Wicked Crown (Shattered Kingdom Book 2)

by Angelina J. Steffort

  She blinked, hardly seeing Armand as he grasped her by the arms and yanked her to the side as he slithered to his knees, his hazel eyes clouded with dread as he spoke her name again, softer this time—a plea.

  Addie blinked the tears from her eyes, feeling the pain in her shoulder returning to the foreground as the chant in her mind receded to a murmur so low she took notice of the young lord’s voice.

  “Talk to me,” he demanded, his hands not leaving her arms as he lowered himself onto his haunches, relieved as she finally looked at him.

  Addie tried. She really did, but all she got out was a croak, uncertain of what it was supposed to mean. She jerked her chin at her shoulder, the throbbing pain there the only thing she could now think of. That and those bloodstains on the altar of Shygon along with the words of the worshipper who had ended his own life. Shygon doesn’t forget.

  Armand let go of one arm as he rose to his feet, bending over her, his hazel eyes pinning her. “I apologize in advance for this,” he said before he reached to her shoulder, feeling her body going rigid, and searched for a way to lift the soft fabric from her skin enough to examine the scar.

  She didn’t object. Even though those voices in her mind told her to send the young lord to Hel’s realm for touching her, she kept her mouth shut, allowing him to unlace the back of the bodice until he could flap open the fabric enough to free that symbol etched into her skin. And she hoped—hoped—he would find a way to silence it. To free her from that summons that she could only fight by freezing into place—

  Or she would walk out that door and find herself gods-knew where.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Gandrett was mildly aware that it was past dawn. The urging caw beside her ear might have had something to do with that; as did the bright sunlight when she blinked her eyes open—and cursed as Riho clicked his beak at her from the spare pillow.

  Her stomach growled as if it was going to turn again, but it had been empty by the time she had made it to the castle the night before … escorted by the wicked Fae who had dumped her in her bed like a sack of potatoes and left her to sleep it off.

  “Go tell him I don’t give a shit,” Gandrett said to the bird over the pounding inside her skull as she tugged her blanket back over her head.

  It didn’t dull the voices of the songbirds outside even when Riho’s rustling wings allowed her to assume he had departed to inform Nehelon he could stick his sword up his glorious Fae behind. She wasn’t going to move to train with him today. No. She deserved a day in bed after ten years of sacrifice, hardship, and obedience.

  Her first encounter with sparkling wine hadn’t gone as brilliantly as she had hoped, and while the initial buzz had made dancing with Brax—and then that Fae bastard—like drifting on clouds, it had also made her enjoy dancing with Brax—and that Fae bastard. She would have said no otherwise, would have watched the rest of the world enjoy the party and been a good soldier, scouting for danger, one hand always within casual reach of hidden blades. Not last night. Last night, she had let the Child of Vala so unceremoniously die and tried another deity for a change.

  Nyssa, it seemed, had smiled upon her for a while until Nehelon had cut off his flirting and taunting. Thank the gods—all of them but Vala … and Shygon, naturally. He was another level of disaster in Gandrett’s life.

  Gandrett remembered most of what had happened in that tent with the male. His babble about the Solstice in Ulfray, beds of flower petals—something tightened in Gandrett’s core, tuning out the headache for a brief moment—his hands on her waist, his scent, luring her, calling to her. Glad that her face was hidden beneath the covers, and so was her blush, she traced her fingers over her neck where Nehelon’s nose had grazed her skin, and once more she realized how utterly lucky she was that the Fae male hadn’t been serious. The gods knew, with that sparkling wine in her system, he could have asked anything of her—and she would have done it. And after her impressive heaving, he would never look at her like that again. Even if he had admitted to kissing her back in Eedwood forest what seemed like a lifetime ago.

