Shardless

by Stephanie Fisher

  “You go ahead, Talya,” Skye said, his eyes caressing the gentle curves of Adalet’s face. He gave a disinterested wave of his hand. “I think I’m going to stay down here for a bit.”

  “Are you sure?” Taly pressed. She shifted her weight, readjusting her pack. “I thought you said you wanted to help me go over the map tonight.”

  “You don’t need me for that.” Finally sparing Taly a glance, he felt a sharp pang when he saw a flicker of hurt in her eyes. She schooled her expression in an instant, and the icy glare she gave him bolstered his resolve.

  “I see,” Taly replied tersely. “Well then… I guess this is goodnight.” She gave him a saccharine smile before turning to Adalet and inclining her head. “My Lady.” Then, without a backward glance, Taly turned and walked away, her head held high.

  Skye watched Taly as she made her way towards the front of the tavern. She gracefully navigated the crowd, but… wait. When she turned, dodging a rowdy patron… were those tears? He leaned forward, ready to go after her, but stopped short when Adalet ran a gentle finger along the line of his jaw. The small blip in his attention lasted only a moment, but by the time he looked back towards the crowd, Taly was already gone.

  As Skye leaned back, he swallowed down his uncertainty as he tried to find his composure. He was just letting her get to him. Turning back to Adalet, he slipped back into character. He could deal with Taly tomorrow. Right now, he had a beautiful, willing woman practically throwing herself at him, and that was all he needed.

  Chapter 14

  -From the personal diary of Talya Caro

  Shards, I hate that man sometimes.

  Skye’s still down there right now—with Adalet. When I came up to the room, he stayed—just waved me away with that stupid flick of the wrist that I’m sure all nobles sit and practice until it feels appropriately indifferent. Shards, why would he want to stay with that awful shrew? What does he even see in her? Yes, she’s beautiful, but the woman has the kind of personality that makes a harpy seem almost cuddly.

  I should be angry at him. Anger is the only thing that I should feel right now. After all, he laughed at me tonight. Yes, let’s not forget that. After all the times that I’ve ever had to sit across the table from “Lord Emrys,” tonight is the first night he made me feel like I didn’t belong there. When that bitch called me “quaint” and “passionate” like I was some poor, mindless pet, he just laughed and agreed with her.

  Shards, I want to be angry. Anger would feel so much better than whatever it is I’m feeling right now. Really, what is this? My chest feels tight, I feel sick to my stomach, and my eyes won’t stop leaking.

  For Shards’ sake, why am I crying? None of this makes any sense.

  Skye started when he felt a hand brush against his neck.

  He needed to stop doing that—letting his mind wander. Thankfully, Adalet hadn’t noticed. She was still prattling on about something someone did at court. Or maybe they had said something? Skye nodded, breathing a sigh of relief when she moved on, apparently pleased by his reaction.

  If Taly was here… well, she wasn’t here, so that didn’t really matter. Shards, he hoped she was okay. He was starting to wish he’d gone after her, just to make sure. While he could deal with her anger—went out of his way to provoke it—he had never been able to stomach her tears.

  “Skylen, darling, I can’t help but notice that you seem a little distracted,” Adalet said suddenly, breaking into his thoughts.

  Damn. He’d done it again. “Sorry. It’s just been a very long day.” Leaning back, he smiled when he felt Adalet press herself more firmly against him, her fingers still toying with the collar of his shirt. This felt nice. Familiar. He’d never made a habit of sleeping with women on the island, and since he skipped court last season… it had been a very long time. In fact, his body was already responding to the feather-light touch of her fingers against the skin of his neck. If he could just push all thoughts of Taly to the back of his mind, he might actually be able to enjoy the rest of his evening. After all, Adalet was a very beautiful woman, and even though he knew every curve of her body, she was always finding ways to surprise him.

  “You know, I daresay I’m quite impressed,” Adalet said, changing the subject. Sitting back in her chair, she unbuttoned her cloak, gracing him with a seductive smile when his eyes dipped down. “The Castaros have done a remarkable job with that little shardless of theirs. Young Talya is going to be worth a fortune once they finally decide to make her a Feseraa.”

