“Were I Vala-blessed, I wouldn’t be stuck with you.” She gave him an icy look, and Nehelon lowered his gaze as if searching for words but didn’t speak. Frustration furrowed his brows, making him look more human than she had ever seen. And as she stared and stared at him as though she could punish him with her mere gaze, his eyes snapped up, locking on hers.
He wasn’t sure if he’d imagined it, but that spark in her eyes…
“Say that again,” he dared her and leaned closer, staring her down.
“I wouldn’t be stuck with you, Lonnie.” Gandrett smirked, unyielding.
Nehelon couldn’t tell if it was the sunlight or if the gold in her eyes grew more intense as she held his gaze, unfazed. “You know what? If it makes it easier for you, I’ll walk the rest of the way. I’m sure if I flirt—” She dragged out the word. “—with the wolf, it’ll come right after me. Or better,” her fingers reached up to her chest, touching something hidden under the compact fabric of her dress, “he might even take me home and offer for me to stay so I can snoop around his cave.”
Nehelon studied her, open-mouthed as her temper broke through the perfectly-crafted mask she had been wearing for the past month. So much anger. So much suppressed pain.
Gandrett’s face was close enough for him to touch her, her scent, even if mixed with dirt and sweat of their journey, filled the narrow space between them. All he needed to do was lift his hand from his sword and—
“You know what, Lonnie?” she continued like a ram. “Why don’t I mention to the next person I see what you truly are? Once your little secret is out there, I no longer need to fear you.” Her eyes tightened. “Even if you’d kill me for revenge.” She spat those last words at him, making his breath catch in his throat.
“Kill you?” He’d never do that. Never in his life could he fathom the thought of ending her.
“That’s what you are thinking, isn’t it?” Her voice hitched as her words rushed out. “That’s what you’d do if I chose to run and go see my family instead of Eedwood Castle. That’s what—” silver lined her eyes, drowning out that spark he thought he’d seen, and within a moment, that tear fell—
His hand was there before he could remind himself to be cautious, fingertips grazing the salty line down her cheek. Gandrett didn’t cringe. She didn’t fight, and all he could think of was that no one had the right to make her feel this way. No one.
A sob shook Gandrett, but she didn’t turn away. Couldn’t. Too hypnotizing were Nehelon’s eyes as they bore into hers in swirling shades of blue. And his fingers on her cheek—
She almost didn’t notice she was crying. Almost. Hadn’t it been for the wetness that kept coming from her eyes. Ten years since she had last cried. And now, in front of him? The Fae male who had taunted her, brutally pinned her against the wall, mercilessly brought his sword down on her—
He sat spellbound by her tears, knees an inch from hers, and his hand lingering on her skin despite the rocky movements of the carriage through the forest. He had let her rage at him. If he’d noticed her call him Lonnie, he didn’t show. But one thing was different about him.
The mask was gone. The stone-cold, emotionless warrior who had been her shadow in the palace of Ackwood was gone. So was the furious Fae male who had bruised her wrists. What remained were eyes, deep like the sea of time, full of its sorrow, too. And a yearning that so far she only knew from the high priests and priestesses when they plead to Vala for forgiveness for the sword-fighters’ missions.
It was enough to let her shut her eyes so she would not tumble into the hidden world behind the blue mystery. The gods knew she wanted it. Wanted to lean into his palm, let the burden on her shoulders ease, if only for a moment—
As if he’d read her mind, Nehelon adjusted his hand so he cupped her face, thumb brushing away the moisture under her lashes. “You will learn over time, Gandrett, that who you believe me to be and who I am are not exactly the same.” He paused, now running his other hand over her forehead, down her temple on the other side of her face. She didn’t open her eyes, not yet, the callouses of his broad hands caressing her skin triggering a sensation she had never experienced. “And I am not sure that’s a good thing,” he added.
