His hand at her back, he pushed her uptown from where she’d come, his mouth a grim line. He hadn’t needed to do that—any of that. She’d had everything completely under control.
She struggled to keep up, her sore feet aching at his pace. “Brennan—”
He pushed her along faster, cutting a path through the crowd with his arm, elbowing people aside.
“Brennan,” she protested, wincing. “My feet are—”
He circled her waist and hefted her over his shoulder, making her yelp.
Faces in the crowd turned to ogle her, whispering, and she tried to bring an arm up to her chest to ensure this wasn’t about to become exponentially worse. “What are you—”
“Don’t ever run from me again, Rielle,” he bit out, and she struggled in his hold, trying to clamber out of it.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she snapped back. “I was completely fine. I didn’t need you to—”
He scoffed.
“Put me down, Brennan.”
Nothing.
“Put me down!”
He came to an abrupt stop and set her down, scowling at her as she pushed herself away. The crowd had thinned here, and they were close to the mansion. Other than there, she didn’t even have a place to go.
After rearranging her cloak, she crossed her arms, looking back toward the mansion and away.
“Come home,” Brennan said to her.
Home. It didn’t feel like home, not without a place of her own, but all her things were there.
“I’ll tell you everything,” he said quietly. “Just come home.”
“Everything?” Every lie he’d ever told her—would he now reveal the truth?
“Yes,” he grunted.
What else had he lied about? What else had he hidden?
He kept the silence and distance between them, shifting his weight, gaze darting toward dark corners. “Someone is following you,” he whispered.
The chill she’d felt—
“Get back to the mansion.”
Why would anyone follow her?
But with a wary look about the alleyways, she nodded, turning toward the mansion and letting him escort her there.
Brennan mentally girded himself as he opened the door to the mansion and took Rielle’s hand—hopefully she wouldn’t yank it away. She didn’t. It only took a moment before Mother arrived in the foyer, wrapped him in her embrace, followed by Caitlyn.
“My son, I’ve missed you,” Mother said softly, kissing his cheek. “Where were you?” Her gaze meandered to Rielle, whom she greeted with a kiss on each cheek and looked over with approval while Caitlyn hugged him close. “The dress suits you, Daughter.”
Rielle smiled brightly and inclined her head politely. “Thank you, Your Grace. It’s lovely to see you again. How was your voyage?”
“Lengthy,” Mother replied with a sigh. “And the boys caught cold, so we’ll be tending them for a few days.”
“Why so stiff, Bren?” Caitlyn asked with an impish grin, poking him between the ribs with a finger. “Did the tailor delay this season’s wardrobe again?”
He grimaced. Libretti would have let him look like a fool in the previous year’s wardrobe when they’d last summered in Stroppiata, and he’d lost himself a king’s ransom in gold for it—but luckily Father had sent his things over ahead of his own arrival, and had nearly the same measurements. “Just could use a rest, that’s all.”
Mother’s lips twitched, failing to restrain a knowing smile as she glanced from him to Rielle and back. “Well, we’ll let you rest, then. Come, Caitlyn. We have invitations to respond to.”
Caitlyn poked him again for good measure, stuck out her tongue, then trotted off behind Mother.
He held a palm to his side—she was getting strong, especially for a sixteen-year-old.
Holding Rielle’s hand, he led her up the stairs while she blushed furiously. “Are you embarrassed?” he asked at full volume.
“Shh,” she hissed, and raised a hand to cover her mouth. “Your mother thinks—”
“She normally wouldn’t be wrong, would she?” he asked, giving her a once-over.
She looked away. “She is today.”
With an inward sigh, he opened the door to their quarters and guided her in before shutting the door behind them. At least Rielle had maintained appearances in front of Mother and Caitlyn. She could have done otherwise, and utterly humiliated him, but she’d supported him instead. That boded well for the conversation they were about to have.
