They had much to learn from each other, and it soothed her insecurities as she recognized it.
In the evening, they’d return with tired voices and sunburned skin to the castle to have dinner with their family and new king. Edvard insisted on having family dinners, which of course included Gwen. Seven years old she might be, but she ruled the roost. Every sibling she had would do anything for her.
Even, apparently, start a rebellion.
The peace, unfortunately, was short-lived. Riana and Ash came back in after a long day outside, entering the informal dining room—Riana still couldn’t figure out how any part of the room was ‘informal’—to find that everyone else was there and seated. The mood of the room was oppressive, grim even. Edvard’s jaw was set in such a way that suggested he contemplated murder. Ashlynn looked ready to help him.
Her eyes went to her da and found him rubbing at both temples, fighting off a headache. “Do I want to know?” she ventured uncertainly.
“No,” Edvard responded, tone flat. “But you need to. Sit down, both of you. Which news would you like first? They come in ranking of bad and worse.”
She and Ash shared a look, not liking the sound of this at all, as they took their usual seats at the round table. Miss Haley must have sensed that no one was in the mood to eat, as the table was clear of everything except a plain white tablecloth. There were no dishes set up on the sideboard either. Even the wall scones seemed to give off a more muted light that usual.
“I think I want the bad news first,” Ash finally stated.
“We’ve got spies in Estole stirring up trouble,” his twin answered, fingers tapping out an irritated rhythm on the wood.
“Spies?!” Riana spluttered.
Ashlynn waved this away. “No, we knew that we had spies months ago. It would be unnatural, really, for Iysh to not plant a few spies and keep track of what we’re doing. But before this, they were quiet and intent on just gathering information. We didn’t see that they were really doing anything. Until the last few days, that is.”
Ash’s brows drew together in a worried frown. “So what have they been doing?”
“Stirring up trouble,” Broden repeated wearily. “They be making up lies and rumors about the new laws, convincing folk that the laws are worse than the Bindings. Half of it be utter rot. The other half be a twisted version of the truth. All of it makes a man’s head hurt trying to untangle it.”
“The first day the laws came out, there was some negative reaction to it,” Ashlynn explained. “But Broden figured out quickly that they just didn’t understand them. So we broke them down, explained them to people, made sure that it was clear in everyone’s minds. But yesterday, it was clear that they weren’t confused—they were going off of hearsay. What they were parroting to us wasn’t anything close to the laws posted. This morning it became obvious. Someone is deliberately trying to convince people that Edvard’s new laws are worse than the Bindings.”
“It has come to blows more than once,” Broden added sourly, “and a minor riot here or there.”
Riana now understood the general feeling of the room. Not to mention the desire to strangle someone. “So what can be done?”
“Not a thing.” Ash rubbed at his face with both palms as he spoke. “How does a man fight rumors? He can’t. Not even a king can. Eventually they’ll die down on their own, but we’ll have to constantly prove over the next few weeks that the rumors are false. It’ll be frustrating, to say the least.”
“It might slow the tide on immigrants, though, which would be a blessing,” Ashlynn joked in black humor.
Well, true. Riana sensed that the problem with rumors was nothing more than the surface of the trouble. “If that be the bad news, what be the worst?”
“King Zelman finally made a move.” Edvard’s rage was palpable, a living thing that pulsed with every word he spoke. “He’s been quiet since the last army was defeated. I should have known it meant he was up to something.”
That answered the question, and yet didn’t. Her eyes went to Ashlynn in question.
Ashlynn’s eyes were on her brother. “Ash. They’ve taken our sisters.”
Ash exploded from the table, hands slamming down on the surface and making everyone jump. “WHAT?!”
“He has Bria, Catriona and Darisa,” Ashlynn rasped, eyes bright with unshed tears. “We don’t know where he’s put them yet. He just sent a messenger to us that said he has them, and if we want them safely returned to their families, then we will comply with his demands.”
