Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
By Dark Deeds
Blade and Rose Series Book 2
Miranda Honfleur
Copyright © 2017 by Miranda Honfleur
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover art by Mirela Barbu
Proofreading by Roxana Mihai
Ebook ISBN: 978-0-9994854-3-9
http://www.mirandahonfleur.com/
To my friends at Enclave,
this book wouldn’t exist without you,
and Wednesdays wouldn’t be nearly as awesome.
Contents
Author’s Mailing List
Map of Emaurria and Surrounding Lands
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Author’s Note
About the Author
Also by Miranda Honfleur
Author’s Mailing List
Click on the image above or visit www.mirandahonfleur.com to sign up for Miranda’s mailing list! You’ll get “Winter Wren” for free.
Map of Emaurria and Surrounding Lands
Chapter 1
As Rielle sat chained to a twelve-pound cannon, a shadow covered her almost entirely. She rattled her arcanir shackles at the towering figure, the captain of the Siren, who outsized even the large chair behind him. Throne, more like.
He peered down at her from that throne, surrounded by the riches adorning his cabin, extolling his brutal triumphs—antiques, no doubt pillaged from once-hallowed places desecrated by these most brutally pragmatic of men; exotic rugs and expensive cloth; and heavy, ornate precious metals. All stolen or paid for by the trade in human lives.
Crumpled in a ragged pile against the cannon, she looked him over through her tangled hair. Dressed like a king—in a stunning black brocade overcoat, silk breeches, polished black leather boots, a crisp white shirt, and the most garish captain’s tricorne she’d ever seen—he ought to be holding court in some nightmare realm, not captaining a pirate ship. But in the pirate world, captains dressed as richly as their reputations allowed.
She shivered. He was a powerful man.
As he rubbed the ebony-and-gray stubble on his jaw, his calculating eyes raked over her frame. On any other day, she would have met such a gaze with unflinching disdain. Today, however, her dry throat betrayed her as she swallowed.
Water… Divine, just a drop—
And they’d taunted her with it. Bound in arcanir, she couldn’t use her magic. For three days, she’d been neglected. And she’d spent the last half-hour being unceremoniously washed and scrubbed by a pirate—water all around her but not a drop to drink—and stuffed into a threadbare scratchy cotton dress before being brought here.
And here was a place of dread.
The excess, the silence, the posturing, the shackles—all of it made their disparate bargaining positions clear. But her former captor—that vengeful harpy, Shadow—planned to assassinate Jon. And she had a head start.
I need to stop her. Yesterday.
She suppressed a grimace. Calm, collected reason first. She needed to negotiate her release.
Licking her cracked lower lip, she raised her eyes to the captain. She spied a full bottle of wine upon his desk and salivated.
Not now. She focused on the captain; it was time to open the door to negotiating her ransom. I can do this. “Captain, if I may—”
He dragged in a breath, and she paused. For a man of near silence, even a
breath was deafening.
Leaning back in his chair, he regarded her coldly, with a small glimmer in his dark eyes. “Do you know what they call me, girl?”
His voice was weathered, always low. Not in a way that would ever go unheard. When he spoke, people quieted. She quieted.
“Captain Sincuore.”
A measured smile cloaked his mouth. In his youth, he might have been handsome, until the years and the cruelty of the life he’d led etched in the lines and shaded in the furrows. “And do you know what sincuore means?”
“Heartless.”
He grinned. But it wasn’t happiness behind the grin. It was victory.
Her heart raced, and she clenched her teeth to stop her lips from trembling.
“Do you think that’s my real name?”
Of course not. “I—I don’t know, Captain.”
Coolly, he rose from the chair and looked out at the Bay of Amar through the square windows astern.
Everything about his erect posture—stony, towering, still—directed her to remain quiet, but she couldn’t. Shadow had sworn to assassinate Jon.
Her heart twisted.
She needed to get off this ship.
It was time to appeal to greed. “There is a massive sum of gold coronas awaiting you should you ransom me to the March of Laurentine. You would be paid quickly and permitted to depart unhindered.”
Captain Sincuore let out an amused breath through his nose.
She stilled her trembling body by pressing it against the twelve-pounder. “The Duchy of Melain, the March of Tregarde, and”—she paused—“the Kingdom of Emaurria itself would pay you handsomely for my release.” Jon would do anything for her, including pay a ransom… Of that, she was certain.
He will forget about you between the thighs of many women. Shadow’s words echoed in her mind anew.
But they were lies.
Jon loved her, and she loved him; they could overcome anything. Including this.
The captain didn’t move, didn’t flinch, didn’t give any indication he’d even heard her.
Did he care about coin? It wasn’t as though he were—
Her eyes darted around the room. All the riches… All the gold he likely possessed…
The stupidity, the foolishness of attempting to sway this man with more riches…
But she’d needed to try.
“Do you know on whose order I bear you to your fate?” His voice was even, business like.
Her chin quivered, and she clicked her teeth together, clenched her jaw, willing it to stop. The answer was obvious. “On the order of Shadow, Mage Captain of the Crag Company.”
He laughed. “It’s a wonder you’ve survived this long, girl.” He turned to her at last, arms behind his back. “The one I work for, I would not cross for all the gold in your country.”
Whose power outstripped even that of a whole kingdom?
And why was she—one of hundreds of master mages, a disgraced marquise, removed from court and all its schemes—their target? To have crossed someone of significance, she would have had to move in the same circles. And she most certainly didn’t. “Who, then?”
Silence.
