The King's Knight (Royal Blood Book 5)

by Kristen Gupton

  * * *

  Jerris had packed up and gotten onto Patrice, heading back toward his camp. The thunderstorm was over him by the time he reached the abandoned building he’d set up in. The wind whipped at the forest canopy above, dead pine needles falling to cover the ground with a fresh blanket of fuel. While he’d only been able to smell the smoke at first, once near the trading post, the air had taken on a ghostly haze.

  He knew he was getting closer to whatever was ablaze, but he needed to get his supplies. Being driven further into the mountains by the fire without them wouldn’t help his situation. The horse was agitated by his insistence to ride toward danger, but she grudgingly obeyed.

  Jerris kept looking up between the trees, hoping the black storm overhead would let down with a torrent of rain to douse the area. While a few raindrops did manage downward, the clouds seemed determined to hold onto their moisture.

  Jerris soon had his belongings tied to the saddle, Patrice growing increasingly worried. While he couldn’t see the blaze from ground level, the horse sensed its approach. Jerris got back into the saddle and looked down the road, wondering if he could make it to Tordan Lea. He turned Patrice to head north, wanting to at least try, but the horse came to a stop within a short distance, refusing to go further.

  “Come on, old lady, it would be a lot better for us to get home than to be pushed further south!” he pleaded.

  Patrice nearly reared when he tried to coax her forward again, then she went perfectly still, pricking her ears forward, chest heaving as she tested the air.

  Jerris followed her gaze, hearing a growing rumble approaching. While he might have expected to hear the crackling of a spreading fire, this was something else entirely.

  Hoof beats—a lot of them.

  A massive stag rounded a bend in the road ahead, racing right toward them. Jerris cocked his head for a moment, admiring the animal, but confused as to its course.

  “What in the world?” he asked, his hands tightening on the reins.

  The stag raced past in bounding leaps. Jerris, in turn, paid it little notice once he saw countless more deer appearing on the road and through the underbrush. The flood of racing animals triggered Patrice’s flight instinct and she spun in place before galloping down the road with them.

  Jerris could do little but hold on and let the horse take the lead. The number of deer racing past them was unlike anything the redhead had ever experienced. Their fear was contagious, however, touching both horse and rider. Where ever the fire was, if it was enough to cause a mass evacuation of the wild animals in the area, certainly it wasn’t a minor event. Squealing wild boars and other animals started to join the panicked herd, slower than the leggy forest deer.

  He dared to glance upward, seeing the sky blackened with droves of ravens, doves, and songbirds, all heading south with the game animals below.

  As they continued onward, the road crested a rise, and Jerris looked back, seeing the tops of the trees to the north. The plume of smoke from the fire was being pushed around and drawn up into the storm overhead. From this vantage-point, he was able to see flames kicking up into the air from the tree canopy a good distance back. With the strong downdraft caused by leading edge of the storm, the fire was spreading quickly. Hot, dry air was blasting out from the fire, causing the inferno to jump from one tree to the next.

  He set his attention forward again, realizing he needed to give Patrice some guidance to stay on the road. While he dreaded going further south, uncertain as to what the road ahead would be like, there was little choice. The fire was going to decimate the area.

  Chapter 6

  With Keiran and Thana out of the castle, Corina busied herself taking care of Zach. She sat in her room with the child on the floor, scooting around a few of his wooden toys.

  Oblivious to Kanan’s death and Corina’s emotional state, the boy played, happily babbling to himself.

  She’d spent very little time outside of the presence of either Keiran or Thana since it had happened, determined to distract herself from the pain she felt. Now, with things quiet, she felt the burn of tears in her eyes. Within seconds, those first tears broke into outright sobbing. She’d spent so much of her life alone, only to finally marry Kanan a short while before. To have him taken away so quickly was bitterly unfair, and she cursed Athan as she cried.

  Zach went quiet and turned around where he sat, facing an empty corner of the room.