For a long time, the warmth of her skin in his palms was all he knew, his words losing all meaning. Her tears had ebbed, leaving her lashes in the shape of half a star, but regardless, her eyes remained closed as if she was seeking sanctuary in his touch. He leaned closer until his face was mere inches from hers, and her features, now relaxed and calm between his hands, dissolved before his vision, leaving him with the sensation of her breath on his lips.
Something stirred inside of him. A long-forgotten emotion that had led only to loss and pain in the past. And before she could blink her eyes open, he drew back enough to escape the draw of her quiet beauty.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Nehelon stood watch while Gandrett washed up in the nearby stream then dressed in the fresh, midnight-blue riding gown Mckenzie had packed for her. It was more revealing than the green one and definitely not meant for practicability as much as to impress Armand Denderlain.
She stepped into her boots, fastened the broad golden belt around her waist, and braided her hair back. Then she slipped both necklaces on, hiding the pendants between her breasts under the gold-woven fabric.
“Who rides in a dress like this?” she demanded as she emerged from the bushes that separated Nehelon and the carriage from the stream.
“You, apparently,” Nehelon joked. He actually joked, lips relaxed despite the caution that had snuck back into his eyes.
She tried not to think about it. Tried not to think about the words he’d spoken in the carriage either. You will learn over time, Gandrett, that who you believe me to be and who I am are not exactly the same.
She shook her head and folded the dirty green gown on her way back to the carriage where Farlon was waiting with a pack and two bedrolls.
“I’m sorry I can’t take you further.” He looked sorry, too.
Nehelon patted the man’s shoulder—a gesture that was as natural from a human as it was shocking from the contained male. “Thanks for bringing us this far,” he actually thanked the man before he dove into the carriage to pull out a bundle of clanking metal. “We have all we need.”
Farlon inclined his head and climbed back onto the carriage seats, picking up the reins from the leather bench. The horses stomped, eager to get out of the trees.
Gandrett waved as Farlon maneuvered the carriage to turn around in the narrow space and found the man smiling at her as he steered the horses back onto the path and away. “Good luck,” he called over his shoulder. Gandrett couldn’t tell if he had spoken to her or Nehelon.
As she placed her bedroll on the ground and slumped—as far as the tight bodice of her dress allowed it—Nehelon had laid out an assortment of weapons on his own bedroll and was kneeling before them on the mossy forest ground.
“For me?” she asked, assessing the variety of blades and the beautifully carved bow sitting in the dimming evening light filtered by the thickening crowns of trees above them.
Nehelon picked up a short dagger. “This should fit under your dress on your thigh,” he explained, focusing on the shiny blade as he weighed it in his broad hands.
Gandrett glanced down at her skirts and wondered if—even if there was the dire need for a blade—she would ever manage her way through the fabric in time. It would be hard if she had to retrieve it herself, too.
“And this,” Nehelon laid down the dagger and chose a small, curved knife instead, “Will fit into the bodice. He glanced at the spot between her breasts where the two pendants were already hidden and buried his lips.
Gandrett placed a hand on her chest as if she could deflect his gaze. “It might stab me while riding,” she pointed out, focusing on the practical details as she ran her hand down to her navel.
“Not if you do it right.” With unsettling force, Nehelon jumped up and was b
eside her with two strides of his long legs. He reached out a hand, evading her doubtful gaze—“Allow me.”—and as she didn’t object, he grabbed the seam of her neckline right above her breasts with two gentle fingers and pulled.
Gandrett didn’t breathe.
Much to her surprise, his calloused knuckles didn’t brush her skin as he slipped the blade into a hidden compartment that seemed to run from right under her nose down to where she had placed her hand on her stomach.
“Mckenzie had this installed for you so you can slit Denderlain’s throat if he ever gets too close.” He pulled back his hand but remained kneeling before her, eyes now lingering on her face.
The hard shape of the blade winding along her chest and stomach made her sit up straight, raising her face closer to his. “When you see her, tell her I said thanks.”
