Shattered Kingdom

by Angelina J. Steffort

  He grabbed a washcloth and cleaned up until any proof of their ride through the desert and their encounter with the desert lion had disappeared.

  When he returned to the bedroom, Gandrett was sitting in the chair, blanket slipping off her shoulders, exposing that she was wearing only her underthings. She was fast asleep, face relaxed for once, not full of fear or dismay or of that hidden melancholy he had been observing those past days. He gently slid one arm across her back and one under her knees, and he carefully carried her over to the bed where he tucked her under the heavy blankets and spread her hair around her head so it could dry. Then Nehelon grabbed the blanket that the girl had been wrapped in and laid down with it on the floor at the foot of the bed.

  Chapter Twelve

  Gandrett woke to the dulled sound of music and the happy chattering of people in the streets below the window. With heavy limbs, she sat up in the middle of the soft bed—how had she gotten there?—before she leaned forward to scan the room for Nehelon. The bathing room was open with no sign he was inside.

  Keeping the blankets wrapped around her, Gandrett climbed a little further toward the end of her bed, to find the view of the freshly-dressed Fae male sprawled on the floor, fast asleep, one hand on the sword beside his head. She froze so as to not wake him. It was like the glamour had slipped again in his sleep, more thoroughly this time, revealing to a full extent his stunning features.

  He must have carried her into bed and picked the floor for himself. This creature who never held a kind word for her…

  Spellbound, Gandrett studied him. The high cheekbones, the strength of his jaw, the curve of his lips, sensual, soft, his eyes framed with a fringe of thick, black lashes casting shadows on his cheeks in the morning sun. But what was more beautiful than any of his visible features was that peace. An expression she hadn’t even believed was possible on the usually so cold and stone-like face. So fragile, she almost reached out to brush his cheek with her fingertips. Almost.

  Then, she noticed his hair had slid back to expose his pointed ears. Fae ears. And the urge subsided.

  Slowly, carefully, Gandrett slid out of bed, grabbed the plain brown gown from the backrest of the chair where Nehelon must have hung it, and tiptoed into the bathing room to get dressed, to find her acolyte uniform almost dry on the rim of the bathtub where she had left it last night.

  She considered putting it on but slipped into the simple, brown gown, preferring dryness over comfort at this point. The morning air would be chilly, and she didn’t want to risk getting sick.

  Besides, it was the Fest of Blossoms today. She had heard what people expected of Children of Vala on that day. Some even pilgrimaged to the priory to receive blessings from the high priests and priestesses. Gandrett doubted Nehelon would agree if they were held up because of her. Besides, she wasn’t a priestess. A blessing from her was worth about as much as buying one of the lucky charms the traveling merchants had sold in Alencourt the day she had been taken.

  To her surprise, the dress fit. More tightly than anything else she’d ever worn, but it was clean and warm enough. She was half-done when there was a knock on the door—not the bathing room one—followed by rustling and Nehelon’s voice barking for whoever it was to leave whatever it was at the door. An array of clattering dishes followed suit.

  Gandrett chuckled at his tone. Not the cold, calculated one he used with her, but an authentically disgruntled one similar to what Surel sounded like when woken early.

  When she entered the bedroom, fully dressed, hair yet to be braided, Nehelon was handling a tray of steaming tea and fresh breads. He looked up over a plate, eyes wide as he took her in.

  Gandrett merely smoothed out her skirts and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Good morning.”

  Nehelon’s eyes were still grazing over her, not the way the men’s had at the tavern last night but with a look somewhere between disbelief and surprise.

  “This is what I look like when I’m clean,” Gandrett explained and took the tray from his hands, watching his throat bob as she did.

  He sat on the chair by the window and watched her set down the tray beside her on the bed.

  “Compliments of the house,” he said, voice raw. “For the Child of Vala.”

  Gandrett mustered a smile and nodded her thanks, then picked up a cup, filled it with a wonderful-smelling herbal infusion, and handed it to him.

