Renna bit her lip. She should quote a few Bible passages that said otherwise. She could give all the right answers.
But did she believe them? She’d thought she did. But sitting here, captured and facing Martyn’s hard gaze, she couldn’t be sure. The words wouldn’t come.
Brandi launched to her feet. Her shoulders hunched, probably with the saddle’s weight dragging against her wrists. “God is good, and this is good even if we can’t see how. It’s like Daniel’s three friends in the Bible. They couldn’t see how it could be good to be thrown into a burning furnace, but they refused to deny God. When they were thrown into the furnace, God rescued them. They weren’t burned.”
“You still hope for rescue?” Martyn snorted. “Faith and hope. I don’t believe they exist any more than your God does. I believe only in things I can see.”
“You can’t see loyalty.” Brandi shifted her hands, like she wanted to plant them on her hips.
“You can see the evidence of duty and loyalty in actions.”
“And you can see the evidence of faith and hope in actions too.” Brandi’s jaw thrust forward.
Renna would’ve hugged her sister if she could get up. If only she had an ounce of her sister’s faith and bravery. Then she’d be the one standing up and debating with Martyn instead of sitting in silence.
Martyn dragged a hand through his hair. “Sit down. Eat.”
Brandi plopped back to the ground, chin held high. She tugged on her hands. “You’re going to have to untie me.”
He huffed and untied her. Brandi clenched her fists but didn’t try attacking the Blade. The knot in Renna’s stomach eased. At least Brandi had learned after attacking Martyn the first night they’d stopped.
They ate and curled up in their blankets in silence. All through that dark night, Renna counted the hours. Each noise woke her. Every sound set her heart to pounding.
But Leith didn’t come.
31
Leith pushed Blizzard upward into the Sheered Rock Hills, ever higher and higher. Shad and Jamie drove their horses alongside Leith. They didn’t complain at Leith’s pace, though they had to be tiring.
He should be cautious. They could run into one of the Blades watching the Hills. But Leith didn’t care. He might even welcome it. A fight would release the tension grinding deeper into his chest with every hoofbeat.
They’d barely paused for a few hours sleep in the meadow where they’d last seen Renna and Brandi. From there, Leith followed the faint trail left by their horses. They’d had to slow for Leith to find the days-old tracks. Walter had taken a winding route, hiding their tracks as best he could. Leith ground his teeth. Renna and Brandi could be hurt, and he couldn’t go any faster.
Blizzard snorted. His nostrils flared wide. Leith patted his horse’s neck. His hand came away drenched. If they didn’t find the girls soon, they’d have to stop for the horses’ sakes, if not for their own.
Leith leaned forward as Blizzard lurched up another rough slope. Gravel slid beneath Blizzard’s hooves, but the horse scrabbled up. Behind him, Shad’s and Jamie’s horses lunged up the slope. Reaching the top, Leith urged Blizzard forward.
A few yards into the trees, Blizzard crow-hopped sideways. He blew out another uneasy snort. Leith halted the horse and patted his neck. He scanned the woods. He didn’t see anything. The trees remained still. A breeze rustled the branches and swept toward them.
As Blizzard snorted again, Leith smelled what Blizzard had already sensed. A sickly scent drifted on the air. His stomach churned. No. Please no. Anything but that.
Leith dismounted and dropped Blizzard’s reins. Shad swung from his horse and joined Leith. “What is it?”
Jamie sniffed. His eyes widened as he turned toward Leith.
Swallowing, Leith pointed toward the stand of trees in front of them. “Something’s dead over there.”
Shad paled. Pushing the screen of branches aside, Leith stepped through. The smell hung in the small clearing. The rock face to the north side blocked the breeze.
Leith’s heart dropped as he spotted the blood coating the grass on the other side of an old fire. Leith strode around the ring of stones. The smell smacked his nose. In the long grass, Leith found the torn flesh and scattered bones of a body.
Shad peered around him. He made a sound in the back of his throat and backed away, his face a pale gray. Jamie stood back, his fists clenched and shaking.