Nehelon smiled a crooked smile that made Gandrett wonder if that blade was poking through her skin as he said, “The compartment was Mckenzie’s idea, but the blade is mine.” He turned to the side to pick up a pack and opened it while getting to his feet.
“Thank—” Gandrett halted. Never thank a Fae or you’ll be eternally in their debt. A debt they will make you pay over and over again. Gandrett remembered the words from her childhood. The legends of the heartless creatures of Ulfray. “Thank the gods you brought weapons,” she corrected, her heart not nearly back to normal speed.
And she was sure he could hear it.
Lim and Alvi were grazing, side by side, by the nearest tree where the sun had allowed a small patch of grass to grow, their chewing a slow beat to the fading bird voices and awakening forest nightlife.
“You should eat.” Nehelon handed her a piece of fruit cake then scanned the trees around them. “Tomorrow morning, you’re going hunting.”
Gandrett shuddered as he rubbed his fingers, cake crumbs falling to the ground, then flexed his fingers and rotated his wrist in a slow circle.
She felt it before she saw it. Twigs and leaves were growing like a natural wall around them, enclosing them the way the earthen circle had in the desert.
“We don’t want that wolf to find you early,” he explained, but there was no smile on his lips now. Just the cautious expression that he had been wearing in the carriage before.
With those words, he rolled up the bundle of weapons and shoved it under his pillow then laid down, eyes on the patches of sky visible through the canopy of leaves.
His magic resonated in the air long after the wall had grown. Gandrett could almost taste it. She hadn’t been able to in the desert. Perhaps because of the wind relentlessly carrying away any fragrance. But now, it was clearly there, the scent of his magic, a mysterious layer, hovering above her and enclosing her as she stretched out on her bedroll, too, the blade in her bodice a constant reminder of his fingers, of the gentle tug on her clothes as he’d sheathed it.
For a long while, she lay there listening to the sounds of the forest until the horses had fallen silent, until she could no longer remember the whistle of the biting winds of Calma.
It was only when her eyelids drooped that Nehelon murmured, “Promise me something, Gandrett.” Her eyes flew open at the sound of his voice, but she didn’t dare speak. “Promise me you’ll return from Eedwood.”
“I have a bargain with Lord Tyrem,” she simply said. “It is in my best interest to return with Joshua Brenheran safe and sound.”
“I know you do. But that’s not what I mean.” He sighed. A deep and heavy sound as if he was trying to escape centuries of memories. “Promise me you’ll return to me.”
Part II
A Court of Deceit
Chapter Twenty-Four
Down, down the slippery stairs, down, down into the dark, Addie Blackwood chanted in her mind as she followed the rough steps that led to the hidden well. Her hands weren’t shaking with fear the way they had that first time. After a year at lady Linniue’s household, she had gotten used to the darkness that veiled the woman. That veiled the whole damn court.
Addie’s steps echoed in the stone shaft leading under the north tower of Eedwood castle. Eedwood fortress would be more suitable. For that’s what it was. A fortress, impenetrable from the outside, inescapable from the inside.
She couldn’t count the times she’d tried. Tried and failed. Failed and been punished for her recklessness.
If she had a choice, she’d rather return to her prison in the north. Where the nights were frosty and dark and the days even colder.
Addie glanced at the wet stone beneath her boots, her hands clutching the bucket she was to fill for the lady. Every day a couple of times. That was the only thing she was allowed to leave Lady Linniue’s wing of the castle for.
She couldn’t remember when she had last set foot outside the castle. Cross the courtyard under the disdainful glances of the Denderlain guards, yes. But that was about it. The only time she saw the fields and forests was through the windows and glimpsed the sea in the east…
The East Sea sparked like molten gold in the morning sun whenever she made it to the highest windows of the north tower. There, she was alone—really alone. Not the way she was alone when she slept on a sack of straw by the fire in the servants’ dormitory. Slaves’ dormitory.
