Yet, the image of the ashes remained right behind her eyes.
Nathan had also been grey in life. Grey hair, grey robe. A smile began to tug at her lips, then she gasped.
“My queen?” Jacques reached out but didn’t quite touch her arm.
“His hair was grey because of the addiction. I thought it was genetic, but no.” She bit her lip. “Ha.”
“You’re right,” Jacques said. “He probably shortened his life by years.”
By how much would he have shortened his life this time? She crossed her arms. Would she ever get beyond this? Was there something on the other side of guilt and heartache and loss, or would she always wonder if she’d caused his death? She’d been prepared to go on without his hand in hers, but to go on with him reduced to a heap of ash in a bottle seemed impossible.
“Here comes the apothecary and Varda,” Jacques said.
Another round of goodbyes. Cara’s muscles sang. She wanted to go. Now. She couldn’t stand leaving Nita behind.
Don’t think about it.
She turned up her face. The moons were slivers of curved light, back on their journey to fullness from their new moon stage. The additional darkness would slow their journey but hide them from Frank’s people.
She patted her coat pocket and paper crinkled. Her letter was still there. I’m coming, Sera. With allies, just as you wanted. Cara kicked the cobbles. The road would be long, but it would all be worth it once she stood face to face with her sister. They’d always been stronger together.
“Just three things.” Nita gave Jacques a hug. “Take care of the queen. Be safe. Stay alive.”
“You too, apothecary,” he said.
Nita blinked away tears. She hugged Cara next, the contact short and shaky. “Love you, Sweets.”
“I love you, too. Take care.” Cara tried to smile but couldn’t hold it for long.
Vendla and Varda said their goodbyes, both with eyes too luminous in the low light. Varda crossed to Cara’s side.
“Don’t let him break you, Varda. Don’t let him kill you.”
Varda gave her an awkward hug, then she and Nita walked away, arms around each other. They didn’t look back.
Jacques nudged Cara’s side. “On your order, my queen.”
“Oh,” Cara said. “Let’s go.”
***
Despite the sound of a few hundred trudging feet, they reached the gate about an hour later without incident. Frank’s undoing would be in the fact that he kept so many of the soldiers outside the keep, in the tent village. He wouldn’t notice they were gone until morning, when the soldiers didn’t show up for their drills.
Amber and her people had taken care of the gate guards, and the soldiers opened the small door in the great gate.
Cara looked over her shoulder a last time. There, in the distance, the castle’s lights shone. Frank slept in there, unaware that the resistance would be a great deal smaller when he woke.
He’d been so excited to show her this place. She’d been so adamant to find him. Who’d have thought after all that effort, she’d be with him for a month before slipping away in the night, hating him?
From this vantage point, Collinefort seemed small. Maybe it was because the tents were all dark, and the keep was surrounded by shadows. Maybe it was because she’d arrived thinking Frank a giant, and her mind had scaled his stronghold to suit his stature.
“I denounce you, Frank,” she said. “We’re done. Enemies. Still, I have to thank you. I came here a mouse, but I’m leaving stronger than I thought. A queen. A dragon.”
“Feeling vicious, majesty?” Jacques raised his eyebrows.
Vendla sniffed and stepped through the gate. “Better come along, dragonling. It won’t do if you run back to kill him tonight.”
Cara turned her back on Collinefort and stepped through the gate. “I didn’t have the opportunity to tell him to his face, but I will. I’ll tell him before the end. I’ll break apart his castle stone by stone. I’ll claim his allies, his riches, everything that belongs to him. In the end, he’ll kneel before me.”
Jacques smiled. “The world will kneel before you.”
“I don’t care about the rest of the world, but Frank will kneel. I’ll make him kneel.”
“I know you will.”
Chapter 56
Varda caressed Nita’s bare shoulder, ran her fingers over the soft padding at her stomach. If she could wake like this every day, with Nita in her arms, everything would be worth it.
