The Scarecrow (Master of Malice Book 1)

by Peace, Cas

  Blackness and depression ate at his soul. He ached with loss and self-blame. What use was he when he couldn’t make her happy, couldn’t keep her safe, couldn’t even reach her to let her know he hadn’t abandoned her? She was better off without him … yet his love for her remained.

  He grasped at the emotion, desperate to stave off the specter of despair. She would have told him he was better than this, this wallowing in failure and self-recrimination. His powers had grown, and his confidence too. What use was that if he couldn’t rule his own emotions? Why should he let the darkness take him, and thereby validate his father’s low opinion of him? Hadn’t he already shown he was worth more than that?

  As these thoughts nudged their way through alternating veils of flame and darkness, Jinny’s face appeared once more, smiling as if to encourage him. His heart surged at the sight, tenderness flooding his soul. He might have made mistakes, might not have been completely honest with her, but that didn’t mean he loved her any less. It didn’t mean he had to give up. If he did, he would be letting Jinny down all over again.

  He thought he heard her voice once more, calling for him, crying his name. It tore at his heart, but instead of beating him down with his failures, the sound brought a measure of calm to his soul. He was an Adept-elite, not some weak and feeble fool. He had resources and he could fight this, be the man she had once loved. He owed her that, at least.

  Resolve flooded his spirit and his heart gave a lurch. The image of her face gazed at him, as if through the veil of death. A solid sense of purpose tugged at him and he beat at the flames of his nightmares, quelling them as he had been unable to do at the mansion. He reached out toward her image, stretching, pleading, and felt her take his hand in hers. It was warm, vibrant, and firm. It anchored him, showing him a way back from despair.

  I love you, he told her, his voice echoing in the void of his mind. He heard her sob and felt her arms come around him. Their warmth bolstered him, comforted him, giving him strength. This is how it would feel if she had forgiven him. Might she have forgiven him? Would she, even though she was gone? Had her spirit heard him, as he thought he had heard hers?

  A sob caught in his throat and he gasped, choking. He snatched a breath and opened his eyes, seeing a familiar face inches from his, feeling comforting arms around his shoulders.

  + + + + +

  As Taran finally stirred and woke, Sullyan released him and sat up, blinking back tears for his pain and the loss of Jinella. His cries had cut to her heart. She watched as he came fully back to himself, realizing who she was. He pushed himself upright, wincing at the pain of his crushed leg.

  “Brynne. Oh, I’m sorry … I’ve been … I shouldn’t have let myself go like that. Have you been here long?”

  She smiled. “Only a few minutes. I thought I might have to help rouse you, but you did it all on your own.”

  He gathered himself with an effort, breathing hard. She sensed his awful memories of that terrible night as they surged to the fore.

  “Jinny … I thought I heard ….”

  He wasn’t fully over his trauma, she could see that. To help ground him in the present, she asked, “Do you know how the fire started?”

  He looked up sharply. “Denny thought it must have been an accident, an overturned lamp. But Seth said … he said … he said she’d been desperately unhappy since our row, that she’d sent the servants off early and that she’d been crying. He offered to get one of her friends, but she refused and sent him away. He said he checked all the lamps that night and they were all safely trimmed. He said”—Taran’s increasingly agitated voice fell to an anguished moan—“she must have done it deliberately.”

  Sullyan frowned. “What, he thinks she burned the house down to take her own life?”

  Taran nodded miserably, and Sullyan shook her head. “That does not sound like Jinella to me. And you believe him?”

  Taran shrugged, hugging his chest. “Why would he say it if he didn’t think it was true? She must have hated me for what I did to her, and now I can never put it right. I’d just found that silver box, and then … and then, her body ….”

  He couldn’t go on. She regarded him while she thought over what she’d heard. The silver box he’d mentioned was on the bed between them and she idly picked it up, running her fingers over its delicate tracery.