“His unreasonable and unlawful demands,” Edvard snarled. “And does he really think that I’m stupid enough to fall for that? He’ll never let me see them again. No, he’ll hide them away somewhere, and use them as leverage against me until he has me completely cowed. Then he’ll likely—” he clamped his mouth shut abruptly and glanced down at Gwen, who was listening to this conversation with wide, terrified eyes. Realizing he was scaring his sister, he put an arm around her shoulders and drew her to him. “Gwen. I swear to you I’ll bring them back. They’ll be home again, safe, before you know it.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Ash objected, belatedly taking his seat again. “Right now we’re standing on a tenuous foundation. You, as king, cannot afford to harry off to some other part of the world for weeks at a time. We’re barely managing as it is.”
Edvard, aware of Gwen, didn’t leap for Ash’s throat as he obviously wanted to. Instead he spoke through clenched teeth. “I’m not abandoning them, Ash.”
“I never said you would,” Ash riposted, equally irritated. “Edvard, what do you think you have Court Wizards for?”
He blinked. Then blinked again, mouth opening and closing without a sound.
“Edvard,” Ashlynn chided in exasperation, “are we not your eyes, your ears, your mouthpiece? Are we not an extension of you when you need for us to be? Of course we should go in your stead. This is one situation where you won’t be of much help anyway. Wherever Zelman has put our sisters is going to be heavily fortified. That’s obvious. It’s going to take a wizard to break in to get them. I can guarantee that.”
Gwen unwound herself from Edvard’s side enough to ask in a small voice, “You’ll go get them?”
“You bet.” Ashlynn gave her a cocky smile. “And I’ll hammer the idiots that dared to take them in the first place.”
There was apparently no doubt in Gwen’s mind that Ashlynn would do just that. She released her death grip on Edvard and sat up in her own seat.
Riana had to admit that both of them made valid arguments. The only question that stood was, “So which of us needs to go?”
The twins looked at each other as if neither of them had thought to ask that question.
“You’re building a wall around the city,” Ashlynn told Ash.
“Yes, well, you’re the Sheriff of Estole. Can you really afford to go away for weeks?” Ash riposted.
“I’m better at dismantling wards than you are,” Ashlynn argued.
“And I’ve got faster attack spells than you do.”
“And I be thinking, it be no’ yer decision to make, either of ye,” Broden interrupted them. “Edvard, it be yer choice.”
Edvard’s eyes darted between the two of them, obviously at a loss. “You’re both talented. I know that I could leave this in either one of your hands and you’ll succeed. I don’t know how to choose between you.”
“Edvard, I can always get a substitute for a few weeks,” Ashlynn said in a persuasive tone. “Bragdon is basically my left hand out there in the city. He knows it as well as I do. I trust him to run things while I’m gone.”
“Bragdon’s a good man,” Edvard allowed. “He’s been one of my captains for years. But still…”
“The wall doesn’t have to come up right now either,” Ash added. “It can be delayed a week or so while I go get them.”
“I’m not sure I agree on that.” Ashlynn shook her head slowly. “How do we know that Zelman isn’t doing this on
purpose? Think about it. He knows that Edvard won’t sit still. He’ll either go himself or send one of us. Either way, it weakens Estole’s fighting force and leaves it more vulnerable to attack. Zelman might be waiting for just such a chance before sending a third army to us. I think we need that wall up, the sooner the better.”
Riana studied Edvard’s expression. It was clear to her that he agreed with Ashlynn’s point. But he also didn’t like the idea of Ashlynn being absent for any time either. His nation was not peaceful enough yet to handle a substitute sheriff well.
Trapped between his two siblings, unsure of what to do, he instead focused on Broden. “Why did you say it’s my choice?”
“Because ye be the king,” Broden answered simply.
“Is that really all there is to it?”
Broden’s tone gentled as he counseled, “It be a hard thing, knowing that ye can no’ go and help those in trouble. Harder still to decide who to send in yer stead. But Edvard, yer people need ye to think as a king when ye make that decision. As king, who can ye ill afford to send?”