  Corina lifted her head from her hands, trying to focus her blurred vision on what had caught the baby’s interest. Her crying instantly ceased, rage boiling up within her.

  Athan stood there with his hands laced together behind his back, watching her.

  “No!” Corina got up and swept Zach into her arms before retreating backward toward the dresser. “You leave me be and go to Hell!”

  The vampire didn’t seem particularly moved by her outburst, only sighing. “Corina…”

  While she’d always reacted to him with visceral fear since he’d toyed with her decades back, fear was the furthest thing from her mind. Corina had rage seething within her like she’d never felt before. She held the baby against her left hip, freeing her right arm to reach for a clay dish on the dresser that she hurled at him.

  Athan raised his right arm in an apathetic move to divert the incoming dish, allowing it to shatter against his forearm. “Corina, don’t.”

  She paid him no heed, reaching for the next available object and chucking that at him, too.

  The iron candlestick missed him by a good margin and he rolled his eyes. “Honestly, Corina.”

  The old woman reached for yet another item and took it up before sending it in Athan’s direction.

  He huffed and swatted the herb jar she’d launched at him to the floor where it broke open. “I will stop you myself if you won’t, Corina.”

  With her right hand outstretched toward her hairbrush, the last item on the dresser’s surface, she halted, but not because of Athan’s magic. A pain rose in her chest, her breaths suddenly growing hard to draw in.

  Athan shook his head and took a step closer. “Your aging heart can’t take all of this, Corina. Sit down before you kill yourself.”

  “What do you care?” she asked, turning to set Zach down on the bed. She spun back around to face Athan, bending forward slightly, her hands pressed against her chest.

  His expression remained lax as he moved a little closer. “More than you would imagine, actually.”

  “You killed Kanan!” she said, her face going red as the tension inside her refused to let up. “I cannot forgive you for this! You have taken away my chances at happiness every opportunity you have gotten! I hate you more than I ever thought it possible to hate someone! You have made a game out of forcing me into misery!”

  He stopped advancing for several seconds, waiting.

  She continued to stand there, becoming lightheaded and starting to waver. Her heart fluttered in arrhythmia, feeling like it was twisting in her chest.

  Just as she began to collapse, Athan closed the remaining distance between them and pulled her against his chest, keeping her upright in a forcible embrace.

  Though she didn’t lose consciousness, she didn’t have the strength left in her to try and fight against him. Helpless tears broke loose, breaths shallow, her body shaking with rage.

  Athan looked down at her, switching his gaze from one of her eyes to another. “Corina, slow down your breathing or you are going to kill yourself. I know you wouldn’t appreciate me having to use my magic to help you.”

  Corina stared back at him, something old being dragged up within her as Athan dug into her feelings and memories. In her weakened state, there was little she could do to push him from her mind. All the fury and sadness inside of her faded away, her heart slowly regaining a normal rhythm.

  Athan’s eyes dimmed, tears visible within them as he drew all of her emotion into himself to relieve her long enough to recover. He continued to stare down at her, bringing his right hand
up to her cheek. “You think I don’t know what it feels like? I know this emotion of loss, Corina. I’ve felt it plenty of times in my years. Once, it was over you.”

  “Liar,” she whispered, feeling nearly drunk as the stress and pressure was taken away. “You never cared about me. I was a pawn.”

  “No, you were the only one who saw me as something more than a monster,” he said back gently. Part of him had genuinely loved feeding off of the mercy she’d once held for him. “I had to distance myself from you, lest I end up ruining my own plans. I couldn’t afford it, Corina.”

  She closed her eyes and weakly tried to push him away. “Stop it, Athan. Don’t you think you have been cruel enough to me? Kanan didn’t deserve what you did to him.”

  “Corina, you know it hasn’t quit hurting since I turned away from you all those years ago. Kanan was nothing more than a distraction.” He closed his eyes and pressed a kiss to her lips.

