Chapter 10
Rykr
Lucia wiped tears from her cheeks as she placed a bouquet of goldenrods on the single, large bedroll in the tent where I’d woken earlier. Seren’s mother had barely spoken to me all evening—like I was the one who had roped her daughter into this situation. This … marriage.
She bowed as she passed me. “May Bryndis grant you—”
“Mother, don’t.” Seren set her hand on her mother’s forearm. “Thank you for all the provisions.”
Lucia stiffened. “What sort of mother would I be if I didn’t help you set up your own household? I’d hoped it would be a day of celebration. This is not how I imagined any of my children’s wedding days—especially not the first one to wed.”
Wed was one way of putting it. Being flogged, shackled, and held against my will wasn’t how I’d pictured my wedding day, either. Dalric and Thorne would have gotten a hearty laugh from it.
Are they still alive? If I ended up so deep in the Dark Forest, where did Thorne go? Had my father put out a search for me, knowing I hadn’t been captured?
Seren hugged her mother. “It’s been a long day. Get some rest. If fortune is on our side, Father will return tomorrow.”
Paling further, Lucia nodded, then left, closing the panel tightly behind her.
Seren checked the fire in the stove—it was already cold in here—then came toward me. “Hold out your hands.”
“Why?”
She sighed impatiently. “Just do it.”
I did, and she pulled a sharp metal pick from the braid in her hair. Inserting it into the lock, she gave it a twist, and the irons clicked open. Then she knelt, repeating the process on my ankles. She stood, setting both sets on the chair.
“Impressive.” The relief on my skin was immediate—I hadn’t realized how much the restraints bothered me until then.
The metal pick twirled between her fingers with ease, then she trailed the tip against the stubble of my jaw. “If you give me even the slightest reason to, I’ll carve your eye out with this pick, understood, Lirien?”
So that’s how it’s going to be.
I leaned down, my voice low and mocking. “You know, there are easier ways to flirt. All this eye-carving talk—it’s giving mixed signals.”
“Keep talking, and you’ll get a clearer signal.”
Straightening, I grinned. “See? That’s exactly what I mean. Nothing says romance like casual death threats.”
Seren’s expression didn’t change, but her grip on the pick tightened. “It’s survival, not romance. Don’t get any ideas.”
I shrugged. “Trust me, if I ever write a love story, it won’t start with ‘Once upon a time, I was beaten, bound, and married by force.’”
Clearly despite her best efforts, the scowl on her pretty mouth twitched, the corners of her lips threatening a smile.
I had no doubt she’d try to fight me if necessary, but her threat intrigued me. “If I’m so dangerous, why take my irons off at all? Trying to impress me with your bravery?”
“Because in this tent you’re not a prisoner. We have to live here, sleep in the same space. Basic comfort isn’t a gift in our camp. It’s a necessity. So don’t make me regret this.”
I studied her, noting the tension in her shoulders. “Or you trust me more than you’re willing to admit.” I wasn’t sure if it was bravado or sheer stupidity. Probably the latter. “You’re the one who wanted to kill me. Hell, you would still probably kill me if it didn’t mean your own death.”
“You want my trust? Earn it. Your kind have hunted my people for centuries. Lirien soldiers killed my friend, just last year. Burned him at the stake to set an example.”
“If they burned him, he wasn’t innocent. Your people dole out just as much death as they receive.”
“You really do want to get stabbed, don’t you?”
A smile curved on my lips. “I’d like to see you try.”
Liquid anger pooled in the depths of her unusual eyes. “If you think you’re the only Sealed Pendaran here, you’re mistaken. So is my father. And he taught me well.”
Her father was Sealed?
That stopped me cold. No Sealed Lirien in my lifetime had ever left, except for …
“Wait …”
Ragnall.
I should have heard it sooner—when that Viori bastard had called out Seren’s family. The last name wasn’t uncommon but now the pieces clicked.
A slick feeling of disgust coiled through my gut.
Smite me. No. Of all the people to find me in the Dreadwood.
Her skill in fighting me when the vuk had attacked. The way her sister had brought that carcass back from the forest. Her mother’s beauty—a priestess. It all made too much sense.
“Your father is Brogan Ragnall.”
She stepped back, worry lighting her face. “You’ve heard of him?”
Fierce, visceral hatred shot through me, tightening my chest like a vise. My pulse pounded in my ears, drowning out everything else. Heard of him?
The son of a bitch killed my mother.
And now his daughter was bound to me?
The cruel, laughing twist of fate threatened my temper as cold sweat broke out on my neck. But I’d already shown a lack of restraint earlier that wouldn’t help me here.
