Defy (The Blades of Acktar Book 3)

by Tricia Mingerink

  But surely Prince Keevan wouldn’t leave Renna at Nalgar Castle, would he?

  Prince Keevan gave a sharp nod, then waved at Leith. “General, take him away.”

  Leith held his hands up as General Stewart tromped behind him. He yanked Leith’s hands behind his back. Leith gritted his teeth as a rope grated against his skin.

  Shad adjusted the bundle of Leith’s weapons, as if he toyed with the idea of tossing them to Leith. “What do you plan to do with him?”

  “Hold a trial. I’m sure I’ll be able to find a few eyewitnesses to provide testimony.”

  The chills settled in Leith’s chest. A trial couldn’t possibly go in his favor. What would happen to Renna if Leith couldn’t return?

  Shad glared at Prince Keevan. “You can’t do that. He could be sentenced to death. He came here seeking mercy. My father promised him sanctuary in good faith.”

  “Your father had no right to promise for me.”

  “He had every right.” Shad’s hands shook with their white-knuckled grip on his sword’s hilt and Leith’s knives. “You gave him the authority to lead the Resistance in Acktar in your stead. That gives him the authority to make promises in your stead.”

  General Stewart jerked Leith by his elbow, wrenching his shoulder painfully.

  Leith ignored the pain and held his ground. “A trial won’t be necessary. I’m guilty. I’ll confess everything, all thirty-seven marks. I have nothing I wish to hide.”

  It’d be painful, admitting five years of missions for Respen. Not all of them were murders, but some led to deaths or imprisonment.

  But he was done with lying. Done with hiding. Even if the truth had consequences.

  General Stewart dragged Leith from the room.

  22

  Brandi wandered to the big cabin she’d seen Leith and Shad enter. She’d been assigned to share a cabin with Lady Lorraine, Lady Alistair, Jolene, Lydia, and all the rest of the Alistairs. Brandi should’ve stayed and gotten reacquainted with Abigail Alistair, but Abigail’s chatter grated on her.

  As Brandi approached, the front door heaved open. That tall man with longish gray hair yanked Leith out the door. Leith’s hands were tied behind his back.

  What in Acktar was going on? Brandi jumped forward. “Let him go!”

  Both of them turned to her. Leith gave her a small smile. “It’s all right, Brandi. I’ll be fine.”

  Why had they tied Leith up? Didn’t they realize he was a hero? And why wasn’t Leith fighting back? “Why are you doing this?”

  “Leader’s orders.” The man hustled Leith away.

  Brandi stalked into the big cabin. Whoever this Leader was, he was going to get a piece of her mind. Fists swinging at her side, she marched through the entry and into the first door to her left where she heard raised voices.

  Across the darkened room, Shad argued with a blond-haired young man standing near banks of candles. Brandi charged across the room and shoved between them. “How dare you tie Leith up! You let him go!” She swung her fist at him.

  Shad lunged, wrapped his arms around her, and dragged her away from the offending young man. “You don’t know who this is.”

  Squirming and wiggling, she shoved at Shad’s arms as hard as she could. His arms didn’t budge. “I don’t care who he is. He had Leith arrested.”

  The young man turned to her. The light streaked down the scar decorating his cheek and neck. He eyed her, one eyebrow scrunched, the other raised, as if he didn’t know what to think.

  Shad placed his hands on her upper arms, pinning her arms to her side. “Brandi, this is your cousin Prince Keevan Eirdon. Your Highness, this is Brandiline.”

  Her cousin was alive? She tried to drag up some memory of him. She remembered his younger brothers, Rorin and Duncan. They’d been nearer to Renna’s age and Brandi had done her best to tag along with the three of them whenever her parents visited Nalgar Castle. Prince Keevan and his older brother Aengus were several years older than Renna and far too old to pay attention to their baby cousins, unless it was to pull their hair or tease them.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Brandiline.” Keevan gave her a half-bow. “You look a lot like your mother.”

  He was trying to get on her good side. Well, it didn’t work. Cousin or no, rightful king or no, he’d still arrested Leith. She clenched her fists tighter and glared at him. “Let Leith go. He isn’t going to hurt anyone.”

