Chapter 30
There was, of course, no lock inside the door of the luxurious bedroom to which Gerard had been led.
From the richly gilded mirror on its nightstand to the elaborate designs etched on the low-burning gas lamp and the silk hangings on its large four-poster bed, it had clearly been designed for royal guests—and if Gerard had somehow lost all of his wits, he might have believed Otto’s words and imagined this stay to be an actual honor.
However, he didn’t miss the lack of any windows—or the click of a heavy iron bolt being fastened into place on the other side of the door.
“This is the price of weakness and treason…”
Memories flashed across his vision, still brutally vivid after all these years.
The executioner lifting his axe high, again and again, while the voracious roar of the crowd filled Gerard’s ears to bursting …
and his own body sat paralyzed with fear and horror beside his ferociously smiling grandmother.
Her fingers had gripped his closest arm like bejeweled claws.
“This is the price…”
He’d been running from those memories for years, with his meticulously polished reputation and his obdurate refusal ever to look beyond the blinders of his duty.
The iron bolt closing him in now was a mere formality … which, frankly, seemed unnecessary, with two armed guards already stationed outside to prevent escape and his sword in their keeping.
Perhaps he should have been searching the room now, constructing radical new weapons by hand and strategizing brilliant plans for escape despite all the odds. That was surely what the rest of the world would expect from the famous Golden Beacon.
But Gerard had constructed and maintained that reputation as a shield against exactly this moment …
and now that it had come to pass anyway, he felt as numb and frozen as if he were still trapped in that seat beside his grandmother, a silent witness to brutality that could never be altered, only endured.
Truthfully, if he had ever been set against his two Imperial guards on any battlefield, he was confident that he would win the fight. However, the idea of bursting through his door now to murder a pair of young men for doing their duty made acid twist and spiral deep inside his gut.
He could have so easily been in the place of either of those boys, ordered to guard an enemy of the state and believing that he was doing the right thing.
In fact, he would have been trapped in that situation, still fighting with all his heart and mind for an emperor devoid of conscience, if Lorelei hadn’t been clever and reckless enough to steal Gerard from his bed and rip the comforting illusions from his eyes.
The amount of damage that would have been on his conscience, then… !
No. He would defend himself if attacked—and he wouldn’t trust any food or drink sent in to tempt him—but he would not voluntarily cut down innocents in an escape attempt doomed to failure.
There were too many guards in this palace for him to take them all on.
More than that, he’d known the risks he was taking when he stood up to Otto tonight.
He wouldn’t be callous enough to make others pay the price for his own choices.
“This is the price…”
Taking a deep breath, Gerard strode forward to study the room before him.
With luck, he would have several days left before a show trial and execution could be organized.
He would stay alert and ready. If any true opportunity for escape showed itself, he would seize it.
But if this proved to be his last night—if Otto chose not to risk handing him the kind of public platform a trial would provide—then he would make damned certain he used the time he had left wisely.
There were letters to write and strategies to formulate. If he could find any means to spread the news of Otto’s plans to at least a few of the right ears, he would not consider his final hours wasted.
If nothing else, he could hide letters around the room in hopes that one of Queen Ailana’s spies might uncover them.
… In which case, he could write a final letter to Lorelei, too.
Lorelei. Pain burned through Gerard’s chest, overwhelming the numbness that had filled him until now.
For an agonizingly long moment, he couldn’t even breathe.
The thought of never again hearing her mischievous, bubbling laugh …
never seeing that triumphant glint light her eyes whenever she bested him in a challenge—or that shocking, world-upending tenderness she’d shown him earlier today …
What would she think when she learned what had happened here tonight? Would she remember him only as the latest man to ignore all of his promises and abandon her without a thought?
Or …
Wait. Cold certainty sliced through his pain as he realized the true outcome that would result if he was executed tonight.
Lorelei, heartbroken and furious, would absolutely fling herself into wreaking bloody and brutal vengeance upon Otto for Gerard’s sake, regardless of the danger—and with a whole empire ranged against her …
Oh, gods, no.