  Skye pulled back from where Adalet leaned against him, his eyes narrowing. In all the years that he’d known her, he’d never heard her speak so tactlessly before.

  The noblewoman smirked as she reached for his glass. “Oh, don’t give me that look, darling. I know they’ve denied it for years now, but you can’t honestly sit here and tell me that the Castaros don’t plan to make her a Feseraa someday. Not after all the time and coin they’ve invested in grooming their little pet.”

  Skye felt a muscle in his jaw start to twitch. “You should watch your tongue, Adalet,” he said, his voice edged. “I can tell you with complete certainty that the Marquess has absolutely no intention of selling Talya. She is not property. Also, she is my friend, and I do not suffer those that speak ill of her.”

  “I meant it as a compliment, but fine,” Adalet conceded disingenuously. “Oh, Skylen, I know you’ve always been fond of that one, but, at the end of the day, she’s just a human. In a few centuries, I doubt you’ll even remember her name. Just ask your brother if you don’t believe me.”

  Skye leaned away when Adalet moved a hand up to toy with his hair. If she noticed his growing disinterest, she didn’t let on. Instead, she allowed her hand to drop down and rest on his arm.

  “You know my household started using Feseraa a few years ago,” she continued, still sipping at his ale. “It’s been an interesting experiment, to say the least. My cousin is pregnant, but, thankfully, our matriarch stopped making me try to breed with one of those things when it didn’t take the second time. Now, I pride myself on being open to new experiences, but that… well, it was like lying with an animal. With any luck, Achard will come to his senses soon. I have a hard time even being in the same room as him after he’s been rutting that beastly little creature he wanted so badly.”

  Adalet went on, and Skye’s eyes grew wide as he continued to sit there, listening. Until finally, he couldn’t help but ask himself: What the hell am I doing?

  Taly had just come back into his life not three weeks ago, and now he had gone and pissed her off for… for what? An easy lay with a woman who was quickly revealing herself to be a hateful bitch? A year and a half of celibacy hadn’t confused him. It had made him stupid.

  “Well,” Adalet purred, leaning forward to whisper in his ear. Despite himself, a shiver ran down his spine. “How about we take this upstairs?”

  Clearing his throat, Skye carefully removed the hand that had made its way back to his thigh. “Actually, now that I think about it, I do have an early morning ahead of me. Maybe some other time.”

  “Oh! Of… of course.” She sounded surprised. Her perfectly arched brows shot up, and a slight frown tugged at the corners of those bowed lips. “Of course, I understand. You must be very busy right now with your Gate Watchers’ duties. However… if you change your mind, I have the top floor all to myself. Please don’t hesitate to knock—no matter the hour.”

  Skye watched as Adalet rose from her chair and glided across the room, heavily suspecting that the exaggerated sway of her hips was for his benefit.

  When she was out of sight, he slumped down in his chair and reached for his ale. A deep frown creased his brow when he saw the imprint of a feminine set of lips on the rim. He set the glass down, choosing instead to reach for Taly’s abandoned mug beside him. He downed the contents in one gulp.

  He needed to go find Taly. She was going to be irate—more than irate—but maybe he deserved that. He didn’t know why he felt that way.
After all, he certainly hadn’t known that Adalet would reveal herself to be so vile, but that did little to alleviate the gnawing sense of guilt that was quickly taking root deep inside him.

  “Might as well get this over with,” he muttered to no one in particular. Then, with a heavy sigh, he gathered up his things and set off in search of Taly.

  Skye didn’t know how long he’d been standing outside the door at the end of the hall. He’d had to bribe the innkeeper to tell him which room Taly had taken—one of the cheaper units with one bed instead of two. It had taken even more coin to convince the bartender to sell him an unopened bottle of Arendryl brandy—Taly’s drink of choice.

