CHAPTER 28 #3
“Most of what you’ve said is accurate and true. Except for the murdering of the pets and salting of the fields. Salting the soil is a massive waste, and the only dogs I’ve ever killed were the Empire’s battle hounds. Calling them pets is a stretch.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I just stayed quiet.
“I also strive to refrain from killing civilians, but war is war. Homes burn. Fields lie fallow. People suffer. I have razed villages before, and I may have to do it again. The only way to prevent that is to keep the peace in the first place.”
It would’ve been naive and foolish to imagine that a clean war where no civilians died was possible. That was something from fairy tales. Wars were brutal, horrific, and messy. He didn’t want to fight one. He was thinking about it now, and his whole body emanated dread.
“I will save Matheo,” he said. “And I will do whatever I must to stop Hreban and Silveren from rising to power. I will not let the kingdom burn. Divine knows, I can’t stand Sauven any more than he can bear my existence, but we are surrounded by enemies on all sides.
If Rellas stumbles, other nations will fall upon it and rip it to shreds.
Without Rellas, Selva is doomed. I cannot hold them back alone. ”
Now was as good a time as any. What do you really want, Ramond? “Have you ever wished for more?”
“As in?”
“Rellas. The throne.”
“I already have one in Wilkair. It’s carved from a solid chunk of malachite and old as the Void itself. It’s hard, cold, and uncomfortable no matter what sort of cushion I put on it.”
“I think it’s supposed to be.”
“Yes, I suppose it is a symbolic reminder about the burdens of holding people’s fates in your hands.
To answer your question, no, I don’t want another chair, Maggie.
Nor do I want the kingdom that comes with it.
If I wanted Rellas, I would’ve taken it by now.
You don’t have to worry. Our goals still align. We need each other.”
Our goals did align, and I did need him, but right now I was at his mercy.
At any moment, he could tie me up, load me into a carriage, and send it up to Selva and nobody could stop him.
He wouldn’t resort to brute force unless I became a threat.
He was too subtle and calculating for that, and his success relied on me volunteering the information. He needed me to like him.
I couldn’t stay in this position. The power difference between us was too great, and he was too smart, too shrewd, and too magnetic. He drew me to him.
In the books Omelyana was consumed with seducing Everard. I could recall pages of longing from memory. She wanted him to touch her, to hold her, to lose himself in her. She wanted Ramond above her, that hard, muscled body slicked with sweat, the green eyes blazing, all control completely gone . . .
She kept having all sorts of sexual fantasies about him. And now I understood every one of them. He was filled with power and so controlled, he probably calculated his breaths. Imagining him obsessed with me to the point where all his chains snapped was intoxicating.
But I wanted even more. I wanted him to care. That carriage ride, when I was broken, vulnerable, and scared, and he’d held me . . . The way his strong arms felt, wrapped around me. The way he’d looked at me, like he would rip the world apart to keep me safe.
That was a fantasy, too, and it was way too tempting.
Ramond vi Everard didn’t do love or affection.
Better women than me had tried to get them out of him and failed, and yet I couldn’t let it go.
Being in his presence was a constant test of willpower, and these were just the opening maneuvers as he contemplated the best way to win this war.
If he mounted a full assault, I wasn’t sure how long I could hold out, and there was a real danger that I would be the one obsessed in the end. I needed to get a grip.
I sipped my tea. “I forgot to ask, where did you find me?”
“On Sava Island. The mordok led us there. It’s a small chunk of land off the northern part of the west coast, still within the city limits, but only barely.
The island sits close to the shore, connected to the road by a narrow wooden bridge.
It held two warehouses and a small dock. Very private. It’s a burned ruin now.”
“A perfect place to torture people. Nobody would hear them scream. Did the Shears find my fingers?”
Everard gave me an odd look.
“He cut them off,” I explained. “Both hands. Did they find them?”
“No,” Everard said slowly.
“So my body parts disappear after I die. Good to know.”
He looked slightly ill. Ramond vi Everard, a human being. That would be the day.
“You treat Death so lightly, Maggie. As if it were just a thing that happens to you instead of the fiend it is. Every time you die, I wonder if this time it will take.”
“Cheer up, Your Grace. The evening is lovely, we’re alive, and we still have three delicious pastries left.
Matheo is still stuck in the Redeemer Tower, but the Butcher will not end his life.
” I curled my hand into a fist and made a hammering motion with it.
“Because he doesn’t have a face anymore. ”
“Once you recover, I will teach you how to defend yourself with a dagger. You can’t keep bashing people to death in a blind panic.”
“It’s worked well for me so far.”
“True, but you might not always have a bludgeon handy.”
“I’ve never used a dagger before.”
He smiled. “Then you won’t have any bad habits I’ll have to correct.”
“Do you still have my lucky coin?”
He reached into his jacket and slid a den over the surface of the table. I took it. It felt familiar and comforting in my fingers.
“We won,” I said softly. It had cost me so much, but we had won. “I don’t care how resistant the future is, the Butcher is dead. Hreban will never be the Sun Margrave. It’s over.”
Solentine Dagarra swung himself over our parapet and landed on the wall, six feet away.
His eyes were slightly sunken in, and the lines of his handsome face were sharper and more prominent.
His usually perfectly combed hair stuck out from his head in a disheveled mess.
He looked rough, as if he’d spent a couple of weeks fighting with a nasty flu and today was his first day upright.
How the hell did he get here so fast? The Demarr domain was all the way in the Trihorn. It should’ve taken him weeks to get back and forth.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” he said. “But they just found another butterflied body hanging off the Estret Bridge.”