Chapter 15
Like good prey, I tried to run.
The stranger beside me was faster than a drunkard ought to be, and stronger too.
Twisting from his arm was all I managed to do in that first moment of shock, a movement of nothing but panicked instinct; then his hand clamped around my wrist, dragging me towards him, and I was slammed backward against the hip-high balustrade.
The wood groaned at the impact. I stiffened, and my attacker laughed, towering over me – another gust of boozy breath hitting me square in the face.
‘Shy indeed, aren’t you?’
Fuck.
Fuck.
I tried to twist away again. His hand didn’t let go.
The weight of his silk-clad body was a cage, pressing me back against the wooden railing; I stamped on his toes and found his boots were much too sturdy.
Again he laughed, fist closing around my braid, and this time there was an edge to his amusement that wiped away all thought of struggling – something that came dangerously close to a warning.
The balustrade only reached to my hips.
One push and I’d be plummeting headfirst towards the marble tiles below… and that chuckle told me he wouldn’t lose a minute of sleep over it.
My pulse was a nauseating rattle, my breath a ragged rhythm in my ears. I had my knives, a twitch away beneath my tunic – but if you fight back …
‘Please,’ I whispered, sagging.
The hand around my braid pulled down, forcing me to lift my gaze.
Beefy neck and shoulders. Dark brown hair, streaked with gold.
Hell have mercy on me – Valern fucking Icetongue, spy or diplomat depending on who you asked, and worst of all, definitely a man who would report to Aranc on any unusual events during his travels.
I no longer heard the laughter and squeals from below.
I barely felt the tips of my own fingers anymore.
My mind seemed to be retreating from every spot where his muscular body pressed against mine, from the skin his breath brushed with every wine-soaked exhale. Like a general, sacrificing conquered ground – you can have it, since it’s no longer mine …
‘Please,’ I breathed again, and I didn’t feel my lips move. Forget about the knives. Forget about fighting. ‘My lord, I need to serve Lord Givron his dinner. If you please—’
‘Givron?’ His mouth was curling into a grin, eyes assessing me like a cow to be bought. ‘Oh, you can serve me first, love.’
No, no, no—
‘Shy, again?’ His free hand wrapped around my chin, dragging me away from the balustrade and the emptiness beyond. ‘Let’s find a quieter spot, shall we?’
No knives, I repeated to myself as he turned me with him, desperately fighting the violence twitching in my fingers. No runes. A girl who didn’t fight wouldn’t be worth telling Aranc about, and nothing he could do would be worse than Aranc’s revenge.
I ought to be boring. Hadn’t Durlain said so?
‘My lord,’ I tried, ‘if Lord Givron hears—'
A sting of heat flared against the soft skin of my throat. Valern roughly slammed me against the wood panelling, and at once he was no longer smiling – not even that cat-and-mouse grin of a moment before.
‘Don’t tempt me to mar that pretty face, love.
’ He abruptly released my hair, still holding my face with his other hand.
Small flames flickered to life on his free fingertips, their outlines blurring as he let them dance inches away from my eyes.
‘No one is going to hear anything. Or do you think Givron will keep you if you come back looking like a melted candle?’
I was no longer breathing.
My body was a numb, dead thing beneath me, helpless and powerless. No use in running. The flames would be faster. He was a fireborn mage, for hell’s sake, and I was nothing but the spoils of war, a small, puny—
I’d fought a fireborn mage today.
The thought came out of nowhere, a punch to the gut.
I’d defeated a fireborn mage today … but no, what was I thinking?
If I attacked Valern, he would spread the word before I could get ten steps away from him.
Unless I killed him … but killing a favourite of Aranc was an even worse idea.
The ravens would reach Mount Estien before the night was over – white-haired girl with too many knives on her, they’d say, and the birds would come flocking …
You were wise not to fight, witchling.
Lark.
Surely I could endure this for Lark?
I was watching myself from yards away, frozen in place even as Valern took his hand from my throat, greedy fingers grabbing at my tunic. How long could this take? Minutes. Just minutes. If I counted to a thousand, surely he’d be done. Hell, I’d done worse for survival. I just had to—
The hands vanished.
My stunted senses registered the surprise seconds too late.
The stench of wine was gone too, and I blinkingly sank back into my own flesh and blood, the world a haze of incongruous shapes in the candlelight. Valern, broad and gold-haired, had turned away from me. Behind him …
A blur of black.
A glitter of ice.
