His eyes met hers in the mirror and for a moment focused, then he lowered his gaze and pulled his hand away. “You said something about war.”
She sighed inwardly and paused. Numbness. That was what he wanted.
The destruction in the solar after meeting the spiritualist—that was the violence that churned within him, and he would have it stilled. By any means necessary. Wine, women—and who knew what else? If he would not respond to love and support, then it was up to him to decide when he could bare his heart again. And she—and everyone—would be there for him when he did.
She retrieved the message from the bed, then handed it to him. “Vervewood has been attacked by Stonehaven. They seek Emaurria’s aid in exchange for knowledge.”
He scanned the message, then closed his eyes and breathed deep. “If what he writes is true, then Stonehaven is a threat to all. And we cannot allow a peaceful civilization to be destroyed. Not while we have the means to prevent it.”
Bracing on the washbasin, he stared into the mirror, through it, intensely. His eyebrows drew together, tight, determined. Knuckles whitening, he shut his eyes again. “I see them… Hundreds near Vervewood. Stronger. With prisoners. Humans, elves, others… Werewolves.”
She jerked her head back. Werewolves? She’d gotten reports of them around Maerleth Tainn. Was this a second pack?
Jon struck the side of the basin with a palm. His eyes shot open. “I can see them, but I can’t do anything more. I can reach out to them, almost touch them, but that’s it. What was the point of this ritual if that’s all I can do?”
She paced to the balcony doors facing the city. “You can see your enemy. Know their whereabouts, their numbers. That’s a great asset.”
He huffed. “So we can see our doom before it destroys us.”
“Leigh also wrote that they know more about the Earthbinding. Perhaps you’re not as limited as you think.”
“Perhaps.” A low, monotonous voice belied the hope of the word. “Call the council to a meeting. We’re going to war.”
Jon rubbed the fine grain of the lacquered table in the High Council chambers. They’d been at it for hours and were no closer to a solution for the violence the light-elves faced from Stonehaven.
“The light-elves of Vervewood came to us in bad faith,” Derric said. Dark circles had settled under his eyes; he had added some of Jon’s duties to his own to help Pons. “They knew they were under threat and withheld that information, trying to trap our kingdom into an alliance. They disrespected our king. We can’t trust them—or any Immortals. They see us as inferior, a tool to be used. Our best options are human alliances. At least we can navigate them more easily.”
“We’ve been crawling in the dark,” Tor said, staring down Derric across from him. “The light-elves have knowledge we need to survive in this new world. If we must fight for that—and by doing so, save a peaceful people—then so be it. We must make a good-faith effort to do what’s best for everyone.”
Auguste shook his head, stroking his pointed gray beard. “At what cost? The light-elves do not speak our language. How do you propose we fight by their side? Language learning has been slow”—a glare at Olivia—“and without communication, we are fighting this war unilaterally.” He folded his hands and turned to Jon. “Our ambassador is already learning their secrets. We won’t need the light-elves. Let them fight their own battles. If they prove themselves strong enough to survive, then we’ll give them the choice of an alliance or annihilation. And if they lose against this Stonehaven, they’ll have weakened our enemy, and their culling will be all the easier. One hand washes the other.”
Olivia scoffed, her narrowed eyes glinting. “I have yet to see Leigh turn his back on the greater good. If you think he will simply plunder an innocent people of their secrets and then leave them to die, you do not know the man.”
“He is a wild mage, isn’t it so?” Auguste raised his eyebrows. “Surely he has the power to take care of the matter, then.”
Olivia tilted her head to eye Jon, her lips pursed tight. One of these days, she would grab Auguste’s pointed beard and give him the thrashing of his life.
Jon fought the twitch of an emerging smile.
“Even a wild mage is not without limits,” Pons interrupted. “His capacity for destruction is great, but if there is any arcanir involved, he will be at a disadvantage. And he is limited to two spells at a time like any other mage. He is only one man.” No replies came. “We should continue researching the Earthbinding. Perhaps we may yet find answers?”
