by Shea Godfrey
“Akasha, no.”
“The game is over,” Darry said. “We must go now, we can’t stay. Our plans have changed, do you understand? We’re in danger and I’ll not have it.”
“I’ll take her,” Nina said. “I’ll go with you, Jess.”
“Go with Nina,” Darry said, never looking from Jessa. “Do you understand, Nina? Bentley Greeves and no one else.”
“Aye, Darry, I’m with you. Just like always, cousin.”
“Find Bentley, Jess, and tell him. You must tell him.”
Jessa looked long into her eyes, seeing purpose and a steady confidence, a calm strength that eased her own fear. She had been waiting her whole life and now her freedom was near, whether she was ready for it or not. She took hold of Darry’s neck, pulled her close, and kissed her with passion, deeply and without reservation.
“Amar’s breeches,” Nina said. “Bloody Darry.”
Jessa released her and walked away.
“Nina,” Darry said firmly.
Nina started and rushed forward, chasing her.
Darry turned back to Emmalyn. “Whatever you’re thinking, Em, it’s not enough.”
“You can’t know that, Darry, you can’t.”
“She lied to me,” Darry said. “Father and Malcolm, what they did, they’ve stolen my honor. As if it meant nothing, they took it. I would no more stay here than I would cut my own throat.”
“But I am here,” Emmalyn said. “And Jacob, and Alisha…and Mother.”
“Weren’t you listening?”
“Yes,” Emmalyn answered with force, stepping closer. “And I was also there when she told the tale and wept as she did, cursing herself to Gamar for her part in it. She is guilty of trying to spare you pain, that’s all, Darry.
“How she went about it I can’t condone, but I’m not sure I would’ve done it differently. She had nothing to do with breaking you from Aidan. She tried to pick up the pieces, that’s all. And I was there when she told me about you and Jessa, for neither of you can hide what you feel from a mother’s eyes, nor mine now that I look for it. I was there when she spoke of trying to help you both and swore an oath upon her own blood that she would see it through. Don’t run, Darry. Stay and fight.”
“Emma, you’ve lost your mind. Fight? Fight for what?”
“For your birthright. You’re of royal blood and you have a place here. If you don’t want that, fine. I will give you Evan’s lands and gladly, and you and Jessa may live there in peace. But don’t break from this house or the ones that love you. Don’t do it, Darry, please.”
Darry’s expression softened at the unexpected words. “She is a daughter of Lyoness, Emma. She’s Bharjah’s only daughter, don’t you see? Bharjah’s daughter. She is his most valuable piece of jade to barter with. There’ll be no peace for us if we stay in the open. We will be the stag in the hunt.”
“Well, yes, that’s a bit of a problem. I see your point.”
“You’d give me Evan’s lands?”
“I would give you anything you ask for,” Emmalyn said simply. “I love you. I even love her, I think, for she’s bloody well wonderful.”
“This I know.”
“Let me help you.”
Darry was torn as she felt the pull of it, the desire to have such strength on their side. “No. You would be pitted against Malcolm and that cannot be. Your children will be in line for the throne should he have no heir.”
“I’ve lost one sister already,” Emmalyn returned fiercely. “I did not like it.”
Darry’s heart gave a painful twinge. “Jacey.”
“Yes, Jacey Rose. I watched her die and could do nothing to help her. And so you would leave me as well without a backward glance? And what of Wyatt? He’s a thousand leagues away and yet when he returns home to learn that you’re gone from him forever? It will kill him, Darry, and you know it.”
“Emma, don’t put it in such a way, please.” Darry couldn’t conceal her pain. “She is my love. Jessa is my love, even as Royce is yours. Even as Evan was.”
“But that’s what you must do if you run. You must give up one for the other.”
“Then I choose Jessa. I will always choose her. I’m sorry, Emma, if that hurts you. If it hurts Wyatt.”
“Stay and fight for what is yours!” Emmalyn said. “You’ll not fight alone, I assure you of that.”
