“I did not squeal—”
“You squealed.” He crossed his arms.
She exhaled loudly. “Well, that turtle was savage—”
“Oh, vicious,” he mocked, holding her gaze.
She bit her lip, but a smile fought its way free. A laugh followed. When her gleaming eyes met his, he couldn’t help but laugh with her.
She squeezed her rosy soap. “Thank you, by the way. For helping.”
Nothing could’ve stopped him. But he shrugged. “It’s that damnable courtesy.”
“So very damnable.” An impish smile played on her lips.
“Two attacks in one night,” he said with a mocking sigh. “You must have a target painted on you somewhere.”
She chuckled. He met her eyes, cheerfully bright, but that brightness began to fade into something else. Something intense.
The stillness of the pool lingered, widened, until only the trilling of insects and croaking of frogs composed the sonata of the night.
She parted her lips, stilled as her breathing slowed. In the light of the moon, a wet sheen on her skin, she was stunning. Warmth simmered in him, and he became aware of his own nakedness in the dark water. And hers.
An owl hooted, breaking the silence.
He diverted his gaze and swallowed against the tension. “I should head back.”
She was quiet a moment longer. “I think I’ll stay just a few minutes more.”
“Of course. Take your time.” He backed away and waded through the resistant water, striving for some distance, then left the pool. The farther, the better. Water stirred behind him, but he didn’t dare look back.
He threw on his clothes and, since they were away from camp, started a small fire, then began the lengthy task of cleaning and oiling his armor while he waited for her.
Had Terra joined their paths to test him? The more time he spent with Rielle, the more difficult it became to resist her. He could look at her for hours, poke her temper for fun, rise to meet her every challenge, but more than that, there was something that drew him in—that made him lie awake at night, flesh hot, heart pounding, grinning like an idiot. An attraction whose existence was becoming dangerous... and alluring.
He worked away the unwelcome thoughts of her, disciplining both mind and body.
When she finally emerged from the water, he stared pointedly at the Order’s moon-shaped coat of arms on his cuirass while she dressed. His imagination chomped at the bit, but he nudged it aside.
She came to him wearing fresh clothes and holding a dusty bundle. “I’m about to wash my clothes. I’ll wash yours, too, if you like. I was always much better at laundry duty than kitchen duty.”
He swore he could hear the smile in her voice, and he wanted to look. Wanted to share in her amusement. To give in to her courtesy.
Better not.
He didn’t look at her. “I can take care of it.”
“It’s no trouble. Besides, this means you’re doing the cooking.”
The longer she stood there, the harder it would be to avoid thinking about her.
He glanced toward the bundle next to his knapsack. “You have a deal. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She retrieved it and, along with her own, headed for the water.
While he finished with his armor, she did the wash, humming a familiar tune. He couldn’t quite place it. Where he’d heard it was on the edge of his mind but remained stubbornly out of reach. It sounded nice enough, yet uneasiness spread through him. “What is it you’re singing?”
She went quiet but continued washing their clothes. “I can stop, if it’s bothering you.”
“Please don’t. I’ve heard it somewhere before and just don’t remember the words.”
She froze, staring out at the water, her brow furrowed. What about a song could cause such a reaction?
He drew in a breath. “Ah.” He rose and hefted his armor. “Is it really such a bawdy tune?”
With a sharp snap of her head in his direction, her blush was scarlet even in the moonlight. She scowled at him.
Perfect. He leaned in. “Let’s hear it, then,” he challenged.
She turned back toward the water and continued with the wash. Trying to keep quiet, he wondered if she’d tell him the words or not.
“Winter wren, winter wren...” she sang, and the words blurred as the melody flowed into him, parting his thoughts to reach deeper. Spectral silver glimmered in her hair.
Beautiful—
The song. The song was beautiful. Captivated, he watched, listened, and yet something dark stirred in him, made his heart race, his breath catch. Screams. A settlement crowned with fire. Shining gold. Weakness. Blood. Shade... His eyelids heavy, he brushed his neck with haunted fingertips.
She sang on, and warmth rose inside him, yet the feeling of life seeping out of his desperate grasp ghosted through him, a specter that still haunted him some nights.
“I grew up with it,” she added quickly. “In the North, it’s a common song. I’ve heard it sung often enough, and the winter wrens nest in the spruce forests around Laurentine and Aestrie...”
She continued, but he could no longer discern her words; unintelligible memory spun his mind.
“Jon?”
He blinked, focusing on her kneeling figure, her shining hair. Reflecting silver, not gold.
“Hm?” He cracked his neck to break the malaise settling into his bones.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
He knew a mage had saved his life five years ago in Signy—an apprentice healer, he’d been told. All he’d wanted was to thank her in person, but Tor never told him her name, what she looked like, nothing. Instead, Tor had cautioned that paladins who chased after women often caught them. Yet, ever since that day, every young healer he met left him questioning.
Rielle’s an elementalist. Could the healer also be from the North, where the song was common?
“I’m not much of a singer these days.” Her shoulders slumped.
“It’s not that.” He could listen to her sing all day—but that song stirred such memories. “Maybe you’d care to sing another at camp?”
