Chapter 33 #2
The hunt was over. The game was lost. I was as good as dead, and unless Rook and Jay stuck a blade into Belloc’s royal back, there was no changing that – which they could have done weeks ago, if they’d felt so inclined.
So I was still going to die knifeless and fingerless, dripping blood over Aranc’s ballroom floor.
I was still never going to see Durlain’s cold, cowardly, painfully beautiful face again, and I was still going to curse myself for my stupid needy heart until it finally stopped beating.
But something might happen in the meantime.
Rook had spoken, and Rook never spoke aimlessly. They were planning something. They might have been planning it for days.
But the afternoon passed in a dull, aching haze of dread, and so did the evening.
The birds didn’t approach me again. Neither did Belloc, striding back and forth along the cliff-edge like a man surveying his estate – still prepared, it seemed, for Durlain to return.
I took a mortifying piss behind a boulder while Jay stood guard on the other side of it, and even then the little wretch didn’t speak a word; nothing but glances went back and forth between Rook and me either as he trotted over at sunset to chuck a lump of bread in my lap.
Maybe I had missed something.
Maybe I had misunderstood everything entirely. I did misunderstand things, Lark had told me that a thousand times … and then again, Lark had been a liar.
Lark had been a liar, and fuck, what was I doing here, sinking willingly into that numb, defeated hole I’d fallen down without him?
I hadn’t even tried, in Svein’s Creek. There was no digging your way out of a grave when you barely knew fresh air existed.
But I’d smelled it now, and even Durlain’s disappearance couldn’t scrub that memory from my mind – and damn it all, there was no sinking deeper.
I might as well set my nails into the mud and see how far it got me.
What if I was right? What if I’d seen exactly what I thought I’d seen?
Jay and Rook had tried to help me. That seemed a fact, bewildering as it might be.
Even in the Brainne marshes, Jay hadn’t actually attacked me – just threatened me, and now that I thought about it, those might as easily have been genuine warnings.
So they wanted me to get away, and that suggested some sympathy with my cause; it might even mean that they, too, would like nothing more than to turn their backs on Mount Estien for good.
Which did beg the question why they hadn’t yet.
Neither Aranc nor Belloc held any power in this kingdom. There were no birds or Estien provosts here, no spies reporting back to the court. If Rook and Jay wanted to get away, all they had to do was slit Belloc’s throat while he slept; the murder would never be discovered, and—
Wait.
Fuck.
I should know better, after weeks of travelling in a necromancer’s company. The murder would never be discovered, unless the victim came back.
And then it made sense – then it all made sense.
I knew all too well that Aranc had deathmade mages at his disposal.
Of course the bastard had a bottle of his brother’s blood, just in case.
And of course Rook knew that – so he couldn’t kill Belloc, because sooner or later Belloc would be resurrected, and neither he nor his brother would rest until they had their hands on the impudent pests who’d dared to kill a future king.
So if they wanted to get out—
Someone else would have to take the blame.
Someone, for example, who had nothing left to lose. Someone who had already pissed off the royal family of Estien beyond repair either way, who had no other allies left in the world, and who might just be willing to commit one more act of treason in exchange for a last desperate chance at freedom.
I chewed my bread, the sky darkening from silver to lead above me, and thought.
Night had well and truly fallen when I rose with shaking knees, patted the crumbs and gravel off me as well as I could with my hands still bound, and began stumbling to the far side of the cliff.
Belloc was sitting there, as he’d done most of the day, watching over the beach – waiting for a threat that might or might not come.
The prince of many faces.
I could hardly blame him for suspecting Durlain of some roundabout ruse, vanished horse or no.
I doubted he’d expect trickery from me, though.
Which was right of him, because I felt like a fledgling holding a blade for the first time as I picked my way across the irregular stone – as if the lies on my tongue were written on my face already, my desperate attempt at intrigue transparent to the point of ridicule.
It was all I had, though.
Even now, my hands kept straying to the sheaths at my hips and thighs – small pangs of nausea rolling through me every time they met with nothing but empty air.
Belloc must have heard me coming, but his broad silhouette didn’t turn until I’d approached to within a handful of paces.
Even then, he threw a glance over his shoulder without bothering to take his elbows off his thighs; the greasy grin spreading across his face made my skin want to shrivel up and hide.
‘My lord?’ I said, my voice only a fraction higher than usual.