“There is nothing here that is mine, as it was meant to be,” Darry said with quiet truth. “That was made very clear to me. I have only what they allow me to have, out of conscience, perhaps, or guilt. Or perhaps no choice at all, for my blood is as you say and cannot be denied. What scraps they would throw me I no longer want.”
“Do you mean that?”
“Malcolm will just calmly allow the woman brought here for him to judge to share my bed? To publicly scorn him in preference for his backwards sister, whom he hates and thinks of as diseased?” Emmalyn’s shoulders fell slightly as she absorbed Darry’s words. “No matter that he doesn’t want her, he’ll not allow it. And he’s proven his ability to sway whomever he must to his cause. Aidan is proof of that. What they did is proof of many things.”
Emmalyn’s frustration showed in her eyes. “No.”
“The end result of that, Emma, would be our brother dead and my neck upon the block. I’ll kill him if he tries to take her from me. Jessa is mine, even as I am hers. No one will break that. I won’t allow it.”
Emmalyn had no rebuttal.
“And I’ve known our father’s feelings toward me since I was twelve years old. I’m not Jacey Rose and he’s never forgiven me for that. As a girl I used to put flowers on her tomb, and I’d whisper to her of our father and how he missed her. I would apologize for not being good enough and swear to try harder.”
“Periwinkle.” Emmalyn said. The periwinkle was you.
“I don’t do that anymore, Emma, because I am good enough and I needn’t try harder to prove it. It’s he who is unworthy. For though I’m not the daughter he wanted, neither is he the father I needed.”
“No one has ever wanted you to be Jacey,” Emmalyn said carefully. “Did he tell you that?”
“Quite clearly, actually, upon the end of his fist.”
Emmalyn was shocked by the statement. “When?”
Darry could see her thinking, searching back through the years. “It doesn’t matter, Em, it doesn’t. We would be free and that can’t happen here.”
Emmalyn remembered. She remembered quite clearly Darry’s battered face and her cut hands, and their mother’s words that she had gotten into a fight and fallen. That she had struck her face against the stones and cut her hands as well. She remembered how Darry had refused to talk about it no matter how hard she had pressed. “You didn’t fall,” Emmalyn whispered, extending her hand. And he wouldn’t touch you. Even at Solstice he pulled away. “You didn’t fall.”
“I fell a great distance, actually.”
“You should’ve told me.”
“I loved him.” Darry took Emmalyn’s hand. “I forgave him.”
“Darry.”
“He wouldn’t allow me the one that I loved, though she had no true standing in the world but for her family’s good name. Do you think he’ll let me love a daughter to the King of Lyoness? That he will allow?”
“But how can—”
“What if it were you, Emma?” Darry said. “And they took Royce from you, because they decided in some back room that your love wasn’t pure enough? That you were sick because you loved him and it was easier for everyone if the problem just went away altogether?”
Emmalyn felt everything beneath her begin to crumble. Father, what have you done? “I’ll give you Evan’s lands. Don’t leave until I’ve given you the deeds. Do you understand?”
“You don’t have to do that, Em.”
“Take the land!” Emmalyn snapped, trying to wrap her thoughts around defeat. “Bloody hell, I’m sorry, love. Just take the land, Darry, please. Whether you go there or not, at least it will
be yours. You’ll always have your own place. And in the meantime you may leave missives for me there, and the seneschal will see that I get them. That is something, at least, and I would know that you and Jessa are well.”
“I’ll find you, Emma,” Darry promised her. “And I’ll find Wyatt and Jacob as well. After we’re safe and free from harm.”
“And where might that be?”
Darry spun about at the deep, familiar voice, reaching for her sword.
Chapter Thirty
Jessa moved along the fence, searching through the crowded yard as the sound of weapons and laughter filled the air. She saw Bentley standing by a sword post. His shirt was off and his muscled torso shone with sweat as he handed a sword to a younger man.
“Bentley!”
“Princess.” Bentley smiled beneath his mustache as he neared. His pleasure at seeing her faded quickly. “What’s happened?”
