Rhone
The Tainted Accords: Novella Three
Kelly St. Clare
Contents
Kelly St. Clare
Map
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Also by Kelly St. Clare
Shard
The Retreat
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Copyright 2018 by Kelly St. Clare
First Published: May 24th, 2018
Publisher: Kelly St. Clare
The right of Kelly St. Clare to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
www.kellystclare.com
Kelly St. Clare
When Kelly St Clare is not reading or writing, she is lost in her latest reverie. Books have always been magical and mysterious to her. One day she decided to unravel this mystery and began writing.
Her works include The Tainted Accords, The After Trilogy, and her co-authored series, The Darkest Drae.
A New Zealander in origin and in heart, Kelly currently resides in Australia with her ginger-haired husband, a great group of friends, and some huntsman spiders who love to come inside when it rains. Their love is not returned.
Visit her online at
www.kellystclare.com
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Chapter One
The day Rhone watched the woman he loved marry another man, he left the castle.
Ignoring the tightness in his chest had been easy. Until he’d watched her kiss her husband, knowing his chance at winning her was obsolete and his feelings permanently unrequited. Until now.
He’d loved her from afar, harboring a burning hope she would one day return his regard. The more practical side of him had seen that pursuit of her was useless—what with the way she looked at King Jovan.
Rhone had kept a painful secret for a long time: He was in love with the new queen of Glacium. He’d loved Olina since escorting her through the Great Stairway as a hostage, nearly two years ago.
The castle kitchen was chaotic with the current celebration feast, and Rhone was glad to leave it, shouldering his pack, now heavy with water and food. He strode down the entrance hall to the kennel, his step lengthening as he remembered how heartbreakingly beautiful she’d looked up there, not even one hour ago, so enticing in her barely there, wispy nothing of a white wedding dress. While Rhone would have liked nothing more than to punch Jovan squarely in the face for how he’d held her and how he’d picked her up afterward to disappear into their chambers, Rhone also couldn’t blame the king at all. Olina was fucking perfect.
And not his.
Why wouldn’t Olina marry the king instead? What did Rhone have to offer? He owned a team of sled dogs. He carried King Jovan’s messages around Glacium in exchange for food and living quarters within the castle. He had no house of his own, no aspirations to do more with his life. For the last two years, his only objective had been loving a woman from afar.
Rhone was nearly twenty-five years old, had no family, could count his friends on one hand, and aside from his dogs, loyalty, and a few paintings, he had no ties to Glacium Castle.
The familiar smell of wet dog and straw washed over him as he shoved open the kennel door. The hectic chorus of howls and barking wasn’t far behind the scent, yet the sound failed to bring the usual smile to his hard face.
“Rhone.” The kennel master greeted him.
“Gyn,” he grunted, then said, “I’m going away for a while. Can you deliver the king’s messages while I’m gone?”
Rhone unhooked the waist-high wooden door to Leo’s kennel, and crouched down to scratch him. Leo was his lead dog and had been for many years. The white-and-gray dog rolled over onto his back, whining, blinking at him with intelligent powder-blue eyes.
Gyn slowly walked over and draped his forearms over the top of the kennel door. “How long?”
“Don’t know.”
“What about the sled race in three weeks?”
“If I’m not back, you do it.” Gyn was the only person Rhone trusted to drive the dogs; the man had been his second in the last two sled races.
“Me?”
“You,” Rhone replied shortly, threading his fingers through Leo’s shining coat.
The kennel master took the hint and resumed his work, leaving Rhone with his dog.
“I’m sorry, boy,” he said in undertones to Leo. “You know I’d take you, if I could.” Right now, Rhone didn’t have the energy to care for anyone but himself.
The soft pad of Leo’s tongue brushed the back of his hand. The dog whined again, and the sound tugged at an area under Rhone’s ribs.
“I’ll be back when I can,” Rhone promised the dog as he stood and shut the kennel door. A heavy weight filled him as he glanced down the row to where the rest of his dogs still barked. “I hope.”
“You’re leaving.” A voice spoke from a dark corner.
Rhone picked up his pack, shouldering it again with a glance into the shadows. Not that a melodious voice like Roscoe’s could fail to be recognized. “Yes,” he answered the king’s right-hand man.
“You didn’t think the king would care to know his messenger is leaving?” The advisor stepped out of the shadows, the lines of his weathered face deepened by his grim expression. The man was usually mild, but chasing Rhone down during the marriage had probably put him out, considering the bride was his blood daughter.
“I’d assumed he’d expect it,” Rhone replied.
