An amused smile was his reply.
Of course she cared, but it was even more than that… It was—
There was a knock on the door, and she heaved a sigh. Thank the Divine. She grabbed for a napkin and blotted her chest.
“Enter,” Brennan called, not taking his eyes off her. No small favors, then.
A serving boy shuffled in and handed him a small folded note. Brennan paid him, and the boy left.
Brennan opened it and read. “Well, can you make it through tonight without resonance?”
She nodded. “What does it say?”
He handed it to her. “That there will be a mage aboard. The captain. And the quartermaster has made it clear that the captain would be happy to oblige a beautiful mage needing resonance.”
She raised an eyebrow at him, her cheeks afire. “What exactly did you promise him?!”
He chuckled. “Definitely not that.”
Scoffing, she read the note herself. “Why does it say ‘beautiful’?”
He shrugged. “I might have said ‘my beautiful wife requires resonance.’ Or something.” He shrugged again and looked away.
Wife. He’d presented them as a married couple… all too close to their lengthy history together. Had things gone a little differently, today they would have been married for seven years.
But who would her husband have been? The sweet boy she’d once fallen in love with? The vengeful spurned lover of just months ago? Or the mature man before her now?
And after all the lies and deception, could this newfound maturity of his—such as it was—even be trusted?
He died for me. His sacrifice had ended the confusion. Completely. No, she could harbor no more doubts. If he wanted to ensure his survival by breaking the curse, getting himself killed did not achieve that. Not unless he knew he’d been coming back.
She held in a breath. Had he? Could he have known?
“What is it?” He leaned in.
“Just wondering what to do with this new you.”
A mischievous smile tugged at his mouth. “Love me.”
Mature. “Idiot.”
He leaned back in his chair and threaded his fingers together behind his head. “What’s there to do? I was a complete asshole, for which I can never sufficiently apologize, but I realized why. And how stupid I was. And I want to make amends.” All traces of mischief had vanished.
“That simple?”
“That simple.”
Never sufficiently apologize. Indeed, his coldness since she’d joined the Divinity would have been forgivable, if not for that exercise in malice that was Midwinter at Tregarde three years ago. And the constant threat and violence with which he’d treated her since. There were acts that words could never excuse. And a Marcel did not apologize.
She turned to her lamb, prune, and almond tagine and ate quietly. “You haven’t, you know.”
As he cleared his plate, he raised a brow and swallowed. He swabbed his mouth with a napkin. “Haven’t…?”
“Apologized.”
An intense glare speared her, but in the stillness, that intensity slowly abandoned his face. A quiet clinking, and he glanced at her hand. The fork in it hit the plate as she shook. He inhaled a contemplative breath.
She set down the fork.
He shot up from his chair and rounded the table, took her hand, and knelt. Softly, he caressed her knuckles, her fingers, and brought her palm to the side of his face, where he kissed it gingerly. Her mind went blank, and ethereal fingers curled around her nape, coaxing a shiver.
“I know I have no right to ask your forgiveness, so I won’t… but I am sorry.” He lowered her hand and held it gently. “If I could take it all back, I would.”
A Marcel did not apologize. “You’re not just sorry because you want the curse broken?”
He shook his head and sighed. “I don’t even care about the curse breaking anymore.”
And grapes had grown on the willows. She eyed him warily. Words were easy, and this didn’t make up for that public humiliation at Tregarde. She wasn’t sure what ever would. But if he’d had a change of heart, truly changed, she wouldn’t ignore that either. “This really isn’t some sort of ploy?”
“I understand if you don’t believe me. But I’m taking you home to Jon. And I’m going to back off. Give you all the space and distance you want from me.” His hazel eyes were soft, sincere. Rare. “I won’t interfere. Not unless you wish it.”
Wish it? Her? She straightened in her chair. “Well, I won’t.”
“That’s fine.” He rose and looked toward the bed. “Come on. We have an early start tomorrow.”
