Chapter 107 James
James
For all he’d grown up in the Sky Palace of Verwyrd, it still felt strange to be walking around the spiral, and James suspected it always would.
It would always carry a hint of threat and danger, the lurking sense of being unwelcome, and that he’d always feel a sense of relief every time he reached the bottom.
But with the love of his life currently recovering in the palace, James climbed the spiral as quickly as he could without breaking into a run.
Aren had wanted them to remain in Ithicana, but Ahnna would have none of it. “We’re not abandoning him,” she growled from her cot, swathed in bandages and as white as the sheet she lay upon. “And Oliver needs to return to Harendell.”
So they’d returned on Ronan’s ship with Virginia, Harendell’s defeated fleet hobbling behind them while the other nations went home to lick their own respective wounds.
Ahnna’s grandmother had traveled with them.
James had come to respect and loathe Amelie in equal measure.
Though Ahnna’s recovery was much to do with Amelie’s skill, he would not weep to see the back of her when she returned to Ithicana.
Passing through the gate, he nodded at the guards on duty and then entered the palace, coming face-to-face with his uncle in the grand foyer.
“Where have you been?” Ronan asked, crossing his arms. “Your presence is wanted.”
“I had an important task to take care of.” James fell in alongside his uncle as they walked through the corridor, eventually reaching the offices that had belonged to his father.
He entered, and it was like stepping back in time as he took in the endless bottles of spirits on the sideboard.
The familiar artwork on the walls. The smell of leather upholstery, paper, and ink.
Except instead of Edward Ashford sitting at the large desk near the window, James found his sister sitting there, a white dog at her feet.
“Where have you been, Jamie?” Ginny demanded. “No one knew where you had gone, not even Ahnna.”
“Riding.”
“Riding where?” She made a face. “Never mind. You’re here now. Which means you need to settle the statement you intend to give from the throne. Everyone is well enough aware of the rumors that you are legitimate—all that remains is for you to claim the crown and sit on the Twisted Throne.”
James rested his hands on the back of a sofa, casting a sideways look at Ronan.
“Don’t do that,” Virginia growled. “Speak your thoughts instead of making faces at each other that you know I can’t see.”
“Apologies, Lady Virginia,” Ronan muttered. “It has always struck me that you see more than you should. You must have Cardiffian blood in you, generations back.”
Ginny snorted. “Hardly. It’s that you’re both sighing in a very particular way that tells me you don’t agree with what I’m saying.”
James’s fingers tightened on the leather, and he stared at the table before it, remembering the last time he’d sat there.
How he’d listened to his father’s revelation of his heritage and his grand ambitions for James’s future.
Not once had his father asked him what he wanted, and yet it was his father’s voice James heard now.
What do you want to do?
“I understand that you taking the throne will have consequences.” Virginia reached down and picked up the dog, settling the ball of white fluff on her lap.
“But Harendell has endured a great deal, and it needs a steady hand. The hand of someone it can trust. Someone the people won’t suspect of nefarious ambition, and that, brother, is you.
They know you. They respect you. And Ahnna…
well, I think we all know how sentiment toward her has shifted. ”
An understatement.
“We’ve also a number of judgments that need to be made.
My mother’s records are rife with proof against individuals.
Murder. Theft. Treason. Fraud. The gallows will be full.
” Virginia stroked the dog’s fur, mouth downturned, and he knew that she was thinking of how George would be one of the individuals who’d hang.
It could be no other way, but James suspected that his sister still grieved the life that might have been.
“You know my thoughts, Jamie,” Ronan said. “You saw how the bones lay on the table.”
“Ahnna will be a good queen,” Virginia said. “Father knew it. In hindsight, I think he cared more about her sitting on the throne than you.”
James huffed out a breath of agreement, then said, “I appreciate your insights, but if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find my wife. You both seem to believe that this is my choice, but I go where Ahnna goes.”
Ahnna had requested they stay in her old rooms in the palace and asked Hazel to return to her service.