She laughed. “Only if you dance.”
An attempt to cheer him up. Amused, he helped her to her feet. “Thinking I’ll dance to your tune so easily, witch?”
Walking past him with a smug grin, she headed back. “You already are.”
Speechless, he followed after her. Was he dancing to her tune? Was it mere teasing or something more?
I’m losing this battle. If he continued on the back foot for much longer, perhaps it would be time to beat a tactical retreat.
Chapter 14
Rielle lay on her belly in the tent, writing by the light of the oil lamp to conserve anima. The Proctor would expect a full report. After the night they’d had, the last thing she wanted to do was stay awake longer to write a report, but it needed doing.
“Do you have any books in that bag of sorcery?”
She looked over her shoulder at Jon, who nodded toward her recondite satchel. “You read?”
“I do.” A wry smile tugged at his mouth. “What a shame it would be for the world’s greatest wit to waste away in a tent with an illiterate paladin.”
She rolled her eyes. “No need to take offense. Obviously I meant recreationally.”
“There are books at the monastery.”
“What, like religious tomes? Histories?”
He nodded. “Not just that. We’re more than just our vocation, you know. Think about it... Vows of sobriety and celibacy. What do you think we do in the evening?”
“Read?”
“Exactly.”
“So what kind of books?” she asked, but before he could reply, she buried her hand in the recondite satchel and, with a smirk, thought of the perfect book for him. She retrieved it and handed it to him: the newest Court Duelist volume. Few had it so soon, but Gran knew the author and passed each one on early. The series followed a minor noblema
n skilled in two things: romancing women and dueling, with the first skill getting him in constant trouble and the second getting him out of it.
She tried to contain her mischievous grin. What would he think of her favorite books?
His face lit up. “The sixth?” He swept a palm over the cover and opened the book. “How do you have the sixth volume so soon?”
She almost wanted to check to make sure her eyebrows hadn’t shot through the tent and into the sky. Court Duelist was regular reading for him?
Forcing a shrug, she turned back to her report, but her mind wandered. Was he secretly a romantic? If he’d been raised at the monastery and into the Order, he had to be a virgin. Her cheeks heated. How much did forsworn paladin virgins know about romance?
A blot of ink had dripped onto her parchment. Stay on task. She had to stay on task. The uneventful journey, camp, the ward, the ward breach, the investigation into the forest, and—
After some more scrawling, she yawned.
“That exciting?” he asked from behind her.
She looked over her shoulder at him; he was already well into the book. “I’m merely ruminating on how to describe your unfortunate plunge into the ruins. Shall I go with tumble, flop, or pratfall?”
He glanced up from the book. “If you’re going for the most effective anti-Order propaganda, the obvious choice is pratfall, for maximum comedic effect.” He returned to his reading.
“Obvious—of course. How silly of me.” She repressed a grin and turned back to the report.
Writing in the Divinity’s code had become second nature after years of missions, both with Leigh and on her own, but it was still tedious. A touch of comedy made the task less so, even if it earned her the occasional finger-wagging from the Proctor.
Last mission, someone had stumbled upon the brilliant idea to pack only strawberry preserves for her food, highly unusual and suspect, considering her well-known and life-threatening strawberry allergy. Luckily, she and Rainier managed to barter on the road for some standard travel fare—and some tobacco besides. With that, an otherwise dull heretic arrest in Caerlain Trel had become much more enjoyable. But she had let her displeasure about the food packing be known with a thorough log of all their meals, ingredient by painstaking ingredient, every detail of food preparation, in the coded mission report. She and Rainier had shared a laugh composing their reports.
The Proctor hadn’t found it as funny.
But no strawberry preserves this time. She smiled. A small victory was still a victory.
She turned back to tonight’s report. After mentioning the ward breach, the investigation, the revelation that Jon was a mage, and his... pratfall... into the ruins, she proceeded to include their injuries, her response, and their resonance.
In rather vague terms, of course.
The heat, the pleasure, the need were—she took a deep breath—difficult to put into words. The facts—dim anima, a mage at hand, resonance, bright anima—were all that needed to be said.
She cleared her throat. The Proctor didn’t need to know any more about that.
Her face warmed, and she shifted on the bedroll. Resonance had always been pleasant, and although she’d heard of the better experience with complements, she’d never expected it to be... transcendental.
She bit her lip. The way he’d held her—tight, firm, close—revealed a hidden boldness that begged encouragement. After that and his intensity in the forest pool, she knew he desired her.
And she desired him.
But he wished to return to being a paladin. It would be cruel to ruin that for lust—lust that she could slake elsewhere. And there certainly couldn’t be anything more between them. If the disasters of her life had taught her anything, it was not to develop strong attachments. Or at least try not to.
Love led to madness. Madness led to fureur. Fureur led to death. Just like Laurentine.
It’s in the past. Some things were better left buried. At least this report could help save people’s lives from whatever the heretics were planning.
She shivered and continued writing the report, recording their search for an exit, the heretics and their conversation, the skirmish, and their escape.
Just what were the heretics doing in an underground ruin, so close to the Tower?
