by K.M. Weiland
Chapter Thirty-Six
By the time Chris made it back through the crowds to the palace, the sun had set in smudge of gray light on the horizon. The palace buzzed with talk, most of it about Nateros’s accusations against Allara. When he asked the doormen about her, their eyes turned opaque and they shook their heads and backed away.
On his way up the big staircase, he unslung his cape and handed it back to Parry. Anger burned in his gut. A dithery young nobleman had stopped him in the main hall to ask, all innocence, if he had heard the rumors that the Princess Allara was Mactalde’s mistress. Only Parry’s clutch at his arm under the guise of pulling his glove free stopped him from slugging the peach fuzz right off the idiot’s face.
“I can’t believe this,” he growled.
Parry chattered, probably trying to distract him. “It really was a lovely day. Lovely, wasn’t it? And speaking of lovely, your sister—if it’s not forward of me to say so—is a vision. No, that’s not right, she’s the dream of a vision, is what she is. She’d fit right in here at court, fine as any noble lady.”
Chris ignored him. “No one would have the guts to let these rumors spread if the king were here.”
“But she’s not a noble lady, right? Even though she’s related to you. I mean, because you’re only a lord by accident, so to speak. So, maybe it wouldn’t be all that improper for me to call on—”
Chris stopped short and turned around. Parry skidded to a halt and leaned back to keep from bumping into him.
Chris caught the kid’s arm to keep him from toppling. “Where would Allara usually be this time of the evening?” He doubted she had taken his advice and stayed in bed like a good patient.
Parry screwed up his face. “You know, all this talk we’ve been hearing . . . you don’t think it’s true, do you?”
“Of course it’s not true! You honestly believe a Searcher would betray you?”
Parry shrugged. “Well . . . I don’t, you know. But there are lots of folks what’d like to blame her for stuff.”
Chris gave him a shake. “Don’t say that to my face again. If you want to go anywhere near my sister, then you prove to me you’re man enough to stand against slander, no matter whose or how many mouths it’s spewing out of. You got me?”
Parry’s head bobbed up and down. “Yes, sir. I don’t believe it, not a word. I was just asking because I wanted to be sure.”
“I’m sure. Is that good enough for you?”
Another head bob. “Yes. Absolutely. Now I’m sure too.” He cleared his throat. “Um, if she’s not in her quarters, perhaps she’s with Lord Thyra.” He pointed down the hall.
Chris released him and turned away.
Parry exhaled audibly, then called after him, “Your clothes are all dusty. Don’t you want to change them before dinner?”
“No.” He glanced back as he walked away. “Parry.”
“Aye?”
“If anybody says any of that garbage to you again, you break his nose.”
“Um, okay. Unless he’s bigger’n me.”
Chris kept going until he found Eroll’s room in the south wing.
A bespectacled surgeon’s aide answered his knock. He straightened his shoulders in recognition. “Lord Thyra’s awake right now, but he’s in and out of consciousness. Since it’s you, I’ll give you a few minutes. But please don’t rouse him too much.” He gave his head a shake and his wiry hair flopped against his temples. “Somehow or other, he’s heard these ghastly whisperings about her highness. It hasn’t done him any good, I assure you.”
At the end of the room, near the balcony door, a canopied bed rested in shadows. Beneath the coverlet, Eroll lay on his stomach, one hand on the pillow beside his face. His breath raised the sheet in little puffs. The bedclothes had been drawn up to his chin, but the white swathe of the bandage was visible across his shoulder. Perspiration pearled the flush of his skin and darkened his fair hair.
As Chris approached, his eyes fluttered open. He stared for a moment, then the corner of his mouth lifted. “There you are, old fellow.”
Here Chris was, whole and standing, while Eroll lay there a broken wreck. He stopped next to the bed. “I’m glad to see you awake.”
The gray hollow of Eroll’s cheek quivered in a laugh. “To be perfectly frank, sleep’s better. Hurts like the devil to be awake.” His words slurred.
Chris shifted. “What’s the doctor say?”
