Chapter 3
Trystan
It was midday tea time, and Trystan Maverine was yelling—into a pillow.
Or he supposed it was more of a bellow. It was difficult to decide with the sound muffled in his ears. He tossed the pillow back on the bed.
“Do you feel better?” Lyssa Sage asked with a tilt of her head, her wide, curious expression meeting Trystan’s. “Did it help?”
“Oh yes. Thrilling,” he deadpanned. It didn’t help that the pillow he’d grabbed was Sage’s and the rose scent of her hair was bombarding his senses. Fortunately, one could not inhale and yell at the same time, but the pillow sat on the bed, taunting him.
I will not sniff it.
The little villain snapped him from his inner debate by snorting into her teacup, eyes full of mischief. Lyssa was a welcome distraction after he’d escaped the study like death was at his heels.
I would find you.
He’d revealed too much. Pushed too quickly. He needed to be patient, to show Evie in no uncertain terms that she was his true love. That they deserved their happily ever after—together.
In the meantime, he’d be a steady presence. A confidant. A friend.
Yes. I could be her friend.
Or I could saw off my own foot.
“I thought a tea party might be nice today. You looked so sad sitting in your office.” Lyssa’s large brown eyes fell to her teacup, apprehension in the pinch of her brows. “I’m sorry if I made it worse.”
The spear of determination he was experiencing was demanding his attention, but none of it was any match for the guilt at causing Lyssa Sage to frown.
Crouching down to the tiny tea table in the middle of the Sage sisters’ chambers, he softened his voice and summoned a smile.
“Your presence in my world only ever brings improvement, Little Villain.”
Lyssa beamed and then turned, tapping her chin in contemplation, her mouth set in a determined line when she grabbed a sugar cookie from the tray and handed it to him. He bit into the sweetness, noting the hint of rose water in the recipe.
“Might I ask you a question, then, Lord Trystan?” she asked.
Trystan seated himself in the other tiny chair across from her, feeling it groan beneath his bulk as he leaned back. “You may ask me anything you like.”
“Are you going to marry my sister?”
The chair broke.
And Trystan found himself flat on his back, gasping for air, when the door opened and Blade sauntered in.
The apple in his hand paused halfway to his mouth when he spied Trystan on the floor, his lips stretching into a slow grin.
“What are you doing down there, buddy?” Blade tilted his head, smiling in a friendly manner that made Trystan want to take the apple and beat him to death with it.
Lyssa did not remain silent as Trystan hoped she would—as he knew she wouldn’t. “I just asked if Lord Trystan was going to marry Evie.”
Blade looked far too pleased with the revelation, planting his hands on his waist with an amused grin. “So…you started breaking furniture?”
From his place on the ground, Trystan thrust a finger toward the door. “Get out. This party was invite-only.”
Blade’s smile sobered into a pained flat line. “I would, but I come bearing bad news, I’m afraid.”
The room stilled at the declaration. The air departed from Trystan’s lungs as he climbed to his feet, eyes flashing toward Lyssa, who looked just as fearful at the promise of another wave of turmoil.
Arthur’s death was still a bitter swell of anger in his gut, his heart clenching when he thought of his father’s final words to him.
A life without love is an empty one, Trystan. You can live your years without me, but not without her.
The sacrifice made by the man who did not sire him, but raised him all the same, would not be in vain.
Steeling himself, Trystan forged ahead, feeling more at peace with his new purpose. “Is it news fit for young ears?”
Lyssa waved a hand, halfway to the door. “I’m going. If I don’t hear the bad news, I can pretend it isn’t happening.” With a light skip, she waved her fingers, but just before she snicked the door shut, she added, “I’ll re-ask you my question later, Lord Trystan.” And then she was gone.
Blade shook his head, smiling. “She’s wise, that one.”
“The bad news?” Trystan urged, feeling exhausted. “You couldn’t find him, could you?”
There was no need to specify who he spoke of. They both knew.
Blade shut his eyes for a moment and blew out a breath, then came to sit in the remaining tiny chair, looking near comedically large, but it was difficult to laugh when Trystan had lost not just his father but his dearest friend.
“I searched every pond within a three-mile radius. There was no sign of him.” Blade rubbed at his temples. “Could he still be in the manor?”
“I looked in all his usual spots.” Trystan sighed, rubbing at the scruff at his chin. “No luck. Gods, what if he’s—”
“No.” Blade shook his head vigorously. “No, I checked the perimeter as far as a frog of his size would be able to travel. I’d bet all my vests he’s still here somewhere in the manor.”
“Are you trying to encourage me not to find him?” Trystan muttered dryly, folding his arms over his chest and staring at Blade’s distractingly bright yellow attire.
Blade grinned, throwing his arms wide. “At least I’m always easy to spot.”
“Unlike a green frog. In a green forest.” Trystan rubbed at the bridge of his nose, feeling a thousand times older than his twenty-nine years.
“The forest is slowly being leached of color by the fading magic, if that makes you feel better.” Blade offered this information while taking a large bite of a cookie shaped like a lily.
Trystan just glared at him. Then made a quiet decision as Blade took another bite of the cookie. “Evie and I had sex.”