  A fire sparked in Keevan’s eyes. He leaned forward and jabbed at the scar dragging across his face and neck. “Five years ago, he pressed his hand over my mouth, looked me in the eyes, and dragged his knife across my throat. I thought I’d choke on my own blood.”

  “Leith did that?” Brandi stumbled into Shad. She stared at the horrible scar. Had Leith really done that?

  Keevan leaned even closer. “And he helped kill your parents.”

  She curled over her arms, feeling like Stubborn their mule had accidentally kicked her. Leith had helped kill her parents? He’d been her friend. He’d taken her into the sparkling cavern and let her cry on him. He’d comforted her and acted like a brother to her. All the while he’d carried the guilt of her parents’ deaths.

  Shad wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her away from Keevan. “That was cruel.” After a pause, he added, “Your Highness.”

  Keevan’s shoulders slumped. “I apologize, Brandiline. I didn’t mean to take my anger out on you.”

  She crossed her arms. Maybe Keevan was mistaken. It could’ve been a different Blade that tried to kill Keevan and helped kill her parents. Leith was probably somewhere else. “I want to talk to Leith.”

  Keevan nodded. Brandi tapped her foot while he rounded up a guard to take her. After far too many minutes, the guard led her and Shad from the big cabin. She kept her arms crossed and a glare on her face as they hiked across the open space and into one of the canyons twisting through the pillars of rock.

  Partway into the canyon, they stopped before a recess in the rock. Three guards paced in front of the opening, as if Leith was a dangerous criminal or something. Their escort talked to the guards a few minutes before waving Brandi to enter.

  While Shad remained outside with the guards, Brandi waddled through the rounded hole into a tiny, smooth cave hollowed into the rock. Leith leaned against the far wall, his hands still bound behind his back, one leg bent, the other stretched in front of him.

  He glanced up as she entered. “Miss me already?”

  She was too brittle to pretend. Plunking onto the stone floor facing him, she stared at her feet and toyed with the hem of her skirt. Now that she was here, did she want to ask him? Once she knew the truth, she’d lose their friendship. She’d never be able to look at him with the same innocent trust again.

  Leith went still. When he spoke, his voice was pitched low and gentle. “It’s going to be all right. The Leader isn’t going to do anything to me. He might want to, but he’s too much of a commander not to realize that he needs my skills and my knowledge of the Blades to take back Nalgar Castle and save Renna.”

  Picking at a thread, she nodded even if that wasn’t her concern at the moment. She took a deep breath and forced herself to look at him. “Keevan told me you were the Blade that tried to kill him. That you sneaked into his room and…and…” She hugged her knees to her chest, fighting the shudders coursing down her spine. Leith would tell her Keevan was lying. Surely this was all a mistake.

  Leith bowed his head. “I was the Third Blade. I didn’t become the Third Blade by refusing to follow Respen’s orders. I didn’t know anything but darkness. So when Respen ordered me to kill Prince Keevan, I completed my mission.”

  The words tore at her. Sure, she’d known he’d probably killed a few people, but she’d always believed it had been a kind of self-defense, like how she’d killed that Blade. That was understandable. All fighters had to do it eventually. She hadn’t considered that Leith had done something like this.

  A part of her begged her tongue not t
o form the question, but the words popped out anyway. “And my parents? Keevan said you helped killed them.”

  Leith squeezed his eyes shut and turned his face away. The action stole the last bit of her breath. Everything Keevan had said was true. Leith had helped kill her parents. All this time, he’d pretended to be her friend when he’d really been guilty of her parents’ deaths.

  She shot to her feet, thunking her head on the cave’s ceiling. She needed to get away. Somewhere far away from him.

  “Wait.” His voice grabbed her. “If you’re going to know the truth, you should know all of it.”

  Fighting to control a heat that prickled in her eyes and shook through her fists, she plopped onto the floor and crossed her arms. She’d listen to what he had to say, then she’d run.