  Nehelon’s eyebrows rose. “A peace offer?” he asked with a grin similar to the mocking ones before she had found out his secret.

  Gandrett, however, brushed her hair back over her shoulder and shook her head. “Nice of you to let me have the bed last night,” she merely said, and she saw it in his eyes, the facets of blue diamond sparkling, even as his face tightened a bit, that he realized it had been his peace offer. “Plus, it’s Fest of Blossoms today. We are supposed to share meals and enjoy ourselves.”

  His grin turned into a tentative half-smile. “Even with the savage who bought you from the priory?”

  There it was. The cold truth told from his sensual lips. Gandrett’s heart thundered in her chest, and by the way his face changed, she knew that he regretted having reminded her.

  Gandrett wasn’t done. “How come no one has noticed what you are?” She asked, curious to find out how he had been navigating his life in human realms without getting caught.

  He just shrugged. “The glamour works on most humans,” he explained and pointed at his face, which slowly dulled, taking away the radiance—not that anyone could ever miss how handsome he still was, but the full extent of his beauty had been hidden behind whatever spell he was using.

  With swift fingers, he reached up and pulled back his hair, showing ears now round as any human’s.

  Gandrett sucked in a breath.

  “When it slipped that morning with you—” He studied her face, eyes curious, not cold, but as he leaned a tad closer, Gandrett moved away.

  “I understand if you are afraid of me,” he said lowly, some emotion filling his eyes as he still measured her face. “This is not how I thought things would turn out.”

  “How did you think they would turn out?” she asked into the silence that was spreading between them. “You could have just walked in through the front gate of the priory instead of provoking a sword fight. That would have been an idea.”

  She swallowed, watching him take a sip of tea, darkness in his eyes brewing like a storm. “How would I have ever known if you were worth the money?” he plainly said, a grin decorating his lips. And even though he smiled and spoke and drank tea like a normal person, he had paid the Meister dearly for her temporary service. The bag had been heavy and probably filled with gold.

  “And, am I?”

  “That remains to be discovered,” he responded, his smile turning feral. “Let’s see how you do in your assignment.”

  She tried not to be offended.

  It hadn’t changed: Gandrett was afraid of him and for good reason. But she was even more afraid of not knowing what lay ahead of her. “When we arrive in Ackwood,” she cautiously asked, “what will I be expected to do?”

  Nehelon eyed her, conflict rushing over his features, and Gandrett expected him to return to his stone-like mask, but he surprised her with a low sigh and flash of desperation in his eyes before he made up his mind and spoke, “You will help me free Lord Tyrem’s lost son.”

  Nehelon heard her heart stutter as he said it. Fear. It was there in the pace of her heart, in the moss-green of her eyes, which widened at his words. Otherwise, she was a fortress of calm. Almost dangerously calm.

  He should have waited, given her time to adjust to the new situation, let her gain trust…

  Trust. He shook his head at himself. One night of handing the comfort of the soft bed over to her and picking the floor instead, gentlemanly as that may be, didn’t turn her into a sudden ally. Maybe if she had never found out his secret, then she might have trusted him by now. He might have had the time to win her over to his cause, and no
t drag her out of Everrun like a slave.

  “Lost son?” Her low voice shattered through his thoughts.

  He nodded, for lack of words to spell out what they were to do, of the horror he had done before.

  “That’s a job for mercenaries, not for a Child of Vala,” she pointed out.

  But he shook his head. “I don’t know what you remember from when you were little…”

  Her face tightened, making him shudder.

  “Sives has been at war for a long, long time. Not Sives,” he corrected, “but the houses.”

  Gandrett gave him a nod. “Brenheran in the east and Denderlain in the west,” she noted.

  “While they have been splitting the rule over the lands for generations, they have been working against each other for decades, making the people of Sives suffer, starve. To finance their feud, they have been raising taxes on the people. They have been selling the grains needed for their own people to the regions in the south, to Phornes and Lapidos.”