Even though Leith’s stomach churned, he crouched and sifted through the torn carcass. “Looks like animals got to the body.” Leith tugged on a scrap of fabric. It looked like the grey leather vest that Walter Esroy had worn when they’d last seen him. The boots on the stumps of the legs had belonged to Walter as well. “It’s Walter Esroy.”
“How can you stand it?” Shad’s voice sounded muffled as if he had his hands over his face.
Leith gave a bitter huff. “I’m a Blade.” While this sight was bad, Walter had been dead before the animals had torn his body apart. The torture King Respen did to living human beings was much worse than this.
Leith stood and glanced around the clearing. He didn’t see any other bodies, nor did he see their packs and blankets.
Had the girls escaped? If they had, why hadn’t they taken Sunshine? Leith scanned the ground. It hadn’t rained in the last month. Coyote tracks pressed into the ground overlaid with the scuffs from him, Shad, and Jamie.
He followed faint marks from the camp, through the trees, and toward the cliff edge. He climbed down the rock face. At the bottom, a large mark carved into the sand and gravel. He followed the trail down the mountainside to a place where another larger mark displaced the gravel. Too much time had passed to give him an exact shape.
A few yards ahead, a flat spot opened next to a thick stand of juniper. He circled the spot and found another set of prints. Three horses and a man wearing the same, soft-soled boots Leith wore.
In the center of the flat spot, a knife stabbed into the ground. Leith pulled it out. It was identical to the knife he’d given Renna, except for the hilt. Instead of the initials LT that marked his blades, this knife wore the initials MH.
Martyn Hamish.
Leith collapsed to the sand, staring at the knife in his hands. Martyn knew. How much would he guess? And how much would he force Renna and Brandi to tell him?
Would Martyn show the knife to Respen? Would he choose loyalty to Leith or to the king? If he chose the king, then Respen knew by now that Leith had turned traitor. Leith couldn’t return to the castle. He couldn’t continue helping the Resistance.
He’d failed. He pounded the sand with his fists. He’d promised Abel Lachlan. He’d promised Renna. He’d promised himself. And he’d failed.
He should’ve gone with them. He would’ve been able to protect them from Martyn. What good had he done by staying? He was the First Blade, and he hadn’t even been able to control the Blades. He’d failed to bring Lord Alistair any news from Nalgar Castle that he didn’t already know. He’d done nothing worth getting Renna and Brandi captured to protect his cover.
A scrambling, sliding sound came from the cliff. He tucked the knife into his belt by his other knives. Jamie skidded to a halt and stared at the scene. Shad dropped to his knees beside Leith. “What did you find?”
Leith waved at the footprints. “Renna and Brandi were taken by a Blade.”
He’d keep the Blade’s identity to himself for now. He’d know soon enough if Martyn showed the knife to Respen.
Shad leapt to his feet. “Let’s get moving. We have to rescue them.”
Leith shook his head. “It’s too late. The Blade was here days ago. If they haven’t already reached Nalgar Castle, they will before we have a chance to catch up.”
Jamie blinked and wrapped his arms over his stomach. Shad kicked at a tree. “We should’ve gone straight to Nalgar Castle.”
Leith’s shoulders hunched. “It was too late by the time we knew something was wrong. They would’ve reached Nalgar before we were
half-way there. We never had a chance.”
That was the worst of it. He’d failed, but he’d never had a chance to succeed this time. Not without failing in his duty to the Resistance.
Shad rested a hand on the tree he’d been kicking. “What will Respen do to them?”
“He might’ve had the Blade kill them right away.” The words lashed across his tongue. Respen had spent years waiting to kill them. Vane’s failure only made it worse. Why would Respen spare their lives when he held them in his grasp?
Shad pounded the tree, turning his face away from Leith. He muttered something under his breath that Leith couldn’t hear. Jamie sagged to the ground. His shoulders shook.
Leith might’ve cried too if Respen hadn’t beaten that weakness out of him long ago.
Perhaps he should pray for their safety. It’d be a futile request at this point. Respen might’ve ordered Martyn to slit the girls’ throats. A prayer now would do little good.
Leith corralled his grief into that cold corner in his chest and stood. “We should bury Walter Esroy’s body.”