  “The First Blade killed your mother. He was supposed to kill you and Renna also, but your aunt and uncle took you from the manor before he could.” Leith kept his eyes focused on a patch of floor next to him. “The Second Blade killed your father. I kept your parents’ guards from rescuing them.”

  Brandi clenched her fists. She had such hazy memories of that night. Uncle Abel had been carrying her down the hallway when she woke. There’d been shouting. Her mother had been there, then she’d kissed Brandi’s forehead and disappeared behind them. Renna cried while Aunt Mara dragged her down the hallway. Then they’d been outside, running across the prairie, running down the narrow paths in the Spires Canyon, running, running, until Uncle Abel said they could stop.

  “I’m so, so sorry, Brandi. So very sorry.” Leith’s voice cracked, but she couldn’t acknowledge the plea. He’d been there that night. He was a part of the shouting and screaming.

  “Does Renna know?” Her voice was so hard it sliced at her throat.

  “Yes. She asked me that first night in Stetterly while you were tending Blizzard.”

  Renna knew? And she’d never told her? Renna’s fear those weeks while Leith had been stuck in Stetterly healing from an arrow wound finally made sense. Renna had warned her to stay away from Leith, but Brandi hadn’t listened. She’d fooled herself into thinking Leith was her friend.

  23

  Renna scrubbed at the sauce burned onto the bottom of a pan, sharp flakes stabbing under her fingernails. Perhaps if she scrubbed hard enough, she could forget the bustle in the kitchen around her and the ache in her chest. She’d stop thinking. Better yet, stop feeling.

  Going numb might be best. Beside her, Martyn seemed to have already mastered it. He stared at the brick wall as if he could see right through it. The drying towel dangled from his fingers as if he’d forgotten where he was. Lucky him.

  “My lady.” The skinny cook waved one of his bony hands at a table covered with various plates and dishes. “Would you like to approve the dishes for the wedding feast? We have three forms of pheasant and four marinades for the beef for you to choose from.”

  Her stomach churning, Renna forced herself to approach the table and taste each dish. Another time, the spices might’ve caused another reaction besides a gag reflex.

  A young woman shoved another tray at her. “And the desserts, my lady?”

  Renna froze. A pile of maple sugar cookies lay amid the small cakes and candies. Brandi’s favorite food, the one she’d wanted Leith to try when he got a chance.

  She staggered back from the tray. “I…I need…” She dashed from the kitchen.

  Footsteps crunched behind her, but Renna didn’t look back as she sprinted across the cobblestone courtyard, through the passageway, and into the Queen’s Court.

  Pain twinged through her injured leg, and she collapsed onto the grass, gasping breaths between shaking tears. Dirt ground into her palms while grass smeared across the front of her skirt.

  Uncle Abel. Aunt Mara. Leith. So many people taken from her. Would it ever end? Even Brandi was far away, hopefully safe at Eagle Heights by now. Would she ever see her again?

  Martyn halted a few feet away. He stared at a spot above her head, his hands clasped behind his back.

  He was no help. They were both grieving Leith. They should’ve been some comfort to each other, but no. Martyn had retreated behind cold eyes.

  How could she possibly plan her wedding to Respen while mourning for Leith? She might as well stab his memory in the back.

  Yet what choice did she have? With Leith dead, Respen had no reason to keep her alive besides his desire to marry her. And if she was going to remain here with no hope of rescue, she should accomplish something worthwhile.

  She rubbed the healing bone in her leg and forced the tears back into her chest. The afternoon sun glinted on the gray stones of the castle walls. Respen’s banner of black, crossed daggers on a background of blue hung lifeless from the flagpoles jutting from the battlements. The bluestone path around the edge of the Queen’s Court shimmered with heat, though the grass and earth beneath Renna’s hands remained cool and damp with the water a servant poured onto it each morning.

  Marrying Respen was the right thing to do, wasn’t it? Then why did it feel so wrong? Perhaps it only felt wrong because she hadn’t fully sacrificed herself to the idea yet.

  Her emotions were clouding her thinking. That was the problem. She had to stop whining, stop crying, and pull herself together. She’d made her choice. Now she had to face it with all the courage she could muster.