“He does,” the advisor said with a sigh. “In the king’s words, ‘A man who wants my queen is not a man who is welcome in my home.’ He instructed me to speak with you, though I didn’t expect you to leave during the celebrations.”
Rhone shrugged.
“The king has tolerated your feelings for my daugh—” Roscoe blinked and shook his head slightly. “Queen Lina because, and these are also his words, you are smarter than most of his assembly combined.”
Queen Lina. He’d forgotten Solati lost the ‘O’ from their name when they married, but he’d never managed to get his head around Lina, and he wasn’t going to start now.
Roscoe continued, “The king enjoys your company, and because of that, you’re receiving a warning. He wants me to ensure you know that if you return with the same look on your face, he’ll find a home for you in the Fifth Sector.”
Rhone tightened the straps of his pack to distract the churning blackness inside of him from exploding into something much uglier. Rhone respected his king. During his father’s reign, Jovan spared his life in the Dome. Rhone had lain injured and unable to fight. Yet instead of shoving a sword through his h
eart as was customary, Jovan convinced his father to show mercy—if only to provide them with someone experienced enough to infiltrate the pits once people forgot Rhone’s face. He was warned what would happen if word of his unprecedented survival ever extended beyond the assembly and inner ring. But their threats hadn’t turned his ire against them then and hadn’t since. A life debt was a life debt. Hell, though his father had been a ruthless prick, Rhone almost liked Jovan sometimes.
This wasn’t one of those times.
“Understood,” he said shortly.
“Good. Then I wish you well. . . . Where will you go?” the advisor asked, his eyes softening.
Where was Rhone going? He had no clue what the hell he was doing with his life.
“No idea,” he answered.
He side-stepped Olina’s father, thrusting aside the outer door, and left the smell of the kennels behind. The howls of his team filled the night, a mournful sound that echoed in his chest as Rhone strode away from Glacium Castle to be alone with his aching heart.
Chapter Two
Rhone hoisted himself up the rope, one arm over the other. He pulled his body onto the top of the first island and paused, catching his breath, looking back over the sparse array of green trees and the white-capped mountains of Glacium.
Fucking place. What had it ever done for him? Left him scrounging in the gutters for food, bullied by those larger than him until he grew taller than everyone else and was recruited into the pit fights.
Rhone peered over the edge at the two unconscious guards at the bottom of the rope. They hadn’t wanted to let him enter the Great Stairway—the floating pathway between Glacium and Osolis. Idiots.
He shrugged off his pack and removed the heavy fur-lined coat he wore, exposing a black tunic beneath which was unlaced at the top. Rhone stuffed the coat inside and swung the pack across his broad shoulders, setting out in his fur-lined pants and heavy winter boots.
The endless floating islands of the Great Stairway seemed as good a place as any to be right now. Rhone was at a loss of what to do, and this maze of huge boulders was about as directionless as you could get. He’d copied the map of the pathway through the islands long ago when he’d traveled through as part of the delegate party. He wouldn’t get truly lost with a map, but he could rely on navigation of the treacherous pathway demanding his full attention.
Rhone grunted, corded arms burning as he hooked a foot over the top ledge.
“Whatcha doing?”
Rhone swore and slipped, latching onto the edge of the cliff just in time to save himself from a long and painful fall.
He unfroze, breathing hard, and swung himself up completely. When he was several meters away from the edge of the island, he whirled toward the sound. And blinked. . . . There wasn’t anybody there—
“Over here,” a voice whispered in his ear.
He spun with an angry growl, but his fingers—itching to throttle the person—encountered thin air. Rhone stood, mouth slightly ajar, as a woman with some kind of magnifying mask over her eyes laughed and disappeared over the side of the island, a flying Soar strapped to her back.
One of the Ire folk. Just his luck.
“What game are you playing?” Rhone shouted into the silent islands.
“No game,” she said from behind him.
He spun and missed a second time. Damn, she was quick. You probably had to be quick when you were so annoying.
Rhone inhaled long and hard through his nose. Just a young woman with nothing to do. He’d ignore her.
“Boop.” The woman whacked him over the head.
Rhone jumped, pack and all, and latched on to her ankle.
She squealed, and he watched her push and pull on the wooden bar controlling her fabric wings as she tried to escape him.
He dragged her steadily down and once her feet were grounded, he released her ankle and placed both hands on top of her shoulders to keep her standing still. She was light-framed, and the top of her head sat just below his collar bone. All of that was normal in comparison to the absolutely ridiculous contraption strapped over her eyes, which made her bright green irises appear massive on her pale, oval face.
“I was just having some fun,” she muttered darkly.