  Even through the door, he could still hear the staccato rhythm of her elevated pulse, accompanied by the dry scrape of quill against paper. Not for the first time, he wondered if he should go get his own room and wait until morning for her anger to cool. Years of experience had taught him that it would be far easier to convince her to forgive him after she’d slept it off.

  But… that just wasn’t what he wanted to do. If he could turn back the clock, he would go upstairs with Taly. Shards, why hadn’t he just gone upstairs with Taly? True, he’d spent almost every night this past week with her, but he’d still been looking forward to spending another evening sitting around and doing next to nothing with her beside him.

  “It’s just Taly,” he mumbled to himself. “She’ll forgive you. You’ve been a way bigger ass than this before, and she forgave you then.”

  That made him feel marginally better.

  Steeling himself, he raised his hand and knocked. All movement inside the room ceased, and for a brief moment, he thought she was going to ignore him. He released a harsh breath when he heard the creak of mattress springs followed by the soft padding of bare feet on planked wood.

  The door opened and Taly stared at him owlishly. Her hair was wet, and she wore a loosely tied robe that poorly concealed the thin, slightly damp lace nightdress she wore underneath. She crossed her arms as she leaned against the doorframe. “I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again tonight. Do you need to borrow a pen or something?”

  “What?” Skye’s brain had momentarily abandoned him when the fabric of her gown shifted, granting him a teasing glimpse of what lay beneath the nearly sheer fabric. It was always so easy to forget how feminine she could be when the mood suddenly struck her—especially when she spent all day tromping around in boyish clothes, waxing poetic about the merits of pistols over every other ranged weapon.

  “You know,” she said, a smile hovering at the corners of her mouth, “for all the paperwork. That’s what you highborn do before you get down to business, right? C’mon, Skylen. You should never skip foreplay. Everyone knows that.”

  “You’re such a brat,” Skye muttered, moving to walk past her. He stopped when she held out an arm, blocking his entry.

  “I didn’t say you could come in. Go get your own room. Or better yet, go back to Jezebel.”

  “Shards, you and your mortal fables,” Skye grumbled, refusing to break eye contact despite the heat of her glare. Since she didn’t have shoes on, he towered over her. “That’s not her name.”

  “It is in my head,” Taly retorted blithely.

  “Well, if that’s what you really want” —Skye shrugged as he pulled out the bottle of brandy from his pack— “I’m sure whatever-her-name-is will appreciate this rare bottle of Arendryl liquor I lifted from behind the bar. You know as well as I do how hard this stuff is to find right now.”

  Taly’s eyes flicked to the bottle. Reaching out, she gave him a solid punch on the arm before moving aside. “Your offering pleases me.”

  Skye followed her inside, closing the door behind him with a soft click. The room was small and unpretentious. There was a bed shoved into the corner and a washroom off to the side, but otherwise, there were very few furnishings.

  “You’re not staying here,” Taly said as she started gathering the papers spread across the bed and stuffing them back into her journal. “Unless you plan to sleep on the floor.”

  “I know, I know,” Skye conceded, dropping his pack. He took a deep breath, rolling his shoulders as he felt some of the tension release. “I’ll go down and rent another room later. It’s not like they were running short. In the meantime, care to tell me what I’ve done so I can apologize?”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Actually,” Skye said with a huffed laugh, “that’s exactly what I’m not doing right now, so—” He turned just in time to catch the pillow that had been hurled directly at his head. “Wow. You’re in a mood.”

  “Sorry, Skye. I guess I’m having one of my… how did you put it? Moments?” When she turned around, angrily shoving her journal back into her pack, Skye finally noticed that her eyes were much redder than they should be.

  “Shards, Tink.” He crossed the room in a few short strides, grabbing her by the shoulders and twisting her around to face him. “You know I have to act like that in front of other nobles.”

  “That’s bullshit,” she spat, giving him a hard shove. “I’ve seen you in front of the nobles Ivain and Sarina hosted, but I’ve never seen you act like that. I didn’t like the person I saw down there.”