The dragon trainer rocked forward so hard, the bit of cookie fell off his tongue, his mouth hanging open, jaw unhinged, eyes so rounded that Trystan wondered whether they might pop out of his head. “You—you—you and Evie had— I mean the two of you actually—”
“Fornicated,” Trystan finished for him, abashed to find himself feeling a tad unsure at his confession. What in the gods’ names was he doing?
“DON’T SAY FORNICATED!” Blade’s hands flew up to his ears, and he looked prepared to fight off the word if it came to it. “I’m having too many thoughts at once. My head’s gonna burst.”
“Vocalize one of them, man!” Trystan barked with more than a hint of vulnerability now, a feeling he wanted to squash like a bug.
Blade combed his fingers through his hair, then braced his hands on his knees, sputtering and out of breath. “Where? When?”
“A barn,” Trystan answered immediately, not eagerly but without needing to beat around the bush. He checked his pocket watch. “Thirty-five hours ago.”
Blade’s grin told Trystan he’d divulged too much and was about to be punished for it.
“You’re keeping track of the hours?”
“It’s easier to tell time by hours,” Trystan protested, indignant.
Blade scoffed and laughed, clapping his hands together gleefully. “A barn?” he asked. “I never pictured you two in a barn.”
“Do not picture us anywhere,” Trystan seethed, feeling his own head close to bursting.
Eyes wide, Blade rubbed at his cheeks like he’d awoken from a bad dream. “You have a thousand pillows on your bed, and you took that poor woman in a barn?” The dragon trainer delivered this with flapping arms that Fluffy the dragon would find impressive.
“It was what was available,” Trystan protested, and at that point he would have taken whatever was available. A chair, a wall, a dungeon—
Oh. Intriguing.
Although it was very well possible that these places only seemed to be so because he would be with her. It had never mattered before. Sex was meant for physical release so he could continue his evil work unencumbered by base needs, but with Evie, it was different.
With her, he had lost control. And now his base needs were all over the place.
It was no longer a release but an unleashing.
A feral, dormant part of him coming alive at the mere mention of her name.
A wine he could not un-taste, a storm he could never withstand.
She was eclipsing everything he thought he understood and molding it with her lovely fingers into something new, until he was someone new.
Someone better.
Or worse.
It didn’t particularly matter as long as she was his.
There was a moment of pause. A comfortable, beautiful silence.
Then Blade ruined it—by speaking.
“So are you two… Was it… Uh.” Blade scratched the back of his neck. “What am I permitted to ask about without getting my head lopped off?”
“The weather.”
Blade threw his arms up and flopped out of the tiny chair to the ground. “Why tell me, then?”
Trystan didn’t know why. All he knew was that his life had been thrown into upheaval again, the woman that consumed his every thought was tailored by fate to be his enemy, and the magic he’d lived with for years upon years was no longer with him.
The most surprising part?
He didn’t miss it, perhaps because it was never his to begin with.
“Because you’re here, I suppose,” Trystan reasoned, straightening his shirt, ensuring not an inch of him was out of place. When one couldn’t control the end of his life as he knew it, one could at least control if his shirt was wrinkled.
To him, the two things, of course, were synonymous.
“Flattering, but I think it’s actually because I am your only friend.” Blade snorted and then sobered when they both remembered.
Their other friend. The one who was notably absent. A lump formed in Trystan’s throat.
“So, you two are finally together, then?” Blade asked, looking well prepared to dodge a punch if necessary.
It was why he answered the question honestly. “No.”
Blade’s head dropped into his hands. “Of course not. That would make too much sense. I swear by all the gods, you two get some sick joy out of making yourselves miserable.”
“That’s not true,” Trystan objected, outraged, as he stood up.
“Sage is adjusting to a complete shift in her world and all she thought she knew. I won’t push her for my own selfish wants.
” He punctuated this declaration by shoving at Blade’s shoulder, sauntering to the door, and exiting to the sunlit hallway, Blade on his heels looking ready to perish.
“You do realize that every bad decision you two make, we all must suffer,” Blade muttered under his breath, but Trystan ignored him until they reached Trystan’s chamber doors…which were ajar.
A chill skittered down the back of his neck, and his fears were affirmed when he shoved the door all the way open and found the room torn apart.
Blade whistled beside him. “Have you ever considered a stress ball in lieu of a destructive tirade? This can’t be fair to the cleaning crew.”
“This wasn’t me,” Trystan stated, emotionless.
“Someone was searching for something.” A fire crackled in the hearth—a fire that hadn’t been there when he left his chambers.
Why would someone ransack his room only to leave him a comfortable crackling fire in their place?
As he drew closer to it, though, Trystan realized with a sinking in his gut that all his desk drawers had been thrown open, papers and items either tossed to the ground or missing.
And ash-covered paper folding into the flames was all that remained.
Of the pages they’d been able to steal of Rennedawn’s storybook. Gone.
Trystan clenched his fists, anger coursing through him, because one of two things could now be true. Either Marv had found a way out of his dungeon…
Or he hadn’t been the sole traitor at all.
Trystan stormed for the door, only halting when he was struck by something else. Something that sent chills down his spine.
Trystan turned slowly back around, finding one more thing gone from the room.
The thing he’d placed on the frog’s bed for safekeeping.
Kingsley’s crown.
Narrowing his eyes, he charged for the door, hearing Blade call after him, “Where are you going?”
“To the dungeons,” Trystan growled.
Where traitors lurked in the dark.