  She knew how upset Jinny had been by her belief she was barren, and could understand the girl’s anger when Taran told her the truth. Betrayal hurt, especially so when the perpetrator was a loved and trusted partner. But suicide? Sullyan was damned if she would believe their row caused Jinny to contemplate taking her own life. The Baroness would have spoken with Taran once her temper cooled. She wouldn’t have thrown away everything they had together because of one mistake. Jinny was too openhearted for that.

  But if the fire wasn’t a suicide attempt, why should the manservant say it was? Even if it was, it was a cruel thing to taunt Taran with. The Adept had obviously been in great distress, and finding Jinella’s charred remains would have been traumatic enough. Why lead him to believe the fire was a result of his actions? Why drive him further into despair? Unless …

  She stilled, recalling her suspicions concerning the brigand ambush and Neremiah’s death. Turning eyes now clear of introspection upon the grieving Adept, she asked, “Did you and Seth ever disagree? Can you think of any reason why he would wish you harm?”

  Taran raised a pale face, eyes dark with pain. His brow furrowed, his glance falling to the gleaming box she turned in her hands. “No, not really. I never had much to do with him. I got the impression he didn’t like me much, but we never spoke more than a few words to each other.”

  Sullyan eyed the box, her thoughts speculative. She casually raised the lid, looking at the skillfully-worked design along the rim, admiring the silversmith’s art. “And Jinny never expressed any dissatisfaction with—oh, what is this?”

  A thick, folded parchment pressed up against the loosened lid. Sullyan glanced across at Taran, who shrugged listlessly when she offered him the box.

  “I don’t know. Probably a letter from her mother. She was always asking Jinny for more gold.”

  Sullyan took out the parchment and scanned it as Taran continued. “I was going to see her, you know. The evening before the … fire … I was going to see her. I wanted to make sure she’d heard about the death of His Immanence, and I hadn’t yet taken her uncle’s possessions to her. But instead I let Denny persuade me to play cards. It was too late, really, to go calling on her unannounced. It was an excuse, I suppose. I really should have gone. And then, in the early hours, I heard her call to me.”

  “What?”

  Sullyan’s head snapped up. She had been reading the parchment, eyes growing wider by the minute, and hadn’t been paying attention to Taran. But on the heels of her realization of what the parchment revealed, Taran’s last statement suddenly registered. She stared at him, the parchment temporarily forgotten. “What did you say?”

  Taran stared back, frowning. “I heard her call me.”

  “You mean through the substrate.”

  He nodded. “I was asleep, dreaming. At first I thought it was part of my dream, a nightmare. It certainly felt like one. When I realized it wasn’t, I thought … I thought it was you. But when I checked, you were sleeping peacefully. It wasn’t until later, when I realized the seat of the fire was at the estate, that it hit me.”

  Taran paused, his face draining at his failure to recognize Jinny’s call. He hugged his chest tighter, breath rasping though his teeth. “I didn’t expect it. She had no talent, we all knew that. I’d hoped … you do sometimes hear of a bond being forged between close partners, and she’d always been so eager to hear about how we work and communicate. I’d always hoped one day … one day we might break through her mind’s barriers and the impossible would happen. But when it did, when the anguish in her soul grew so great she could finally overcome those barriers, when she needed me so badly she found the means
to reach me … I failed her.”

  Tears prickled Sullyan’s eyes and she leaned forward, placing a hand on Taran’s forearm. She spoke earnestly, driving her words at him to make him hear.

  “Taran, I cannot deny you failed to recognize Jinny’s call, although I will refute your right to claim you failed her. You can hardly be blamed for not realizing the call originated with her. You may believe me or not, as you wish. But this you will believe, my friend. Jinella did not take her own life. She did not succumb to dark despair over your argument, and she did not die hating you.”

  Taran stared at her out of deep wells of pain. “How can you say that?”

  Sullyan extended the parchment with trembling fingers. Taran stared blankly before he took it. Sullyan rose from the bed and moved to the window, her back to the stricken Adept as he read the words his beloved lady had written. She heard nothing but the quickening of his breath. He made no outcry, gave no gasp. When she finally turned around, he had laid the parchment on the bed and was sitting with his head in his hands, just as she had done on hearing the dreadful news the previous evening.

