Chapter 45 #2
Kadan hooked an arm around my neck, watching her go alongside me. “She’s younger than you usually like ’em,” he said, thoughtfully. “Unusually young to be carrying quite so many sets of keys, too, I must say. Most places, they only give that many to the crusty old men who walk far too slowly.”
I didn’t comment on how slow Kadan’s pace was, but the thought popped into my mind. I couldn’t ask how it had all happened. Not now. Not the first thing I said to the man, aside from the letter I’d sent moons and moons ago.
“She’s Audrey’s favorite steward,” I told him, absently. “And Thomas’ eldest.”
“Who’s Thomas?” he asked.
“The—” I shook my head. “Audrey’s other guard. What are you doing here?”
“What do you mean what am I doing? I was invited.” He gave me a bit of a shove, or tried to. “What are you doing here?”
I had no answer to that.
Inside, I set down his bags, and Kadan fell down into a chair.
Callum set to work rummaging through his things and came out with a leather-wrapped bundle.
I stood by awkwardly as Kadan lifted the clockwork leg, clearly made for comfortable riding.
Callum detached it, set it aside, and slid the one he’d withdrawn from Kadan’s pack into place.
“This one’ll almost let me keep up with that young steward,” Kadan told me, like it was a joke. “In a pinch, I’d even outstrip her, mayhap. Do you like it?” He turned it so I could see. “I think the copper highlights are dashing.”
“He moves faster with a pretty woman in front,” Callum told me, with a wink and a grin.
I didn’t know what to say.
“Sit down, Chay,” Kadan said, with a sigh.
“You’re making me feel short, and I’m far too rich to be made to feel short.
You heard the girl—the lady’s gifted you to me for the afternoon.
” He made a show of glancing at the sky.
“I must say, if I’d known the time would be so brief, I’d’ve asked Bravura to move a little faster, and damn the traffic. ”
“No point having the meanest warhorse around if you don’t let him bite the occasional uppity merchant,” Callum agreed sagely.
“This is what I’m saying,” Kadan declared, slapping the arm of the chair. “Tell me, Chay. Tell me everything.”
“I don’t know where to start,” I admitted, shaking my head to dislodge some of the wool that had settled between my ears. “I think I’m still in shock. I thought…”
“What, she didn’t tell you I was coming?” he asked, in what I recognized as genuine surprise, none of this concocted levity. “Here was me thinking I was worth at least a passing mention.”
“I…I’m not in her inner circle,” I told him.
“That wasn’t the feeling I got from her letters,” he said, frowning.
My heart squeezed. I recalled the first letter. There must’ve been more.
After.
“What’s happening with you?” I asked, because I couldn’t gather my thoughts. I needed…time. “Luca’s here—openly. He’s visited plenty, but never openly.”
Kadan nodded, glancing toward Callum, who flipped the lock on the door.
That had been my role, once. I’d protected this man’s secrets. I’d done it alongside Callum. There was no new third man, no Stand-In Chay. I didn’t know if that was a good thing.
“I know you’re loyal to her above everyone, and I’d never put you in a place where you’d need to choose.”
I closed my eyes. “Don’t say that, Dan. That means there’s a choice I should be making.”
“No. No, there’s no choice.” He blew out a breath. “Sorry. The elixir they’ve got me on for pain isn’t—it leaves me all foggy-headed. I didn’t think I’d be seeing anyone this afternoon. I’m sorry, Chay.”
I shook my head, studying him, the fine lines bracketing his mouth, his eyes. “Is it bad?”
“Bad enough I’ll accept not thinking clearly sometimes,” he said, falling back. “To get some relief. Pa’s hunting down more advanced healers. Some are better than others with the healing tonics.”
“I’d’ve thought it’d be a common request,” I offered.
“Oh, it is.” Kadan’s smile was quick, small, and cynical.
It wasn’t a look I’d seen on him. “Most people who can afford magical healing get it fast. They don’t mind being foggy in the immediate aftermath.
Then, for the older folks, or the people born with chronic conditions?
No one cares if they aren’t all here, Chay.
The research into pain relief is horrendously limited.
The Academy’s top minds just…don’t care. There’s no coin in it.”
“Now there is,” offered Callum, setting a glass in front of Kadan.
“Now there is,” Kadan confirmed grimly, reaching for it. “Thanking you, friend.”
Callum squeezed Kadan’s shoulder. When he met my eyes, the worry there felt every bit as real and right as the joy when we’d been reunited in the bailey.
“You’ve wanted to talk to him about the Council for ages,” he said, to Kadan.
“You keep saying ‘I wish Chay’d heard that’ or ‘What I’d give to ask Chay about this. ’”
My heart sat heavily in my chest. All I’d been doing here was standing beside doors.
