Olivia spat chunks of a praline back into her palm. “You’re awful! And impatient.”
“You’re one to talk.”
Olivia rolled her eyes and nodded, then shoved the praline back in her mouth, chewing loudly. Nights like this had been far too few and far between this past year. “So do you ever… think about Jon?”
She froze.
No.
Yes.
Not really…
All the time.
Not in that way.
She rubbed her forehead. What a strange question. Olivia knew what had happened upon her return to Courdeval, Veris, everything. She knew about Brennan. So why…? “I… Things are over between us.”
Olivia had stilled completely, staring into nothing very intently. Only her fingertips moved, scrunching the white linen of her nightgown.
“There’s no point in thinking about him.”
“Do you think…” Olivia began. “Do you still love him?”
Thinking about the question just pulled everything out of her, emptied her chest, like a great big blade had carved a hole there and scraped out everything inside. “He shattered my heart into a thousand pieces. I… I’m not sure I’ve found them all. Or if I ever will.”
Olivia wrapped an arm around her and rested her head against Rielle’s, the soft lavender smell of her a familiar comfort. “I’m sorry.”
She blinked away tears she’d already shed a hundred times.
Olivia rubbed her upper arm gently. “You’ll be the Marquise of Tregarde soon. A whole new life. A legion of women would love to be you.”
She smiled, wiping at her eyes. This new man that Brennan was—she hadn’t expected him or deserved him, and yet he’d appeared in the darkness of her life like a flame in the night.
Was that why Olivia had asked, or was it—
“So after you deal with the Tower,” Olivia began, “what will you do?”
Gran would have wanted her to manage their lands and households, maybe someday think about having another child… It was idyllic. And maybe even entirely wonderful.
But she could never live a life just for herself and her family. Magic came with duty, and she had work to do. “Move out of the Tower, but still take missions. Work on joining the Magisterium.” She glanced at Olivia. “What’s next for you?”
Olivia stiffened. “A bit of a research project, actually.”
Was she nervous? “Researching what?”
“Oh, it’s… some of the new… healing possibilities the Immortals can offer.”
Healing? That was Olivia’s forte, but… she was hiding something. “Anything in particular?”
“I’ll let you know when I find it,” she said with a smile.
Her lips were sealed. What was the big secret? Olivia had never hesitated to share the details of her research. More and more, it felt like Olivia was keeping things to herself, asking more than sharing, something that hadn’t happened in the nearly ten years of their friendship. “So, a big, secret project. Anything else? Dueling other mages? Fighting more basilisks? Magicking every idiot that looks at you wrong?”
Olivia laughed. “Saving Jon from himself. He needs to do every single thing personally, fight every battle with his own hands, and he’ll work himself to death unless you stop him, you know?”
Rielle shivered. A twist of a smile emerged on her face, she could feel it, and a hollow laugh, but it wasn’t a reaction she recognized. Being told who he was, it just—it was as though she weren’t quite in her body, as if she floated above it and listened from afar.
And yet, Olivia knew him, had spent more time with him than she had, knew him better, enough to explain to her who he was.
The feeling of it possessed her body like a ghost, one that displaced her completely.
But Olivia was right. That sounded like him, and he needed Olivia to keep him balanced. He was lucky to have her friendship, although the longer they spoke, the less like friendship it seemed. Olivia kept turning the conversation to Jon, and her thoughts couldn’t be too far from him, then.
Something more. Something more was happening between them, or would, and although she felt a pang in her stomach, that wasn’t her place anymore, couldn’t be her place anymore. Just as she had moved on, so would Jon. And if it were with Olivia, he’d be a fortunate man.
“I’m glad he has you.” She nudged Olivia. “And I’m glad you were here to save my people.”
“All in a day’s work,” Olivia said with a laugh. “And have you heard about Leigh’s light-elven lover?”
Chapter 6
Great Wolf, she was hard to walk away from.