  She crossed to him and sat beside him, her arm across his trembling shoulders. But he wasn’t weeping, as she’d thought. He was past weeping, now.

  “She had forgiven you, my friend.”

  Taran dropped his hands and nodded slightly, his face even paler than before. “So it would seem. And that’s what I felt just now, as I was waking. I thought I was just trying to comfort myself. But if it’s true, she didn’t start the fire, did she?”

  Sullyan shook her head. She was proud of his control and inner strength, and he was beginning to think again.

  The Adept just stared at her. Sullyan reached out to him, to lend him a measure of strength, but he pushed her metaforce away. “I’m all right, Brynne. I just need to understand ….”

  She stood, her decision made. “Taran, could you bear to accompany me to the mansion? I need to see the place for myself.”

  He gave a pale smile. “I could bear it, but I don’t think I’m up to riding just now. I did a very stupid thing last night, tried to force my horse through a gap too small for him. I scraped my leg and it’s still very painful and … oh, dear gods, I never checked on Bucyrus! He was injured too, and I never checked he was all right—”

  “Easy, Taran. Rendan brought both you and Bucyrus back from the mansion. He will have been cared for in the stables. I will check on him myself, if it will ease you. But I have to tell you, it was not last night that you fought the fire. I am afraid you have been asleep for twenty-four hours.”

  This news seemed to shock the Adept profoundly. “Twenty-four hours? But … oh, gods, Brynne, the King, the General! I should have reported yesterday evening—!”

  She shook her head. “Calm yourself. They contacted me when they could not raise you, which is why I am here. I will tell you all the news once we have finished our business at the site of the fire. I have other duties to attend this morning. And you need not concern yourself with riding. Drum shall carry us both. I will leave you to get dressed and meet you in the courtyard. Can you manage to walk that far?”

  Taran nodded, and she smiled as she left the room.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Sullyan had Drum waiting by the castle doors when Taran limped down the outer steps. He was stiff and sore, and not just from the lacerations to his leg. His exertions on the night of the fire hadn’t been helped by a day spent languishing in bed. He wrapped his fleece-lined jacket about his body against the icy morning chill and accepted Sullyan’s assistance to boost him onto Drum’s broad back. She vaulted up in front of him.

  “You need not worry for your mount,” she told him over her shoulder as she nudged the huge stud out of the courtyard. “He has been well tended. He has a few nasty scrapes, but they will heal with time. I have given him a little help and ensured he will not scar. The hair will grow back as it should and he will be well. You both had a lucky escape, by all accounts.”

  She’d had the details from one of the men who had ridden behind Taran that night. She heard him give a sigh of relief that his reckless behavior hadn’t resulted in more serious consequences.

  He managed a humorless chuckle. “So Denny told me. He gave me a thorough dressing down all the way from the gate to the estate. I can’t begin to imagine what he’ll say about it the next time I see him. He wasn’t impressed, to say the least.”

  Sullyan swallowed the lump in her throat. She had forgotten he didn’t know about Denny’s death, and the last thing she wanted was to give him more pain. Yet she hadn’t been swift enough to suppress the grief that suffused her spirit, and she could tell Taran sensed it.

  Damn him! Why couldn’t he have missed her lapse, as he missed so many nuances? But she was being unfair. He was growing in control and strength, and she shouldn’t condemn him just because she flinched from a painful subject.

  “What is it?” he demanded, clutching her shoulder. “What’s happened?”

  She had to tell him, no matter how much he would be hurt. He was Denny’s friend too; he had a right to know.

  “Taran, Owyn Denny is dead. He was killed in Loxton Forest yesterday, along with all of his company, as he rode in pursuit of the brigands who attacked Sir Regus.”

  There was a brief silence. “Dead?” he whispered, unable to believe it. “Denny—all of them—dead?”