  He watched the girl’s eyes grow wider and wider as he spoke.

  “They taught you history and politics in the priory, didn’t they?” he reassured himself with the question and got the nod from her he had hoped for. She knew. About the Brenherans and Denderlains, who had been marauding the land of Sives, each of them on their own strive for power. “The conflict has gotten worse over the past years since the House of Denderlain abducted Lord Tyrem’s oldest son, forcing him to bow.”

  Hamyn Denderlain, the name alone was enough to make a shudder run down his spine, was a tyrant and one with the support of a magic unfamiliar even to him. A dark magic. But for now, he kept that suspicion to himself.

  “Who is this lost son?” Her words were low, as if she didn’t even realize she was speaking.

  “Joshua Brenheran.” He could tell from the look on her face that she had never heard that name before. “Lord Tyrem has done anything to keep it a secret. But he had taken ill a while ago, and even if there is Brax, his other son, and Mckenzie, his daughter, it is Joshua he wants to see on his throne before he meets his end.”

  She put down her own teacup, and the question was visible in her eyes before the words fell off her tongue, “Why bring me, then? Why not just march into the fortress of House Denderlain and free him yourself?”

  Nehelon leaned back and glanced out the window, as if expecting someone to listen from beneath. Then, he got to his feet and sat beside her on the bed, the wooden tray between them. “Because—” he paused, fingers folding in his lap, “—this is a mission too big for one man—even a Fae,” he clarified before she could argue. “We have tried and failed for four years. And now—”

  Gandrett waited for his words to come.

  “Now it is time to choose a different path—a path that they would never consider—and to find Joshua and bring him back.” His words were flat. Clipped. Impossible for her to read a plan in them.

  But Gandrett didn’t ask any more details. For now, it seemed like a huge achievement that Nehelon had shared a shred of information at all.

  Much to her surprise, he wasn’t done yet as he said, “It was never my plan to get off on the wrong foot with you, Miss Brayton.” His eyes were sincere. “When I joined Lord Tyrem’s court a little over ten years ago, I didn’t know I would…” He stopped and picked up a piece of bread, shoving it in his mouth.

  Gandrett did the same. From the look in his eyes, she knew he wasn’t ready. And if she had learned one thing during her painful years in Everrun, it was that pushing someone who wasn’t ready wasn’t the way to get what you needed.

  They chewed next to each other, neither of them looking at the other until breakfast was done, and Nehelon got to his feet, announcing that he wanted to be on his way in order to not lose too much time on their trip north. Gandrett didn’t object. The Fest of Blossoms for her remained a reminder of what had happened to her and that she was now in the service of the man who had ordered it to be her.

  Wordless, she put on her linen pants under the dress so she wouldn’t expose her legs while riding, packed her satchel, and followed Nehelon out the door.

  Her stomach twisted at the sight of the flowers, all of them meaning it was that day of the year. That day when four kids would be sent into the desert to become something they shouldn’t even know about. Fighters, killers maybe even. To endure the scolding and the wrath of the Meister. To endure the punches and the blows if they were unlucky. Like she had. That day, when families all over Neredyn grieved for the future that had been taken away from them. Gandrett swallowed her bitterness and put on a brave face. The face she had been wearing for ten years.

  It took them a solid hour to retrieve their horses and get out of the town through the people dancing and celebrating in the streets, their hair crowned with flowers. Gandrett accepted the tiara of blossoms someone handed them and allowed Nehelon to place it on her head. She didn’t even flinch when his fingers brushed the hair from her forehead. He hadn’t hurt her so far despite his threats, and he said he needed her—for whatever reason, but it was enough, for now, to trust she would make it back to Sives safely.

  And then… maybe she would run.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Rays of sun danced off the surface of the Penesor, making it a silver band of light curving through the green land. She strained her eyes, looking into the distance where the river split into two arms: one to the east and one going west, right to Ackwood, the city built on a river island. She had seen drawings and carvings of Ackwood at the priory, and maps, showing just how close the western capital was to the Fae lands. Gandrett wondered if Nehelon ever felt homesick. They had been riding for days, following the mountains to the east until they had hit the river, which they were now following toward the heart of Sives, where mountains and rivers met. Close to Alencourt where she had grown up. For she felt the soothing spring green of Sives singing to her like the lullaby her mother had sung when she was a child.

