Chapter 52
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAY
They have been recovered and the problem has been resolved. They told none. —First Guidelord, Luis in a letter to High Magelord, Bearer of All, Gautier the First
La’Angi Orchard
Despite the familiarity of Bliksem beneath me, the laughter of my friends around me, and the picnic we carried, there was nothing casual about this ride through the orchard.
Birds were flushed from their nests ahead of us and Naren, who’d inherited his father’s holdings and held to his family’s alliance with Raider’s Ban, mimed drawing a bow and loosing an arrow into the sky.
Ahead of me Audrey turned her head to watch the movement, her lips curved as if sharing the joke. She’d have noted, though, how he hadn’t used an anchor point, how he’d shifted his weight in the saddle.
Naren’s mother had been cousins with Kadan’s mother, their fathers fast friends. Unlike Kadan, Naren still had the guidance of his tribe-born mother…when he trekked north to visit her. Upon the death of his father, she’d returned to her people, and Naren had seen her there safely.
When I’d known him, he’d been hotheaded, but a good friend and wicked with a bow.
“If we were on a hunting trip, my lady,” he told Audrey, flashing his bright grin, “I’d gift you some fat pheasants.”
I saw the look she sent him, the laughter and spark of a shared interest. “You’d gift me something I already have?” she called, over the laughter of men lost to levity.
He lifted a hand. “You have them, do you?”
“If it were a hunting trip, lord Naren, and if I wanted them, I’d have them,” she said, her words holding confidence that wasn’t disbelieved, but celebrated, here.
Her attention returned to the orchard ahead, leading us through the rarely used paths and along previously quiet animal tracks. She knew what she was doing, but not quite how important it was.
Naren glanced over his shoulder, grin wider than it’d been, catching the glance of an older man. I recognized him as someone who’d frequented all the meetings that never happened.
Kadan had hand-picked a group of young rebels for this picnic. And they were loving her.
I swallowed around the lump of worry in my throat. Because they loved her as Luca’s intended wife.
I doubted she suspected her rest days between faire and tourney would be well-used by a group of rebels to further their agenda.
Naren really was quite an excellent man. His hot-headedness would probably find a partner in Audrey. She’d benefit from letting loose more often.
I took Bliksem wide, through the underbrush and out the other side to the matching game trail. It was as much out of habit as anything else. Isolde would be on the other side, if she, like me, had fallen prey to our own patterns.
Thomas would be stuck to Audrey like a burr on a blanket. She would be in no danger even without the three of us. Not from any physical threat. Not right now. Never, while Kadan was nearby.
I heard her pace increase. Or, I thought it was hers. I couldn’t tell Storm’s hoofbeats from any other horse, not really. But the location, the pacing, fit.
She’d be leaning over, reins gathered in her hands, the strong curve of her backside in the air, perfectly poised.
The image brought the old regret I hadn’t quite been able to shake. Bliksem didn’t need me to urge him on. His ears flicked back, his steps lengthened. Just like me, he was used to keeping pace with her.
When we entered the clearing, we were in perfect step, the three of us; Isolde from the west, breaking through between the trees, me to the east, and Audrey between us, effortlessly guiding Storm from breakneck gallop to loop the clearing, her eyes on the trees as Isolde looped from the other side.
Bliksem and I turned a tighter circle in the middle.
Kadan was only half a horse behind my lady, his expression full of fun, and those he’d brought along tumbling in after. Poor Thomas rattled along last.
This spot had a good amount of grass for our mounts, and sun. It was further from the city than Kaelson liked to go, so we hadn’t trampled the fragile groundcover during combat training. There was no evidence of the sort of training we did do here.
I saw Naren’s eyes wander around the branches and linger on a scar on one bough that I’d left whilst trying to apply the instructions Isolde had given me. I was as good at it now as I’d been at twelve, when I’d decided I’d do better with the heavy infantry than the light.
Still, I tried.
“An excellent spot,” Luca told Audrey. “Of course.”
“There’s a stream a short walk.” She waved a hand. “I’ll take—” Thomas was there, taking her reins with a bow. “Are you—?” He bowed again, ignoring the way Storm blew air at him in derision.
Thomas didn’t deserve all the disrespect he got. Some of it, probably, but not all of it.
I went to offer Kadan the same service, but Callum had beat me to it. Catching my glance, he winked at me then wiggled two fingers in a give it to me motion.
Obediently, I let him take Bliksem’s reins. “Look at you, you grumpy old man, just as tough as ever,” he said, admiration in his voice and his eyes on my horse.