A shiver snaked down her spine and slithered through her limbs. She crumpled her fingers into fists. There would be no negotiating her way off the ship. No magic. No fighting. She’d tried them all to no effect.
She had a powerful unknown enemy, one even these pirates wouldn’t dare cross. A serpent.
But that wasn’t the problem before her now. Focus.
Her options were few—finding some way to jump ship… and, being shackled, drown… or holding out for a better chance of freedom at her destination. And although death could be preferable to the things she might endure, she was the only one who knew about Shadow’s treachery, the only one who could now protect Jon, and the only one who could atone for the massacre at Laurentine nine years ago.
And she was no coward.
Raising her head, she met Captain Sincuore’s gaze without fear or hesitation. Whatever lay ahead, she would persevere. She had to. For Jon’s sake. She needed to live to escape. She needed to live to save herself, and him.
And someday, she would see this captain reduced to no more than a red stain on all his expensive possessions.
A red stain. Someday, he would be no more. So would Shadow. And the serpent who’d ordered this. She narrowed her eyes and lifted her chin.
“Such fury.” His grin turned predatory. He uncorked the bottle of wine, poured a goblet, and rose.
He strolled toward her and stopped two feet away, a giant.
She looked away. Obvious posturing. Unnecessary, too, as she was already well aware of who had all the power here. At least while she was shackled in arcanir. Remove these shackles, and then we’ll see how strong you think you are.
When he crouched and grabbed her face, angling it upward, she heaved deep breaths. Whatever happened, she would endure. She would endure, see him dead, herself freed, Jon saved, Shadow defeated.
“You have no hope of escape, girl.” His grip on her chin tightened. “But I am not entirely without heart.” He smiled with cold eyes, a chilling mixture of malice and joy. “The Rose of Laurentine. A lady such as yourself shouldn’t have to countenance the horrors of piracy. It’s cruel, even for me.”
So close, the wine’s sweetly bitter scent was intoxicating. She turned her head farther from the goblet.
The captain exhaled sharply. “Truly, girl? The wine? Now?”
Stiffly, she shrugged. Let him live three days without a drop of water, and then he could question thirst.
Sighing, he brought the goblet to her nose, then pressed it to her lips and tipped it.
Holy blood of the Divine, the bittersweet red danced in her mouth, invigorated, its oaky body embracing her tongue, fruity notes dancing on her palate, and it cooled its way down her throat. It wasn’t the water she needed, but she’d never tasted anything so soothing.
He pulled it away long before she had her fill, and stood. “Now, as I was saying”—he strolled back to the desk, set down the goblet, and recorked the bottle—“I may be heartless, but you’re no use to me dead. This ship, my crew and cargo, can have an… effect on sheltered girls such as yourself. As my very special guest, I was going to offer you a choice.” A smile playing on his mouth, he leaned against the massive desk. “Stay fully aware and conscious throughout the rest of your time aboard this ship—”
She blinked, and he blurred before her. Two captains… Three captains. Blurry eyes—she just needed to rub them—
But her hands were chained to the twelve-pounder. Her head spun.
“—or drink this wine, specially prepared for you, and choose to be fully unaware and unconscious throughout the rest of your time aboard this ship. Everybody wins. You avoid injury, I avoid your feeble attempts at rebellion, the job goes as planned, and my generous patron is satisfied.”
She tried to raise her head, but it wouldn’t cooperate.
“The… wine…” She blinked sluggishly, weakness vining through her limbs.
“Drugged.”
The door to the cabin opened, and the captain nodded to the—she turned her head, so slowly she wondered when she’d ever see—
Shades blotted out the light, tall and dark, a circle of large forms closing in. She willed her limbs close to protect her body, but they wouldn’t move. Couldn’t. She struggled in the chains.
Break… free…
Metal clinked and thudded to the floor. Large callused hands grabbed her. The shades. Her gaze traveled their faces, but they were just—shadows. No faces. Shades. Their arms bore her to the door, and she craned her neck to look at the captain—
A shade amid streaks of crimson and gold. Laughter rumbled like thunder, amusement and malice, distant and massive.
The fading light poured in from the windows behind him, and she was through the doorway. The sky turned to shadow, to black, a storm rolling in over the sea, clouds stealing what
little light remained. She rolled her head along her shoulders.
As the ship bobbed, darkness shrouded her completely.
Feet thumped, again and again—stairs?—and into blackness they went, the shades and she, but somewhere across the vast waters freedom waited, and at the opportune moment, she would seize it, no matter what a red stain thought.
If she could survive the storm.
Her hand clamped over his mouth, Drina Heidrun slit the man’s throat in the night’s cloak. He raised his hands, and she pinned one to the tree with her blade and twisted the other behind his back. Blood gushing, muffled whimpers, gurgles. Old notes, as beautiful now as the first time.
Bent, she held the man as he bled out onto the forest floor. A strong, cool, northeasterly wind swayed the tall pines bearing quiet witness, watching the last of his life abandon his body. Without a sound, she lowered him to the ground, listened for any signs of presence, then stripped him of his gear.
After the siege, she’d buried a weapons supply cache outside Courdeval, and for days, she’d bided her time, watching the coast southwest of the capital, waiting for the right target. A lone traveler, someone whose identity she could easily assume. Finally, one had come.
This traveling apothecary, a hedge witch healer who also sold remedies for illness, traveled alone. Her father, Lyuben, had been a medicine man, and she’d studied herbalism extensively at the Kezani Tower. Perfect.
By Dark Deeds (Blade and Rose Book 2) Page 1