Court of Shadows

by Miranda Honfleur

  They were in Nad’i—tomes on learning Emaurrian, Sileni, and Morwenian, as well as The Sileni Herbal. She’d been familiar with some of the ingredients before, but with this, she’d be able to add to her stock significantly, and—

  Cheeks flushed, Roger indicated the hallway and mentioned Lady Archmage. The red-haired woman had a position of importance here, a healer and more, and had been exceedingly kind.

  Samara smiled, nodded, and hastily packed up her tools and ingredients, then followed Roger through the hallway, toward the library. He entered, paused, and said a string of words that included her name.

  At the table, Lady Archmage sat with—

  “Thahab,” Samara said, and as Thahab stood from the seat, eyes watering, she rushed to meet her and threw her arms about her.

  By the Divine, to see someone she knew, a familiar face, a friend—it was a great relief, like the cool baths after a scorching summer day. She was warm, but still slight, still—

  Thahab pulled away, looked her over with teary eyes. “Samara, I’m so sorry. About yesterday, I—”

  Samara lowered her gaze, gently rested a palm on Thahab’s flat belly, and she flinched. Divine, no. No. “I had hoped,” she said, her eyes stinging, “but it wasn’t… It wasn’t enough.”

  Thahab embraced her against her own tears, and that night of fire, haze, and death burned fresh in her mind’s eye, the guards bellowing orders and running through House Hazael to the roar of flames and the cacophony of screams.

  “I didn’t know he would free everyone. I’m so sorry,” Thahab whispered.

  Samara shook her head. “He was only able to because Zahib Imtiyaz died in the fire.”

  Because Thahab had set it all aflame. The fire had only begun the inferno that had consumed House Hazael as it had been.

  “I—I killed him, and for that you must hate me,” Thahab said, lowering to a knee and bowing her head. “Tell me what I can do to lessen your grief.”

  Farrad had tried to right his many wrongs, but ultimately he hadn’t set aside his pride, and that had killed him.

  And Thahab, who’d lost her baby, no doubt that night, if the blood had been any sign, begged forgiveness for his death?

  She rested her hand on Thahab’s head, who looked up. “I begged him not to challenge you, but he wouldn’t listen. Everything could have been—”

  A shift of paper on wood came from the table.

  Her gaze darted past Thahab’s shoulder, to Lady Archmage. “Lady Archmage. Forgive me, I should have acknowledged you,” she said in Nad’i. Her hands trembling, she bowed.

  “Samara,” Lady Archmage said, rushing to her. She said something in Emaurrian, crouching, but Samara only glanced up at her before returning to her bow.

  “Samara,” Thahab said, “we’re all friends here. Please, Olivia doesn't want you to bow.”

  Cautiously, Samara lifted her head and eyed Lady Archmage. She was treated so carefully, so obediently here, and Lady Archmage didn’t wish for someone like her to show her deference?

  Lady Archmage offered her a smile, sincere and encouraging, but she didn’t say anything else, let the quiet flow in.

  “Have you liked it here?” Thahab asked. “Earlier… His Majesty said you’d been helping everyone.”

  His Majesty. The way she said it was stiff, hesitant, and yesterday, she’d called him something else. What Lady Archmage called him. Jon.

  As Thahab had curled over him in the hall, held him, wept, it hadn’t been deference that had claimed her fervent arms, nor obedience that had elicited her trailing tears.

  And His Majesty—when he’d stepped between Farrad and Thahab, the look in his eyes hadn’t been the duty of a zahibshada to a nawi or a shafi, but a look that could destroy. A look that could kill. Pure, distilled fury.

  The fury of a lover. The fury of a father?

  Samara bowed her head, then glanced at Thahab, still kneeling before her. She knelt, too. “He’s the father,” she whispered, “isn’t he?”

  Thahab opened her mouth, but no words emerged.

  In Xir, Thahab had told her about the father once, about his strength, his loyalty, his conviction. How he’d daydreamed with her about a home, a family, a life together. In that moment, she’d been so far from House Hazael and arcanir cuffs, her eyes starry, full of dreams, free.