  While there was a sense of relief within her from having the pain of Kanan’s death lifted, his unwelcomed kiss broke the spell. With a grunt, she shoved Athan away, staggering back a step and spitting to the side. “You have no right! Don’t you dare! You’ve taken away enough from me already! You will not take away my grief over Kanan! You will not make sport of toying with my emotions! Leave me in peace!”

  No longer touching her, Athan’s heavy link into her emotions broke. His posture straightened, and he hastily wiped at his eyes, a faint hint of color washing over his cheeks.

  She studied him for a moment, seeing that something in him had been damaged, even if only momentarily. While it was interesting, she shirked it off, feeling her sorrow over Kanan’s death reforming in her heart.

  Athan didn’t like her stare, turning away. While he’d deliberately manipulated her emotions, he’d not expected them to affect him in return so strongly. She may have aged, but there was something still very unusual about the old woman. He didn’t like the way he was left feeling even though he was now freed of her emotions, and he tried to hide it.

  “You will live. As I’ve said in the past, Keiran still needs you, so I still do, too. Don’t get so worked up over things, Corina, it will do you no favors,” he said quietly.

  Fearing the physical pain in her chest would return, she did her best to wrangle in her returning fury. There was nothing she could do to fight Athan as much as she wanted to end him with her own hands. Corina let out a long breath and eased back to sit on the edge of the bed, Zach safely blocked in behind her. “Go, Athan. I’m tired.”

  “We all are,” he replied, glancing at her, though he didn’t turn to face her outright.

  Corina’s eyes closed, her shoulders rounding. “What do you want from me? Why are you here? What is all of this? You got the damned sword. What business do you have left?”

  “Don’t you realize I just saved your life?” he asked.

  She opened her eyes and studied him once more. “You caused the stress that may yet do me in! I hardly think you need to stroke your ego over it!”

  Athan shrugged and continued to linger where he stood.

  Despite the fact he’d gotten the sword and knocked Keiran back, despite knowing that Kayla, his ultimate prize, still lived, there was something deeply off within the vampire. Perhaps it stemmed from her relationship with him long ago and their familiarity that allowed her to see it, but it was most certainly real.

  “You’re obsessed with Kayla, but even so, you can’t stand that I fell in love with Kanan and now mourn his murder!” Corina’s eyes widened, the realization striking hard. She rose up from the bed and gave a single laugh in her bewilderment. “Even though you never loved me, the very idea I was able to move on beyond you, even over twenty years after the fact, tears at your pride!”

  Athan frowned and tensed his lips together. “Do you think that’s what this is all about? Something over two decades past? Do you think I’m so petty as to not have moved on from those things?”

  “I don’t think, dear Athan, I know,” she replied, shaking her head. “Go home, Lord Vercilla. You aren’t wanted here.”

  He tensed his jaw several times, fighting the urge to retaliate against her for making such an assumption. In her current state, however, doing such a thing might kill the old woman. At the very least, his growing anger was pushing away the last of the emotions he’d temporarily been afflicted by.

  The problem was Corina was absolutely correct.

  “Well, regardless of what you assume, Corina, take it easy and try not to make that old mortal heart in your chest grind to a halt,” he said, his voice becoming dry and monotone. “I have things to attend to.”

  Confident he wouldn’t cause her serious harm, she waved a hand at him and rolled her eyes. Despite years of fearing him, something within her had broken, and it was gone. “I said go.”

  He didn’t respond, simply vanishing from sight.

  Corina shook her head, finding his ability to simply blink out of existence more troubling than his usual dramatic exits. Still, she’d somehow won an encounter with him, questions remaining or not.

  The old woman smiled.

  * * *

  Garhan’s initial trepidation about being confined inside a ship was replaced by an absolute dread of being on deck and seeing land only off at a great distance. He’d retreated below deck, spending most of the trip huddled in a blanket in darkness, fighting his unrelenting motion sickness.

