I am through.”

  And that was what he had done but in the doing he had destroyed the only good thing he would ever have in his life.

  Chapter Twelve

  Eleven years later

  On the battlefront on Volakis

  With a strangled shout, he sat bolt upright on the bunk, trembling from head to toe. His eyes were wide, glazed, filled with horror. Sweat dripped down his face, clung to his heaving chest and the hand he spiked through his damp hair shook uncontrollably.

  “The dream?” Marc asked quietly.

  All he could do was nod. He licked his dry lips, struggled to get his pounding heart and gasping breath to calm. It took him a moment or two then he swallowed hard and leaned back on his elbows.

  “She’s all right?” he managed to ask.

  “She is. You want to see her?”

  “Aye…” He shook his head. “No. I don’t want to see her.”

  “Want something to distract you instead?” Marc inquired.

  “Anything,” he stated, closing his eyes, clenching his face as though he were in terrible pain.

  “We received a diplomatic pouch from the Volakisian king.”

  Garrick opened his eyes then swiped a hand over his sweaty face. “Did you open it?”

  “Of course not,” Marc said. “Want it?”

  “Aye.”

  Marc plucked the leather pouch from Garrick’s desk and brought it over to him. Garrick took it and held out his hand for Marc’s dagger to slit open the seal. Drawing it from its sheath, Marc flipped it over and handed it grip first to his friend.

  “Did you have the chains removed?” Garrick asked as he took the dagger.

  “You know fucking well I did,” Marc said. “She’s not going anywhere.”

  “And you know this because?” Garrick asked. He ran the edge of the blade under the wax seal.

  “I’ve got men posted all around the stockade and a woman guard posing as a prisoner inside with her. They should be great friends by now.”

  Garrick snorted. “You really think she wouldn’t know the woman is a plant?” He reached into th
e pouch to pull out a single sheet of parchment.

  “Doesn’t matter, does it?” Marc queried. He was watching Garrick’s face as he read. “Bad news?”

  “Surprising news,” Garrick replied. He looked up at his friend. “He’s surrendering.”

  “Get the fuck out!” Marc said.

  Garrick extended the paper to him. “See for yourself.”

  Marc took the missive, read it, read it again then slowly looked up. “It’s over,” he said. “The war’s over.”

  “If he accepts my terms,” Garrick said. He swung his legs from the bunk and stood, reaching for his pants. “I’ll accept his surrender.”

  “And what terms would those be? As if I didn’t know.”

  “I want Alyxdair Clay.”

  “What if King Cormac won’t turn him over to you?”

  “Then the war continues until there isn’t a man of fighting age left on this backwater world,” Garrick stated. “Fetch Oran for me.”

  Marc nodded and turned to go. He stopped. “You want to see her now?”

  Garrick shot him a look of irritation. “Why the hell would I?”

  “To tell her about this new development?”

  “It doesn’t concern her,” Garrick told him.

  “She knows where he is.”

  “Aye, but she won’t give him up,” Garrick declared. “Bring the woman guard to me. Let’s see if she’s learned anything worthwhile.”

  “Your wish is my command, milord,” Marc said with a chuckle.

  Marc sent Oran into the tent before sending one of his men over to the stockade to get the female guard. He knew Garrick wouldn’t want to speak to her until after he had dictated his terms to Oran and the return message was written down in Oran’s careful script. He waited until Oran emerged from the tent and walked over to a messenger before he motioned the woman inside.

  Garrick glanced up from his desk as the woman entered with Marc. She snapped to attention and he frowned. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Corporal Leanora Jantsen, Sir!” the woman replied.

  “At ease, Corporal,” Marc said for Garrick. He exchanged a humorous look with Garrick as the woman jerked into parade rest with her gaze leveled over Garrick’s head.

  “Tell me about Lady Warwyck,” Garrick said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest.

  “She is well, Sir,” Jantsen replied. “Undernourished but not weak. She knows I was put there to spy on her.”

  “And how did she take that?”

  “Well enough. I think she was expecting it, Sir.”

  “My lady-wife is smart if misguided,” Garrick said. “What did the two of you talk about?”

  Jantsen’s eyes flicked down to his then away. “The weather, Sir.”

  Garrick’s brows shot up. “Beg pardon?”

  “The weather,” Jantsen reported. “Primarily, the wretched heat and her hope that it will rain soon.”

  “And that’s all you two talked about?” Marc pressed. “All day long?”

  “Aye, Sir,” Jantsen replied. “All. Day. Long.” She said the three words as though they were a personal affront to her.

  Garrick sighed. “I’m not surprised although I would have thought she’d have had a few nasty things to say about me.”

  “Not one word about you, Sir,” Jantsen said.

  “What of the executions?” Marc asked. “Did she have nothing to say about them?”

  “No, Sir.”

  “That will be all, Corporal,” Garrick said and his frown returned when she snapped to attention, saluted then pivoted smartly. He watched her leave the tent then told Marc there was no reason for her to return to the stockade.

  “Well, that was a waste of time,” Marc commented.

  “Are the rebels still hanging from the scaffolds?”

  “Aye.”

  “Cut them down and have them taken to the burial site,” he ordered. “Then bring her to me.”

  “You don’t want her to see them,” Marc acknowledged.

