Shattered Kingdom

by Angelina J. Steffort

  This was the man who fully supported his father in keeping Joshua Brenheran prisoner. The man who sent mercenaries to the villages at the center of Sives to force their allegiance.

  And here he was, offering her a clunky jewel which’s size reminded her of the bells the cows in the meadows around Alencourt wore.

  He hesitated before measuring her with observant eyes. “You are not one for jewelry, are you?” He made up his mind. “And then I thought I needed to bring something big to impress you. You know,” he dangled the necklace before her face. “With your father being a merchant for jeweled weapons… I thought you were used to rocks this size.”

  Yes, rocks. Indeed. But the dull, gray ones that cut your knees when you fell from exhaustion during training in the Calma Desert. Vala help her.

  “It’s…” She shuttered her eyelids, hoping he’d let it go. “It’s just—” She searched for words—lies. “—it’s just so beautiful, and I can’t take any gifts from you.” She had already taken Brax’s necklace—which securely rested under her pillow with her mother’s. And Nehelon’s knife and dagger. If she took another gift, Vala might never forgive her.

  “Not a gift.” Armand grinned that full-hearted grin again. “I’ll need that back after tonight.”

  Because that’s how long she would stay here. One night. Like the others, if she believed Deelah.

  “Then keep it.” Gandrett’s words were out before she could restrain herself.

  She expected Armand to kick her out, to get upset, to show his evil nature, the one that the Brenherans had warned her about.

  But nothing. He just dropped it on the sofa behind her and offered his arm. “Shall we?”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Armand led her down a torch-lit hallway followed by a twisting stairwell where the distant sound of music greeted them alongside the scent of spring herbs and blossoms. She marked every turn they took, every door, every painting. She’d need those for later when she went exploring on her own.

  “It’s older than the Battle of Ithrylan,” Armand commented on her seemingly random glances. Just another girl impressed to death with the wealth and pompousness of the young lord’s home.

  “It’s—” Suffocating. “—breathtaking.”

  He smiled and tucked his free hand behind his back as he led her down the next flight of stairs.

  Gandrett followed along, one hand lifting the hem of her skirts just enough so she wouldn’t fall over them, and quietly counted the stairs.

  Music filled the air by the time Armand led her into a wider hallway, his eyes, Gandrett noticed, on her rather than the guards in black positioned in regular spacing along the walls. They must be close to the dance, for ahead of them, at the end of the hallway, lights greeted them with the warm shades of fire.

  “Wait until you see the great hall,” Armand chuckled from the side as he commented on her gawking.

  Garlands of flowers were draped over the columns right where the light emerged together with a carpet of voices, all cheerily and happily chattering. She swallowed and let the Denderlain heir lead her forward and into the great hall.

  She had no words. Not because the flowers from the columns spread all across the ceiling and walls of the great hall—she had seen arrangements like that in Everrun—but because of the sheer size of the space they filled, the people in finery floating through the open space, carrying glasses of sparkling wine and the music…

  An orchestra played the songs she remembered from her childhood. More refined than the simple versions on a piano or a lute she knew, but they were the melodies that brought her back to the smells of grain in summer and fresh bread in her mother’s oven.

  Gandrett forced her heart to stop singing with it.

  She needed a clear head—something that would not be easy considering the scent of flowers smashing her brain into a fuzzy substance. Focus. Find the exits. Mark details.

  “After today’s hunt and a party like this, Demea will surely make certain you’ll never miss a shot in your life.” Gandrett gave Armand an appreciative glance.

  He just shrugged—“I never miss a shot anyway.”—and stepped into the hall, pulling Gandrett with him.

  She hid her grimace, faking interest in the wall behind them, and spotted a wide set of stairs at the far end of the corridor that led away from the festivities. The entrance. This led to the entrance. She knew from the maps there was only one stairwell in this castle that was wide enough for ten armed guards to walk beside each other, and it led to the main gate in the south-west.

