Court of Shadows

by Miranda Honfleur

  “Tell me you love only me,” he hissed against her lips, and it was all she could do to moan into his mouth. “Tell me.” He growled, deep in his throat, and rolled his hips against her, and Divine’s flaming fire, she could weep for the long, long way to their bedchamber—

  “My lord,” a timid voice called from a distance.

  “Not. Now,” he growled around her mouth, his voice more beast than human, but she broke away. He stared down at her, heaving breath after heavy breath, amber eyes bright, intense.

  She couldn’t agree more.

  “I beg your p-pardon, my lord, but it’s an urgent—”

  “What,” he snarled, those irises glancing the man’s way and fading to his human hazel.

  “—message for Her Ladyship, from Laurentine.”

  Frowning, Rielle smoothed her skirt and approached the man, who closed the distance to her and handed her a wax-sealed note as he bowed deeply.

  The bright fist—Olivia’s seal of the Archmage.

  “Thank you,” she said, and cracked it open.

  “You are welcome, Your Ladyship. Please f-forgive the intrusion.”

  She nodded and gestured a candlelight spell above her as she unfolded the parchment.

  Pirates raiding the coast of Laurentine at dawn of 21 Germinal. Jon has turned the Emaurrian Army north there from the surrounding villages after defeating the basilisks.

  “That’s today,” she whispered.

  At home.

  Her home.

  How many were dead? How many injured? How was the defense faring? How long would it take her to get there?

  The fire of ten years ago burned in her mind anew, but she blinked it away. She wasn’t that scared little girl anymore, or the fractured woman of months ago. Not anymore.

  Her people counted on her to keep them safe, and if the pirates got past Laurentine’s knights and city guard, then she needed to be there to protect them, no matter what.

  She looked over her shoulder at Brennan, who pushed off from the tree, buttoning his doublet.

  “What is it?” he grunted.

  She handed him the message. “I need to leave tonight. Now.”

  A grim nod. “I’ll order our horses saddled. Gather what you need, and we’ll leave as soon as you’re ready.”

  Chapter 2

  With his sabaton, Jon rolled a man over on the beach and peered at him. Arrow through the chest. Dead. He heaved a sigh.

  “Tell me at least one is alive,” he called to Olivia, who crouched beside another pirate.

  The wind battered past them and the squad of Emaurrian soldiers and paladins in the sand. She tucked a stray lock of blood-red hair behind her ear, its color matching the spatter on her face—no doubt his own was just as gory.

  She looked up at him and shook her head. “Afraid not.”

  He grimaced. The day before, they’d routed the invading force, repelling them from the castle city and decimating their rear guard as the bulk of the invaders took boats back to their ships. A fleeting victory, but time to shore up defenses.

  Off the coast, a fleet of pirate ships lay in wait—two carracks, a twenty-gun brig, and half a dozen schooners and sloops. Raiders that had been brazenly pillaging Emaurria’s western coast.

  A number of small parties had returned in the night, only to be destroyed by Laurentinian archers from the cliffs. His officers hadn’t coordinated well enough with Laurentine’s Knight-Captain Dufresne to ensure there was at least a survivor to question.

  Olivia approached, dusting off her brown-leather mage coat and staring out at the ships bobbing on the rough waters. “Scouting parties,” she declared.

  He nodded. “They want to know our numbers, determine how many I’ll leave behind so they can wait us out in greater numbers… while they send the remaining ships up and down the coast to raid the villages.” It was a poorly kept secret that the Royal Emaurrian Navy currently had very few ships to its name—among them the carrack HMS Isabelle, currently stationed in the Bay of Amar, and that Emaurria had no strong ties to any country that would send naval forces to assist.

  Least of all Silen, after Aless had left.

  And he wasn’t about to split his forces so the pirates could sack Laurentine. Especially as it was Emaurria’s primary shipbuilding hub.

  But neither could he allow them to raid the nearby villages.

  A plan. Terra help him, he needed a plan. Now. Either that, or at least double his current army. Triple would be even better.