  “No.”

  “Got it,” Marc said before heading out.

  While he waited, Garrick laid his head against the backrest of the chair and closed his eyes. The remnant of the recurring dream—nay, the nightmare—he’d been having since the night Castle Blackthorn fell still held him in its grip. It made his blood run cold, squeezed his gut into a twist, and served to remind him of what a moment’s careless vengeance had cost him.

  For years he refused to believe the woman he loved had died in the fire. Though he had seen her outlined against the flames, pounding at the window in her attempt to save herself, had watched the building collapse around her, he would not accept her death. He had his men start to comb the debris long before it was safe to do so. The ruin was still smoldering as they dug through the wreckage. Giving him hope was the fact that they never recovered her body.

  “She escaped,” he insisted though they told him the fire had burned so hot, so intensely there might not have been anything left to find. “I know she escaped.”

  And she had. For that he was grateful and silently thanked the goddess Bastet for bringing her back to him.

  Then cursed Sibylline, the deity to whom his wife owed her worship for handing her over to his enemy in what Marc had learned from one of the rebels had been a Joining conducted by the Volakisian king, himself.

  “I am the wife of the rebel leader.”

  “No hell you aren’t! You are my wife. Not Alyxdair Clay’s!”

  “I have not been your wife since you murdered an innocent man before my very eyes.”

  She was still his wife no matter how many illegal weddings were conducted. No matter how many fucking assholes she slept with. She would remain his wife until time was no more. He would make sure of it and would see that she had eternity in which to atone for lying with that rebel bastard and daring to call herself his wife.

  He opened his eyes and stared at the tent flap, willing her to appear. When she did, he stiffened, the ice flowing through his veins freezing him.

  She looked none the worse for wear though she was so pitifully thin and pale it concerned him. There were deep shadows beneath eyes that were wary yet determined not to show fear.

  “Tell me where he is,” he said, knowing full well she wouldn’t but giving her one last chance before he completely destroyed the world as she knew it.

  “You know I will not do that,” she said.

  His smile was slow and mean. He tilted his head slightly to one side. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll have him soon enough.”

  “I doubt it,” she said, her smile equally hateful.

  He rested his elbows on the chair arms and steepled his fingers. “Tell me, wench. How important do you think he is to your king?”

  “Alyx is the general of his army. He has kept your men at bay for twelve years. How important do you think he is?” she countered.

  Garrick shrugged. “I’ve no idea but I doubt his life is worth the lives of the remaining warriors in the king’s army.”

  Her smile faltered. “His men would protect Alyx with their lives.”

  “All of them?” he asked. “Each and every one of them?” When she didn’t answer, he arched an eyebrow. “Has he no enemies among his men? Not even one?”

  “I imagine he has fewer enemies than you,” she said, her lips tightening.

  “What of the king’s nephews?” he queried. “They lead their own regiments, do they not? I hear he is quite fond of them. The king, I mean, not your fake husband.”

  “Our marriage is not fake,” she said. “I was free to marry him and I did. Under Volakisian law and before witnesses.”

  “Well now, that is interesting,” he stated. “Considering I am still alive how could you possibly be legally married to another man?”

  “I’m not going to play your evil game, Garrick. I signed the papers. I—”

  “What papers?” he asked.

  “What papers?” she repeated, eyes flashing gre
en fire. “You know goddess-be-damned well what papers! You had them served on me at—”

  “What fucking papers?” he shouted, getting to his feet so quickly she stumbled back, terror flooding her face.

  Marc must have been standing just outside for he flung the flap open and came in. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “What papers, Antonia?” Garrick demanded.

  “The divorce papers you sent to the court by diplomatic pouch!” she said though her voice suddenly filled with uncertainty.

  “There are no divorces in Modartha,” Marc said, looking from her to Garrick. “What is she talking about?”

  “That’s what I want to know!” Garrick snapped. He came around the desk and she backed up—stumbling into Marc who put hands on her shoulders to keep her from falling. “Get your hands off my woman and get the fuck away from her!”

  Marc jerked his hands back, held them up at shoulder level, and took several steps away from her.

  “Tell me!” Garrick ordered.

  “I read the papers,” she said. “I saw your signature. I thought—”

  “Divorces are illegal on Modartha,” Garrick told her. “I couldn’t have divorced you even had I wanted to!” His cheek ticked with tension. “Which I didn’t!”

  She looked to Marc for confirmation.

  “It’s true, Tonia,” Marc said.

  “Who gave you the papers?” Garrick demanded.

  Her gaze returned to him, filled with confusion.

  “Who gave you the fucking papers, Antonia?” he bellowed.

  “Alyx,” she said and he watched understanding settling in eyes. “Alyx did.”

  He reached out and grabbed her arm. “And you believed him.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement filled with rage.

  “I had no reason not to,” she said. “You forced me out of your life. You never came looking for me. You—”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” he bellowed, shaking her. “I had every stone in Blackthorn overturned looking for you in the rubble! I spent years searching for you!”

  Antonia’s brow furrowed. “Why would you look for me in the rubble?”

  “I saw you in the window!” he snarled. “I was watching you when the roof fell.”

  She looked to Marc for understanding. “What is he talking about?”