And then Valern’s head slammed backwards with a sickening thud, and colours stitched themselves together into objects – fist, scars, a single blazing eye.
Durlain.
Looking nothing, nothing like the cold, poised creature I knew – glass-edged face contorted with rage, movements unrestrained like the blows of a winter storm.
He struck again before I could regain my wits, fist connecting with Valern’s jaw in a vicious uppercut.
The diplomat staggered back and slammed into the panelled wall beside me; his hand came to his face, eyes wide and dazed, as if he couldn’t fully comprehend what was happening.
I opened my mouth, somehow. My voice emerged, somehow. ‘Don’t … don’t …’
‘You – fucking – rat,’ Durlain snarled without slowing, spitting the words into Valern’s face, each of them accompanied by another swift punch. ‘You rotten piece of shit. You—’
Valern doubled over, blood splattering from his nose across the polished wooden floor. ‘How dare— I’m an emissary to King Aranc of—’
‘Oh, are you?’ A flurry of brutal, efficient strikes sent the other man’s knees buckling; he half-sank, half-fell against the wall, struggling to ward off the onslaught.
‘Such a pleasure to meet you. I am Durlain Averre, son of Varraulis Averre, Third Prince, contender to the Ashen Throne, and you, you hell-cursed waste of air …’
Valern’s mouth had dropped open.
His upper lip was split and swollen. His cheeks drained of what little colour remained in them. Understanding dawned in his eyes slowly – understanding, then mortal fright. ‘I … Flames alive, Your Highness, I didn’t mean to …’
Durlain grabbed him by the front of his silk coat before he could finish and hauled the diplomat to his feet like a sack of turnips.
Wisps of mist seeped from his scars, glittering icily around his fists – drawing traces of movement in the air as he took one last swing, driving his knuckles into the other man’s liver with sickening precision.
‘Of course you fucking meant to,’ he hissed as Valern retched and gasped, trying to no avail to wrench free.
‘Do you think I haven’t seen these games before?
I don’t give a shit how deep you bow for me, you little turd, because I’ve seen what you are when you are the powerful one in the room, and that’ – his knee jammed up – ‘is the only fucking truth I care about. Anything else you have to say?’
‘I … I didn’t know …’ Through a mouthful of blood, it was a garbled whimper. ‘I beg your forgiveness— I—’
The snarl curling Durlain’s lips was feral. ‘You beg my forgiveness?’
Valern gaped at him, face bruised and swollen. ‘She … she’s yours, isn’t she?’
A beat of silence pulsed by.
Durlain’s face had gone utterly still.
Impending doom. I’d have felt it even without the shreds of mist leaking from his scars, the weight of his fury gathering in the air like a thunderstorm about to burst – his features hardening into something sharper than steel and bone, something wraithlike and merciless as the ice of hell itself.
His voice, when it came, was soft as falling snow. ‘She’s entirely her own, you shit.’
White-hot flame burst from his palms.
It all happened too fast for me to move, too fast for me to stop him. Valern parted his lips to scream, a first muffled cry escaping … and in the same instant Durlain coolly aimed a hand at his face and shoved a ball of fire down the man’s throat.
I shrieked.
Valern, crumpling in agony, looked like he would have done the same, had his vocal cords not been burned to crisps.
His shirt was burning. His hair was burning.
I blinked, and all of him was burning, like that candle he’d threatened to turn me into; the stench of scorched skin followed a moment later, acrid and cloyingly sweet.
I staggered back, stomach turning … but rather than following, Durlain stepped even closer to the heap of charred flesh and bone that had been Valern Icetongue by life, hauling the twitching corpse from the floor with his own bare hands.
He turned.
He tossed.
The burning body went flying – over the wooden balustrade, and into the merry revelry still going on below.
There was a wet thud. A single moment of silence.
Then screams erupted, shrill and piercing – followed by a stampede of footsteps, the clatter of breaking glass and plates. Someone shouted for water. Another for guards. I stood frozen against the wooden wall, unable to move or talk or blink, unable to fully comprehend what the hell had just—
Lean arms swept me off my feet.
Durlain’s breath was scalding hot against my temple as he muttered, ‘Fucking hypocrites.’
I gasped, clinging instinctively to his shoulders as he strode away from the chaos below – his tense arms cradling me against his chest, his hold strong as steel yet bewilderingly gentle.
As if I were made of glass. As if, after days of demanding nothing but unwavering competence, he had finally grasped the meaning of the word protection, and immediately decided I was in dire, dire need of it.