She thought he’d stolen her choices, but it wasn’t about that. He’d wanted to spare her the hurt, save her from a future that would have left her trapped. One she might have dove into far too deeply, blinded by love, only to drown in its depths.
Across from the bed, she dropped into the desk’s chair, in front of her books. Her magic books. She ran a palm over them, sighed with relief, as if she’d expected not to find them here when she returned.
She crossed her arms and looked up at him with unyielding eyes. “You said you would tell me everything.”
“Everything,” he repeated. He grabbed a chair from the nearby table and dragged it across their quarters to the desk while she winced. She’d sat so far from the bed, in the solitary chair at the desk, hoping for space, hadn’t she? His nearness made it more difficult for her to be angry, didn’t it?
The chair directly in front of her. He threw off his cloak and planted himself in it. Within arm’s reach.
She straightened. “If there’s anything more you haven’t told me, any lies or omissions, now is the time. I’d like us to be honest with each other.”
For a moment, he didn’t move, just let her stew in her thoughts. “Are you certain you want to know? What’s past has passed.”
“It’s past for you, but if I don’t know about it, the pain of finding out, for me, is fresh. I don’t want to have this wounded trust that keeps bleeding anew. So tell me now, while I’m prepared, while I can listen and be of a mind to rebuild our trust.”
He heaved a lengthy sigh. “I found out my father hired Gilles.”
She shot up off the chair and bolted, pacing in short strides. “Your father?” she squeaked. “Your father hired Gilles?” She gaped at him and resumed pacing. “Ordered… ordered the regicide, the assassinations, the siege?” She shook her head. “Your father had tried to kill—”
Jon?
But she stiffened, bit her lip, chewed it. “The ship. Did he order the—”
He straightened, his eyes wide. “No.” He blinked, frowning. “I don’t…” He blew out a breath. “I asked him in Courdeval, before I went after you, whether he knew where you were, or where you were being taken. He said he didn’t, and his pulse was even, no sign that he was lying. I believed him.” He held her gaze.
No matter his other dark deeds, Father hadn’t lied about that. He’d made certain of it.
“Your father… In Melain, we found that sen’a distribution map with several places all over Emaurria linked with black thread, Maerleth Tainn among them.”
He remembered well.
“We found a letter that said advance payment had been sent to silence dissent until ‘they’ could nominate and confirm a candidate of ‘their’ choosing,” she said, pacing. “It had to have been composed by some members of Parliament… led by your father.”
He nodded. That sounded right.
“So how did he hire Gilles, orchestrate the regicide, but not know where Sincuore was taking me?” she asked, pinning him with her intense blue gaze.
Sincuore had mentioned the Grand Divinus possibly being complicit in the regicide, and he hadn’t told her because it implicated his own father, his own family, even him, insofar as he’d covered it up.
“He had a partner,” she whispered. “The Grand Divinus,” she said, eyes widening.
She was putting things together herself. Maybe he wouldn’t have to tell her about questioning Sincuore and expose yet another instance he’d lied… They would n
umber many in her mind after tonight.
“Has to be. Jon told me he questioned Sincuore the night of his capture, and Sincuore didn’t deny her involvement. It couldn’t have just been Shadow. Sincuore had refused to bargain with me. Your father is powerful, but not so powerful that a pirate wouldn’t betray him for all the gold in Emaurria. It has to be the Grand Divinus.”
Brennen said nothing. Jon had told her about the questioning, but hadn’t exposed his involvement. Why not? Jon could’ve seized the opportunity to reveal him as a liar to Rielle, make himself look better. Why hadn’t he?
“The sen’a hub where we fought Phantom, where we found the distribution map and the letter—it was the eastern sen’a distribution hub for all of eastern Emaurria and housed the assassins working against the Faralles… All because King Marcus threatened a ban on sen’a over a decade ago,” she said, musing. “Their interests had aligned. King Marcus was assassinated over the sen’a trade.”
Maerleth Tainn had been on the distribution map, among other lands—Father had to be aware of the trade, had to have profited from it. Something he’d kept from the family.