“Oh, he says I’ll pull through. Of course, they tell you that when you’re dying same as not.” His eyelids drifted shut, but he smiled again, as if to be reassuring. “I hear tell I wouldn’t be here a’tall if not for you.”
Chris fingered his doublet’s bottom buckle. “If not for me, you wouldn’t have been shot in the first place.” If he could snap his fingers and make it happen, he would trade places with Eroll in a second. His stomach twisted. “I’m sorry. You were a friend when I didn’t deserve one. And this is what I do to you.”
“Don’t be daft. Koraud has been wanting to mount the head of a Thyrian duke in their throne room for eons. Hardly your fault they don’t like the cut of my jib.”
This wasn’t a forgiveness Chris merited. Risking himself to save Eroll after the fact was small recompense for the pain Eroll had endured and the death he still faced. But how was he supposed to reject the only gift of a man flat out in bed from a shot in the back?
He cleared his throat. “I’ll let you get your rest now. You’ll pull through in no time and be ready to deliver the death blow to the Koraudian army when the time comes.”
“Can’t ruddy wait.” Eroll took a careful breath and opened his eyes. “What’s this I hear about Allara? They’re saying she’s betrayed Lael, aren’t they?”
Chris hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. But she didn’t.”
“’Course she didn’t. But at the moment, we might be the only two people in Glen Arden to believe that. There are those who have been waiting a very long time to destroy her. This is their chance, and they know it.”
“I promise I’ll keep her safe for you.”
Eroll focused on him from the corner of his eye. “Keep her safe for her own sake. She needs someone in her life, you know. A man to take care of her. She never would let me do it properly. Might just be she’ll let you.” He raised his fingers from the pillow. “She’s out on the balcony. I think she’s waiting for you.”
Chris dug around for a response and found he didn’t have one. So she and Eroll weren’t an item after all? But an Allara whose heart was free still didn’t mean she was an Allara who would ever let him inside her walls.
Footsteps padded in the carpet behind, and the surgeon’s aide approached. “I think it would be best if we let Lord Thyra rest now.” He gestured to where the surgeon was wheeling in a tray of equipment. “Doctor Vanoy has come.”
Chris leaned forward to give Eroll’s wrist a squeeze, then crossed to the balcony’s glass doors and pushed through. The wind blew against his face, carrying both the hum of the city and the faraway thud of artillery at Ballion.
On the balcony ledge in the corner, Allara sat with her back against the wall and her knees drawn up in front of her.
He walked to the end of balcony, across from her, and tried on a smile. “There you are. What are you doing out here?”
She held one arm out, and her long scarlet sleeve spread in the breeze like a wing. “Trying to fly away. I came out to be alone.”
“I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“You didn’t intrude. I knew you were coming.” The dark blue of her bodice and skirt blended with the night. Her face was still pale, but the gaunt look of pain had faded. “I can feel you, you know.”
“What?”
She spared a tiny smile. “In my head. I feel your presence. That’s how the Searchers are able to find the Gifted.”
He tried to absorb that. “What’s it like?”
“Different.” She tilted her head back and forth as if trying to think of a way to explain it. “
It’s like sharing your mind with someone. I can sense an essence of who you are. Sometimes I catch hints of what you’re feeling, thinking.”
Instinctively, he tried to damp his thoughts and pull them away from her. She laughed softly, and he tried harder.
“I’m sorry.” She sounded like she meant it. “I shouldn’t have told you.”
He gave up and released his thoughts. If she’d been reading his mind all this time, it hardly mattered if he couldn’t hide it from her now.
“Seems like that puts you at an unfair advantage,” he said.
“Perhaps I need an advantage.” When she smiled, her exhaustion showed through the cracks.
“You shouldn’t be out here with a concussion.”
The glow from Eroll’s room masked her face: her features half in the light, half in the dark.
“I’ve had concussions before. I know how much I can handle.”
“From the sound of things, you’re going to have to handle a lot.” He wished the words back as soon as he’d said them. If she didn’t know what the city was saying about her, so much the better.
Her smile faded. “You’ve heard the rumors?”