‘Ah, Nightingale.’ His smirk widened. ‘Here for that blanket?’
‘I was wondering if I could ask you a few rather stupid questions, my lord.’ Meekness.
That had always been the trick to keeping Aranc’s hand from my throat: lowering myself, magnifying him, giving him every reason to bask in the warmth of his own superiority.
‘I’m coming to see that I’ve … that I’ve misunderstood quite a lot of what’s been happening.
I would be very grateful for your explanation. ’
He considered me for a moment. ‘Is that so?’
I forced myself not to fidget under his scrutiny. Not to argue. Not to defend myself.
It was easier than I’d expected. Belloc’s gaze was invasive and unpleasant, but it had absolutely nothing on Durlain’s lockpicking look, a blunt punch to a surgeon’s delicate tools. A few moments slid by, and then he turned back to the beach below and drawled, ‘Ask away, Nightingale.’
He hadn’t told me to take a seat, even though he must have known the state of my legs after a day with barely any food and plenty of injuries. A test? I swallowed and croaked, ‘Do you mind if I sit, my lord?’
‘Feeling weak, are you?’ He sounded pleased with himself.
‘Quite, my lord.’
‘Then sit down. No, not there.’ Far too much contentment in his voice as he moved his legs apart and patted on the black stone between them. ‘You’ll fit right here by me.’
Fuck.
Breathing is the first step of fighting.
I breathed. I didn’t allow myself to hesitate. No flinching, no protesting as I stepped around him and lowered myself in that humiliating position before him; if he knew how my body was curling inward at his nearness, he’d only come closer.
‘Very well.’ His finger drew a slow, taunting line down my upper arm. A claim, not a touch – a reminder of how much worse he could do. ‘Your questions?’
I’d better play this well.
I’d better give him something more urgent to think of by the end of this conversation, or else I might have dug myself an even deeper hole.
‘Lord Givron,’ I made myself say. ‘I mean … you said he was not Lord Givron at all. That he was—’
‘Durlain Averre.’ His voice held an edge of dangerous amusement. ‘Yes.’
‘The prince who killed Lady Pollara.’
‘The very same, poppet.’ His finger disappeared from my arm, curling into the loose hairs on my nape instead. ‘Interesting, isn’t it?’
I wasn’t going to wince. I was not going to fucking wince. ‘But he’s supposed to be dead.’
‘So is his father,’ Belloc said in a bored drawl, ‘and three times, at that. The boy must have had a necromancer lined up.’
Right.
Because Durlain had worn gloves at their meeting. Because his collar had been buttoned up high to hide the scar on his throat, too, and who’d imagine Death would turn a fireborn prince into a deathmade mage?
‘He didn’t tell me any of that,’ I said hoarsely, and the hurt in it was convincing because it was true. For the betrayal of his flight, not the lies, but all the same, true. ‘He said I only needed to go along with his story and he’d make sure I’d be safe. I … I really thought …’
The huff of laughter behind me was unmistakable. ‘Is that regret I hear?’
‘You’re saying I tried to protect Lady Pollara’s murderer!’ A crack in my voice – hell, I might not even be so very bad at this. ‘If I’d known who he was – if I’d known that he’d run off and leave me stuck here – I’d have scratched out his other eye, not helped him!’
‘Oh, she’s feisty.’ He brushed a finger down the rim of my ear, chuckling as I stiffened. Fuck. ‘Do you want to hear a story about that eye of his, poppet?’
My heart skipped a beat.
His eye?
That same eye that wouldn’t let Durlain so much as glance at a mirror in passing – a story he hadn’t told me himself, and against all common sense, against all my justified fury and heartache, something inside me shrunk at the idea of hearing it from Belloc of all people.
But I needed the bastard to believe me. I needed to convince him that I might side with him at Durlain’s expense, and if that were the case, I wouldn’t be troubled by such honourable sentiments.
‘Of course I want to hear a story,’ I ground out.
‘Yes, I thought you would.’ I felt him lean over behind me, his broad chest pressing against my back, his horse-and-sweat smell suddenly closer as he brought his mouth to my ear. ‘I was there when he lost it, you see.’
I froze.
‘Yes.’ A chuckle as he moved back. ‘I thought that might surprise you.’
My thoughts raced. What had Durlain said? Last time he visited Mount Averre, I was a child – and hell have mercy, he had looked damn unpleasant at the memory …
‘So that’s why you recognised him?’ I breathed.