“It’s true,” Kadan said. “But he’s bloodsworn, Cal.”
Callum squeezed his shoulder again. I got another look, this one a little apologetic.
My mouth was dry as the Steppes in summer watching their exchange. So much had changed since we’d sat in this keep together last. I wasn’t the same man I’d been.
I hadn’t progressed, either.
Later, I’d figure out if that was a problem.
For now, I said, “If you tell me you must kill Audrey to go forward with this rebellion, I’ll help you find an alternative way to rebel.
There should be no conflict, Dan. I think I can say I know your heart, still.
I think I can say I know hers. You want the same things. ”
“What does she want?” he asked me. Then he shook his head. “I’m sorry, my friend, that wasn’t a fair question. Forget I asked it. Rather, tell me—do you think she’ll wed Luca?”
The fury that rushed through me caught me off guard. “Still, with him?”
Kadan shrugged. “He’s still pushing that angle. It’s still as valid as it was a year ago. There’s still only one man standing in the way of it.” He reached out with his good leg and bumped my knee with the tip of his dusty boot. “Mayhap…there are two?”
“She can ally with him,” I said, my voice harsh. “She doesn’t need to belong to him.”
“This is true,” Kadan agreed. “And I have, myself, explained that to Luca. He’s quite…” Kadan glanced at Callum.
“Stuck?” Callum offered, pouring me a drink, and himself. “Fixated? Infuriatingly stubborn?”
“Stuck,” Kadan agreed, with a gracious arch of his brows and a small, dignified nod.
The tiny moment of light-hearted jesting made the air move a little easier into my lungs. “If she says no, then it’ll be no,” I told them both.
“Got your back, brother,” Kadan drawled. “Will she say no?”
I thought of the way he’d so craftily manipulated her in the orchard. The way he’d changed his tactics so swiftly now she was no longer wearing her polite and submissive mask.
“I can’t speak for her,” I told them both. “She doesn’t want to marry him. But I don’t know if that would be a deciding factor.” And, because they were friends, I added, “He’s also a manipulative, yellow-bellied bastard, and she’s still learning how to say no.”
“See?” Kadan said to Callum. “I told you!” Callum just grinned.
Kadan leant forward, nursing his cup between his knees while he stared at me intently.
The black pips of his eyes were so large I could barely see the blue around them.
“Anyone else, and I’d wait until the elixir wore off,” he told me.
“For you—what do you know about the plague?”
The sinking feeling came back. I couldn’t help but lean forward, moving in close. “I know it was magical.”
“It hit La’Angi’s province the hardest,” Kadan offered. “It hit you first. It started in a riverland to the south.”
“No one knows exactly—” I began.
Kadan cut me off. “The people who poured the elixir into the river know exactly where it started, Chay.”
I heard the drumming of my heart in my ears. The riverland to the south…as the Duke was passing through with the entire army.
“Why would the Council poison an army they wanted to take?” I asked, trying to make sense of the snippets of information.
“You’re assuming the Council poisoned an army. It was more personal than that.”
Luca.
Wife-fucking Luca.
I thought of how he’d been all over her, all sweetly concerned.
“He’s bloodsworn,” I told Kadan. “Same as me. He couldn’t hurt her.”
“He never meant to hurt her,” Kadan told me grimly. “Only the Duke. He figured once the sickness got into the army, it’d spread like a grassfire in the dry season.”
“It didn’t.” I hadn’t really wondered about that, but as soon as I thought about it, I knew what’d happened. “The Duke’s too smart for that. As soon as anyone was sick, they’d be isolated.”
“Sent back, actually,” Kadan told me, the words soft. “Toward La’Angi, for aid, or at the very least so they didn’t make the whole contingent sick. They and anyone they’d shared a cookpot with. The Butcher was ruthless.”
And it’d saved the Butcher, but set in motion a series of events that had almost killed us.
I remembered Audrey, cold and limp in my arms. The urgency that had drummed through my heart as I’d ridden as fast as I could manage. The way I’d nearly wept from relief when her hand wrapped around my belt to help me hold her close. The hopelessness in her voice when she’d told me to save myself.
“Pretty sure my oath would be an excuse for going and sticking a sword in Luca’s guts right now,” I told Kadan.
“Get in line,” Callum muttered.
“He’s very apologetic, of course,” Kadan said, falling back in his chair. “There have been some good things to come out of it. He’s made some mage allies—banished mages. A few enemies, too.”
“Only a few?” I asked, without meaning to.
“Not many know what he did,” Kadan told me. “Including, if anyone asks, you.”
“Fuck,” I muttered. “What else don’t I know, Dan?”