Before they’d sailed back south, Keris and Zarrah had explained that without the maid’s act of defiance against Alexandra, the Valcottan and Maridrinian fleets might never have come.
Which would have made for a very different end to the battle.
Hazel had never picked up a weapon, but she’d fought all the same.
As he approached the door, Amelie exited.
As she spotted him, she quickened her stride.
“I’ve had enough of your miserable cold palace, boy.
Ahnna’s recovering nicely, though you’d do well to keep your hands to yourself for another few days.
I’m leaving. Get me one of those pretty riverboats that are always floating by, not a carriage.
My ass will never be the same after the pummeling it took on the carriage journey here. ”
“Your will, my word, my lady.” He bowed.
Amelie made a rude noise. “Won’t miss that nonsense, either. It’s no small wonder that you lot get anything done with all the bowing and bootlicking that goes on. Goodbye, James. Take care of our girl.”
“Goodbye, Amelie,” James said, and went inside the room.
Ahnna sat on a chaise at the far end of the room with Oliver lying on her knees, kicking his little feet in the air.
She didn’t seem to notice that James had come in, and he leaned against the doorframe to watch his wife play with the baby.
Ahnna’s hair was pulled back in a tail behind her head, revealing old scars and new, her cheek mottled with purple-and-green bruises and her lip healing where it had been split.
The dress she wore was loose, because beneath were the heavy bandages protecting the wound that had nearly taken her from him.
Next to her was a sheathed sword, and through the fabric of her dress James noted the slight bulge of a knife strapped to her thigh.
A warrior through and through, and yet beneath the violent exterior was a kindness that took true bravery.
The sort of empathy and selflessness that always carried a higher price than most people were willing to pay, and it shone through as Ahnna made silly faces to amuse the heir to a family who tried to destroy everything she held dear, laughing when Oliver cooed and wiggled.
The stars help him, but James loved her. Loved her so hard that it stole the breath from his chest and made his knees weak, and he thanked every higher power for bringing her into his life. And for keeping her in it.
“James, are you going to stand there the rest of the afternoon or are you going to come in?”
James pushed away his thoughts to discover his wife was watching him through her lowered lashes, a slight smile on her face. “I was enjoying the view.”
The flush that pinked her cheeks made him of a mind to entirely disregard Amelie’s instructions.
“Where have you been?” Ahnna asked. “Ronan and Virginia were looking for you.”
He crossed the room and sat next to her on the chaise, kissing her on the forehead between various scrapes and bruises. “I tracked Dippy down. He was on the Ranges grazing, and he was a right ass about being caught. I think he’d decided to become a cow. He certainly shares their intelligence.”
“Do not insult my horse or you might find yourself stabled with him.”
“Noted.” He ran a hand through his hair, wincing as he jostled one of his own bruises. “He’s in a stall next to Maven. We’ll take them out when you’re healed. Or if you decide you want to escape all this pomp and ceremony.”
“Tempting.” She smiled. “But I think I’m content where I am.”
For his part, he was content anywhere that she was.
“He’s a good baby.” Ahnna tickled Oliver’s toes. “A happy baby. His nurses adore him.”
James looked out the window, a dull ache always forming in his chest when he was in the presence of his brother’s child.
He tried to remember the last time he and William had spoken.
Tried to remember the last words they had exchanged, but beyond knowing it must have been in Sableton before James left in pursuit of Ahnna, he could not remember.
Which was maybe for the best. It was better to remember William from a time before the knives had fallen and the poison had flowed, when they’d been brothers and united in all things.
“William was going to hold true to his word,” Ahnna said, seeming to read his thoughts. “He was going to withdraw from Ithicana. The threat to Alexandra might have been what caused him to agree to the plan, but I do think that in the end, he wanted a better legacy for his son.”
“At the price of your life.” It was the only thing William had done that had been wholly unforgivable.
The thing that tarnished every memory of his brother, and for Oliver’s sake, James knew he should let it go, as Ahnna had.
Except while his wife was blasé about all the hurts she had endured, James was decidedly not.