Letting his breathing even out, Brennan lay in the massive bed, his gaze fixed on the waxing gibbous moon through the open window, ebbing its ghostly light into the darkness.
For months, she’d been setting him ablaze, and he’d burned and burned and burned. A couple nights ago, the burning had become an inferno, and tonight—well, it should have been a challenge to ascend the stairs when his body was no more than ash upon the floor.
He tucked an arm behind his head on the pillow and sighed. She wanted him. He could see it, he could smell it, he could feel it in his bones. She wanted him to take her, take her hard, claim her, and make her scream. And oh yes, he could do that. He wanted to. Badly.
But while once he may have been content just to have her in his bed, that alone wasn’t enough. Not anymore. She’d agreed to marry him, and she wanted him, but was she in love with him?
She’d come to care for him. She did love him, but was it as a friend? A friend she wanted to bed?
It wasn’t a promise or a good swiving that would make her stay—it had to be love. And nothing he did would keep her hand in his unless he had that.
He was good, very good, but even he couldn’t fuck a woman into falling in love with him.
She’d been shaken tonight at dinner. Jon still got under her skin, and it was more than his stubbornness.
With a grunt, he rolled over. Her love with Jon had just fallen to pieces a month ago, and what she needed was support. Patience. Definitely a good swiving, but that would have to wait. She might still be in love with Jon, but if either of them had risked screwing this up, it was he.
Brennan sighed. There were things he’d done, horrible things, terrible things she could never discover. Their life now, idyllic as it was, had been built upon a single pillar, the one remaining chance he had with her. A thin and vulnerable chance. One that would not withstand the harsh truths he should confess to her.
What he’d done before the night of Veris…
What Father had done…
How he’d covered it up…
But as long as that single, vulnerable pillar held, they’d be married and he would spend the rest of his days living for one purpose: her happiness. And nothing would stand in the way of that, not truths, not Jon, not that pirate captain in the dungeon.
Father had told him after Spiritseve that he didn’t know where Rielle was, and his body had shown no signs of lying. Yet someone—with deeper pockets and greater worth than that shadowmancer bitch—had paid for Rielle’s abduction, had allowed Shadow to arrange it all.
Father had hired Gilles, and Gilles had hired Shadow, but someone else had directed Shadow to hire Sincuore. At least one more player who’d wanted Rielle off the board.
And answers could be found in the dungeon. He’d seen to the jailing—making sure the guards were loyal and trustworthy, but he’d done no more.
No waiting until Jon decided to question Sincuore, or until his inquisitors attended to the matter. Brennan sat up. No, this had to be handled personally. Tonight.
He got out of bed, cleaned up, and dressed, his usual finery, but deepest black. All the better for obscuring red stains.
He gathered his weapons belt—which he’d need for once—and made sure his dagger and rapier, Bite, were clipped to it. Far better if he didn’t need to expose his claws tonight and have to kill innocent guards to kee
p his secret.
A couple hours after midnight, the castle was quiet, filled only with soft breaths, the distant steps of patrolling guards, and the occasional crackle of sconces, torches, or hearths. He strode to the east wing stairwell that smelled of damp, and it led all the way down to the dungeon.
A single Laurentine guard stood at the entrance, and the young man blinked to attention, meeting him squarely as he approached. “Your Lordship,” he greeted with a bow.
Brennan nodded his acknowledgement. “Stand aside.”
The young man’s gaze darted away for a moment. “His Majesty’s orders were to—”
“His Majesty is leaving tomorrow,” Brennan answered matter-of-factly. “In a few months, I will be your lord and master. Choose wisely.”
The guard stared into space for a moment, his pulse racing in Brennan’s ears, before he stood aside. “My lord.”
“Keys,” Brennan demanded.
“I don’t have them. His Majesty does,” the young man replied with a tremor in his voice.
“I was never here,” Brennan said as he swung open the heavy, iron-wrapped door and crossed the threshold.
“Yes, my lord.”