“It’s all connected,” she whispered. “Your father, the sen’a distribution, the Grand Divinus, Gilles, King Marcus.” With an awed gasp, she leaned against the wall, her hand scrambling for purchase on the wainscoting. “I—I think the Grand Divinus might be the source of the sen’a.”
What? “But the Tower dismisses mages for abusing it, for peddling it, right?”
She nodded, spearing him with a stunned gaze. “A cover. The farther the sen’a is kept from the Divinity, the less likely the Divinity seems to be a source of it.”
“But why?”
She shook her head. “Why else? Power.”
After Shadow, Rielle had suspected the Divinity might be gathering mages, willing or not, through black operations. And now, the Divinity could be selling sen’a, gathering unthinkable sums of coin.
For power.
Why else did an organization need the world’s strongest weapons and bottomless treasuries?
“There’s a war coming,” Rielle said, throwing off her cloak and grabbing a sheet of parchment. “The Grand Divinus wanted to wage it quietly, with sympathetic rulers, but with Jon on the throne, she has no puppet in Emaurria.”
She grabbed her quill, dipped it in the inkwell, and curled over the desk to write.
“What are you doing?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“We have to write to Jon and Olivia,” she said, scribbling. “The Grand Divinus may not want me to lose,” she whispered. “She may have hoped the Immortals would kill him, but they haven’t. When he asked for help, she might have wanted to appear reluctant… but the odds may be stacked so that I win… So that he gets those mages, and maybe an assassin among them.”
He grabbed her hand. She was getting ahead of herself.
“So she either wants to kill you and let Emaurria fall to ruin… ripe for the taking… or she wants you to win so she can get an army of mages into the kingdom,” he said. “There’s no clear course of action. Even if you tell them, what is there to do?”
She frowned. “I could withdraw—”
“And if you do, or you lose, then when Emaurria allies with the Covens, Emaurria will have broken the treaty first, and the Grand Divinus wins.” He sighed. “And if you win… an army of mages quarters in Emaurria, lying in wait.”
“But they have to know,” she said.
He plucked the quill from her hand. “They will. I’ll look for the Archives during your first trial. Let me do some digging first, see what I find, and when we bring this to Jon and Olivia, we might have more than hunches and guesses.”
“And if we do?” she asked, straightening. “If we find out the Grand Divinus and your father were working together? Whose side will you be on?”
He shook his head and stood from the chair, rubbing his jaw as he approached the window to the courtyard.
That was a lot to take in. Father’s ambitions had led him to assassinating a king, trying to overthrow an entire dynasty, to bringing a country to its knees, and he’d almost destroyed Emaurria.
Brennan eyed the vast expanse of green in the quiet courtyard. He didn’t support any of that, nor did he want his family on the throne. And this couldn’t go on.
But standing against Father? Watching his arrest, his execution? Casting the family into the shadow of treason?
He didn’t have an answer right now.
With a deep sigh, he looked back at her over his shoulder. “I don’t support my father’s ambitions,” he said softly, “but you asked me for honesty. When I found out, I did help cover them up, Rielle.”
She blinked, giving him the slightest shake of her head.
What he’d done—he didn’t want her to know, but she’d asked him to tell her everything, and if it would earn back her trust, he would. “Before Spiritseve, that night on the Mor Bluffs,” he said quietly, “our prisoner—I killed him.”
She stepped away from him. “Anton? Why?”
“He… He said someone had wanted you taken alive. At the time, I thought my father would have given that order, knowing that I…” He looked away. “To make sure you and I could marry. So I killed the prisoner. But when I asked my father, I knew it couldn’t have been him who’d wanted you taken.” He’d killed the prisoner and lied about it for nothing. “I’m sorry.”
Rielle shook her head. “It isn’t me you should apologize to.” When he frowned, she added, “Olivia cared for him.”
She did? When had that happened?
It didn’t matter… The prisoner had meant something to Rielle’s closest friend, who meant the world to Rielle. His mouth opened, and he glanced away.