  Ignoring the lively chirping outside and squinting against the light, Gandrett rolled from her sheets and stumbled to the bathing room where last night’s gown sat on a stool, neatly folded right beside a set of fresh clothes. Gandrett looked down at her nightgown and back at the clothes, unable to remember if it had been her who had changed her for bed. She dearly hoped the folded gown and fresh clothes were courtesy of Eugina and not Nehelon’s ungraspable sense of humor—if he even had humor—to leave her to believe he had stripped her naked and stuffed her into the silk-slip she was wearing now.

  With a frown, Gandrett stepped over the threshold, where she had been leaning while the world was spinning, and closed the door behind her before she held her face into the stream of cold water she released from the faucet. Gods, what had she been thinking? She could have defied the Order without a sip of sparkling wine and looked better doing so. She had vomited her soul out in the gardens, and some darker past of her memory told her that Nehelon hadn’t been the only one witnessing it—Brax, too, had seen her kneeling in the grass and hurling her guts up.

  Making sure to wash her mouth double as long as normal, Gandrett readied herself to change into the rough cotton pants and light tunic that had been laid out for her. And after drinking half the Penesor, she felt ready to defy the swirling of her surroundings and step out of the silk and into what seemed to be her new uniform.

  By the time she made it back to her room, stomach growling with hunger and, at the same time, turning squeamish at the thought of food, Nehelon had still not turned up to enforce the training at dawn he had threatened her with. Whether it was some unexpected kindness that he had let her sleep in or if he would make her pay for it later, she couldn’t bring herself to care. Not when a knock on the door was followed by Eugina’s voice calling that she had breakfast ready if Gandrett opened the door this time.

  Instead of slumping back into her bed, Gandrett ignored the subsiding headache and prowled to the door, which, to her surprise, had been locked from the inside. With a slow hand, she turned the key and let a smiling Eugina in, allowing her eyes to follow the tray of food—including chocolate pastries—to the table where Eugina set it down, lifted a cup of some red juice, and started stirring.

  “This,” she said as she made the liquid swirl at neck-breaking speed, “will help get you back on your feet. She held the cup out to Gandrett, who took it with hesitant hands.

  “What is it that I am looking at?” She turned the cup in her hands, wondering if she was supposed to expect a sweet taste or a sour one, or something entirely other. From the look and smell of the liquid, it was utterly impossible to tell.

  “Trust me, you don’t want to know,” Eugina said with a smile. “Just get it over with.”

  So Gandrett did … and immediately, the taste of bile the night before seemed like a pleasant memory. She coughed. “What is that?”

  “Some root from the southern territory,” Eugina said, a laugh tugging on her lips. “Brax Brenheran asked me to bring you a glass. He swears by it.”

  For some reason, Gandrett had problems imagining Brax devouring anything that appalling. She made a mental note to thank him the next time she saw him—if he still looked at her after last night.

  After Eugina left her to it, Gandrett took her time eating breakfast, cautiously filling her stomach, ready to leap to her feet and dart to the bathing room if necessary. Only after she was done, and there was no indication that the food would come up again, did she start wondering why Nehelon hadn’t yet come to drag her to the training ring by her braid.

  When she wandered down the hallway, down the stairs, to the back door that led to the yard with Nehelon’s favorite torture-ground, she noticed the palace was suspiciously quiet. A silence which was either the aftermath of a night of celebrations, or something was brewing. Even the guards were fewer than normal, and those she encountered gave her a tired nod. She gr
inned right back at most of them, her stomach back to normal, thanks to Brax’s secret recipe, and her sword dangling by her side, a comforting weight even if a relic from the days she’d called herself a Child of Vala.

  The yard was empty as were the training rings, no sign of the Fae bastard. And to Gandrett’s surprise, she worried about him. With a wiggle of her shoulders, she tried to shake the feeling that something was wrong. Nehelon, no matter how annoying he was, had always—always—followed through with his threats. He wouldn’t miss out on the fun of seeing her struggle to even attempt to fight with her body exhausted from dealing with the aftereffects of the sparkling wine. Not after last night. Gandrett grimaced at no one and began stretching, only to give up after a minute. No, her body was of no use today.