  How he’d talked himself into coming along on this trip perplexed him, but there was no turning back. Despite the captain’s repeated assurances that all was going as well as could be expected, Garhan sat, resigned to the idea he was going to end up on the bottom of the sea with the ship and everyone aboard.

  Mari came down and sat beside him. “Gary, Dassion says we’ll be landing in Aleria before midday.”

  Since he’d not been above deck nor seen the position of the sun since they’d gotten underway, he had no honest idea what time it was. “When will that be?”

  She rubbed his back, resting her head on his shoulder. “We’re already heading in toward the coast. It’s beautiful out there. You should come up.”

  “I’d rather not until this ship is tied to something solid,” he replied, shaking his head. “The first order of business is getting bathed afterward. If I have to smell like the hold of this ship for more than a minute after getting off of it, I don’t think this sickness in my stomach will ever abate.”

  “You’re being melodramatic,” she said.

  “That is what artists do,” Garhan sighed in return, looking over at her with a weak smile.

  “I’m still very proud of you for making this trip with me.” Mari kissed his cheek and stood up, stretching. “Though we’ve moved a good distance on this boat, it hasn’t really felt like traveling. I prefer riding.”

  He quirked a brow. “Isn’t this easier on you physically?”

  “Honestly? With these rather humble accommodations, my back is killing me. Nothing soft to rest on, being constantly jostled about…” She put her hands on her hips and shook her head. “Gary, I don’t care for ocean travel much at all, it turns out.”

  “Good, then we can agree to never do this again?” he asked.

  “Let us hope the way by land back to Tordania is clear when we’ve finished up our business.” She gave him a smile. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go start cleaning up the section of the hold our poor horses are in, lest I hear our dear captain drone on again about the miseries of livestock hauling.”

  Garhan wrinkled his nose, wanting no part of that, though he felt bad she was volunteering. “I should help.”

  She raised a hand toward him and snorted. “You? In your condition? No, thank you. Having to clean up anymore of your vomit while dealing with the mess from the horses will do me little good. You stay here.”

  He gave her a mock salute, his feelings not hurt in the least.

  * * *

  Everything was caked in mud. Patrice, all of his gear and body
were the same drab brown color.

  Though their forward progress away from the fire had slowed, Jerris hadn’t dared stop for more than a few hours at a time. Though he could no longer see the fire, his instincts pushed him ever southward. From his previous travels, he knew he’d eventually reach some manner of civilization where he could regroup and make plans to return home.

  The previous several days of warm temperatures had caused much of the remaining snow to melt, leaving what was left of the trade road to become a swampy track through the mountains.

  He’d left the road on multiple occasions, having to double back and find paths around assorted obstacles. Wash outs, landslides, as well as a few deep remaining drifts had made the passage increasingly difficult. However, there came a point where the worst seemed to be behind him. Conditions gradually began to improve as he reached the southernmost end of the mountains and their elevation decreased.

  As travel became easier, he knew he was well beyond the dangers posed by the fire, now several days behind him. He slowed his pace, doing his best to remember the way to Edinau or Lodain. Though he remembered they’d reached Edinau first during the Sadori invasion, when he came to a fork in the road, he couldn’t remember which way they’d traveled. The spring landscape was a far cry from the midwinter scene he’d witnessed there before.

  “Which way?” he asked Patrice.

  The old horse was having a rough time of it. Being exhausted and not properly able to eat over the previous days had left her in poor spirits. She gave a huge sigh, wishing her rider would do something.

  Jerris signaled her forward, putting no pressure on the reins one way or another. He let the horse make the decision.

  Patrice began to plod along, taking the path veering to the right. Fortunately for Jerris, it was the road that would lead to Edinau, the other climbing up toward a coal mine still closed for the season.

  When he saw the first hints of civilization, he turned his eyes toward the sky, thankful to be out of the wild. While there were still several burned out buildings around from the invasion the year before, the town had made a respectable recovery.