  Thahab nodded. “It is… not well known.”

  Nor would it ever be on her account. She wrapped her arms around Thahab. “I’m so sorry.”

  “So am I,” Thahab whispered back.

  Lady Archmage gathered her skirts and lowered gracefully to the floor, then cleared her throat. She said something to Thahab in Emaurrian.

  “Samara,” Thahab said, pulling away to sit on the floor, “Olivia wants me to tell you that His Majesty wants to try to alleviate the burden of losing your father.”

  She blew out a breath. “Does His Majesty know I was Farrad’s slave for almost my entire life?” She frowned. “He owned me. Before that, he owned my mother. When he wanted her for a lover, she had no choice.” A sudden shiver wracked her. “I am alive and in this world because of him, and I am free by his hand, but no, I do not mourn his loss.”

  Before Rielle could translate to Lady Archmage, Samara grasped her forearm.

  “Thahab, I never want to go back there.” She raised her chin, her eyes burning. She never again wanted to set foot in House Hazael if she could avoid it. “All I want for myself is to help others, heal them, keep studying medicine. Maybe open my own apothecary shop one day.”

  “Rielle?” Olivia asked Thahab, who took her hand and squeezed it lightly.

  Thahab grinned back at Samara. “How do you feel about Emaurria?”

  His Majesty’s kingdom? Where every person, rich or poor, was free? It was a dream. She didn’t speak the language, but she could try to become an apothecary there, try to make a living, free to do as she chose.

  But Lady Archmage would help her? Just like that? She slid a nervous gaze toward Lady Archmage, but Thahab was speaking to her again in Emaurrian.

  Lady Archmage evaluated her with a tilt of her head, then smiled and responded to Thahab.

  At last, Thahab turned to her with a grin. “Would you want to be the court apothecary?”

  She gasped.

  “We would still have to ask His Majesty, but—” Before Thahab could finish, Samara grinned.

  “It would be my honor!”

  Thahab said something to Lady Archmage, who smiled and nodded to Samara.

  “Whether you become the court apothecary or not, we’ll get you to Emaurria. You’ll have a place in Trèstellan Palace, or with me if you wish, or if you’d prefer to go somewhere yourself, His Majesty will deliver you the blood price.”

  Blood price. For Farrad.

  “Not going back to Xir is good enough for me. I can figure out the rest,” she said.

  The rest would include somehow managing House Hazael, so Farrad’s wives and children wouldn’t revert to the old ways. That couldn’t happen.

  I won’t let it.

  And she’d be coming to court. Emaurrian court.

  Thahab beamed at her, then glanced at Lady Archmage, who looked her over with her own pleased smile.

  “I have to go,” Thahab said, “but if you’d like to write to me, I’m staying at the Marcels’ villa. Otherwise, I have the Magister Trials, so I’ll be back at Divinity Castle in two days, and then if I pass to the third trial, three days after that.”

  “You don’t stay with His Majesty,” she replied. “But—”

  Thahab’s cheeks reddened. “I—We… When I returned, things…”

  Samara’s mouth fell open, but she quickly nodded. Many things could change in a few months, and the loss of a child was a lot for a couple to bear. It had happened often enough, even in Xir.

  “I’m engaged to my childhood friend, the Marquis of Tregarde,” Thahab continued. “He speaks Nad’i, and he—actually, he came for me to Xir. You might have seen him.”

>   Samara inclined her head. “I’ll visit you sometime, if I’m welcome.”

  “You’re always welcome.” Thahab hugged her. “And by the way, I don’t think I introduced myself properly. Favrielle Amadour Lothaire—Rielle.” She inclined her head.

  Samara smiled. Lady Archmage and His Majesty had called her that. “Glad to finally meet the true you, Rielle,” she said, testing the name on her tongue slowly.

  Rielle closed her eyes and breathed slowly, deeply, as if a weight had been lifted in finally casting off Thahab, and all that had gone with it.

  She felt much the same—casting off House Hazael, Xir, and soon starting a new life in the free kingdom of Emaurria.