  If he could just use his Earthbound powers, this would be over in an instant.

  He closed his eyes, picturing himself and Olivia on the beach, the sand, the surf, the waves coming into shore—

  “Don’t even think about it,” Olivia snapped. “I told you, after what you did with Stonehaven, it’s too much strain on your heart. You’ve gotten worse each time.”

  Strain or no strain, if he ran out of options, he would use his Earthbound powers. He wasn’t about to let an entire city fall for an extra day or two of his own life.

  “They’ll send another scouting party.” Olivia passed him by and headed for the gates of Laurentine.

  He followed. “Another scouting party we’ll defeat,” he called to her. “But we need at least one of theirs alive.”

  She slowed down, and he caught up with her. Together with his squad of Royal Guard, they made their way into the city and back to the command post set up within the castle’s high-ground inner bailey. With a clear view of all surroundings, it was the perfect vantage point.

  Through the bustling activity in the camp, he and Olivia approached the command tent and entered. The map was just where he’d left it, and just as impossible as he’d left it. He leaned over the table, scouring it for any new revelations, and moved aside a spyglass.

  Miraculously, no new insights fought for priority.

  Since negotiating the terms of Stonehaven’s surrender, it had been one thing after another. Minotaurs in Villecourt. Gorgons in Aestrie. Basilisks north of Caerlain Trel. And now pirates in Laurentine. Olivia had joined him in Caerlain Trel with a company of fresh troops and a plea that he not miss his own coronation next week.

  Which was highly probable unless they devised a plan to handle these pirates. He raked his fingers through his hair.

  “We can’t stay here indefinitely,” Olivia said. “And you need to sleep. You’ve barely rested since you left Vervewood.” She looked him over with the worried frown that said Because of your heart problem without speaking a word at all. After she’d joined him, she hadn’t left his side, quartering in adjoining rooms or having her tent pitched right next to his, an ear perked in case he should start screaming his dying throes and need healing.

  He wasn’t dead yet. “I’m not leaving until they do.”

  Captain Dufresne led the city’s forces, including the longbowmen stationed on the cliffs. As useful as they were, there was still no way to effectively reach the pirates.

  And no amount of staring at the map would change that. “We need mages,” he said, his voice low.

  “I sent for Ella and Cédric, but they’re still—”

  “Fighting the wyverns. I know.”

  “And Pons—”

  “Managing Courdeval.”

  “And the Order of Sages—”

  “Assisting the paladins with the harpy invasion outside of Melain.” The Order of Sages was small and fledgling to begin with, and they had their hands full. He pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled. She well knew he wasn’t referring to individual mages, but the entire Emaurrian Tower. “Olivia—”

  “I know,” she bit out, and moved to stand next to him. “I can’t in good faith advise you to break international law. We haven’t exhausted all diplomatic options with the Div—”

  “What options?” He indicated the map with a sweep of his hand. “I’ve sent for more mages. Offered the Grand Divinus any price.”

  Olivia bowed her head and cleaned her nails. “We need to—”
/>   “Your Majesty,” a man’s voice interrupted from outside the tent.

  Jon straightened. “Enter.”

  The tent flap opened, and a squire came in. “Riders, Your Majesty, up on the cliffs. Orders?”

  Enemy scouts taking a new route? Jon grabbed the spyglass and left the tent, rushing for the wall. He took the stairs two at a time until he reached the battlements, then panned the spyglass to the cliffs south of the city walls.

  “Is it her?” Heavy breaths next to him came from Olivia.

  “Her?” He focused on two figures on horseback. Long, straw-blond hair in a braid. Rielle with a dark-haired man riding alongside. Brennan. Terra’s troth. He clenched his teeth. “I told you not to disturb her.”

  “With all due respect, to hell with that.”

  He looked away from the spyglass to shoot her a scowl.

  She shrugged. “These are her lands. It is her right to know.”

  He focused back on the cliff.

  “Orders, sire?” the squire asked from behind him.