  As if to confirm her thought, a breeze of fresh air blew into her face, accompanying the guests in finery stepping past them from the direction of freedom.

  “Wine?” In the meantime, Armand had taken the opportunity and waved over one of the servants carrying trays of delicate, crystal glasses, picking up one of them and holding it out for her with his free hand.

  Never. Gandrett had sworn an oath to Vala. Her body, that of a fighter, needed to be pure at any time to keep at full strength and mental clarity. She was about to shake her head then reconsidered. No one could know what she was. If she even pretended to drink that wine, it wouldn’t raise unnecessary questions.

  She un-looped her arm from his and took the glass from his long, sure fingers, swirled it, raising it to her face, and took a whiff. “Beautiful,” she remarked. “The color, the bouquet.” She had picked up some phrases during her time in Ackwood. Nothing that would pass her as an expert but enough to keep her inconspicuous.

  He smiled and took a glass for himself before he led her further into the hall, Gandrett dodging the poofy skirts of swirling dancers.

  At the end of the hall, a dais hosted a wide table filled with foods on silver platters. On the throne beside it, Hamyn Denderlain sat and watched in boredom how his court was enjoying itself.

  It took Gandrett a while before she noticed people staring at her, some whispering behind their lace fans as their eyes devoured her like a sensation.

  “Ignore them.” Armand took her hand, his calloused fingers firm around hers. “They stare at anyone I bring to our parties.”

  Gandrett wasn’t certain she wanted to laugh or cry at his words. So she decided to put on a mask of polite smiles and keep it for the rest of the night.

  “So you do this frequently, milord?” she shuttered her eyelids and pretended to nip at the wine.

  “Do what?” He grinned.

  “Rescue young women and bring them back to your castle to show them what life could be like?” She wanted to sound charming, tried, but the words came out a tad sharp.

  Armand laughed. “Only when it serves my purpose.”

  “And what purpose may that be?” She withdrew her hand from his and took a step closer to the dance floor, leaving Armand with the view of the cascade of curls Deelah had created, and smiled at the young man on the other side of the dancing crowd.

  “That, milady, is my concern,” he stepped on the dance floor, blocking the young man on the other end from view, and held out his hand, “not yours.”

  Gandrett eyed him, breathing through the annoyance the young lord induced despite his pretty face, and said, “I’m afraid this room is spinning without me even having to dance.” She gestured at the spot on her head that had been bloody when she woke up in the forest.

  Armand’s hand remained extended in front of her, his eyes insisting she take it.

  So she took it. She could always fake a sprained ankle later as Lady Crystal Brenheran had suggested.

  The young lord’s eyes flared with excitement as she set down her glass on a nearby table, placed her hand in his, and let him pull her to his chest.

  Vala help her. This was real. She had envisioned how she would have to lie, pretend, snake her way into Armand’s interest, and here she was, already in his arms. One of those locking around her waist as he pulled her into a spin and into the moving row of dancers.

  Gandrett stumbled along, praying to the goddess that she wouldn
’t stomp on Armand’s feet, and let him pull her further, further around the dance floor.

  Until they passed by the young man who had smiled back a minute earlier. His eyes—

  “For someone who laid splattered on the forest ground couple of hours ago, you dance exceptionally well,” Armand commented on her uncoordinated movements as he steered her away from the man.

  Gandrett cocked her head, trying to see past Armand’s broad shoulders, but he kept adjusting his position so all she saw was the silver embroidery on his black jacket.

  For someone who dances with a different woman every night, you’re an exceptionally bad liar.

  Gandrett sucked in a breath as Armand stopped in the center of the dance floor, staring down at her with narrowed eyes.

  By Vala, had she spoken aloud? Judging by the tight look on his face, she had. What had she done? She couldn’t jeopardize this mission by her thoughtlessness. She should apologize then and there—

  Armand burst into laughter, his hazel eyes sparkling with delight. “I don’t think anyone has ever spoken to me like that,” he gasped between his rolling laughter.