“They know,” Jessa said, and his expression hardened in response. “She sent me to find you, but I’m afraid for her. Please, Bentley, we must go back. I cannot leave her to face this alone.”
“Yes,” Bentley said. His eyes narrowed in scrutiny, seeing Nina. “And you are?” he asked as she stood on the fence.
“Nina Lewellyn,” she answered. “And whatever trouble my cousin is in, I’m in it with her. So would you fucking step it up, please?”
Bentley’s eyes flashed. “As you wish, my Lady.” He stepped back into the yard, lifting a hand to his mouth. The whistle that rang out was piercing. Across the yard Darry’s Boys came to attention, their weapons falling still. “To Darry!” he yelled, his voice booming and filled with command.
Nina jumped to the ground as Bentley ran to the fence, grabbed the top rail, and vaulted over. He took Jessa’s hand. “Off we go then, my Lady. Off to keep our girl out of trouble.”
*
Owen Durand watched Darry’s hand fall empty to her side. Lucky for me, I think. He walked across the dance floor, holding her eyes even from a distance. But unfair yet again. He unhooked the clasps that held his sword. When he came to within a few yards he tossed the weapon. Darry caught the scabbard with her left hand as her right curled about the hilt.
Standing in judgment at last, Owen put his right hand into his pocket and then pulled free, opening before Darry as Cecelia stepped close behind him.
Darry bared her teeth at the sight of her grandmother’s sapphire, and she pulled on the blade. The steel pinged from the scabbard as she met her father’s eyes. Her blood rose and she clutched the sword so tight she feared she would bend it. “Why?”
“Because I was a fool.”
“Yes. So was I.”
“No, Darry, never that.”
It really was for nothing, all of it. The sudden clarity stunned Darry. Wanting your love, wanting you to be proud of me. Always waiting for your slightest nod of approval or your touch on my shoulder as when you would praise Wyatt. For even just a smile to show that you understood me, if only a little. Always begging for the scraps of your love, my whole life, desperate for even a kind word and my pride undone when you never gave it. And where has it left me?
My name was once Durand, and I know the blood of Kings.
Darry threw the scabbard behind her and set the blade against her left hand, just beneath the guard. The deadly edge bit into her flesh in a smooth line as she pulled. Her blood slid down its polished steel. She threw the blade on the floor at her father’s feet.
She delved in her own pocket with her wounded hand, wrapped her fingers around the gold of her family medallion, and brought it forth. She studied it, the writing and her family’s crest stained with the blood it represented. It felt good, the wound, for she could hold it out for the world to see and no one could mistake that she had taken a blow.
Owen watched the blood slide through her fingers, all of his hope sinking in the reality of what was happening. He had expected her rage, but not this. Not the decision already made. He had never meant to corner her, but that was exactly what had happened, and even as before he could not undo it. What a cock-up you are, old man.
Darry tossed the medallion.
The gold crest spun oddly with its heavy linked chain and hit the floor between his boots with a solid clank.
“I relinquish my title as a child of the Durand line,” Darry announced in a calm voice, squeezing her fingers tight as she held out her hand. The blood began to drip on the stones before her boots. “And I resign my commission in the service of my King, who is no longer my Lord. And if I could drain the blood that is yours from my veins and still walk away, I would do it, just to be free of you at last.”
“Darrius, please.” Cecelia’s voice broke as she stepped forward.
“I love you, Mother.” Darry’s words stopped her. “For whatever part you played, I forgive you. And I ask for your forgiveness in return. Please excuse me for my disrespectful words and my lack of kindness toward you. I was wrong to have blamed you. You did nothing except seek to protect me, even if you lied to me in the process.” I can give you that at least, but no more. Darry remembered Jessa’s words in Tristan’s Grove and how they had soothed her, how they had made the difference when she had not wanted to believe. “And I forgive you in Aidan’s stead as well. She forgives you.”
“Darry,” Cecelia pleaded.
“Thank you for loving me so,” Darry said, her voice thick with feeling. “Thank you, Mother, for giving me my sword.”