  “You’re right,” he easily conceded. “I took it too far, and I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.” That seemed to deflate some of her anger, and Skye took a tentative step forward. Although she didn’t return his embrace, she didn’t fight him when he wrapped his arms around her.

  “That woman is horrible, you know,” she said, leaning her head against the hard leather of his breastplate. “You should hear the things people say about her.”

  “I’m starting to get an idea,” Skye quietly muttered in reply. “Tell me how to make this better, Tink. You know how much I hate it when you cry.”

  Taly stepped away, discreetly wiping at her cheeks. “I’m not crying, jerk. Your armor is dusty, and you have horse hair all over you. You’re a walking sneeze.”

  Skye barked out a laugh. She was back to flinging insults and telling him he was filthy. That had to be a good sign. “I get that I can’t stay here, but can I at least use your shower?”

  Taly nodded, turning away as she settled back on the bed.

  Digging through his pack for a fresh set of clothes, Skye decided to take a chance and ask a question that had been eating away at him all evening. “So… Ivain’s never hosted Lord Achard, and, as far as I know, you’ve never met him. How do you know what he looks like?”

  Taly laughed, her face lighting up. “I don’t.” When Skye raised a brow in question, she shrugged. “What? You think I actually saw him?”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “No,” she said as though it should’ve been obvious. “My contact here at the inn told me that Achard arrived last night with his new human consort and that they haven’t left their room since they checked in. My contact also told me that he asked for this specific Feseraa by name—before she’d had her first child—and that he very nearly came to blows with House Tira’s representative when he was informed that the girl had been promised out to no less than three other men. Apparently, he knew her before she joined the Feseraa. At least, that’s the rumor.”

  “In other words, you were gossiping with the drunks at the bar. Let’s skip ahead to the part where you decided to make trouble.”

  Taly’s smile widened. “Well, I know you were a little distracted back there, but that’s a very different story than what Jezebel was trying to sell us. And she was already being such a bitch. I figured that if I was going to have to sit there and watch while she tried to feel you up beneath the table, I should at least get to have a little fun. So, I took a chance. Did you see how angry she got? It almost made having to talk to her worth it.”

  “Shards,” Skye groaned, shaking his head and grinning. “How do you fit so much evil into such a tiny body?” Tossing the bottle of brandy on the bed, he said, “Here. Set up the drinking game while I’m in the shower.”


  “Drinking game?”

  “Yes. I’ve decided to get you drunk. You’re much nicer to me when you’re drunk.”

  “You’re less of an ass when I’m drunk.” Taly reached for the bottle and popped the cork in a single, practiced move. “Well, if we’re doing a drinking game then I want to play Lords and Ladies.”

  Skye rolled his eyes. “Of course, you do. But let me ask you this—are the cards you brought with you glamoured?” When Taly shrugged, he said, “No. It’s no fun if you cheat. My vote’s for Coins.”

  “That’s boring.”

  “Then let’s make it more interesting,” Skye called out as he closed the washroom door. He breathed a sigh of relief as he peeled off his dusty armor and dropped it on the floor. Lifting his arms high overhead, he groaned as he felt the muscles of his back stretch and shift. “Whoever manages to put a coin in the glass, the other person has to either—and here’s where it gets interesting—answer a question honestly or take a drink.”

  A loud bang resounded through the thin, wooden partition, making Skye jump. “What was that?”

  “I’m practicing,” Taly called from the other side of the door. “I’m going to learn all your secrets tonight, Em.”

  Skye took a quick shower, the dull thump of coins bouncing off of wood followed shortly by the clink of glass spurring him to hurry. Her aim was starting to get a little too accurate.

  Dressed in a pair of loose slacks and a casual shirt, he toweled off his hair as he opened the door, gathering up the scattered collection of coins littered across the floor.

  “You ready to do this?” he asked as he flopped onto the bed. Taly leaned against the wall, so he pulled himself up into a sitting position beside her. He grabbed the bottle out her hands and took a long swig.

  “You’re going down,” she said, jingling a bag of coins.