How far had Vendla and the others made it? No alarms had sounded yet, so maybe Frank didn’t know.
Nita sighed against Varda’s chest, her breath damp.
Varda held her tighter.
“I just… He shouldn’t be dead, you know?”
“I know,” Varda said.
“If I’d paid more attention to him.” Nita’s voice caught. “But I was so distracted by you.”
“So, it’s my fault?”
“Of course not, I just—”
“I know.” Varda kissed Nita’s nose. “I’m teasing you because it’s ridiculous.”
“What?”
“That you think it’s your fault when I saw Frank pull the trigger.” Varda swallowed. “You know, I think he had Intelligence chase Nathan down that path specifically, so he could shoot him. It was all a game.”
“You shouldn’t.” Nita gestured at the walls.
“I don’t care,” Varda said.
While sitting in her mother’s tent, she’d realised why the whole situation had upset her so. Nathan had fallen into the abyss. According to the vision, she’d jump in after him. She’d foreseen her own death and had been too stupid to realise it.
Her mother was right. She was going to die here.
Yet, in Olaf’s vision, which had come later, he hadn’t been able to see what happened to the fish. Her mind had divided into two warring camps—she was doomed, and she wasn’t. The battle was so closely matched that she had no idea which side would win.
“You want to help me forget?” Nita ran her fingers through Varda’s hair.
Varda smiled, then kissed her. She slid her hand down Nita’s thigh and explored.
The door banged open to admit Frank a moment later. “Where are—” He gaped, then clamped shut his mouth. “What’s this?”
Varda sat up and the sheet slid down to bare her breasts.
Frank’s gaze flicked down to her nipples, then up again.
Varda put on her most pleasant smile. “It’s just fair that I get a mistress if you get one.”
His moustache twitched down as he scowled. “Where is your mother?”
“Where you left her,” Varda said.
“Think again.” He kicked one of the legs of the bed. “The Dvarans have deserted, and some of the others have followed them. Get dressed, we have a council meeting. I’ll wait outside.” He slammed the door behind him.
“He seems happy.” Varda kissed Nita a last time, then rose.
“I don’t want to seem jealous or anything, but did you see how he looked at you?” Nita said.
Varda slipped her tunic over her head. “Yes.”
“Something’s going on, Vee. Please, be careful.”
In this place, something going on was an everyday occurrence. “I’m always careful.”
***
Varda clenched together her teeth and trailed Frank, so he wouldn’t see her struggle with a smile.
His steps were hard, his posture rigid. That the hallway didn’t begin to smoulder as he passed was grace from the gods. He banged into the council room.
A rectangular table had been made to replace the old square one, and benches that could seat two each stood around it. The old cabinets and chairs were gone, and though the place had been cleaned, wood splinters still poked through the mats. They likely would for a while, considering how Frank had rampaged in this room.
He levelled a finger at Varda. “You knew she was leaving.”
“Please, Frank. Everyone k
new she was leaving.” Varda pulled out the corner of a bench and sat. “Even you knew. That’s why you married me.”
“You knew she was leaving last night. You knew how many people she’d take with her.”
She rolled her eyes. “If you hadn’t attacked her on a holy day, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Bah.”
Driessen and Ghedi came in one after the other. The council was in session.
A council of seven—six members around the table, and the seventh in shadow—reduced to four people because of the actions of one man.
“Took you long enough,” Frank said.
Ghedi’s glare was bloodshot but brutal. He turned up his nose. “Should I expect a bolt in the forehead for this?”
“Oh, let it go, Ghedi. Nic betrayed me. Us.”
Driessen sat and slid a scrap of paper across the table. “Ah. I have news. They took four crates of supplies meant for outposts. The chief-queen left that note.”
Frank flipped open the folded paper.
You owed me, boy.
“How many are gone?” Frank crushed the note in a fist.
“So far, the counts are inconclusive,” Driessen said. “The Dvarans, save twenty, are all gone. About a hundred and seventy other resistance members have also packed up and left.”