“Yes, unfortunately.” He couldn’t help a note of bitterness. “And the people are scarfing it down without a second thought.”
“All they needed to vilify me was an excuse.” She stared past him at the glitter of the cityscape. “It doesn’t take long for rumors to become fact around here.”
“So what’s all this mean for you?”
“I’ve had death threats on my head since I was a child. Doesn’t matter. The people don’t have to love or even respect me. So long as they trust you, that’s the important thing.”
“You must have laws to protect you against slander.”
“How do you know it’s slander?” Her features were perfectly still. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she was asking the question seriously.
“You don’t really think I believe you’re a traitor?”
“You can’t know I didn’t do what they’re saying I did.”
“I know it.”
She clasped her hands in her lap. “You’re the only person who’s said that to me all day.”
“What about Quinnon and Esta?”
“The point is no one said it.”
The fine bones of her face creased hard in her face. Moonlight flickered through the racing clouds and turned her skin to the color of a washed-out star. She usually wore her hair in a braid or coiled on top of her head to keep it from the wind. But tonight it hung over her shoulders, halfway down her back, and the dark strands that would have swirled with red and gold in the daylight now looked as if they had been spun from the night.
He spread his hands on the balustrade behind him and leaned back, watching her. This woman had been born to the uppermost echelon of society. She had been bred to a world of sophistication and charm, a world where women were not only allowed but expected to take part in the best things. Had she chosen not to shoulder every last particle of her burden as Searcher, she could have spent her life swirling across marble floors, dancing in silken gowns, and bringing courtier after courtier to his knees in pursuit of her. The lines around her eyes and her mouth could have been laugh lines instead of worry scars.
He cleared his throat. “What happened to Yemas?”
“He’ll be dismissed from the Guard certainly. Perhaps put on trial for perjury. But not likely, since we won’t want to create a stir. He didn’t technically do anything wrong. He believed what he said about me was true.”
“Nateros must have puréed his brains. I’d like to kick his teeth in.” Maybe she was right about needing an advantage, because he could see every thought in her face. “You look surprised. Why does that surprise you?”
“People don’t go around wanting to kick in other people’s teeth for me.”
“Don’t give me that. You’re a princess—and a Searcher. You could get anybody to do whatever you want.”
She shook head. Her face had a soft quality, an openness. Aside from when she’d been unconscious, he’d never seen her with her guard down this far. She almost looked happy he’d want to beat up Yemas for her, which somehow made him want to do it all the more.
She was a difficult woman to impress, and, up to now, his skill sets in this world hadn’t been of a quality that measured up. But, right now, he couldn’t help feeling she was pleased with him. Even more than that, she seemed to be reaching out to him for something.
Reassurance maybe? She wouldn’t have to reach very far for that. He was already proud of her. She was brave and courageous and honorable. He’d beat up a scumbag like Yemas for her any day.
She must have caught a glimmer of his thoughts, or maybe it was just his smile. She looked away and cleared her throat.
He eyed her, then spoke before he could give himself time to think. “Your life didn’t exactly turn out the way you thought it would, did it?”
She darted him a glance. “I suppose if we could control our destinies, all our lives would be much different.” She rubbed at her crooked finger.
He ambled toward her. “I would never have chosen . . . this. Any of it. If I’d been given a choice about it, I would have thrown it all away. But I’m realizing this is my world as much as it is yours. It’s my kingdom, my home.”
He stopped beside the railing and looked up at her. “I never thought I’d get another chance with my family. And I certainly never thought I’d meet someone like you. And here I have.”
In the darkness, her eyes shimmered.
The clouds overhead rumbled, and the rain began to mist once again.
“You should go to bed,” he said. “You’re crazy to be out here at all.”
She swung her legs over the edge of the railing. “I didn’t know what crazy was until I met you.”
He grinned. “Is that a compliment? Don’t tell me the ice princess is melting.”
“What?”
“That mask you like to wear. All ice and stone.”
She tensed. “What makes you think it’s a mask?”
He took her hands and helped her step down. “Every once in a while, out of the corner of my eye, I catch you without it.” He almost left it at that, but something made him go on. “You’re happier without it.”