Today, she hadn’t made it there in time to take a breath and clear her mind before she returned to the tedious chores she was expected to do—and did for Lady Linniue Denderlain.
The surface of the water rippled in circular lines as she dipped the bucket in to fill it up for the second time today. The first time, she had spied Lord Hamyn and his son as they were mounting their horses to go on the annual hunt in honor of Demea. How she hated the goddess of the hunt.
Armand, in his hunting jacket, his hounds barking and howling from excitement. He had raised his hand, and the party had set in motion. She didn’t know why they still bothered to go on that specific hunt when they were hunting every day. Not wolves, like this tradition demanded, but people.
The innocent souls of Sives who didn’t declare loyalty to House Denderlain as so many of the families in the heart of Sives never would.
Sometimes she watched the smoke rise behind the edges of the forests when she directed her eyes west, toward her home.
But today, Addie Blackwood did not dare look east, for she knew what would happen if Hamyn and Armand Denderlain brought back the wolf as planned—
There would be a feast. And a dance. And the highlight of the celebrations would be the heads of those noble men and women their mercenaries had collected over the winter, and who were now starving in the cells under the castle—fortress. No way in. No way out. Unless you wore the blue and yellow coat of armor of House Denderlain.
Addie shuddered, pulled out the heavy bucket, and made her ascent back to daylight.
Gandrett ran. She ran as she had never run before, the dress restricting her from gulping enough air down and the dagger strapped to the inside of her thigh making her grit her teeth when it hit her knee every time she made a turn. Behind her, paws dug into the moist forest ground, claws slithering over tree trunks as the wolf pushed her to her limits, herding her.
Vala help her, Nehelon was right when he said that there would be a moment she’d hate him. Last night, he said it when she had asked why he wanted her to promise.
Right now was that moment. Not that she hadn’t hated him before. That’s how it had started off in Everrun. That’s how it had remained until that moment when he had let her glimpse that there was so much more than the emotionless bastard he let on. Then, her stomach had started doing weird things.
As for now—she hated him again. Why couldn’t she just fight the wolf and bring him down? Why wait for Armand and his hunting party to come rescue her? What if they never came?
A growl, too close to let her think of anything but how to put one steady foot ahead of the other, shattered through the trees, and the beast was before her. Gandrett jammed her boots into the ground, almost losing balance, knees barking when she came to a sud
den halt.
The wolf had cut her off, forcing her to either run back toward where she had left Lim in a clearing Nehelon said was safe. The hunting party would stop by there, he’d said, and find her abandoned horse as the first clue there was something wrong. She had made sure to leave footprints in the direction Nehelon had pointed, and it hadn’t taken long for the gray-furred beast to show up. The Fae male had done a job better than promised. It will look as if the wolf was really about to kill you.
Gandrett frowned and reached for the bow he’d handed her this morning, pulled an arrow from the quiver and nocked it, eyes on the gaping maw of the beast.
Tried to.
The bow snapped in two halves where Nehelon had said it would.
Damn you, Fae bastard! Where was the Denderlain hunting party?
The wolf had been chasing her for too long to believe Denderlain would find her easily.
And it was coming closer, head lowered, eyes gleaming with bloodlust. Gandrett went through her training in her mind. She had never fought wild animals—other than the adolescent boys at the priory.
With the arrow in her hand and the few in her quiver, she would be able to wound the beast enough to enrage it, but not defeat it. Not without the bow Nehelon had manipulated to break.
I have confidence in your skills. He’d smiled at her, a ghost of that cocky grin from their first encounter making his eyes gleam.
Maybe he had confidence. As for Gandrett—her hands were shaking as she debated how much longer she could go without pulling that knife from her cleavage. It was a last resort. Weapons should remain hidden so Denderlain wouldn’t get suspicious. That’s why he hadn’t given her the hunting knife she’d asked for to strap to her belt, so she appeared even more like she had no clue what she was doing. No threat. A harmless lady in need of Denderlain’s aid.
Shattered Kingdom Page 17