Close to the Tower. She flittered her fingers. Perhaps preparing to attack there?
No, there hadn’t seemed to be many of them. An attack on the Tower would have required many mages. Strong mages. War machines, for the arcanir-enhanced stone walls. The Towers had stood for centuries, perhaps longer—no one rightly knew who’d built them—and it would take a lot more than a few heretics to bring one down.
So close to the Tower... Were they meeting with an informant? A spy?
The heretics had mentioned a hydromancer. The only hydromancer in residence at the Tower was Kieran. Had he been sent on a mission, too? Were the heretics a danger to him?
Her disagreements with him aside, Kieran was still a mage, and no mage should have to suffer their interrogations. And suffer he would. The heretics were known for torturing mages into madness, branding their eyes to blindness, cutting out their tongues, maiming their hands, and leaving them to a twisted, morbid expiation of a life.
And the heretics had mentioned a siege. Where? There’d been no news at the Tower.
Great Divine. She straightened. No news. Leigh had said there’d been no news from the capital for days.
Berny had burst from the Proctor’s quarters, teary eyed. It’s the cap—
The daughter of a Courdevallan baker, scared, but unable to say more.
The capital.
The black quill blurred before her. Olivia. She gasped.
“What is it?” Jon’s voice broke into her thoughts.
Courdeval may be under siege. My best friend’s life may be in danger. She mustered a thin smile. It could be nothing. I need more answers. “Just thinking about something the heretics mentioned, the siege.”
“We could go back and find out more.”
No, we can’t. I have my mission. She lowered her head. “It’s all right. I’ll make some inquiries in Bournand.”
It was probably nothing, but if a city in Emaurria was under siege, there’d be rumors in Bournand. She stowed away her writing supplies before settling into her bedroll.
Jon shut his book and then gestured to the oil lamp. When she nodded, he cupped the back of the chimney top and blew out the flame.
The canvas and wool rustled as he bedded down in the dark. “Do you suppose the Tower will send some mages to deal with the vicious turtle threat?”
Attempting to cheer her up? She grinned and shook her head. “Not unless you tell them about it.”
“Your secret is safe with me,” he replied, his amused voice an octave lower.
She burrowed deeper into her bedroll, snuggling against the cool night.
“Goodnight, Rielle.”
She went still. He’d used her name. Perhaps they were becoming friends. “Goodnight, Jon.”
Tomorrow, if they made good time, they would arrive in Bournand. If there was a siege somewhere, she would find out. Olivia, please be all right.
Chapter 15
A torch shone at the end of the corridor, and Olivia shielded her eyes as it drew near. The constant darkness had become almost a comfort. Light now came as an unexpected and unwanted visitor.
There were two, a woman and a man. Dressed in darkest leathers, hooded, and masked, the woman’s appearance was a mystery, other than her short stature and hourglass figure.
Ahead of her walked a tower of a man, over six feet of heavy plate bearing the sage tint of arcanir, flanked by a silver-trimmed black cloak of the finest wool. He had a full head of jet-black hair graying at his temples to match his ash-and-cinder stubble; the lines of his face placed him in his fifth decade. At his side he wore a sheathed blade a stunning five feet in length.
It could be none other than the infamous General of the Crag Company,
Evrard Gilles. She had never seen him, but his infamy preceded him; Rielle had confirmed the details after one of her missions with Leigh crossed Gilles’ path five years ago.
If Gilles is here, it’s to kill me.
The blood-curdling screams of the king’s guests in the great hall the night of the regicide echoed in her ears anew. She fought the panic rising in her chest and gathered her composure. If death awaited her today, she would go with dignity.
The woman paused before the cell door, her hand on the hilt of a sheathed dagger. “Attempt anything, mage, and I will take great pleasure in peeling the flesh from your face.”
A shudder snaked down Olivia’s spine, and she nodded.
The woman slipped the torch into a wall sconce, unlocked the cell, and entered, her presence invasive and menacing despite her diminutive height. She didn’t move a hair from her ready stance while Gilles followed her in and locked the cell door. Then she moved aside.
Gilles peered down at Olivia and presented a small enameled box. It was not unlike some James had given her, containing expensive trinkets and jewelry, during halcyon days.
“Lady Sabeyon, how do you do?” he asked, in a surprisingly cordial tone.
She stiffened, then bent in the closest iteration of a proper bow she could muster. She tried to speak, but her voice failed her at first; rubbing her parched tongue on the roof of her mouth, she croaked, “The kitchen service could be better.”
Gilles glanced at the woman, who wasted no time retrieving her own waterskin and handing it to Olivia.
Poisoned? But if they had decided to kill her, she would die. There was nothing to lose in drinking it. She brought it to her mouth and gulped down the contents.
Water. If it were poisoned, the poisoner was an artist, masterful in his craft.
She emptied the waterskin and shakily offered it to the woman.
“I come bearing a gift from your beloved prince,” Gilles said sweetly.
James. How could he possibly get anything to her? “And what can I do for you, General?”
“Indulge me in conversation, my lady.”
She risked a small smile. “Perhaps, General, we could converse somewhere more pleasant?”
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