They returned to the abandoned campsite at the top of the cliff. At the sight of Walter’s carcass, Shad paled even further. Leith swallowed at his roiling stomach. “Start digging a grave. Jamie, help Shad. I’ll gather the body.”
Shad nodded. They headed for their horses on the other side of the trees. Shad retrieved a dagger to use as a shovel, and Leith took out his blanket. Slicing a strip from the end, he cut the strip into three pieces. He tied one section around his face over his mouth and wrapped the other two sections around his hands so he wouldn’t have to touch the corpse.
Returning to the body, he laid the blanket on the ground. He worked quickly, not allowing himself to dwell on the sight or stench of the body he dragged onto the blanket.
When he’d gathered the last of the remains onto the blanket, he stripped the soiled cloth from his hands and dropped it on top of the body, along with the cloth from his mouth. He folded the blanket over so the result looked more like a body wrapped in a blanket than the leftovers of a coyote’s meal.
Shad joined him a few minutes later, and together they carried the blanket-wrapped bundle to the shallow grave hacked into a crevice of the mountain side. Placing the body inside, they shoved the dirt over it and piled a mound of rocks on top to prevent the wild animals from digging up the remains.
Shad carved Walter’s name into a wooden board and jabbed it between two of the rocks. He rested his hand on one of the rocks for a moment. “God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me.”
Leith bowed his head at the quote from Scripture. This pile of rocks was a lonely grave deep in the mountains. When the wood wore away, no one would even know this haphazard pile had even been a grave at one time. But God knew. That’s all that really mattered.
Would Leith’s grave be like this? A lonely grave somewhere on the prairie or deep in the mountains? Or perhaps he’d be thrown into an unmarked grave after Respen had finished whatever torture he’d inflict.
Leith washed his hands as best he could with water from his canteen. He scrubbed at his fingers for several minutes, but the prickle of death still tainted his skin.
Jamie swiped at his face and straightened his shoulders. Leith rested a hand on his shoulder.
Shad dabbed at the sweat running from his dark brown hair. “What now?”
“We head back to Walden.” A shudder iced Leith’s spine. “Let’s find somewhere else to camp for the night. I have no wish to linger here.”
Shad glanced at the bloody grass on the other side of the old campfire. “Agreed.”
As they took their horses’ reins and led them the way they’d come, Leith gripped the hilt of Martyn’s knife. At least one person had died because of his failure to predict the Blades’ movements. How many more would die because of his failures?
32
Renna’s clothes stuck to her skin with sweat that never got a chance to dry. Her scalp itched with the dirt clinging to her hair. She turned her face and tried to wipe her forehead on her sleeve.
A dark smudge rose on the horizon to their south. As they drew closer, the smudge sharpened into a grey wall with round, crenulated towers at the corners. Her heart flipped in her chest. Nalgar Castle. She shivered despite the heat.
Martyn led their horses to the twin towers guarding the main gate. At his hail, the guards swung open the gates. Renna closed her eyes as they passed through the wall’s shadow.
The horses’ hooves echoed on the cobbles. Martyn halted them in front of a stable. Several thin, pale-faced boys ghosted to their horses and grabbed the bridles. They kept their eyes on the ground, as if they didn’t dare meet the gaze of the Blade or his victims.
She glanced around the courtyard. Across the way, servants bustled around the kitchen tower, their heads lowered, eyes dull, as if the hopelessness of this place had seeped into their bones. Soldiers clanked along the ramparts and trotted across the courtyard. Renna and Brandi weren’t going to find help in this place.
Martyn swung off his horse and approached Brandi’s. In a few deft tugs, he untied Brandi, dragged her from the horse, and placed her next to him. He repeated the motions with Renna, his hands firm and cold on her waist. She swayed on her good leg.
Brandi hurried to her side. Renna looped her arms over her sister’s shoulders. For a moment, their gaze met. Renna squeezed Brandi’s shoulders. “As long as we’re together, we’ll be all right.”
Brandi touched her bound hands to her chest, over the spot where her silver cross necklace tucked beneath her shirt. “God is our strength.”