She stood in front of him, not quite meeting his look. She was fighting to keep her shields up, to keep him in his old comfortable place at arm’s length.
“Happier, perhaps.” She looked up. “But not safer.”
“Sometimes safety isn’t worth the exchange.” He watched her, daring her to look away.
“You think you can sacrifice your safety and find happiness?”
“Sometimes you have to take a risk every now and then, just to prove you’re still alive.” On impulse, he brushed a strand of hair out of her face.
She stared at him, her lips parted. Ever since the day he had met her, she had thrown up layer after icy layer to keep him from understanding her. She had stood unmoving in the face of every kind of physical danger. Her shields had resisted the battering of a thousand people from every side. And now all it took to breach her defenses was a touch?
For a moment, he thought he might kiss her. She needed to be kissed; she needed to be loved. She deserved to have someone hold her in his arms and protect her from a world that had betrayed her at every turn.
“So much is happening right now.” He slid the strand back behind her ear. “I suppose it’s probably not the best time for me to fall in love with you.”
She breathed out, hard. “This isn’t—”
He hadn’t intended to talk about this right now. He wasn’t sure he had intended to talk about it ever. But it was out now, and he needed her to respond, one way or the other.
“But—” he began.
The double doors to Eroll’s room banged open, and Quinnon stepped outside. His good eye found them in the corner.
“There you are.” His mouth tightened. “If yo
u’re going to Ballion in the morning, I need a word with you.” He headed back indoors, then glanced at Allara. “And you get back to bed.”
Chris turned to her.
She had broken eye contact and stepped away from him. With both hands, she pushed her hair back from her face. Erasing his touch? But when she looked up, her face was clear. She gave a little nod. The moment had passed, and they both knew it. But at least she wasn’t running.
He stepped back. They would talk about this later, sometime when they weren’t distracted by everything else and she wasn’t half dead on her feet.
He wet his lips. “I’ll try to see you in the morning before I leave.” He turned to go.
Her hand snagged his wrist. “Chris.”
He looked back.
Just as quickly, she let him go and pulled her hand back to herself. For once, he couldn’t quite read her face.
“Thank you,” she said. “For not believing what Nateros is saying.”
He smiled. “You’re welcome.” For now, he would have to leave it at that.
He left her and passed through Eroll’s rooms.
As soon as Chris closed the door behind him, Quinnon stepped out of the shadows in the globe-lit corridor. “What’s this about you being off to Ballion tomorrow morning?”
“My father’s going with me. I’ve told the Guard to admit him to the palace tomorrow.”
Quinnon waved off the information. “Her highness and I won’t be going with you.”
“I figured as much. She needs a few days to heal up before she goes anywhere.” He regarded the old fighter. Even hunched with his bad shoulder and his hands hanging empty at his sides, he looked dangerous. “That isn’t what you wanted to talk to me about.”
Quinnon worked his jaw. “Something’s not right. About you, about this whole imbalance.” He pointed to a window, streaked with freezing rain. “You say Mactalde’s causing it, but that makes no sense.”
“The Garowai said it. Not me.”
“What you think the Garowai said isn’t always what he did say.” He studied Chris. “If this imbalance keeps on like it is, it could end up making our little war seem like a Commemorating Ball. There’s a lot more necks than just yours on the line here. You’re sure there’s nothing you’re not telling us about Mactalde crossing over?”
Quinnon was a brave man, and maybe even a wise one. But the one thing Chris had learned about him was that if you wanted any chance of having your respect returned, you didn’t back down. Ever.
“It happened the way I told you.” This time, he was the one who closed the distance between them by a full step. “If I knew another way to fix this thing, I’d do it.”
Quinnon didn’t look convinced, but at least his expression didn’t accuse Chris of lying. He gave a nod of dismissal, but as Chris started down the hall, his voice stopped him. “One other thing. You’re here to do a job. That’s the only reason you’re in this palace. You do anything to hurt her, and I swear to you, I will break your back.”
Chris looked at him. “I know it.”