The proper response. The guard shut the door behind him, leaving him among the sparse torchlight. A variety of stenches lay thick upon the air, unwashed flesh, mold, old blood, piss, shit, infection. He held his sleeve to his nose, for all the good it would do, and scented Sincuore deep in the cell block.
Behind the iron bars, Sincuore had been stripped of his finery, left merely in his dirty and bloodied white shirt and his breeches. Not even boots. Half his face was swollen and dark—Jon’s doing—and made Brennan smile.
He wouldn’t need the keys to the cell.
A rat scurried by, and Brennan tapped it farther along the mildewy stone with his boot, making the thing screech and hurry. “How far the mighty have fallen,” he taunted. Come and get me.
“I am a captain, boy. Mind yourself,” Sincuore spat, with a slight lisp. Half his face being swollen probably complicated speech just a bit.
“Captain,” Brennan mused aloud. “Captain of this cell? Captain of your pisspot? Captain of the rats?” He grinned.
Sincuore launched himself from the stone for the bars, and with inhuman speed, Brennan grabbed his neck and yanked him against the iron.
“How dare I talk about your rat crew like that?” Brennan tsked.
Sincuore’s human hands clawed his arm. Pathetic. Weak. He could break them with barely any effort.
“What are you?” Sincuore grunted. His throat bobbed as he tried to swallow.
“The man with your life in his hands. An interested party. Your executioner.” He laughed quietly in his throat, tightening his grip ever so slightly, and a slight tremor began in Sincuore’s hands. “The answer depends on you.”
* * *
Jon sat before the fire, well into the night, with a piece of linden wood and his knife. When he’d been just a boy, Derric would whittle all manner of figures for him—paladins, horses, dogs, hawks, boats. It hadn’t been long before he’d begged Derric for a knife of his own, and to carve together. When they’d sat by the fire before bed, Derric would tell him stories as they’d carved, and as he grew older, it became a meditative activity, something to keep his hands busy when his mind went places he didn’t want it to go.
As a paladin, he’d vowed to give up all but the very basic essentials allowed his order, and it was only on rare occasions that he’d whittle a horse or a knight and give it away.
For the past month, that rarity had become ritual. Every night before he went to bed, he found himself before the fire with his knife and piece of linden wood, making straightaway rough cuts while his mind went elsewhere.
If he’d acted as he should have, Sylvie would have been about six months along now, big and growing in Rielle’s womb. He could see it in his mind’s eye, taking Rielle’s hand while the midwife checked on her, and building Sylvie’s crib with his own hands, holding Rielle close every night, whispering to her belly in the morning and every chance he could, talking to Sylvie, letting her know he was here for her, waiting for her, and that he loved her.
He rubbed his hand with the grain of the linden, but it wasn’t the grain he felt, but warm, smooth skin, happiness and the world as it should have been beneath his touch, a world where Sylvie would have lived, where he’d never betrayed Rielle, where his heart would never fail him. Where they’d have spent their lives in joy and sunlight, alive. Together.
A world that existed only in dreams and fantasies.
He set down the knife and wiped his hand against the fabric of his braies, then rubbed his eyes. Most Holy Terra, Great Mother, please keep my daughter in the joy of your light until we meet again.
He opened his eyes, staring at the piece of linden. It looked nothing like the plump little bird it would become, but slowly, day by day, it was closer to becoming what it had always been destined to be.
With a sigh, he set it down. His hands felt too light, too empty, as if they knew they’d never feel the weight of Sylvie the day she’d have been born. As if they knew they’d already lost that future.
He’d lost too much to ever be whole again, and downstairs in this castle, deep in the dungeon, was a man who’d helped rip it all away.
His hands curled into fists, and his gaze rested on Faithkeeper, sheathed upon the table. He couldn’t kill the man, not yet, but Terra have mercy, did he want to. The emptiness of his hands could never be filled, but for one shining moment, they might almost be, and there would be some measure of justice for Sylvie, or some measure of relief to lessen the pain of her loss.
Perhaps it was time to pay Sincuore a visit, ask him what it had all been for. Have answers and names to hate in those low moments, and blood to balm the grief.