Chapter Fifteen
Edvard sat there without speaking for several minutes, his hands covering the lower half of his face as he stared straight ahead, blind to those around him. The clock on the wall ticked out the seconds, sounding loud in the silence. No one dared to even breathe loudly as he thought it through.
Finally he blew out a low breath and straightened. “Ash. I feel that Ashlynn is right. This could very well be a double-pronged attack, meant to cripple me if I take the bait. I’m inclined to send Ashlynn.”
Ash, somewhat disappointed, nevertheless nodded agreement. “I understand.”
“My decision might well change,” Edvard soothed him. “Right now, we’re not even sure where the girls are. It might take me a few weeks of searching to figure out where he’s hidden them. If you can get the wall finished before I find them, I’ll send you instead.”
Ash shot Riana a look that she well understood. They’d be getting up earlier and working far later in the day to make sure he was ready to go. She gave him a slight inclination of her head, agreeing to it. She had no siblings, so couldn’t quite understand the panic these four felt. But if her da was trapped somewhere far away, some place she had no knowledge about, she would be just as desperate to get to him.
“In the meantime, I’ll send word to our own spies to figure out where he’s put them.” Edvard sat back, weariness in every line of his body. “Ashlynn, Ash, it’ll speed things along if you send messages to them for me.”
“Of course,” the twins agreed in unison.
Riana blinked. She’d heard stories of how twins could be so in tune with the other that they would speak at the same time, or finish each other’s sentences. But this was the first time she had seen such from the wizards. Most days, they seemed to be at opposites with each other, if not at loggerheads.
Apparently it took a crisis to get them to see eye to eye on matters.
Edvard forced a smile. “Well. Nothing more we can do about this tonight. Let us dine.”
It wasn’t as simple as that, of course. Emotions hardly ever were. After dinner was picked at and shoved about on their plates, they unanimously broke apart and went their own ways.
Her da signaled to her with a jerk of the chin to go after Ash, a pointless gesture on his part, as she’d planned to do that already. It didn’t take a magical bond to know that the two wizards shouldn’t be left alone to stew in their own thoughts right now. She shooed him off in Ashlynn’s direction before quietly following her own wizard.
Ash had explained to her, after the bonding was done, what the magic was really meant to do. Oh, aye, it let each partner be aware of each other on a basic level so that one could tell if the other was hurt or lost. And of course it allowed the archer to share the wizard’s shields so that most magical attacks couldn’t get through. But the spell actually allowed the partnership to grow, if the two involved willed it so. Ash said that if they wanted it to just be an awareness of each other, then it would always be just that, and that would be fine. If, at some point, they wanted more, then the spell would become nearly empathic, so that they would know what the other was feeling. He’d seen that come about, and it was between partners that were also husband and wife. Legend told that one partnership became so intertwined that the two became telepathic as well, but he’d never heard of a pair living that could do that.
Her da was barely comfortable with the basic level of the partnership, she knew. But Riana secretly wished for that level where she and Ash could feel each other. Ash was a wonderful man, and she could admit, to her own self, that she was more than a little besotted with him. So in the past three days since their bonding, she’d done all she could to will their bonding spell to let them be closer.
Of course, in just three days, her efforts wouldn’t bear much fruit. So as she followed Ash up the stairs and to a part of the castle she didn’t know, it wasn’t their bond that told her how he felt. It was her own eyes. He walked like a man with glass in his shoes, as if he had so much pain that he could barely cart it around.
Ash finally fetched up against a stone rail outside, in a little, out-of-the-way balcony that didn’t look to have much use. He stopped there, looking out, but Riana didn’t think he saw the view of the moonlit garden. At this moment, he probably couldn’t see much of anything.
From time to time in her life, her da had been like that. So burdened by pain and guilt that he could barely breathe. She had one sure-fire technique to pull him out him out of it, but Riana wasn’t sure if it would work as well on Ash. On the other hand, she had nothing else to try either.