  She felt his distress through the grip of his fingers. “I am afraid so.”

  “Even Ardoch?”

  She sucked in a breath. “No, no, not Ardoch. His band took a different route to Owyn’s. They were close enough to hear the ambush, but not near enough to help them. By the time they reached the site, all the brigands were gone. Ardoch brought the dead back into the city.”

  Taran remained silent as they rode, only the tremble of his body telling of his distress. Denny had once been the Baron’s unwitting tool, used to great effect in Reen’s efforts to destroy Sullyan’s life, and he had caused great pain to Taran as well. But he’d also been one of Taran’s staunchest friends since the Adept accepted the position of Court Artesan, and Taran would sorely miss his cheerful manner, irreverent humor, and openhearted ways. As would Sullyan.

  Drum’s hooves crunched through the ice-crusted snow as Sullyan told Taran what she had heard from Robin the evening before. The telling soothed her and, even if he wasn’t fully concentrating on her words, the gentle lilt of her voice helped keep Taran anchored in reality, preventing him from sinking once again into debilitating grief. They watched the townspeople as they rode, going about what business they could on such a bitter day, and they wondered how life could go on so blithely, so callously, in the face of such tragedy and loss. Eventually, the somber faces and muted chatter of the townsfolk registered with the Adept and he commented on it to Sullyan.

  “Yes,” she said, “they are still uneasy. Who can blame them after all that has happened? The funeral pyre we must attend later today will do nothing to lighten their mood.”

  Her reminder of what they had lost weighed heavily on Taran and he fell silent once more as they continued to the estate.

  Rendan Levant, once he had seen the unconscious Taran to the infirmary, had sent men back to the estate with orders to cordon off the mansion until it had cooled enough to be dealt with and the bodies removed. So when Taran and Sullyan finally rode up to the stark remains of the once-handsome building, they found it bleak and desolate, devoid of life.

  Taran stayed atop Drum while Sullyan dismounted, eyes misting with pity for the devastation. She glanced briefly up at him and he pointed mutely to where he’d found the remains of his love. Giving him a smile intended to warm his aching heart, Sullyan moved toward the blackened ruin.

  The area had been securely roped off, the servants gone to find what comfort they could with friends or family. The horses had been rounded up by Matty, and now had temporary stabling in the village. The site was silent and deserted, except for the remains of the dead.

>   The ground around the mansion was frozen once more, but Sullyan could see where many feet had trampled the snow and where the water, so valiantly but so futilely thrown into the blaze, had puddled and frozen in the ruts. Charred timbers and blackened stone still steamed faintly in the gray morning, idle wisps of smoke telling where some ember still clung to feeble life. The scene made Sullyan shiver.

  She eyed what was left of the walls as she began her search. Her nose wrinkled in distaste, as if at some noisome smell, and she halted briefly amid the fallen floorboards and burnt furnishings.

  “This whole place reeks of evil.”

  Taran, still on Drum, was too far to hear her clearly. “What did you say?” But she ignored him and moved forward again.

  She started close to the kitchens, the likeliest place for a fire to start. The whole area had been completely devastated and both floors had burned out, the upper collapsing onto the lower. It was there she found the housekeeper. The bones were still visible among the charred metal and wood, although no scraps of clothing adhered to them. Sullyan stood in silent homage over the remains of Alice, mourning the life of the young woman who had been so badly treated by the Baron and then rescued by the compassion of the King, only to end up perishing in the Baron’s former home. She resolved to give Alice the same honor due Jinella once the bodies were finally recovered.

  Still feeling unease, Sullyan picked her careful way toward the point Taran had indicated. Footing was perilous; the burned and blackened rubble was unstable and often turned underfoot. Ice had formed in the cooler parts of the building, slicking over puddles that hadn’t evaporated in the inferno. She had to catch her balance once or twice, to cautionary calls from Taran. Finally, she saw what she’d been searching for—a gleam of bone within the black.