Before he could talk himself out of it, he pulled on his trousers and boots, threw on the leather overcoat, strapped on his weapons belt, and headed for the antechamber. Through the adjoining door, soft voices and laughter trickled in, unintelligible but happy. Good. Rielle deserved a night of happiness, and so did Olivia.
Nights he’d spent laughing with Rielle still lived in him, brightened and kept him warm on grim days. He’d never have those with her again, would go to his grave never knowing that joy again, but she’d have it—with Olivia, with Brennan, with her children someday. He’d do all in his power to see such halcyon days renewed, bring peace back to these shores. Anything and everything.
With a last wistful look at the adjoining door, he headed for the hall.
“Your Majesty?” Raoul asked gruffly from his post.
“Midnight snack?” Florian joked.
Jon grimaced. “Something like that. Up for some interrogation?”
Florian’s stance loosened. “Just like old times. Not going to let that asshole have a good night’s sleep, are we?”
“Not until we get some answers,” Jon replied. “And even then.”
“Beats standing around here,” Florian said.
“Lead the way, Your Majesty,” Raoul added in his usual monotone.
Two new guards took up the posts as Jon led them to the stairwell and down. He trusted Raoul and Florian with his life. Against the dark-elves, Raoul had almost died for him. No matter what, that made him a brother.
When they got down to the dungeon, the young guard straightened, his pockmarked face creasing. “Your Majesty,” he greeted with a bow, but didn’t move to open the door.
“Open this door.”
The young guard moved to comply, wincing. “Your Majesty, it’s just that—”
“Someone’s been down here?”
“Marquis Tregarde.”
Terra have mercy. Sincuore might already be dead. “Open this door. Now.”
The young guard immediately did so, and at the end of the block, Brennan stood, his arm out, clenching Sincuore’s neck through the bars.
“…drugged her. Did anyone hurt her while she was aboard?”
/>
The question froze Jon to the spot.
“Hurt.” Sincuore scoffed.
Brennan moved him away from the bars only to slam him back into them. “Answer.”
“Do you think I could captain a ship if my entire crew spent all day and night lining up for their turn with the prisoner? Of course not. Everyone waits for shore leave.”
Brennan searched the man’s face, then shoved him to his knees. “What brings you to the dungeon on this fine evening, Your Majesty?”
Jon rested his hand on Faithkeeper’s pommel as the torchlight reflected off Sincuore’s sweaty face. “The same thing that brought you.” He approached, feeling the weight of the cell key in his trouser pocket. “Who hired you?” he asked Sincuore.
The man laughed. “Maybe the world did.”
“Lying won’t get you anywhere,” Jon replied. The key in his pocket was the freedom to throw open this cell door and slide Faithkeeper through Sincuore’s throat. “Maybe if you tell the truth, we’ll let you go.”
“Now who’s lying?” Sincuore’s dark eyes gleamed.
With another yank, Brennan slammed him against the bars, opening a cut on Sincuore’s forehead. “‘Now who’s lying, Your Majesty?’” Brennan corrected.
Jon rolled his eyes. As long as it helped elicit some answers.
“If I tell you who hired me, I’ll have no hope of freedom,” Sincuore murmured.
Olivia had learned a great many things from Tor, who’d claimed to have been dissuading his brother from further treason. Tor, who’d been like a father to him. Tor. He still couldn’t believe it, but at least Tor’s plotting had given them some answers.
“You were hired by Shadow, who was sent by Faolan Auvray Marcel,” Jon offered, and both Sincuore and Brennan’s faces jerked to his. “Who worked with Faolan?”
“You know?” Brennan asked.
“Princess Sandrine Elise Faralle El-Amin?”
Sincuore looked away.
Jon drew Faithkeeper and leveled the tip at Sincuore’s throat. “Yes or no.”
Brennan pulled Sincuore closer until the blade’s tip just pierced the skin.
Court of Shadows Page 6