  She swiped at her face, drew in a deep breath, and let it out in a few shudders.

  Perhaps she could find some healing by talking about Leith. Maybe it’d only make the pain worse, but only one way to find out.

  She turned to Martyn. “What was Leith like growing up? How long were the two of you friends?”

  Martyn scrubbed a hand through his blond curls. “I met Leith when we were both twelve. He’d already been training under King Respen for three years at that point. Still, he stood up for me. He didn’t let Harrison Vane beat me up. Leith was like that. He was always sticking up for the other boys in those days.”

  “In those days? What changed?” She wrapped her arms around her knees. This was helping, a little.

  “There was this one boy. He’d been training for a few years, but he wasn’t very good. He just didn’t have it in him to be a fighter. Leith helped him when he could.” Martyn’s square jaw tightened. “When we were thirteen, King Respen was frustrated with Leith. Vane had already killed and so had Hess, even though he’d begun training a year after Leith. A bunch of us were almost ready. One day in training, King Respen handed Leith a knife and told him to kill that boy, or King Respen would kill Leith.”

  Renna’s heart ached. The knowledge of Leith’s choice might’ve sickened her a few months ago, but now all she felt was compassion. In the darkness of Leith’s childhood, every choice must’ve seemed terrible. At least he’d had a few months of peace before…she swallowed and dug her fingers into her palm to stop her tears.

  “Something broke in Leith that day. He stopped trying to evade King Respen’s orders.” Martyn shook his head before he shot a glance in her direction. “Until the day he met you.”

  “Not me. God.” Renna tried to think of a way to explain it to Martyn, but the words jumbled inside her in a disorderly lump.

  He snorted. “You still cling to that? After all that happened to you?”

  “Yes.” She turned her face toward the sun, letting it splash across her face. “I trust because of all the things that happened to me.”

  A few months ago, she wouldn’t have said that. But she’d lost everything. She’d been broken. Deep in that dungeon, she’d lost her faith. Only to learn that God wasn’t going to let her go even if she let Him go. He wasn’t going to forsake her even when she felt forsaken.

  It defied all logic and all understanding. That’s what made it so precious, so strong.

  Even Leith’s death couldn’t take that away. God had carried her through losing her entire family except for Brandi. He would see her through this too.

  Martyn stared at her as if she had lost her mind.
Perhaps she had. But it didn’t matter. She had faith. And hope. And Respen wasn’t going to take away either of those things no matter how hard he tried.

  Boots tromped on the cobbles in the passageway. Martyn stiffened, and his face returned to its blank expression. As the footsteps crunched closer, he thumped his fist across his chest. “My king.”

  “What is going on, First Blade?”

  Renna squared her shoulders, stood, and faced Respen. He glowered at the two of them, a pair of books tucked under his arm. No need for Martyn to get into trouble. “I was in the kitchen arranging the wedding feast, but I needed some air.”

  “I see.” His gaze searched her face. “Why are you smiling?”

  She was smiling? She pressed her fingers to her mouth. “I realized today that I have hope. No matter what happens to me, no one can take that away.”

  “Not even me?”

  “Not even you.” As much as she wanted to shrink away from his gaze, she gathered her courage and faced him. “You know what I’ve been through. But God hasn’t forsaken me.”

  Respen dropped his gaze to the grass. “You sound like Clarisse. She spoke about God all the time.”

  She could hear the note of bitterness in his voice. Had it grated on him all those years ago to pretend Christianity to appease his wife? Would her faith irk him that way? “Clarisse sounds like she was a wonderful person.”

  He shook himself. “I have something for you.” He held out the two books he carried.

  She took the books and traced the covers. Uncle Abel and Aunt Mara’s Bible. The one with Uncle Abel’s neat handwriting in the margins. And her Bible. Vane stole them from Stetterly months ago.

  “You’re returning these?”

  “They are yours, are they not?”

  Tears clogged her throat. Perhaps this marriage would work. If Respen would return these Bibles to her, then maybe he’d stop the persecution as he’d promised.