After a while, he nodded, crossed the room to her, and took her hand. “I promise you: one day I will tell her his fate, and ask her forgiveness.”
She eyed him doubtfully.
“I will. I want to make all this right.”
Before she could answer, he led her to the bed and urged her to sit. “One more truth, Rielle.”
Settling onto it, she wrapped her arms around herself, but she needn’t worry. She’d like this truth. He was certain of it.
In fact, he staked the course of this evening on it.
All of this would be over, and things would return to normal, without answering the question about his father, without promising to let her make terrible choices. Those were things they simply wouldn’t agree on. But she’d agree with this. Without a doubt.
He knelt, holding her hand in his lap. “When Kieran Atterley pushed you down the stairs in the Tower, my spies told me.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You had spies?”
The Wolf brushed up against his control, snarling at the memory.
He knows now. He’ll never touch her again. We’ve made sure of that.
The Wolf receded, and he nodded to Rielle. “He dared touch you. He could have killed you, in a stairwell like some commoner.” He clenched his free hand tight, imagining the ponce’s neck in his grip. “I vowed to myself that he would never touch you again,” he said, giving her hand a gentle squeeze, “so one night, when he left the Tower, I followed him to a tavern. His magic wouldn’t work on me, as everyone knows I’m ‘sigiled,’” he said, eyeing her with a mischievous grin. It was well known he was immune to magic, but the rumor was that it was because of sigils, which he’d never denied. He could never, of course, confess to being a werewolf. “I set upon him and beat him to within an inch of his life. And I told him if he ever touched you again, I’d return for that remaining inch.”
She blinked, her fingers closing around his, her lips parting.
Pinning her lower lip with her teeth, she rose from the bed, and he stood with her, giving her space. She took a few steps, rearranging her braid over her shoulder. A course of emotions passed over her face, and she swallowed, knitting her eyebrows together.
She came to an abrupt stop and turned to him, gazed up into
his eyes with a disbelieving shake of her head.
Placing her hands on his chest, she forced him back, and holding her gaze, he retreated, let her push him, let her press him down onto the bed.
He watched her hooded eyes, dark with lust, and grinned up at her devilishly. “My punishment?”
Like a vicious wolf, she climbed onto him, and then she locked his lips with hers.
Chapter 24
“The forest,” Leigh grumbled under his breath. “Why does it always have to be the forest?” He rubbed his face, eyeing the broken path ahead between his fingers.
Ambriel stepped up beside him, silent as death, and breathed deep, his brow creasing as if he could see the farthest flowers and know how the trees felt. Maybe he could. Or maybe he had a fantastic imagination.
Joel’s idea of tradition involved finding the local Immortals and asking them to establish a trade for ironwood. After the people of Bournand had attacked them. And Coven emissaries had returned with arrows lodged in their limbs.
“Your limbs are safe with me, dreshan,” Ambriel said with a faint smile, glancing at him over his shoulder. “Ferelen knows me and will welcome us.” He picked a path through the brush, only the occasional creak of his human-crafted boots making a sound.
With a sigh, Leigh followed, trudging through the undergrowth. Ambriel had said this forest was known as White-Weald to his people, and a small queendom of light-elves protected it, led by a warrior-queen named Ferelen Brightbark. Queen Narenian had sent a messenger to Ferelen after the dark-elves had attacked, and re-established contact with a Vervewood elf who lived in the White-Weald queendom.
“So this contact,” Leigh said, kicking a fallen branch aside. “Who is she?”
Ambriel dipped his head, then another glance back. “It’s Ashta, my youngest,” he replied. “Narenian life-bonded her to Ferelen’s son, Ruvel.”
Leigh paused. Ambriel’s youngest daughter. In Vervewood, he’d said he had thirteen of them. So his thirteenth was Ashta. “What’s she like?”
“Ferelen?”
“Ashta.”
Court of Shadows Page 23