  “It’s the marquise. Hold fire.”

  “Yes, sire.” With that, his footsteps departed.

  Olivia was right; of course she was right. And yet, a dark mood settled on him like a heavy shroud. He’d wanted to handle this on his own. For Rielle. Without Rielle. Especially after their last night together in Courdeval nearly a month ago.

  A comfort, handling this alone. An immature comfort. One Olivia was too wise to allow him. She gave him as much space as a vise, but sometimes good friendship was pushy… as much as it irked.

  In the distance, Rielle dismounted her horse, her turquoise cloak trailing, and stalked to the cliff’s edge. Facing the coast, she raised her hands.

  Out on the Shining Sea, the waters behind the ships churned, roiled, and a wall of water rose like a mountain from the depths, high, high up, veiling the sky. For a moment, a kaleidoscope of colors filtered through its iridescence before its primal crash against the ships.

  Raging waves pushed and shoved in unnatural movement, forcing the ships to their whim.

  Rielle’s hands moved, molded like a master sculptor, and overpowering waters shoved the ships to the beach north of Laurentine, delivering them on wave after rolling wave. When the surf receded, the ships remained upon the sand, like prisoners left stranded.

  Above them, the skies darkened, clouds graying until they blackened, blotting out the morning sun, rumbling and sparking.

  A white bolt split the heavens, shooting down to the deck of a ship, the sky’s judgment come down in bright-hot lightning. Another. Another. Fires sparked and smoked, with shouts and screams in their wake.

  “Forcing them out,” he whispered. Perfect.

  “Jon?” Olivia prompted.

  “Tell Captain Perrault to advance but keep a safe distance from the aeromancy. The pirates will disembark and surrender.”

  Olivia shouted his orders on while he remained, watching through the spyglass as Rielle glared out at the ships, and as Brennan’s arm wrapped around her shoulders.

  * * *

  Rielle scowled down at the sliver of beach at the bottom of the cliff, and curled her index and middle fingers.

  An updraft—it held. “I’ll meet you below,” she said to Brennan over her shoulder, then leapt before he could reply.

  The aeromancy pushed up against her as she descended, a wind that eased her descent and held her just above the ground.

  She uncurled her fingers, dispelling the updraft, and clad herself in a flame cloak as she strode to the beached ships, fire wreathing her body from head to toe in protection. Her magic would force every last one of them from their ships. Every. Last. One.

  Beneath her lightning storm, some pirates had dropped boats from the ships and were fleeing to them.

  She dropped the lightning storm and instead spelled up a wall of sand between the ships and the sea, then enclosed them entirely with the only open side being hers.

  All faces turned to her, most paralyzed, some backing up, others taking up ready stances.

  That’s right. Come here.

  One pirate readied a bow, then as she gestured a spell, her flame cloak dispelled and he disappeared in a pillar of flame. A bit of pyromancy she’d read about in Xir. It dimmed her anima a bit more, but… Worth it.

  She raised the flame cloak once more.

  Soldiers surged down ahead of her from the gates of Laurentine. A platoon—two—a small company. Royal blue and white. The Emaurrian army. They surrounded the pirate forces, who dropped their weapons.

  But it wasn’t all of them. The ships remained, with some holdouts inside. Not for long.

  Indigo sails. Crossed cutlasses.

  Those colors. She knew those colors. Kezani pirates. Perhaps even—

  The Siren.

  She dispelled her flame cloak and sparked the sails on the beached ships—a controlled burn that spread downward, billowed great clouds of smoke.

  More men climbed down the rigging, gathered on the beach. She kept it up as the numbers reduced to a trickle, as at last, a small party emerged. A tall, bearded man with a wide-brimmed, decorated black hat.

  Sincuore.

  Every single muscle in her body hardened to painful rigidity.

  Even surrendering, he held his head high, carried himself with all the self-importance he’d believed he’d built over these years.

  She dispelled the flames from the sails and stalked toward him. A red stain. It was what she’d promised herself.