“Where are the Dvarans who stayed?” Varda asked.
“In prison.” Driessen’s mouth pulled into a severe line.
Ash and bloody damnation, who did this heathen think he was to imprison her people? Varda shot to her feet and banged on the table. “You’ll let them out this instant. Those are my people, Frank, and if I’m not mistaken, I’m the bloody princess consort of Mordoux. You can’t treat them this way. They stayed!”
Frank stood and glowered at her down his nose. He drew nearer as though he’d kiss her, then pulled away.
What in Vanadis’s most holy name was going on with him?
She grabbed him by the collar. “Are you listening to me? I’ll say this only once. If you don’t let my people go right now, I’ll walk out, too.”
Frank slapped off her hands, then half-turned his face. “Nic, will you—” He swallowed. “Oh. Ah. Whoever is listening, set the Dvarans free.” He crumpled onto a bench.
At least he felt a bit guilty. Ash and damnation.
“What do you want to do about these deserters?” Driessen asked.
“We have to stop them,” Frank said. “Besides the supplies they’ve stolen, we’re basically at the start of the combat season. We can’t afford to be without the manpower.”
Varda scoffed. “Kill my mother, Frank. I dare you.”
He buried his face in his hands. “I won’t kill her. None of them. I don’t want them harmed, just stopped and brought back. Preferably before the snow traps them out there. Any day now, a blizzard will hit.”
“They left because they no longer want to be here.” Ghedi snorted. “I doubt they’d come back after they’ve gone to the trouble of getting away.”
“They had no reason to leave.”
“They what?” Varda laughed at the ceiling. “Do you hear yourself? You went to their camp and accused them of a crime they didn’t commit. Worse, you went on a holy day, when all of them were together for the first time in months. You stood there and called their chief-queen a liar to her face. I’m surprised they didn’t walk out sooner.”
“That’s beside the point,” Frank said. “They must be stopped. If I were a Dvaran, I’d be heading to my ships.”
Varda’s heart stopped, a blinding pressure pulsed in her eyes. “No.”
“I want someone to send a bird to the outpost closest to the Tooth and have those ships destroyed.”
“No, Frank, you can’t do this.”
“It’s already done.”
Ghedi’s jaw clenched and unclenched. He stood, hands fisted. “I’m leaving. I’m done. You can shoot me if you want to, Frank, but I’m done.” He turned around and left without a backward glance.
Frank stomped out after him, and Varda followed.
This wasn’t happening. Not the ships. Did he have any idea of their value? Did he have any idea what they meant to the people of Dvara?
“Ghedi, wait!” Frank jogged to meet him.
“Either kill me or let me go.” Ghedi threw up his arms.
The people in the hall stopped, stared, until Frank glared at them. Some scurried away, but many remained. Most stared at Frank blank-faced, arms crossed. Openly defiant.
Frank took Ghedi’s forearm. “Please don’t go. I’m begging you.”
“I can’t stay here.” Ghedi moved away. “I can’t stand what you’ve become.”
“You’re either with me or against me.”
“I’m against you.”
Varda had to stop Frank from killing yet another ally. Another of his friends, someone respected by almost every member of the resistance. Ghedi’s death would lead to more than open defiance. “You have an audience, Frank. Sentence him to death in front of these people, and you’ll lose everything.”
Frank’s shoulders slumped and his head sagged forward. “Fine.” His breath raced; his pitch high. “You can go, Ghedi, but if our paths cross again, I have to execute you.”
“I welcome you to try.” Ghedi stalked away.
Varda kept pace with Ghedi. “Where are you going?”
“Can’t talk here,” he said through his teeth.
She followed him out of the castle, into the open. He stopped in a spot between the keep wall and castle, amid the cottages. Previously a preferred spot for Sven and Sauvageon to argue, now deserted. So quiet, it was weird.