Rhone let go of her with one hand to rub the back of his shaven head. “You hit me.” Had that really happened?
She shrugged under his hand, or tried to. “I didn’t think you’d notice.”
“You . . . didn’t expect me to notice getting hit over the head?”
“. . . Okay.” The woman paused, fidgeting on the spot. “Maybe I just told myself you wouldn’t.”
Rhone sighed and released her, sensing she might not be all there. “What are you doing here?”
She puffed out her chest, putting a couple of steps between them. “Scouting, what do you think? You’re in our territory—the Ire’s.”
“Your duty involves terrorizing people on this path?”
The woman readjusted the contraption on her head. “No, don’t be silly. We just keep an eye on anyone coming and going. I’m supposed to scout the area for people, not engage, and then report back to Yarik—” Her voice lowered. “—for another two months.”
Yarik was the new Ire leader, if Rhone remembered right. “Sounds like you’re doing a great job of not engaging with anyone so far,” he said. He turned around and resumed his walk. She definitely wasn’t all there.
Her eyes narrowed. “That sounded sarcastic, but I am doing an okay job of it. Not great, but okay, unfair circumstances considered.”
When the woman began walking after him, he groaned.
“Hey,” she said. “I guess I’m supposed to report you, too.”
Rhone ran and jumped over a gap between two islands. “What happens if you report me?”
She took two bounding steps and pushed down on the bar of her Soar, gliding across the gap after him. “You’ll get turfed back to Glacium, I guess.”
He wasn’t going back. Rhone stopped halfway down some crumbling steps cut into the stone. “Don’t report me. There will be trouble if you do.”
Her enlarged eyes ran over him. “I’m guessing you know how to use those muscles?”
Rhone frowned. “Go away.”
“Are you kidding? This is the most entertainment I’ve had in weeks. I know I live here, but at least there’s stuff to do up in the Ire. There is literally nothing down on the pathway.” Her expression clouded once more.
“Go away,” he said, resuming his pace. “I came here to be alone.”
“Oh! A misery walk. I did wonder if it was. Your expression is deceiving, like you don’t smile in general. I couldn’t decide if you were just miserable now or if that’s your normal face.”
Rhone gritted his teeth.
“What I want to know,” she said, “is why you’re miserable.”
Her voice was muffled, and he glanced back to see she was now chewing some dried meat. Just his luck to encounter a crazy scout on day one. He’d hoped to dwell in here without contact.
“Did someone you know die?” she asked, scrutinizing him. “Hmm, no. You lost something important? Oh! Did you get kicked off? Are you a crime lord? Did you steal something? Were you in love—”
Rhone whirled on her. “Go away,” he said tersely.
Her jaw dropped. “Really? Love? Wow, I did not see that happening. You look kind of hard and muscled and unfeeling, not at all the love type.”
He closed his eyes briefly, and then started across a bridge with rotting wooden boards and two rope rails.
“My name is Monikah,” she said when he was halfway across.
If there was one thing Rhone had learned about owning dogs, it was that once you named a puppy, you could never bear to be rid of them. He didn’t answer.
“. . . What’s yours?” she prompted.
“Didn’t you say you had someone to report to?” Rhone asked.
“Only if I find someone like you.”
“How long would it ta
ke you to go make a report?”
She shrugged. “A couple of days.”
He stopped and faced her. “Then please go and report me.”
She gave him a flat look. “You’re trying to get rid of me?”
“Correct.”
“If you tell me your name, I’ll go.”
Rhone was of the opinion that small people were often annoying. Take Ice, the ringleader of Glacium’s orphan spy network: he was shorter than most Bruma, but undoubtedly one of the most irritating people Rhone knew, though he wondered if this woman, Monikah, might already have taken his place.
“Will you really leave?” he asked. “And not come back?”
She blinked up at him with her huge green eyes.
“I won’t come back,” she said.
He hoisted his pack into a better position, cocking a brow as she followed the movement of his arms and chest. At least one woman noticed him. Even if it was one of questionable sanity.
“Rhone,” he said shortly.
Taking long steps to get in front of her, it wasn’t until he reached the top of another set of steps that he looked back to find her gone.
Chapter Three
Rhone carefully reached for the next handhold in the rock face. He was near the top of a sheer cliff on the current island, and falling here would mean a minimum of a couple of broken bones. The ‘enter the Great Stairway to figure out your life’ plan wasn’t working out as well as he’d hoped. During the exertions of the day, like now, he had some distraction, but during the lengthy, cold nights, there was nothing to take his mind off Olina and what she was doing right then. With Jovan.
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