Sudden clarity splashed across him, dissipating the last of the numbness that had gripped him ever since Otto’s decision.
He might be physically trapped in this room now, but he didn’t have to remain emotionally trapped in that seat beside his grandmother anymore.
He was an adult ready to forge his own fate now, not a child ruled by fear—and after fighting back-to-back over the past few days, there was no doubt in his mind that Lorelei would come for him the moment she worked out where he was.
Nothing mattered more to him than making certain that whatever happened here tonight, Lorelei would survive its fallout. She was the price that he would never pay, no matter how many enemies were ranked against him.
All those diplomatic letters and political strategies would have to wait. First, Gerard needed to fortify the bedroom door to hold off his final battle as long as possible …
And make it as safe as he could for his reckless partner to save him.
In all her life, Lorelei had never had to fight so hard not to give in to her feelings.
Even in the midst of killing rage and terror, though, her instincts all agreed that she couldn’t conquer the entire Imperial winter palace, filled with armed guards and Gilded Wizards, by herself in time to save her consort’s life.
For Gerard’s sake, she needed a real strategy, preparation, and reinforcements.
So she arrived in Ailana’s castle a tooth-grindingly long ten minutes after their first conversation, riding through her portal on Bluebell’s back with her hair carefully pinned up out of the way, an enchanted dagger hanging lightly by her side, and her gryphon protected in shining battle armor.
She almost wept when she saw Saskia already there, too.
Lorelei had spent the last several days hiding from her allies for fear of their judgements, and yet here they both stood now in the great hall of Ailana’s icy castle, ready to fight for her regardless.
Ailana’s riding gryphon, Bluebell’s hatch-mate Frost, stood alert beside his armored queen, beak held high and one set of big claws already scraping at the flagstones in anticipation.
Saskia had no companion of her own and carried no visible weapons, but on the belt around her velvet gown were hung at least a dozen sacks and bottles that glowed with power to Lorelei’s deeper senses.
They would be full of magical compounds, the witch queen’s own most lethal preparations for any battle.
Lorelei had spent decades learning that real trust was too dangerous an emotion to allow.
Now, she had to blink away tears of overflowing relief and gratitude before she could give her loyal, trustworthy allies an appropriately dazzling smile.
“Darlings! Are we ready to give Otto’s nose a good tweaking? ”
“We can try,” Saskia said grimly. “We will try. But we’ve run into a problem.”
Lorelei’s forced smile vanished like the autumn she had left behind in Efaelen. “What problem?”
“General de Moireul isn’t being held in any of the Emperor’s standard cells,” Ailana said with crisp certainty.
“It’s not surprising that he wasn’t taken to an ordinary prison, but when I heard he hadn’t left the winter palace with the others, I’d expected that he’d be kept in one of the rooms used for political prisoners in the outer west wing, where I have multiple informants.
Unfortunately, I’ve now received confirmation that he isn’t there—but they don’t know where else in the palace he could be.
There’s only one maid in my pay who works in the wing where tonight’s meeting was held, and I haven’t been able to reach her at all. ”
Lorelei’s stomach sank. “So, he could be almost anywhere.” Otto’s winter palace, rebuilt from the first Serafin Empire’s ruins, was a massive, labyrinthine complex that stretched across the Fioran hills. Even with all three queens working together, it would take hours to search.
“I tried to find him using the same spell that worked to find you,” Saskia said, “but there’s no sense of him anywhere in Fiora. Of course, they might have locked him in somewhere with iron to prevent us finding him with magic, but it’s also possible that—”
“No!” Lorelei hissed. “He has not been killed yet.”
Ailana arched a single eyebrow. “Do you know that for a fact? Or do you only hope it to be true?”
Setting her teeth together, Lorelei met the ice queen’s gaze full-on. “I know,” she gritted.
She would never give up on her partner.
Ailana’s eyes narrowed in open skepticism …
… and Lorelei realized that her whole body was shaking in long, shivering waves of tension. Gods damn it. She was usually so good at putting on convincing shows of confidence! She’d spent decades practicing and perfecting those skills …