She nodded and made her way to the other side of the bed. Across its vast expanse, he stood and watched her, just as she watched him. An ache took form inside her, shifted in an imperfect vessel. It didn’t belong. This look shared between them was a lost future, a forgotten dream where this was normal.
Lost. Forgotten.
“I am not sleeping on the floor.” He anchored a hand on his hip. “So don’t even ask.”
Shaking her head, she climbed into bed. “Nothing untoward.”
“I didn’t offer, did I?” He blew out the lamp and then joined her.
“I’m just making that clear.” She wriggled closer but slammed her arm down between them.
He scoffed. “The arm barrier is clear. Crystal clear.”
“Shut up,” she whispered, and yawned.
“You first.” A smile laced his voice.
Brennan was sorry… and didn’t care about the curse breaking?
Blinking sluggishly, she snuggled against the pillow and faced the window, catching a glimpse of the starry sky.
She’d been gullible before and believed ludicrous words, believed them because they fell from Brennan Karandis Marcel’s coveted lips, and the price for that gullibility had been hard, brutal, cold. A lesson. And it had smarted.
His words were as ludicrous now—more so—but the lesson’s smarting had faded. Just a little bit. Despite the hardness, the brutality, the coldness before, she wanted to believe these words now. She wanted to believe them because they fell from Brennan Karandis Marcel’s…
Chapter 39
By the light of a Gaze crystal, Leigh recorded the last bits of oral history he’d learned of the dragons. He paused only to knot his long hair at his nape and sip the tisane of blackthorn, hawthorn, and mountain ash the light-elves so favored. It was magnificent, if one enjoyed bitterly astringent notes too far removed to be called flavors. Personally, he’d have much preferred using the blackthorn sloes to make gin.
Ah, gin. And wine. Necessities so ubiquitous everywhere so as to be considered expected—that is, not considered at all—but the light-elves defied expectation. Tragically.
He dipped his quill in the inkwell. The dragons had once been the dominant civilization and had welcomed all to their cities, great centers of learning. Visitors stayed in towers—towers he, and the Divinity, knew all too well. The dragons’ seat of power, Khar’shil, was destroyed by the ancient wild mages after betraying the last dragon king, Nyeris, and binding him to a bell, of all things. Bound, to be summoned with purpose and banished as desired by the keepers of the Bell of Khar’shil, he could be called to appear at Veris, a magical time of equal day and night.
Bound… Summoned… Resurrected. Dark, dark sangremancy.
Leigh removed his spectacles and leaned back in his branches—tree-sung seat—whatever.
Once upon a time, before he’d opened the never-ending box of dreams and horrors, the assertion of resurrection would have been ludicrous. But the ludicrous had become real, and if any impossibilities yet existed—or did not exist… he could never decide on the semantics—he would never again be so foolish as to name them.
This secret knowledge of the light-elves could not be made public, and if any tomes yet existed containing it, better they remain forgotten and undiscovered. Any fool who might have rung the Bell of Khar’shil with the right ingredients
and ritual could have unleashed an ancient power—if not for the Sundering. But now, with the Rift, it could be done… with the power of this page.
He shook his head. It seemed as though the world had expanded, but it had always been there, vast, only shrouded. The Rift had torn open that shroud, revealed the vastness for all to see. Peoples who wanted survival and peace, or death and war. Alliances or feuds.
The Rift had torn open that shroud.
No… He had.
Footsteps plodded behind him. Metallic. Armored. Paladin.
“Ambassador.” Sir Marin paused before him and lowered all that bulk he called a chest into a bow. “Word from Trèstellan.” He held out a small missive in the rolling plain of his palm.
Leigh accepted it. “Thanks.”
Sir Marin nodded, the slightest crease on his middle-aged brow betraying his worry.
With good reason. This one piece of parchment could mean war for the entire kingdom.
As Sir Marin left the hollow, Leigh burst open the missive. He quickly read through the pages of finely sloped script—Jon’s.
No hot-headed rush to battle. Naturally.
It was the light-elves who had begun to treat in bad faith, withholding the true state of their security. Or lack thereof.