More than a little hesitant, she came in behind him and slipped her arms around his waist, head resting on his back. “Ash.”
He let out a shaky breath, body trembling a moment under her hands as if he had just choked back a sob.
Feeling that, she tightened her hold on him. “Ash,” she rebuked gently, “do no’ fret so. Ye act as if ye stand over their graves, man, and that no’ be the case. They be alive and well.”
Ash’s head shook violently from side to side. “We don’t know—”
“Hush,” she rebuked. “We do know that. What good be hostages if they be dead? Of course Zelman has them alive and squirreled away somewhere. It would no’ be much of a threat if he had stuck them in their graves already.”
Stilling under her hands, he mulled this over and thought about it for several long moments. “You really think so?”
“I be from Cloud’s Rest, infamous for its bandits and criminals,” she pointed out in amusement. “Ye think I do no’ know how bad men work? Oh aye, those three be alive and well. Likely mad at being taken from their families, aye, and worried about what Zelman plans to do to them. But I lay odds he has no’ harmed a hair on their pretty heads.”
“Riana,” he took a breath before turning in her arms to face her directly, forcing her to drop her hands and take a half-step back. She almost wished he hadn’t. There was too much pain clouding those pretty blue eyes. “I know you’re trying to reassure me, but your words are rather groundless.”
“No, no’ so much,” she denied grimly. “Ye see, if that old fart of a king were the type to be a true villain, then his tactics would be different. He would have sent the body of one sister with his message, to prove that he would no’ spare the others.”
Ash flinched at her words. “Body?” he whispered hoarsely.
“Aye. Me da and me saw that happen once. But that king, he only sent a note and lock of hair, to hear Edvard tell it. Proof enough of evil doings, aye, but reassuring all the same. He does no’ plan to harm them. They simply be leverage to make Edvard dance.”
“Yes. Yes, I see your point.” Ash rubbed a hand over his face and when he did so, some of the pain and despair drained away. “Then maybe there’s hope for us getting them back after all.”
“Oh aye, plenty of it,” she assured him with a feral smile. “We just need to
find them quick-like.”
Hope returned as a small light in his eyes, expression determined, which was so much better than the agony and despair from before. “You’re right. Of course, you’re right. We need to get that wall built quickly so that when Edvard’s spies do find them, we’re ready to go.”
“Aye.”
He caught her face with his hands, and gently pulled her toward him so that he could put a warm, chaste kiss on her forehead. Against her skin he whispered huskily, “Thank you.”
Beyond startled, she blinked and felt a vivid blush heat up her face. “Ah, eh, ah—welcome.”
Chuckling, he grabbed her hand and towed her back down the stairs. “Come on. We need to sleep. I’m waking you up early tomorrow, and we’ll be working as soon as there is a hint of light.”
She followed him down, his warm hand encompassing hers, and tried her best to get the blush to go away. For if her da saw it, well, he was just as like to shoot Ash first and ask questions later, which would not do at all. She fervently wanted to keep her handsome blond intact.
They parted at the main door and went to their separate bedrooms. She had a loose shirt and pants on for sleeping, her hair brushed out, and even had her covers warmed up before Ashlynn made it into the room. By the light of the single candle flicking on the nightstand, she could not see much of the other girl’s expression. But her posture was better, not slumped like before. Whatever Broden had said to her, had obviously done some good.
Ashlynn paused just inside the doorway, closing the door behind her with a soft click. “You’re still up.”
“Aye.”
“Ash?”
“Determined to finish a wall afore we go hunting down your sisters.” Riana grinned at her. “If a man could will a job done, we’d have three walls to show for it.”
Ashlynn snorted in wry amusement. “Yes, that doesn’t surprise me. I’m amazed he let you near him in that mood, though. Ash has always had the habit of going into some out-of-the-way corner to grieve when things are going wrong. He rarely lets people comfort him.”
Arrows Of Change (Book 1) Page 14