Olivia sighed. “I and my clerks have been working on it, but our library is limited when it comes to ancient texts, and Trèstellan has the most impressive magic library in the country.”
“So we fight their wars for crumbs of knowledge?” Derric fixed an earnest gaze on her, and Olivia folded beneath it. “That’s not an alliance. That’s extortion.”
Valen rapped the table with his large knuckles. “That’s not at all what the message said.”
“Then you haven’t read between the lines.” Derric raised his chin.
Valen’s massive shoulders slumped, and his jade-green gaze shifted to Jon. Did he still feel subordinate to Derric?
Jon nodded to Valen. “If you have a solution, Lord Chamberlain, let’s hear it.”
With a loud sigh, Derric leaned back in his chair.
“We know Vervewood needs assistance in dealing with this Stonehaven, whose raiding shows they are already our enemies as well,” Valen said. “And clearly, Vervewood knows we need information. But they have not suggested we fight their battles in order to obtain it.”
“That is exactly what they’ve suggested,” Derric interrupted, but when Jon shot him a glare, he threw up his hands and pressed his lips together.
“There is the oath ritual upcoming,” Valen continued. “They withheld the true state of their situation, so why not ask them for information on the Earthbinding as a show of good faith? They know we pursue the Sundering, to seal off the worst of the mindless beasts and monsters, and that to accomplish it, we’ll need a… dragon mage,” he said, blinking rapidly. “Knowledge of the Earthbinding doesn’t help us accomplish that goal. But it can help us help them.”
“An emissary?” Olivia offered.
Valen nodded.
Rubbing his chin, Jon leaned back in his chair. Asking Vervewood to send an emissary to teach them about the Earthbinding would be a safe but valuable overture. And Vervewood could still keep its knowledge about dragon mages until the alliance was finalized.
Derric objected, and as the council debated the merits of Valen’s suggestion, Jon studied his own hands, tired of all the squabbling. A naked expanse spread before his mind’s eye, soft curves and languorous motion. Kisses, caresses, pleasure in excess—the night unfolded through a dreamy haze that had existed then and only clouded even more now.
It had felt good. The feeling of utter emptiness, allowing sensation to rule for a time and exiling the haunting echoes of his mind. Surrender to wild abandon that left behind not only who he was but everything. Absolutely everything.
He had heard tales of hollow men destroyed by loss, reduced to ruins shadowed by grief, dead to the world. Men who had allowed emotion to strip them of their strength and, worse, their honor. Lesser men. Honor was the very essence of a man; how could anyone allow his very essence to be torn away by the loss of one person?
But now he knew. He knew the destruction of each of them, their ruination, their shadows, their death. Intimately. He knew why they abandoned honor, why they allowed their very essence to be torn out. He had once been impaled by a sword that should have killed him; and when he had thought of death, he had thought of that sword piercing his flesh, releasing the red ebb of his life. But he knew better now. There was death that had nothing to do with a blade or blood—death of the soul. Theirs had died, and his had died, and they were hollow, and he was hollow.
But he still had work to do. And he would devote the remaining yea
rs of his life to the kingdom, to service, to doing what was necessary.
He straightened and studied each expectant face at the table. “We will proceed with Valen’s suggestion.” He glanced at Olivia. “Lady Archmage, would you draft a message and have it sent to me?”
She nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Good.” He rose. “If there’s nothing else?” Without waiting for replies, he rose, said his goodbyes, and exited the High Council chambers.
In the hallway, Manon waited for him, her fawn-haired head bowed. “Your Majesty—”
Olivia entered the hallway with Tor and shot him a look that could kill, her gaze shifting between him and Manon.
He shook his head and shrugged, and as she left, over her shoulder she mouthed a word that seemed very much like bastard.
He sighed and turned back to Manon, heading toward his quarters, and she accompanied him, quickening her pace to keep up with his strides. He slowed. “What is it?”