Renna nodded. Her own necklace shifted against her skin. She’d try to remember that.
With his hands pressed against their backs, Martyn shoved them forward. Renna stumbled, nearly taking both her and Brandi to the cobbles. Brandi stretched her hands up and clasped Renna’s fingers.
Martyn directed them into an arched passageway that connected the cobblestone courtyard with the Queen’s Court, a grass courtyard on the other side of the Great Hall.
Midway through the passage, an opening cut into the stone wall to their left. A wooden bridge spanned what was a dry ditch at this time of summer. The massive, five-story Blades’ Tower loomed above the moat, standing taller than the rest of the castle as if to emphasize the king’s might.
Across the passage, stairs curled upward. The Blade pushed them that direction. Renna grimaced. Hopping on flat ground was difficult enough with her broken leg. How were they going to manage stairs?
Brandi walked up the first stair and paused. With a deep breath, Renna bounced onto the stair, planting her arms on Brandi’s shoulders to steady herself. Brandi moved up the next stair, and they repeated their movements.
Each stair became harder since Renna had to balance on the thin stair before hopping up the next one. Still, Martyn never offered to untie them or help. He stalked up the stairs behind them, a stone-faced shadow.
As they ascended, the stairs darkened, only partially lit from candles recessed into the stone walls. Renna nearly ran into the thick door that barred the way at the top. Martyn reached past them and knocked.
“Enter,” a deep voice boomed from the other side of the door. Martyn lifted the latch, nudged the door open, and pushed Renna and Brandi inside.
The plush carpeting caressed Renna’s boots. Paintings hung on the wall over dark paneling. A broad window streamed light into the room.
King Respen lounged behind his large desk. His dark hair waved above a tanned face. At the end of his chin, his trimmed beard sharpened into a knife’s point underneath a razor-thin mustache. He would’ve been a handsome man, except for his eyes. Renna had never seen eyes so cold, not even on Harrison Vane.
Martyn clicked the door shut and brushed past them. He knelt before King Respen, bowed his head, and thumped a fisted right hand over his heart. “My king.”
“My Blade.” King Respen repeated the fist over heart ge
sture, though his head remained unbowed. “You are the Third Blade. Why do you dare to report directly to me?”
Martyn waved a hand in their direction. “I captured these two girls deep in the Sheered Rock Hills and killed their guide. They are the ladies Rennelda and Brandiline.”
“Have you interrogated them?”
“I waited for your instruction, my king.” Martyn bowed his head once again. Was this the slavery Leith experienced? Did he bow and scrape before King Respen like this Blade did?
“Very wise.”
Renna choked on a breath when King Respen’s eyes fixed on her, scouring across her as if to sift her every secret.
Martyn pulled Brandi’s Bible from his saddlebag. He presented it to King Respen. “They had this with them.”
King Respen took it and flipped through the pages. He met Renna’s gaze, turned, and tossed the book onto the embers of the fire in the fireplace.
Renna gasped while Brandi shrieked. She charged forward, dragging Renna with her. Renna hopped as fast as she could. Before they could reach the fireplace, tongues of flames shot up from the book.
“No.” Brandi dropped to her knees, her whole body shaking.
Renna hugged her and watched the pages curl and blacken. The fire ate at the cover, consuming the front page with the words Love Mother and Father written across it. The last gift from their parents to Brandi.
Renna pressed her face against Brandi’s hair. Another memento lost. Renna’s Bible, with the same message in it, had been stolen by Vane months ago. Only Renna’s silver cross remained.
King Respen bent over them. His hand closed around Renna’s face and yanked her head up. “You claim your God is powerful. Where is that power now? Do you think you will be saved from me? I am the power over your lives now.”
Shivers quaked down Renna’s spine. His fingers dug into her cheeks and under her chin. Her skin crawled at his touch. She tried to pull away, but his grip tightened. Any tighter and he’d choke her.
“Is this your God’s love?” King Respen pulled out a knife and placed its tip below Renna’s left eye. She whimpered. The flash of steel filled her sight.
Deny (The Blades of Acktar Book 2) Page 16