  Blood for blood. And you dare to judge me? Shadow’s words.

  She shook her head as she closed the distance, as Emaurrian soldiers apprehended him and kicked him to his knees.

  “You’ll release me if you want to survive the summer,” he shouted to the troops gathered around him. “I’m the king of the pirates.”

  “And I’m the queen of the Shining Sea,” she called back bitterly, tongue in cheek. All eyes turned to her. “No one will care a whit whether you live or die.”

  His gaze lifted to hers—all narrowed defiance—but then his unruly eyebrows rose. That flicker of recognition.

  He had once kicked her face to the ship’s deck. Starved her. Left her thirsty. Drugged her. Thrown her in his ship’s brig, left her half-conscious and half-mad, delirious and terrified. And then he’d sold her to the Harifan slave souk.

  Holding his unwavering gaze, she approached him and, with a flick of her finger, popped off his large hat.

  His tangled, greasy dark hair flapped in the wind. He was just a man. And now the tables had turned.

  She cocked her head. “The Divine is not without a sense of irony.”

  Those dark eyes narrowed once more. “How pathetic you were, shackled to the deck. Weak. Trembling.”

  No. She hardened her expression. “Why are you here?”

  “Eyes wild, like a hunted and starved quarry, desperately gaping at any drink.”

  I won’t let you. “Did anyone send you? Are you working for anyone?”

  Those dark eyebrows drew together, then he smiled. “What was it you said when my crew changed your clothes? ‘No, please, don’t,’ I think it was.”

  A flash of dark metal, then blood and teeth shot from his mouth as he hit the sand. Flinches and winces rippled through the pirates.

  Next to her, Jon flexed his bloodied, armored hand. “Arrest them,” he said coldly.

  Immediate movement as soldiers and paladins rushed to action. He glanced at her. “Leave me your questions for him, and I’ll see that they’re answered.”

  “I only have one question for him—how does he want to die?” she replied, tracing Sincuore with narrowed eyes as the paladins dragged him away.

  Shadow had accused her of being the same, twisted up in vengeance, but Sincuore had committed countless atrocities, and he would face justice. And she trusted Jon to make sure of it.

  Unmoving, she faced him while activity swirled around them. It had been about a month since she’d last seen him—that terri
ble, beautiful, horrible night—but he looked like it had been years. Red stained his armor and skin in trails and spatters, and dark circles shadowed beneath his eyes. If he’d slept in the past month, it hadn’t been much.

  Those Shining Sea eyes took her in beneath drawn brows, down to the garnet ring on her left hand, then rose back to her face. He exhaled slowly as his expression softened, a glimmer of her Jon sparking in his gaze. Fleeting, then it faded. “It’s good to see you.”

  His deep voice, gentle with her, took her back to that night. Veris. His arms around her, her tears streaming down her face—or his tears, maybe both together. That broken question. Have I lost you, Rielle?

  For a moment, she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. A ghost of an embrace clutched her shoulders, weighed into her flesh, her bones, her memory.

  She blinked, trying to break away, and if only she could remember those age-old words every Lothaire kept ready for their liege. Something she could say to him besides all the thoughts that had torn through her mind since then.

  She bowed, her parents’ words coming back to her. “As Marquise of Laurentine, I bid you welcome, Your Majesty. All doors in Laurentine are open to you. All that is mine is yours.”

  The slightest frown creased his brow for a fraction of a second, then the kingly mask was in place. This wasn’t her Jon.

  It was King Jonathan of Emaurria.

  “It is my honor to be here, Marquise Laurentine,” he declared, “and I gratefully accept your hospitality.” When she raised her gaze to his countenance once more, he glanced subtly about their audience. He hadn’t expected the tonal shift, then.

  “You came to the defense of my people, my home.” She took a step closer. “I can’t tell you how much that means to me. Thank you, Jon,” she whispered.

  The corners of his mouth lifted in an expression too somber to be called a smile. He nodded. “It’s my duty.”

  “It’s my duty.”