She cleared her throat. “It’s Princess Alessandra, your Majesty. She wishes me to tell you that she’s tired of your silence, and that she demands—”
“She couldn’t send a note?”
Manon bit her lip and reddened. “She insisted that I be the one to deliver her message.”
He sighed. Did Alessandra think he was too busy having an affair with his servant? That this was the reason he’d avoided her? “I’m sorry. I interrupted you. Please continue.”
“Yes, sire. She demanded that you meet her in the Grand Library immediately.” Manon paused and inclined her head. “That’s all of it, sire.”
He thanked her, and she returned to her duties. And it seemed he was to return to his.
Jon entered the Grand Library, exchanging greetings quietly as he made his way to the remote back corner, where Alessandra had tucked herself away on a small sofa with what looked to be the eighth volume of Clément Hardelin’s A History of Emaurria.
As he sat across from her, she said, “I was just wondering if you were coming.”
Of all the suitresses, he liked Alessandra most; sharp, bold, wise beyond her years. And unapologetically sure of herself. There was nothing enjoyable about deceiving her or leading her on, or in this case, ignoring her. “It’s been a rough few days.”
“So rough,” she said, closing her book, “that you couldn’t spare a moment to write me a note.” Her placid gazed settled on him, and she blinked. She set the book aside. “What could possibly have been so rough?”
I have three years to live, at most.
The love of my life is dead.
Neither of which he could tell her. Or… at least not about his heart. Not yet, anyway.
A few people moved about the library, some nestled in chairs, reading. No one seemed to pay them any mind.
He dragged his armchair closer to her, and she followed the movement with curious eyes. “Do you remember when you called my heart a ruin?”
Taking her lower lip in her mouth, she looked away. The afternoon sunlight gleamed in her eyes, then she bowed her head. “Yes, I remember.”
“It has… become a memorial,” he said quietly.
Her hands clutched her olive-green skirt in weak fists. She opened her mouth, then closed it.
“Before I became king, I was in love with… She was the love of my life.” He looked beyond her to the window, where snow gently fell in the courtyard. Sometimes he’d imagined taking morning strolls in it with Rielle. This place had become duty and nothing else, but with Rielle here, it could have been a home, at least for whatever time he had left. “She’s been missing for months, and as… king now, I couldn’t go search for her. A few days ago, I found out she’d died.”
After a long moment, Alessandra made to clasp her hands, but didn’t. “I… I’m sorry,” she whispered, meeting his gaze briefly. “She was the one you’d been holding out for? The reason for this whole courtship maneuver?”
So she’d seen through it all. “Everyone kept telling me she and I could never marry. But I would have moved mountains to make it happen. She and I both could have. And we would have done it. She’s amazing, strong, determined—” He flinched. “Was.” He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, and rubbed his face. “When I found out, I needed some time. A lot of it. But all I got was a few days.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “The crown is heavy. Sometimes too heavy.” The quiet stretched. “What are you going to do?”
A question he hadn’t yet asked himself.
As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t ignore his responsibilities. The kingdom was under assault from every angle by the Immortals, and it needed alliances, defense, protection. It needed stability and wise rule. Something he couldn’t deliver on his own—not now, and perhaps not ever.
Parliament and his advisers hounded him for a queen, heirs. And that time was running out.
Rielle was gone, and he wouldn’t love again. Perhaps it was time to consider giving in to Parliament’s demands, to choose a queen fit to rule, wise, and to deliver the stability the kingdom hoped for. To lock in an alliance. All before he died.
Or at least to take one step forward before all the suitresses returned home.
“I need a queen who can halve the burden of rule,” he said, and raised his gaze to hers.
A corner of her mouth briefly turned up. “Is that an offer?”
“Are you interested?”
She took a deep breath and crossed her legs. “My brother, Lorenzo, is going to be king of Silen someday,” she said with a contemplative smile. “It’s the last thing he wants. But I… When we were growing up, I was hopelessly committed to saving everyone I could. I remember finding some noble children harassing a stray cat, and I threw rocks at them until they left it alone.” A half-laugh.