  Around them, people were staring as Gandrett took a step back, measuring the young lord’s fit of amusement.

  “I didn’t mean to—” Gandrett stopped, no longer sure if an apology would make it better or worse.

  But Armand waved off her words and grabbed her hand instead. “Come,” he said, still chuckling as she let him lead her off the dance floor with curious gazes following them and whispers growing louder behind them. “Let’s get something to eat.”

  Gandrett was only half-there as Armand guided her along the rows of tables and waved at a servant, whom he murmured something to before he guided her to the dais at the end of the room.

  As she climbed up the stairs beside him, Lord Hamyn lifted his head and swept a gaze of distaste over Gandrett, then turned to his son. “You didn’t have anything better to do than to bring her to the dance?”

  Armand fashioned a smile that would have made Brax’s pale. But his eyes were cold. Solid amber rather than golden honey.

  “I was thinking you were going to keep that sort of entertainment to your own chambers,” Hamyn continued, his eyes still on Gandrett as if he was trying to solve a riddle made of poison and thorns.

  Gandrett thought of Everrun. Of the citadel and its thundering waterfall. Of the Meister and his lectures about obedience and discipline. About the unforgiving wind in the desert and the countless nights she had stayed up despite exhaustion, just to go over certain moves in her mind. To become the best. Vala’s blade—that’s what they called her at the priory.

  And Vala’s blade didn’t waver with the words of a tyrant—a sexist tyrant, it seemed.

  A gust of air escaped her nose as she dialed down her temper, little by little, her hands remaining relaxed at her sides, right where she would keep them to pull a sword the next moment.

  No. She wouldn’t let his words get to her.

  Across the dais, by the edge of the fish-laden table, a movement caught her eye. Someone was staring at her—not the way the whispering crowd by the dance floor had, but a different type of movement. Fast and elegant like a cat on the hunt.

  Gandrett tuned out Armand and Hamyn Denderlain, eyes tracking the shadow that was now hurrying for the alcoves of darkness in the wall behind the dais, until Armand’s hand grabbed hers and pulled her around to the buffet of fish delicacies she could hardly keep down.

  “Don’t worry, Father,” Armand said over his shoulder with a cool lightness that might have even made Nehelon gape in awe, “my chambers won’t stay un-entertained either.”

  Furious. It didn’t even closely describe how she felt as her steps, surprisingly light, breath unexpectedly calm, carried her back up the stairs.

  Beside her, Armand was quiet. Eyes on the polished stone beneath their feet, hand clasping hers with too much force.

  But she didn’t complain.

  His chambers. That’s where he was going to lead her.

  And she had a mission to accomplish. Gain his trust and protection so she would last long enough in Eedwood castle to have a chance of finding Joshua.

  She didn’t ask questions as he led her past her own chambers and further down the hall to black double doors, a silver star engraved on each of the wings. She didn’t fight as he opened them and motioned for her to enter, nodding at the guards positioned on each side of the entrance with a smirk.

  She didn’t gawk at the midnight-blue tapestry, golden threads woven into it in intricate patterns, or the scent of the sea that carried from the miles-away shore through the wide-spread balcony doors on a chilly breeze. Only when she spotted the bed—wider than the four-poster bed in her own chambers and glazed in gold and midnight-blue—did she yield and swallow the lump in her throat.

  Armand, no longer bothering to smile, sauntered to the other end of the room where he dropped into a wide, blue, velvet chair and eyed her like the hunter who had brought down the wolf.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Gandrett fought her fury with the soothing sensation of Nehelon’s dagger strapped along her thigh. She would reach for it if needed, Joshua or no. Vala’s child. Even if she hadn’t chosen it. She wouldn’t let an arrogant, royal brat take her oath away.

  Her fingers curled at her sides as she stared him down. A polite smile still sat on her lips, but she was ready to destroy him if he as much as lifted a finger against her.