Cecelia’s tears slipped free. “You’re most welcome. Please don’t do this.”
“Your mistake is corrected at last, Owen Durand. And the child you once said you should not have had? You have no more.”
He seized her by the wrist before she could step away, his hand marked with her blood. His anger flared, seeing the truth of it and that Cecelia must have known. A profound panic stirred in his chest that Darry had heard his long-ago words. The words he bemoaned thinking, even more than he regretted what had come before. “Forgive me, Darry. Forgive me.”
“Let go of me.”
He released her instantly.
“If you truly seek forgiveness, seek it from Aidan McKenna. That you would injure me so I should’ve expected. But what you did to her fills me with shame. Not because you’re my father, but because you were my King and I thought you to be a good one. A man that I was willing to give my life for, no matter the troubles between us. That you could abuse your power and position so easily and bring it to bear against a girl who had no defense against you? That was a truly dark thing.”
“I know it.”
They stood in silence. Owen knew that she would not change her mind. Darry turned and walked away, never looking back.
“Owen,” Cecelia said.
“I cannot force her. She was there. She heard what I said.”
“Yes.”
Emmalyn took a hard breath, Darry’s words singing within her head. The child you said you should not have had. She swallowed her emotions and shock, wanting to deny it. But their father’s words echoed close behind. She was there. She heard what I said.
Emmalyn approached the sword and knelt down. She studied Darry’s medallion stained with royal blood, sealing the image hard within her memory where it burned clean and unforgiving.
“Emma, please.”
The child you said you should not have had. Oh, Darry, I’m so sorry.
Emmalyn picked up the necklace with a trembling hand. “Here, my Lord,” she said, and Owen held out his hand. She placed the bloodied crest in his palm and lowered the chain after, letting it swirl with a gentle clinking of the links.
Owen saw the shame in her eyes and the anger as well, twisted and confused among her pain. There were tears but they did not fall. “Emma.”
“You should put this next to Jacey’s,” Emmalyn said, her voice cold.
He closed his hand as Emmalyn walked away, following her sister.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Darry!” Jessa called, and everyone slowed at the sigh
t of Darry walking beneath the timbers of the high terrace above.
Darry smiled at the sight of Jessa and the company of her friends and wanted to laugh despite the ruin her heart was in, despite that she had just forsaken her entire life. For a better one. With a quick, certain breath, she opened her arms as Jessa neared. For you, Jess, and me as well.
Jessa let out a soft sound of joy as Darry put her arms around her waist and lifted her up. “I’m all right, love.”
Jessa touched Darry’s face, not understanding the roguish expression, though her heart skipped as always at the sight of Darry’s dimple. “What is it?”
“Perhaps I should introduce you.”
Jessa frowned and Darry turned her around. Jessa let out a deep breath and stepped back into Darry’s body at the sight of their audience. Darry’s Boys and Nina Lewellyn smiled at her. Several of the men looked down at the blush that crept up Jessa’s cheeks.
“Darry’s Boys? This is the Princess Jessa-Sirrah de Cassey LaMarc de Bharjah, and she is my love. Jessa? These are my Boys,” Darry said. They all bowed their heads to Jessa, smiling like playful youngsters and looking a bit too happy about things.
“You are my love,” Darry whispered beside Jessa’s ear.
“What does this mean, Darry?” Arkady asked.
Darry took a deep breath and straightened. She met Arkady’s eyes and then looked to each of her friends in turn, landing upon Bentley at the last. No one was smiling anymore. “I have just relinquished my title and given up my rank,” she said. Jessa turned into Darry’s side and stood closer, sliding her arms about Darry’s waist. “I’ve had words with the King, for he returned early from the Green Hills—” Darry looked down as Jessa grabbed her collar, her eyes filled with concern. “All is well.”
She returned her attention to her friends. “There are many reasons for what I’ve done, but you should know that I’m not to be allowed a love of my own. For political reasons and perhaps hatred as well. I am backwards and will not deny it, and maybe this doesn’t sit well with some. Their reasons are their own and I cannot change them.”