Chapter 24 James
James
James’s breath came in ragged pants as he stumbled through the knee-deep snow, desperately trying to keep his feet beneath him. Because to fall meant being dragged, and he wasn’t certain he’d be able to get up again.
His hands were numb while the rest of him burned with heat, and he knew the sweat soaking his clothes would turn to ice when they stopped to make camp that night.
If he made it that long.
His plunge into the lake had taken more out of him than James cared to admit, and compounded with the endless days of hunting Ahnna without rest, he was recovering slowly.
Yet that felt like a minor concern compared with the all-consuming guilt that threatened to drown him.
Ahnna was innocent. Completely and utterly innocent, and yet it had taken the truth coming from his enemy’s lips to make him fully believe her.
Logically, James was aware that Alexandra’s scheme had been masterfully executed, but he still felt the purest form of stupid for having fallen for it so completely.
With each step he took, it felt harder to understand why he hadn’t suspected her.
Why he hadn’t taken a breath to hear Ahnna out.
Why even when presented with the truth, he’d still clung to the lie, unable to get beyond what he’d seen with his own eyes.
Failures that he was being punished for, because he and Ahnna were now the Beast of Amarid’s prisoners.
Dippy trotted ahead of him, Carlo and Ahnna wrapped in a heavy fur cloak, and James couldn’t help but wonder what was happening beneath. Nothing good, was his best bet, although it was possible that the Beast’s proclivities were sated for the time being.
Since they’d been in their late teens, he and Carlo had gone head-to-head against each other over the Lowlands.
Endless clashes of violence as Harendell and Amarid danced the knife’s edge of war over the fertile stretch of land north of the Blackreaches.
The Amaridian prince’s reputation had always been dark, his sadistic tendencies known, and he’d grown into them with each passing year.
Carlo left many bodies in his wake, and not just on the battlefield, because Katarina was endlessly covering up the deaths of his wives.
All dead by accident, Katarina said, but it was no secret that Carlo had strangled each one.
His soldiers were deeply loyal, and while that was partially because Carlo was a skilled commander, it was mostly out of fear of his particular brand of punishment.
Katarina was the singular individual who controlled the Beast, and he worshiped and feared his mother in equal measure. James had always believed that if someone like Carlo feared Katarina, the Crimson Widow’s cruelty must be greater than anyone knew.
Yet Katarina was also the reason he and Ahnna were alive.
Insurance against Alexandra, and apparently destined for imprisonment in the Furnace, but it was a long way to Riomar. Days on the road, and with fear of Katarina’s wrath holding back the worst of Carlo’s tendencies, there was a chance for escape.
If I get loose, I’m not going to run. I’m going to slit your goddamned throat.
James grimaced at Ahnna’s words, because it was going to be very difficult to rescue a person who aimed to kill him the moment she had a chance. Not that he could blame her.
Carlo had certainly manipulated the truth to the worst possible effect, but that didn’t change the fact it was the truth.
James’s father had planned to overthrow Aren, and pleading to Ahnna that he hadn’t known until the final hour, that his father had believed he was doing right by her, that he’d intended to offer Aren exile would seem weak and hollow.
Especially given James had sat and drunk for hours rather than immediately telling Ahnna of his father’s plans.
James deserved Ahnna’s ire for a thousand reasons, and he refused to shirk responsibility when a more proactive response on his part might have stymied all that had occurred.
He was more than culpable. He was to blame.
Yet that did not mean he intended to wallow, because that would only dig the pit they were in deeper.
And the Furnace’s cells were deep enough.