That seemed like her. Bold, fearless. A touch violent. He smiled back.
“They didn’t dare strike me back, of course. But I would never rule Silen—that was my brother’s destiny. And it was a commonly held belief that I’d never rule anywhere. The court called me ‘the Beast Princess.’ You see, I had curvatura of the spine as a child, so they called me deformed, ugly, fated to be a burden to my father, and later, to my brother. No suitable husband would want me, and an Ermacora—even a deformed, ugly Ermacora—could not be wed to an unsuitable husband.”
A terrible thing to do to a child. He sat up and looked her over. There was nothing deformed or ugly about her; she was stunning, really, with her slender, shapely figure, dazzling dark curls, and vaguely feline facial features. Classically beautiful, even.
She gestured to herself. “As you can see, I grew out of it, but by the time that happened, most suitable men were already married or betrothed, and here I am, an old maid.” An amused chuckle. “And still the Beast Princess… just no longer because of my looks, but my ‘brazen behavior.’ ”
“Do you still throw rocks at bullies?”
She laughed under her breath. “If they deserve it. I grew up being laughed at, excluded, so I found other ways to make myself heard. And in Silen, that is more the purview of men.”
He’d heard that in Silen, women were relegated to the household, the ballroom, and the bedchamber, but never the stateroom. “You can be as brazen as you wish here. I welcome it.”
She leaned back against the sofa, smoothing her hands over her gown. “You might spark a mass immigration of Sileni women, Your Majesty.”
“And would you be the first?”
It could be her.
Why not her? If he had to choose someone, why not Princess Alessandra, vanquisher of bullies and savior of cats?
King Macario’s flotilla already defended the coast, and Alessandra herself was capable and eager to rule. He wasn’t looking for love, and neither was she, or at least didn’t seem to be. It didn’t matter what he wanted anymore; perhaps it was time to be pragmatic and do what was necessary.
“Are you asking me to be your queen?”
“Yes,” he said, and her eyebro
ws rose. “I know it’s sudden, and not at all romantic, and you deserve better—”
“We both know this isn’t a love match.”
He nodded. “Perhaps we could spend some time together until Veris, and… unless you form the desire to throw rocks at me, we could then set things in motion?”
He would tell her the whole truth before the ball, and if she still agreed, then the kingdom would have what it needed. And… in two to three years… he could leave Emaurria in her hands, couldn’t he?
With a pensive smile, she nodded. “That sounds reasonable.”
He stood from the armchair. “Care for a walk in the courtyard tomorrow?”
Chapter 37
The late-morning sun beamed the searing desert heat onto Rielle’s skin. Her head tucked into the crook of Brennan’s arm, she stared at the tamarisk’s slender branches swaying in the wind. Small leaf scales enshrined tiny twigs, and like little evergreen feathers, they fluttered softly.
Or perhaps she did.
She glanced at her fingers, trembling, fluttering like the leaves in the wind. Anima withdrawal.
She had nothing left. One last spell that would take her life.
The fires had died in the night. None of the defeated warriors had moved. All dead.
How many hours had it been? Ten? Twelve?
She pulled Brennan’s cold arm tighter around her and blinked away tears. The day moved on, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t bring herself to move at all, no more than she could stand the thought of leaving him here alone.
He’d loved her.
Proud, conceited, stupid wolf. She bit back a sob. He should have let them come. He should have run. He should have stayed alive.
But he was gone. She chewed her lower lip, fighting the urge to weep. It didn’t matter. The tears came whether she fought them or not. She wanted to be with him, stay until the Great Wolf himself came and claimed him, forever if she had to. So he wouldn’t be alone. He would have wanted her to leave him here, to go home to safety, so his sacrifice wouldn’t be wasted.
By Dark Deeds (Blade and Rose Book 2) Page 38