  “You’re different from the others,” he said, face not warming toward her. “I think I’d like you to stay.”

  Gandrett tilted her head, unsure if anything she could say would make the situation better. The small portion of fish she had managed to force down her throat with a smile earlier didn’t help the nausea creeping up on her.

  “My father acts like that with all of them,” he shrugged, “but you…” He got to his feet, eyeing her with cool interest. “You’re different. He outright hated you.”

  Delight crept across his features, and Gandrett didn’t dare inquire what exactly it was about it that made him so happy. But his face turned serious again as his gaze grazed over her body, lingering on her arms. “You have many scars, Gandrett Starhaeven,” he noted, brows knitting into a frown.

  She cringed. Her scars. As thin as they were, as many were they. She hadn’t thought about them when she had slipped into a gown with nothing but midnight-blue cords to hold up the bodice, slinging over her shoulders. She hadn’t given it a thought. But now—

  Armand’s attention was on them and them only. He sauntered closer, surveilling every inch of bare skin with an eagle-like glare. Her arms, her shoulders, whatever of her back wasn’t covered by her curls. The unscathed skin on her chest where the dress exposed the beginning roundness of her breasts. They lingered there until the sound of a loosed breath filled the air. Not hers.

  “You bare a lot of scars for a wealthy merchant’s daughter,” Armand noted, gaze still on that spot where no scars lay.

  She felt it, the cognitive dissonance that arose inside the young lord like tendrils of water rising when Surel lifted her hand over a pool to summon it. Fast. She needed an explanation. And fast.

  “Money doesn’t make men any less cruel,” she said coldly, her heart raging in her chest from true, authentic fear. “It only buys the silence of those who witness it.”

  At her words, Armand recoiled as if she had struck him in the face. He ambled back to the chair and slumped there, face not showing a hint of the laughing, taunting boy she’d thought him to be. “There’s a door behind that tapestry,” he waved a hand at the part of the wall with the strongest accumulation of gold threads. “It will take you to your chambers.”

  The corridor didn’t take her to her chambers. She had no idea where else it could lead for it hadn’t been on any of Nehelon’s maps.

  Gandrett followed the narrow passage to the first door she could find, hidden under layers of dust and spider webs so heavily that she had almost m
issed it, then had cracked it open and checked whether the air was clear.

  It was. But instead of taking her to her own chambers, she found herself in a side corridor that bore little to no light. She followed it long enough to know she couldn’t be anywhere near her chambers. Too long had she been groping along the rough stone walls not to know she must have long passed it.

  Lucky. She had been so lucky that Armand hadn’t pushed for more information. That he hadn’t insisted on that entertainment.

  She could only imagine what his situation with his father was if he found such delight in upsetting him.

  And she... Gandrett found absolutely no delight in being a tool in someone’s games. For that, she figured, was the only thing she was.

  The tunnel turned right and descended in shallow stairs, into the gloom of complete darkness.

  Turn around. That’s what she should be doing. But she was already in motion, away from Armand, no sound other than her footsteps accompanying her into the blackness. She wanted to know where the tunnel ended. Armand had already told her one end went to her chambers, so she must have chosen the wrong door. And this one arm of the tunnel might be her ticket to snooping around the castle. And one day, maybe also her escape route.

  So she continued into the darkness while Armand was convinced she was tucked under the blankets. The dance would probably continue into the morning hours, and no one would come looking for her. Still, if they did, they wouldn’t find it suspicious if she wasn’t in her own chambers, for Armand had made it so very clear what he intended for their night together.

  It was only when a soft whisper disturbed the echo of her slow footsteps that she halted, one hand braced on the wall, the other lifting her skirts to reach for her dagger.

  The whispering stopped.

  Gandrett held her breath. She could hardly see her hand before her face, but far ahead, there was a spot of light.

  “Who’s there?” Gandrett asked in a low but steady voice. She had spent enough days in the dark tunnels of the citadel to keep her calm.