I had to be careful with what I said and how much passion I displayed. An ordinary man from Pendara wouldn’t react the way I desired to. Revenge could be so easy.
“The only Sealed child who didn’t cry at a Sealing. Commander of the King’s Royal Guard and the king’s closest adviser in the Sealed Council—until one day, when he murdered the queen and vanished. Yeah. I’ve heard of him. Every Lirien has.”
A flicker of something—uncertainty, perhaps—crossed her face. “He was blamed for murdering the queen, but he was innocent.”
“Innocent men don’t run.”
“And yet, he was innocent. He and my mother both loved Lirien and were prepared to live there forever, despite your kingdom’s oppressive laws. Even if my father hadn’t been falsely accused, my mother gave birth to twins, and my parents had to flee to save them.”
Twins.
The word sent an uneasy ripple down my spine.
I wasn’t superstitious. I barely believed in any of the old gods, let alone Solric—the so-called “most important” surviving god after the others had fallen a millennium ago. Supposedly. Yet there had to be something out there, considering the presence of magic in our world.
But I’d never met twins before. She may as well have said her siblings were unicorns.
The news that Brogan Ragnall had sired twins chilled me. “You do realize that twins are killed for the safety of everyone in Lirien? The prophesies—” I stopped short. Now I sounded like my father.
Wait. Was Tara one of the twins?
And if so, which one was she?
Her eyes flashed with irritation. “Neither my sister nor my brother is evil. They’re not going to resurrect one of the dead gods. Infanticide isn’t a way to stop ridiculous myths.”
“Maybe not the best, but certainly the easiest.”
“Callousness is what the Lirien do best, isn’t it? Bind innocents out of fear?” She paced, restless in her anger. “I’m starting to prefer the idea of eternal damnation to being tied to you.”
“You took the words right out of my mouth.”
Fucking Brogan Ragnall.
My skin burned with fury. He wasn’t at the camp right now, but when he arrived—then what? Was I supposed to sit at a table with him? Share meals?
“This isn’t going to work.” Seren stopped pacing. “Like it or not, we’re stuck together for now. What will it take for us to call a truce until we find a solution?”
I towered over her. “Nothing. I’m done doing you favors. We owe each other nothing now. And that was before I knew you’re Brogan Ragnall’s daughter—”
“My father is a good man. A decent one who would do anything for his family. He’s never gotten involved in Viori politics because the bloodshed between our people disgusts him.
My parents’ love for Lirien has practically made us outcasts here.
Why do you think Seth said what he said at the council? ”
“A man who kills his queen does not love his kingdom.”
She scowled. “This isn’t about him. This is about you and me. I am not my father, so maybe we can start with that, unless you’d like me to measure you by whoever you happen to be related to. For all I know, they might be the worst sort.”
She has a point.
I wouldn’t want to be judged by Magnus Warrick’s shadow. I’d gotten myself Sealed because of my need to be different from him.
“Fine,” I breathed, begrudgingly. “We’ll leave your father out of it. For now.”
A hint of a smirk showed on her lips, like she’d enjoyed winning that battle.
“But I’d have to be insane to trust a woman who bonded herself by blood oath to someone she’d never met.”
Her chin jutted up. “Why did you save me? You could have let me die—run while the vuk had me in its grasp.”
I shrugged. “What can I say? I have a soft spot for damsels in distress. Even ones who later threaten to carve my eyes out.”
Seren’s glare could have cut through steel. “I wasn’t a damsel. I was armed.”
“Yes. Armed and halfway down a vuk’s throat.
” Slow seconds passed, my pulse throbbing.
“I suppose it’s impossible to believe that strangers help one another in Lirien.
” I scanned her face, finding it hard to reconcile someone so beautiful with someone so cold-hearted and deadly.
“Do you all really kill anyone that comes into the forest? You only help your own? All Liriens are evil to you?”
“Aren’t all the Viori evil to you?”
“No.”
A divot appeared between her eyebrows. Shame glossed her eyes. “I know that there may be innocents on both sides. Sorting them from the evil isn’t worth the cost, though—not when it’s my friends and family who pay if someone who hurts us gets through. Hesitation has cost me dearly.”
She looked away. “I’ve never had a real conversation with a Lirien before you. But you’re no better than I am. Lirien soldiers don’t always wait for good reason to kill—especially not those in the Pendaran Regulation.”
“The Viori often give us a good reason before we can get to them. I watched a village burn to the ground in Ibarra six months ago. Children, murdered. All by your people.”