  Chapter 40

  Seated before the fire in the villa’s library, Brennan turned the page of the new treatise on changing practices in dye houses, and rubbed his forehead. Father owned one on the coast of Sonbahar, and if he understood this, he could help raise efficiency. It would all make him a better duke someday, stronger, when he and Rielle finally took over managing Maerleth Tainn with their own children.

  Hardly any of it had sunk in—much unlike his usual self—and the scent of the Blood Offering still lingered in his nostrils.

  Had Nox granted him favor? Would Rielle be swayed? Where was she now? Could she really be trusted?

  Soft steps approached the library, and a quiet knock rapped on the door. Sandalwood, bitter cacao, and gardenia—Nora’s warm-weather fragrance. “Bren?”

  “Hm?” he asked, without looking up.

  She entered, her steps slow, hesitant, her dark-pink skirts swishing.

  He took his feet off the sofa so she could sit down.

  With a swipe of her hand, she removed any invisible specks of dirt before taking a graceful seat. Typical Nora. “I’m sorry for causing trouble between you and your fiancée. I didn’t realize you’d… done that, and I didn’t catch on in time.”

  Done that?

  Did she mean the negligee on Veris?

  Unmoving, he lifted his gaze from his book to eye her. “You? Sorry?” He huffed. “Why are you really here?”

  Her mouth twisted, and a crease formed between her eyebrows. “I truly am sorry. I would’ve lied for you, if you’d just told me.”

  “Thanks?” He waited for what she wanted. It was coming. It was always coming.

  “But,” she said, folding her hands together in her lap, “you really did make things worse between Jon and me.”

  He laughed under his breath. “I think manipulating your way into his bed, forcing your son to commit treason, and trying to trap the king into conceiving a lovechild might have already done their part.”

  He lowered his gaze back to the page, rereading a sentence for what had to be the tenth time.

  “Well, you certainly didn’t improve matters.”

  He snorted. “Oh? Was cleaning up your mess somehow my responsibility?”

  “I’m your little sister, Bren,” she squeaked.

  Great Wolf’s ass, the squeak voice meant she wasn’t above using tears for this. He growled in his throat.

  She sniffled. “You’re supposed to watch out for me, take care of me—”

  He slammed his book shut. “No crying. What do you want?”

  One sniff after another, and then she eyed him. He wasn’t surprised this worked on most men, but even on him—when he knew better—it still worked. Perhaps Maerleth Tainn would be better off with her as the heir.

  “I can’t hardly meet anyone, stuffed into some backwater county or cooped up in the mountains at Maerleth Tainn. I want to be invited back to court.”

  A laugh ripped free of him. “You want—?” He held out an arm, guffawing. “Hold on—” He laughed himself nearly to tears while she only stiffened, her frown deepening, her fist clenching.

  “Your fiancée knows the king very intimately, and since you’re marrying her, you could ask her to put in a good word for me. For family.”

  “Oh my dear Nora, you think citing her past will wound me? I am well aware of whom she fucked and when and for how long. I know where the bodies are buried, and which ghosts may still come back to haunt us… and how to bury them anew. Try again.”

  A creak of her gritted teeth, and she fixed livid eyes on him. “Look, you don’t want me in her hair, do you? And you don’t want her thinking about her former lover either? Well, why don’t you resolve both situations. Get me back to Courdeval, and maybe I can tempt the king to turn his gaze elsewhere.”

  He straightened, watching her through heavy-lidded eyes. “Now you’re talking sense.”

  Jon had become a thorn in his paw, and even if the king would have nothing more to do with Nora, her presence would at least keep him preoccupied. Perhaps it would even help douse the old flame still burning in Rielle’s heart. He hoped. “I’ll have a word with him myself.”

  Nora’s teary expression immediately gave way to a beaming smile. She threw her arms around him. “I knew I could count on you!”

  Anything to stop the squeak voice.

  She pulled away and eyed him, clasping her hands in her lap once more.

  He grunted. “What?”

  Her foot tracing a small circle on the rug, she pursed her lips. “Could you… um… keep the boys occupied while I go to Marchesa Renata’s salon tonight? They’re becoming much more than Annette can handle, and Mother is coming with me.”