  “Less than a day to Alencourt,” Nehelon said, his gaze following hers.

  Gandrett felt it burning in her chest, the question over whether she would be allowed to stop by her old home. She hadn’t made a run so far for the simple reason that Nehelon was the one providing them with shelter and food every night. They had slept at the edge of a forest for one night, his magic enclosing them in a wall of stone and wood. The next evening, they had stayed at an inn by the river, their meal consisting of fried fish and warm slices of spiced bread. He had even trusted her enough to leave for a bit—long enough to sell that desert lion skin—and she had stayed in the room as he had asked her to. Asked her—not told her like he had so many times before.

  “I know you wish to see them,” Nehelon read her yearning as they continued along the river, “but now is not the time.”

  Gandrett’s heart sank. She had hoped…

  “But I have made my own conditions for this bargain on Lord Tyrem’s end of my deal with the Meister,” he informed her with a conspiring look. “I am aware you, as an acolyte, and even as a full member of the Order of Vala, cannot take payment,” he reminded her of the rules that dictated her life—would be dictating it for all eternity, “but I thought seeing your family would be possible on the way back to Everrun.” He flashed her a smile, a real one. “When your task is done, that is.”

  The task. Freeing Joshua Brenheran. A task that, for some reason she yet had to learn, was something she qualified for. Nehelon was still cryptic about that. But seeing her family. Maybe running wasn’t worth it after all. Not that she would make it far with a Fae hunting her down.

  “Don’t tell the Lord I have told you, though,” Nehelon added. “He likes to make that sort of announcement himself.”

  “To appear like the great philanthropist he is,” Gandrett bit at Nehelon and watched his face cloud over.

  “He is not a bad man.” Nehelon shook his head as if to enhance the meaning.

  “He gave the order,” she countered. The order to sacrifice a child from Alencou
rt rather than from his own city as it should have been.

  Nehelon didn’t ask what order she meant. It was clear on his face he knew what she was talking about. “He had his reasons.”

  Gandrett didn’t look north as they passed the bridge where the Penesor split into Ackpenesor and Eedpenesor. No, she kept her eyes west, on the water, and when the next day the skyline of Ackwood, with its pointed spires, appeared on the horizon, she kept her eyes on those. She didn’t ask any questions until they reached the massive gate where the statue of a hooded warrior, point of his sword set down before his feet, had Gandrett craning her neck. The city was a fortress, set on an island right where the Ackpenesor met the sea in the west. On the wall above the statue, a row of guards, armed with bows and crossbows, eyed their approach.

  Gandrett turned on her horse, facing Nehelon as she whispered. “Do they know?” Her eyes darted for his silky, dark hair, which was covering his ears and neck, his glamour in place.

  He shook his head, and the look on his face made clear that if she dared so much as indicate what she knew to anyone, Gandrett Brayton would be a figure of the past.

  The gate opened upon a lift of Nehelon’s hand, the guards, clothed in burgundy embroidered with threads of gold, saluting him as if he were the lord himself.

  But Gandrett’s eyes went straight to the gate, which slowly flapped outward to form a bridge over the water, and the view that spread behind it. Timbered houses settled along a canal with its own little gate on the side, granting access to merchants and traders coming in by boat. The streets were busy among workshops open to the thoroughfares, the clinking of metal from the blacksmiths filling the air as much as the hammers of the carpenters. Children were running along the cobbled roads, driving wheels before them, which they steered with sticks. Children, laughing and playing, unlike the unfortunate ones whose childhood had ended two nights ago when the noble Lord Tyrem Brenheran had sentenced another one of them to a lifetime of service. A lifetime of fighting and praying.