In exchange for the elven oath ritual, Jon wanted an emissary sent to court to advise about the Earthbinding. Favorable terms… for the Emaurrians.
Ingenious, really. The demand that Jon participate in an oath ritual—rather than be taken at his word to remain a loyal ally—might have translated to a perception of Emaurria in a weakened position. Or so the posturing would have indicated.
But Jon—or his Council—had correctly read the martial situation as desperate. Emaurria had options in choosing an alliance, but the light-elves faced imminent annihilation. Disparate stakes.
And yet the offer was fair. The Emaurrians and the light-elves remained united in defending against the Immortal beasts preying upon the populace. And with the light-elves holding the requisite knowledge about the Earthbinding and the Immortals, those bargaining chips remained to compel Emaurria to assist in defeating the dark-elves.
Jon had once been a paladin. Certainly he’d not let innocents simply die. Paladins had a poor stomach for injustice.
And finally: Once diplomatic options with the dark-elves have been exhausted, Emaurria shall openly commit to an entente to act with the full force of our military should the dark-elf queendom known as Stonehaven commit an act of war upon either Vervewood or Emaurria.
Pages with diplomatic parameters. Leigh memorized them and then burned them.
He was to treat with the dark-elves.
Ambriel would not be pleased, but Emaurria needed the truth of the matter directly.
Leigh sighed. And Jon trusted him to learn that truth from the queen of Stonehaven.
“Guard,” he called. There was always at least one paladin posted at the entrance to his hollow.
Sir Marin strode back in. “Ambassador?”
“Would you be so kind as to ask after the captain for me? It seems we have some pressing matters to attend to.”
“My orders are to guard you, sir.”
Naturally. Stick-in-the-mud. Or, in Sir Marin’s case, branch in the mud. Trunk in the mud. Divine’s tits—tree in the mud.
“Very well.” Leigh rose, pulled his hair free of the knot, and left his spectacles upon the table. “Then guard me as I call on the captain.”
“Yes, sir.”
He strode past Sir Marin and made his way to Ambriel’s tree hollow. It was time to draft a message to the prickly queen of the Stonehaven dark-elves…
And determine whether Emaurria would take peace by quill or by blade.
Watchful through earthsight, Leigh waited in the frosty clearing beneath the waning moon’s light, surrounded by a squad of paladins. Nearby, Sir Marin peered into the darkness like a wary hound. Well, in his case, mastiff.
As the wind blew by, the fur of Leigh’s hood tickled his cheek. In this third month of Ventos, the sensible wind would have merely breezed by, teasing the grasses like a bard among maidens at a wedding. But the sensible wind, it seemed, had extended its holiday in the sensible world of yesteryear, along with the grasses and the thaw.
He kicked up a bit of hardened snow. Patience had never been one of his strong suits. And these dark-elves—making him wait—tried his very thin iteration of that suit.
It’s a massive risk to go, Ambriel had said after the dark-elf queen had replied favorably. Dangerous.
He’d be meeting with the queen’s Quorum—her inner circle of warriors. Dark-elf queens came from the Quorum, challenged sitting queens who fell short of their duties. Single combat. Only one of the Quorum or another ruler could issue the challenge.
If the queen was fierce, her Quorum were just as intimidating.
I inhale risk and exhale danger, Leigh had replied as he’d left with his paladin guards. It had been the correct answer, honest and unquestionably suave, but the look in Ambriel’s eyes as he’d departed had been… mournful.
The light-elves faced constant threat from the dark-elves, that much was certain, but how many of the dark-elves were there? In a war, how many Emaurrians and light-elves would die? Could the losses be avoided with some diplomacy?
If there was risk, someone had to take it. Even if it didn’t end with peace, he would at least have some reconnaissance to share with Courdeval—and Ambriel.
Besides, as Jon had written, the kingdom couldn’t go to war without first attempting peace.
Even if Ambriel had considered it a suicide mission, there’d been no other option but to go. At least one man.
And yet, here he stood, surrounded by paladins.
“I don’t understand it,” Leigh murmured in Sir Marin’s general direction. “You really didn’t have to come along.”