  There went his usual evening locked in the bedchamber with Rielle. But he never minded the boys. “Have fun.”

  “You’ve matured,” she said with a smile. “Here you are, reading a book calmly, while your fiancée is visiting her former lover. And you have a knack for this parenting thing. Not at all what I expected.”

  How did Nora know? Had one of the outriders returned?

  With a hug and a kiss in parting, Nora practically skipped out of the library. As complex as his sister was, what made her happy was simple: indulging her selfishness. That he could understand. If only it were always as simple as gifting coin, entertainment, or vanity.

  Sighing, he lowered his gaze back to the book, and his eleventh read of the same sentence.

  It was pointless. He slammed the book shut.

  His bride couldn’t be seen running into the king’s arms. It was the barest modicum of respect. She’d gone to see Samara, but how long had she been there? Had she run into Jon?

  The door in the foyer creaked open, letting in a wave of fresh spring air, cypress, pansies, and primroses. The soft alto of Rielle’s voice in greeting, but shaky, hollow.

  Opening the book anew, he waited.

  “His Lordship is in the library, my lady,” Vietti said, in the hallway, and she thanked him softly.

  When she entered, everything about her slackened—her stance, her expression, even the look in her eye. She was falling apart, right in the doorway. She dropped a small sheathed blade to the floor.

  He approached her, and all bravado abandoned him as he opened his mouth to ask her what was the matter.

  She put a palm to his chest and pushed him back into the library, shutting the door behind her, and kept pushing until they were at the opposite wall. By the time she let him go, tears welled in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Sorry?

  Her palm slid down from his chest, and he caught her wrist, trying to meet her gaze. What had happened at the villa with Jon? Had she—?

  “Divine damn you, Brennan, for thinking you could manipulate me,” she spat hoarsely—

  She knew, then—

  “—but you were right. You’re a good man. A wonderful man,” she whispered between quiet sobs. “And there’s something I have to tell you.”

  This was going somewhere terrible. He reached for her face, but she pulled away from his touch, curling into herself.

  He reached for her again, but she stepped away. He lowered his gaze. She didn’t have to say the words.

  “I keep telling myself to forget him, to move on, but sometimes it’s sudd
enly there, like a thorn inside of me, and I can’t cut it out,” she rasped, drawing a forearm across her face and shaking her head.

  She was leaving him. It was over.

  “You said my name and said you loved me and said you wanted to marry me,” she said, tears streaming down her face, “and I want you, I want all of it with you, so badly, but I”—she sobbed, bending over, and he crouched with her as she crumpled to the floor—“I’m so afraid I might be… broken.”

  He watched her hands trembling in her lap, unclasped, as she submitted all her truth to him, held nothing back.

  “I love you,” she whispered, “but I don’t know what to do. You… You deserve more. You deserve better.” Her voice faded with every word until it became nearly inaudible.

  So much pain. She held on to so much pain, and yet all he wanted to do was hold her, hold her close, and never let go.

  Like a centuries-old tree, she’d been marked by the past, deeply, indelibly, a past she couldn’t forget, and those marks had become part of her, scars never to be healed.

  But the wounds didn’t have to bleed anew. He could make sure of it. He would. He’d hold her, hold her close, and keep her past buried.

  He pulled her to him, and she fell against his chest, threw her arms around him, inhaled him like the breath of life, wept against him. “I’m strong enough,” he said quietly, “for the both of us.”

  From the moment he’d agreed to marry her, he’d known. This was her heart, and he didn’t hold dominion over it, but merely inhabited a corner. And that was enough, as long as she chose him. He needed no more. He’d give her the whole of his love, more than she could take, and smother out the rest. There would never again be a lack she needed to fill with memories, or with anyone else. That had always been his silent promise to her. And now she knew it.

  Whatever had happened when she’d gone to see Jon, he didn’t need to know.

  He didn’t need to know, as long as it never happened again.

  “Never see him again,” he said, letting his selfishness free, just this one more time. “Never be alone with him again.” He could be there for her for the rest of her life, give her everything she needed and wanted and more, but he couldn’t win on battlefields she took to alone.