Ghedi shook his head. “I’ll warn your mother and try to get them to the ships first. If I take a caravan, I might make it.” He took her hand in a tight grip. “You should come. You can’t stay here. There are things you should know, about Frank, and about me. About the emperor, and especially about what happened in Dvara. And about your—”
“Just save the ships, Ghedi. Please.”
He sighed. “I’ll do what I can.”
Chapter 57
Pointy locked his jaw. Two weeks of travel over uneven terrain would get old soon. If he wasn’t jostling, he was jolting, and each of his pains already had their own set of subsidiary aches.
They’d walked through the night, stopped for a quick meal, then continued. Within a few hours, they’d have to pass by the first outpost. The plan was to fragment, so they seemed like smaller groups bound for other outposts, then take out the guards so the others could pass. The farther they went, the more difficult this would become.
As soon as they’d passed the outpost, they’d rest. Noon approached, and they’d need to eat and sleep if they wanted to keep up this pace.
In the distance, clouds gathered, but what those clouds would bring, he didn’t know. There were worse things than drizzle. Most of the snow had melted, and the sun was much warmer than it had been before Celestine had caught him, but a legend existed between these people that the last blizzard was still impending. Shit knew, if they had to trek through these damned hills in thick snow, Frank could send a brigade of snails to catch them.
Worse still, this area was without trees, without big rocks or crevasses that were defensible.
They marched in relative silence, which gave him too much time stuck in his own head. Nathaniel’s death was more tangible in the daylight.
Often, Pointy found himself leaning over to say something to Nathaniel, who was next to him. Nathaniel was almost always next to him.
Except today. No, today he was in a glass jar in Carabelle’s backpack. A pile of ash. Dead.
The pain Clarity had inflicted upon him seemed like an itch when compared to the knowledge that Nathaniel would never laugh at one of his jokes again, would never come to him for help again, would never sit at a table with him again.
If Magnus had disliked him before, he was going to detest him now. Pointy covered his mouth to keep the sob caught on his tongue. For her.
Carabelle pushed the damn wheelchair, because she’d gotten it into her head that he needed taking care of. Him. Jacques Du Pont, director of bloody Mordian Intelligence.
She sighed, and Amber stepped closer.
“I’ll take over, majesty,” Amber said.
“Thank you.” Carabelle went up ahead and fell in next to Vendla. She held her shoulders straight. Too straight.
She was crying but didn’t want him to know. Once they reached Roicester, he’d schedule a few sessions for her with Angeline. If there was anyone who could help Carabelle deal with her emotions, it was his sister.
He’d also put Tatienne to the task of playing handmaiden to the queen. Possibly Madeleine as well. His daughters were sensitive to emotional matters and might be able to become Carabelle’s friends and confidantes. The age difference between them wasn’t that great.
Another reason he could never be with Carabelle. He had children old enough to be her siblings. Ashes. How was she going to handle the news? Why hadn’t he told her about his brood sooner? The same reason you never tell anyone about them, idiot.
Nobody could use his children to hurt him if they didn’t know those children existed. Of his friends, Nathaniel had known more than anyone else, and he’d simply known there were three, and a fourth on the way. Jeanita knew only about the girls—if she found out about Lucien she’d know Claude’s sister Aimee had been his mother, and Creator knew that couldn’t happen—but Jeremy and Ahmed had no idea Pointy had children at all. And those were his closest friends.
But Carabelle was a more delicate subject. He couldn’t risk her finding out and feeling he’d hidden the truth from her on purpose. She had to trust him, absolutely, for their relationship to work. The relationship of spymaster and monarch, of course.
He had to tell her, sooner rather than later, no matter how it scared him.
Pointy tried to scratch his nose, but the cursed bandages complicated everything. At least the swelling at his eye had gone down. Yay.
How much longer could he keep this up? How the hell was he going to get her back to Aelland and keep himself together at the same time? Jeanita was usually around for that, but she’d stayed behind with Varda. Meanwhile, he—
A Trial of Sparks & Kindling (Fall of the Mantle Book 2) Page 43