  It was only when she turned her back on the climbing sun that she spotted movement by the highest spire. Was that a human shape up there in the window? She cocked her head and shielded her eyes against the sun reflecting from the palace walls and roof. Yes. There was definitely a human form up there, perched on the window sill, too close for just a comfortable morning of reading in the fresh air. She kicked herself into motion, rushing back to the building, through the hallway, to the stairwell that led to the spire. She knew the layout of the palace as well by now as she knew that of Eedwood Castle, and it was almost as effortless as navigating the priory with all floor plans memorized. Effortless for her orientation. As for her body…

  Her pulse had already quickened to a pace that suggested she was near exhaustion, and she cursed her own impulses for having given in to the sparkling wine the night before, or she would already be halfway up the stairs. But this way, every round she made on the spiral staircase took longer than the last, her legs dragging by the time she was not even halfway up there.

  Her lungs couldn’t gulp enough air down as she ran, ran to see if whoever was put there was in danger of rolling over the windowsill into free fall.

  Up and up and up. Did this staircase have no end at all?

  She didn’t dare call out to whoever was up there for fear of startling them and rushing them in their struggle. But as the walls narrowed in, the stairs eventually becoming flatter, Gandrett stepped into an empty, circular room filled with nothing but the dust of ages, and a golden-haired figure sitting on the windowsill, one knee pulled up to his chest, the other leg dangling out into the gods-knew how many floors of free fall, head resting back against the wall.

  “And here I thought I’d have some peace and quiet up here,” Joshua said without opening his eyes. “What do you want now?”

  Gandrett eyed the frown on his brows, the stark shadows that lingered where the sunlight didn’t reach.

  “I hadn’t been aware I was that much of a nuisance, Prince,” Gandrett said with a part-grin as she noticed he was truly just resting and not about to jump.

  At the sound of her voice, his head whipped around, his emerald gaze—so familiar with all the three Brenheran heirs sharing that feature—pinned her. “Gandrett,” he said, tone less annoyed. “Are you doing some sightseeing?”

  She took a cautious step toward him, but he remained calm on the windowsill, setting one foot down on the floor while the other remained out the window. “Oh, the view from up here is something to behold,” she said, her grin—still tense from how little it would take for the heir of Sives to plunge to sure death. “I couldn’t miss out on this one.”

  Joshua didn’t laugh. “Why are you here?”

  But Gandrett didn’t answer his question. “You thought I was someone else,” she noted and took another step.

  Joshua frowned in response.

  “You do know that I have been ordered back here to aid you in whatever way I can.” She schooled her expression into neutral calm even at the roaring defiance inside her chest. No more. Even if she had chosen to return with Nehelon rather than go back to the place that had held her hostage for ten years … and now her brother was there, and yet again, her hand was forced. Her will was not her own. “How may I aid, Prince?”

  Joshua’s frown deepened as he slowly brought the outer leg in over the windowsill and leaned against the stone, leaving the sunlight framing him as if he were made of molten gold.

  “Do you sometimes dream of it?” he asked, bracing his hands left and right in the window frame. “Do you hear the screams in your sleep? Do you see the fire?”

  A different kind of caution settled over Gandrett as Joshua’s gaze changed, his eyes no longer those of the warm and kind prince who would one day reunite the kingdom. But she kept her features empty. Whatever was going on inside his mind, she was there to help. That was the task she would be measured by. And this man … all the horrible things that had been done to him. Trapped in his own mind for years, primed to continue where the last Dragon King had left off—

  “Sometimes,” she said in a low, steady voice. “Sometimes, I dream of that night in the temple of Shygon,” she admitted to what was the truth. “Sometimes, I smell the fire, and I hear Linniue’s chants.” She hadn’t talked about it to anyone—not even the Fae male who had become her most trusted companion in a twisted way that she had yet to figure out. “It must be way worse for you, Joshua … all those years.” She searched for words. “And she was your mother. She should have loved you, supported you, done what was best for you… and not … this.” Gandrett gestured at nothing, her hand drawing a weird circlet in the air as she tried to describe what this was.

