CHAPTER 6
The city was in lockdown. There were no evening gatherings in the plazas, as they prepared for a retaliation.
Every watchtower was manned, and the garrison sent squads to border villages to watch for trouble there.
It was rare for music not to be playing somewhere in the palace.
Instead, there was the strangled thrum of waiting.
By now, Kormick had to know they had nearly breached Queen’s Cliff.
Nearly.
Cully, Bristol, and Olivia were being treated, and Hollis was being observed.
She still hadn’t changed back. She had literally been held in the jaws of death, and Esmee said she was still too shaken to resume her human form.
No bones appeared to be broken, but a piece of her ear was missing.
Sashka and Rose were with her, trying to coax her back.
The rest of them had gathered in Winterwood, an interior salon rarely used in the spring and summer months.
Recruits and officers milled in the corners of the room.
Ivy had dinner and drink brought in for them, and a fire blazed in the hearth.
The fire was unnecessary, considering the season, but there was something comforting about it in the darkly furnished room.
It was something bright to focus on, the crackling embers a needed distraction.
“It was the hounds,” Kasta fumed. “Two fucking shape-shifting guards.” Quin and Cully had been right about there being only two listless guards, but they were also shape-shifters, and in their flea-bitten form, their keen noses had smelled the knights coming from a mile off and alerted Maire and her warriors.
For a terrifying moment, one of the hounds had Hollis in his teeth.
When Cully drew an arrow to shoot him, he was shot from behind with a bolt.
After that, it was pandemonium, warriors closing in on all sides, a wizard striking Olivia with a magical blow before she could turn to stop him.
Kasta only managed to kill one guard before she was struck down and pinned.
“An ambush,” Tyghan said.
“Yes,” Kasta confirmed. “Maire smiled through it all.”
Dalagorn rubbed his bristled cheek. “First time I’ve ever seen her. Not what I expected. She doesn’t look anything like her daughter.”
It was Tyghan’s second time seeing her. The first time she only said a few quiet words to Kierus from the cottage porch. She had seemed stoppable. Today was different.
Eris ambled over when there was a break in the conversation. “I know this may not be the right time,” he said, “but I need to tell you something.” He pulled Tyghan over to a private corner. “There hasn’t been a single response to my summons to the council.”
Tyghan was distracted, his mind only on Bristol. Eris was correct, this wasn’t the right time. “Most are still on holiday after Beltane,” he replied.
Eris shook his head. “It is not the holiday keeping them away. Their absence is their reply. There will not be a new vote. Their order to kill or capture on sight still stands.”
As Knight Commander and king, Tyghan could make unilateral decisions regarding war, security, and almost everything else, but on matters of high crimes committed by Danu citizens, the council’s decisions were final. “Send them another summons. Add some threat,” he replied.
“I will,” Eris answered, but he didn’t look hopeful. “On a brighter note, the painting is on its way. But it’s large and will take a while.”
It had already taken a while, and it wasn’t exactly a bright note, more of a dark curiosity, but Tyghan knew Eris was only trying to distract him, to give him a break from his thoughts.
He didn’t want a break. He nodded in reply and sought out another quiet corner to await news on Bristol and the others.
Quin came in after checking on the watch and sank into the leather chair beside Tyghan.
A dark golden glow from the fire reflected on his bare muscled arms. “Everything’s still clear,” he reported.
He poured himself a drink from the decanter on the table and stared at the fire.
The silence between him and Tyghan was thick.
“You did the right thing,” he finally said.
Tyghan didn’t reply.
Quin fidgeted in his seat. “Did you explain to her?”
“There wasn’t time.” Quin knew that. There was never enough time, never enough breathing room.
Tyghan had ridden back with the unconscious Olivia in his arms, and as soon as they reached the palace, they rushed her, Cully, Bristol, and Hollis to the treatment rooms. From there, Tyghan left to speak to the garrison commander and had set the watch through the city and countryside. There was no time for any explaining.
“She knew, though,” Quin said, still prodding. “She knew what you were doing. Look what she did to—”
Tyghan set his whiskey on the table. “Dammit, Quin, are you trying to make me feel better or yourself? Yes, she knew what I was doing. Does that make it all right?”
“You did what you had to do. Otherwise, they all would have died.” And that was the crux of it.
As Knight Commander, he had made decisions like that a hundred times, but this one was different.
This one terrified him. He had held the knife so steady, so carefully—but close.
Believable. He felt Bristol trembling beneath his arm, afraid.