Sir Marin grunted but didn’t divert from his stare into the dark. “And you didn’t have to save those innocents.”
The light-elves in the attack? “It was the right thing to do.”
Sir Marin’s eyes half-mooned in what passed for a smile. “Then you do understand, Ambassador.”
Ah, paladins. Sir Marin was here for far greater reasons than Jon’s orders or—a half-laugh escaped him—the Order’s orders. These paladins were here for right.
Leigh swept off his hood, tossed his hair. They may have stood common ground, yes, but the mages did so in style.
A dozen forms closed in, bright figures of luminescent anima in the darkness of the forest. Careful. Predictable. They wouldn’t arrive without scouting the surrounding area for light-elves.
And they wouldn’t want to meet in an open area that could be attacked.
It seemed he and the paladins were to go on a trip.
“Do not fight unless they draw first blood,” Leigh hissed to the paladins. “We’re about to be ambushed.”
While the paladins stiffened, Leigh dispelled his earthsight. They couldn’t risk all-out war because of some jitters among a small group.
Several lithe forms materialized from the brush, clad in black leather armor from head to foot. In the slit of shadow between hood and mask, only the hint of honey-hued eyes reflected the moonlight.
The paladins didn’t move.
One figure took a few wary steps forward, a shallow, white-hot scar slashed across her lavender nose. “Ambassador?” A harsh, thickly accented voice, undoubtedly feminine. And speaking Emaurrian. Surprising.
Leigh inclined his head.
Those honey-hued eyes narrowed nearly to disappearance. “I… Captain Varvara.” She traced from her belly to her mouth with a black-gloved hand. “All you… and we.”
He nodded, and she mirrored his gesture, then motioned to her squad. They advanced, withdrawing black shrouds.
“Ambassador—” Sir Marin began.
“Do not resist,” he answered, as Captain Varvara herself shrouded him. He sucked in a sharp breath, but it tasted—
> He frowned, taking a step forward only to stagger and knock into the dark-elf bracing him.
There was a musty sort of—
Divine’s tits. He swayed, the blackness of the shroud becoming his own.
Chapter 40
Arms crossed, Olivia stood in Jon’s study, waiting for something to happen. They’d been practicing force magic since lunch, with nothing to show for it. That seemed to be the way of things for her lately, given the investigation about the courier. But she’d be damned if she failed to teach Jon a repulsion shield.
The Faralles’ magic learning had been her responsibility; Jon’s magical ability was her responsibility. At the very least, he had to learn how to defend himself.
Jon repeated the repulsion-shield gesture, his fingers out, spread properly, but nothing happened. Growling under his breath, he loosened the collar of his deepest-blue doublet, then raked his fingers through his hair.
In moments like these, he reminded her so much of James, and afternoons they’d spent debating legislation, the kingdom’s latest hot topics, and sharing their ideas. His determination, his intensity.
He tried again, to no effect.
She opened her mouth, but he clasped his hands behind his back and strode past her to the window, his lips pressed in a firm line, as if they held back an invasion of frustrated words.
Slowly, she approached him and paused next to him, looking out at the snow-covered roofs of Courdeval.
“This isn’t working, Olivia. I’m just not cut out to be a mage.”
“That’s not true,” she replied. “You’ve managed some magic before, such as—” Such as in the solar, when the spiritualist had told him about Rielle. She cleared her throat. “I have faith in you, but… you have to focus.”
He glared at her. “I am focusing.”
“No, you’re not. And no amount of glaring is going to change the truth.”
He held her gaze for a searing moment, then sighed and looked back out at the city. “Tell me again.”
About focus. He’d asked her several times, and she’d always obliged. “Magic doesn’t come from your hands, but the rune you map with a gesture. Casting spells requires focus… threading your anima into a shape, into words. With shapes, you can draw a rune physically, or you can visualize it and map it with your hands. A repulsion shield’s rune has five points that diverge from a center… and you map it by spreading your fingertips. Are you visualizing it?”
By Dark Deeds (Blade and Rose Book 2) Page 41