  Joshua, however, seemed to understand anyway, his gaze following her hand back to her side, near her sword as he spoke, “She did … do what was best for me … at least what she believed was best.”

  Gandrett saw the longing there for a better world where his mother wasn’t dead and hadn’t enslaved him with a magic spell. A world where he could become what he was destined to be—a ruler over a land that deserved peace and a wise and merciful king for its people.

  “I am sure she loved you,” was all Gandrett said.

  And Joshua nodded. “In her own, twisted way, she did.”

  For a long moment, they eyed each other in silence, the birds outside, the singing of the wind around the spire, and the voices in the yard below the only sounds that filled the open space between them. Then Joshua smoothed over his expression and stepped toward her, gesturing down the stairs.

  “You look like you could use some refreshments,” he said with the smile of a future king, all sorrow erased from his face just like that. “After last night, I am surprised you made it up here at all.”

  Amusement danced in his eyes, and Gandrett was now more certain than ever that there was no one in the palace who hadn’t heard of her escapade in the flowerbeds.

  She shrugged off the sensation of awkwardness. What was the use of embarrassment if it incapacitated her?

  So, Gandrett turned on her heels and stalked down the stairs, remembering to swagger a bit. Child of Vala or not, no one’s judgment but her own would weigh on her shoulders. She squared the latter and descended from the spire, Joshua in tow, and kept her chin high even if she felt like going right back to bed. Her mission had changed. And while Nehelon apparently had better things to do than to brief her on the details of how exactly they were going to help Joshua, she decided she was very well capable of dealing with the prince on her own.

  Armand had sat by her side all night, Addie realized as she opened her eyes to the blinding light of what had to be early morning. He was still sitting in the wooden chair, his eyes closed, head lolling to his shoulder, hair covering his cheeks, and his breathing was even. Asleep after the long hours he had spent talking to her, encouraging her to ignore the summons that had been about to push her through the door.

  He had called for a messenger to go get Nehelon Sterngrove. On Addie’s request, he hadn’t sent for Joshua. The prince had endured enough. There was no way in Hel’s realm that she was going to confront him with that horrible past, with that gods-forsaken night in Eedwood.

  Addie lay still for a moment, asses
sing her shoulder with light fingers.

  The pain was gone as were the voices in her head. A sign, she supposed, of stress and sparkling wine, which she had sipped. Even when the chancellor had exchanged looks with Armand that made her believe there might be more to it than that.

  The chancellor had reached into his pocket to extract a tiny tin of salve that he had pressed into Armand’s hands with the words, “This and bed rest.” He had pointed at her shoulder and then given her a stern look that had silenced the chant in her head. “Starting tomorrow, you will learn to defend yourself. You will learn to steel your mind and your body against attacks like this.”

  Attack—that was what it had been—an attack. An ambush. Her scar incapacitating her, sidetracking her and opening up the path for whoever had been trying to get into her head.

  Beside her, Armand stirred, his hand, sliding off his thigh, twitching as he brought it back to his lap. Addie pushed herself up onto her elbows, feeling the dress open at her back, slapping forward over her damaged skin and exposing her shoulder and collarbone.

  The chancellor had promised to be waiting in his study for her and that she should come to him whenever she was ready … well, he had told Armand to bring her to him whenever she was awake.

  Now, the young lord was sleeping, drooling onto his elegant jacket, she noticed with a smile, and her heart lightened for a heartbeat before her mind circled back to the questions they all had been asking last night: who would summon Addie? And why?

  Linniue was dead. But she hadn’t been the only one praying to the god of dragons. The prison in the north… so many cult members hiding up there—or maybe no longer hiding. Maybe this was them claiming what had been marked in the name of Shygon. Maybe someone was claiming her.