He’ll kill me. Convincing. He still wasn’t certain if his hand had slipped or she had pushed forward.
He sat back and watched the log on the grate splinter, its fragments joining the glowing embers below. “How much more can one person take, Quin? Her father’s betrayal. Her mother’s. Mine.”
“She seems strong enough to me.”
“She is strong.” Tyghan hissed. “But everyone has a breaking point. She had to beg her own mother for her life while her lover held a knife to her throat!” The murmurs on the other side of the room quieted.
In a softer voice, he added, “We only reconciled last night. This is going to tear us apart again.”
“I’m sorry if I pushed you—”
Tyghan’s hand brushed the air to stop Quin, his frustration still mounting. “I’m not blaming you. I’m the one who—”
Footsteps sounded in the hall outside the salon.
Soft footsteps. Tyghan and Quin jumped to their feet as Bristol entered.
The room went silent, all eyes turning toward her.
A bandage circled her neck. Another covered her hand.
Though the room was large, with everyone scattered around it, Bristol’s eyes instinctively turned to Tyghan.
She smiled. It was a small smile, mostly around her eyes, easy for others to miss—but it was a look that sank into Tyghan like medicine and magic, warming his insides, the tension in his shoulders easing. She was glad to see him.
Julia and Avery closed in on her, hugging her while the others held back, waiting.
After a few quiet words with her friends, she turned, looking back at the rest of the room, and said, “You’ll all be happy to know that Hollis is back to two legs instead of four, Olivia is sitting up and drinking tea, and Cully is awake, and Madame Chastain is cursing at him to stay in bed.
” At the news of Cully, Ivy burst into tears and ran from the room, presumably straight to him.
Murmurs circled the air. The couple may have thought they were keeping their relationship under wraps—at least from her parents—but anyone with eyes could see they were smitten with each other.
“And your neck?” Eris asked, his tone hesitant.
“Only a minor flesh wound. I’ve had worse,” Bristol replied. She touched the bandage circling her neck like it was a decorative choker. “This will be off by morning.”
Tyghan knew if it was minor, a bandage wouldn’t be necessary at all.
The others knew it too, but a tentative ease returned to the room, like a clenched muscle relaxing.
By appearances she seemed to have taken being used as a hostage well, but Tyghan sensed something in her was still off, and his apprehension returned.
She was too cheery. She crossed the room and whispered in a lower voice to Quin, “Hollis wanted me to give you her apologies. She’s pretty much mortified that she may have soiled your vest pocket during the escape.
She says a mouse’s constitution, especially in dire situations, can be, well, unpredictable. ”
“I didn’t notice my vest,” Quin answered. “Blazes, I may have pissed my own pants. How’s her ear?”
“Definitely notched like an old alley cat, but she doesn’t seem too bothered by it. Madame Chastain gave her something for the pain, though. It’s left her a bit loopy.”
Tyghan noted that the High Witch gave at least some of her patients pain medicine.
“Is she taking visitors?” Quin asked.
Bristol smiled. “I think she would welcome a visit from you.”
For the first time in Tyghan’s recollection, he saw Quin blush, his dark skin reddening at his temples.
Quin and Hollis? When did that happen? How had he not seen it?
Quin eagerly excused himself, and Bristol turned her attention back to Tyghan.
He saw the fatigue in her face, the heaviness of her lids, a sadness in her eyes she was trying to hide.
The day had punched something out of her.
It was a wonder she wanted to be with him at all.
Did everyone in the room see it too? Or was it just his own guilt, conjuring something that wasn’t really there?
He reached out and took her bandaged hand in his. “What happened here? I didn’t heal it?”
“It required more layers of spells and balms.” She told him Madame Chastain explained that the Abyss portal was different from other portals because it held eons of the powerfully evil.
And since it was a caustic cauldron of the worst the world has ever seen, it wasn’t surprising that it could burn deeply into a hand that tried to reach inside.
“Madame Chastain said the goddess Brigid never meant for it to be opened again, and she suspects only the strongest of bloodmarked can open or close it.”
Tyghan saw the concern in her eyes. The strongest of bloodmarked did not describe her. She blinked, forcing a smile. “Can we go rest in our room for a little while? I know there’s a watch, but—”
He nodded. “Everything’s quiet, and the watch is set. We have time to rest.” He told Kasta where he’d be and to alert him if there was any change, then let Bristol lead him to her room, which was apparently “their” room once again.
But as soon as they entered, she slumped into his arms, her breath coming in gulps. His arms circled her protectively. “I’m sorry, Bri. I am so sorry.”