Knowing a heartfelt compliment when he heard one, and remembering Callum, Bliksem snorted, tossed his mane, and high-stepped ahead, making sure Callum didn’t get lost.
Audrey was accepting a basket from Isolde as blankets were tossed across the ground. Some men explored, but most lingered close, falling into conversation about festivities, trade, horses, and the war.
Someone brought Kadan his saddle while I wasn’t looking; he sat upon it like it was a jolly thing to do, a grin on his mouth, one hand on a walking stick, one leg bent, and the other thrown nonchalantly out before him. Audrey similarly kicked her legs out nearby, leaning back on her hands.
Between the two of them, they held court. The rebels interviewed the woman who’d be their future queen if Luca got what he wanted.
She never missed a step.
I left them to check where Thomas had tethered Storm, making sure nothing had been missed. I went over Bliksem, then Kadan’s horse, and Callum’s.
“They’re all very intense, aren’t they?” Isolde asked me, appearing at my elbow as I was starting to search for tasks.
“Yes.”
She lifted a brow, clearly waiting on more.
But I couldn’t tug Audrey hither and fro. That’s what she’d told me.
I’d outlined Luca’s plan to Audrey. I’d told her it was the men I’d come to the tourney with who’d sworn allegiance to him and the plot to crown him.
I’d told her.
Tell her again. Tell her until she listens.
“Well?” Isolde asked me.
The pressure in my chest was crushing. She already distrusted them all. She hated Luca. Nothing I could say or do with Isolde would change how she advised Audrey.
A footman belonging to one of the nobles I was less familiar with drifted past, and behind him was Luca, his eyes on me.
He’d been absent from her rooms in the evenings and put in only the briefest appearance two days ago, while she’d been busy securing the city’s future.
“You don’t trust him,” I said to Isolde, without looking toward Luca.
“Sure I do, if my blade’s at his neck.”
In the last of the privacy we had, I told her, quietly, “And that’s still too much.”
She made a thoughtful noise and peeled away, as if her errand was done.
She’d been gone mere moments before Luca fell in beside me, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Chay,” he said, as if we were good friends. “While there’s a moment, I was hoping we could talk.”
I led him into the shade, comfortable in the orchard. A flurry of conversation kicked up behind us, heated debate over something I doubted was truly emotive.
No one spoke about why we were really here.
She wouldn’t have utterly disregarded my words, surely. She’d put it together. I doubted she’d come to me with questions, not anymore. But mayhap Isolde?
I needed to speak to Isolde. Lay it all out.
“I’m going to be straight,” Luca told me, his voice low, his steps loud. “I don’t understand her, and I want to. You do.”
“Do I?”
“You do, and we both know it.” He shrugged. “What sort of knight doesn’t love his lady, Chay? You’re simply doing your job.”
I felt the hot twist of shame and fury in my guts, a shocking new combination that made me want to gag.
“She told me I let her down when she was a child, Chay. When she was young, and didn’t know the dance steps, I—”
“Got her to stand on your feet,” I said, the edges of my vision grey.
This jester didn’t know anything about love, about Audrey, or about what was good for anyone.
“She told me,” I added, unnecessarily. When we’d been laying together in bed, holding back the cold grip of the plague. My muscles were so stiff I wondered how I continued walking.
“She thinks I failed her,” he said, as if this was a genuine puzzle.
That was it. I couldn’t go any further. My feet stopped as if my reins had been yanked. “Luca, you’ve failed her so many times I’m amazed she’ll still share the same air as you.”
He didn’t seem shocked at that, at least. “How do I fix it?”
“You ask yourself why it was a better choice to make a child stand on your feet than to confront the foolish expectations put on her. Because it’s the same cycle, Luca, every time. You don’t really care about her.”
“I—”
“—came to me for advice,” I cut in, furious. “So shut the fuck up for once and take it, Luca. You don’t know. You can’t protect. What you can do is wonder. What purpose did that dance serve?”
“Her father—”
“—Flogged her to within a breath of her life the next day anyway. You isolated her.” He reached for my shoulder, and I snapped my hand up, knocking his palm away.
“I’m not your spy or your inside man or your friend, Luca.
If you fail or succeed, I care only because it’ll impact her.
And right now, it looks like you failing would hurt her a lot less than you succeeding. ”
He didn’t look angry or hurt, just focused.
He should’ve been furious. Veins pulsing, fists clenched. Because I was. The anger was storming my system like a herd of brumbies across the planes, kicking up dust, reducing visibility.
His throat would’ve fit in a single palm. I could’ve covered his mouth and his nose with one of my hands.
Just as I’d seen my father do, once.
The thought whipped away some of the rage. Some, but not enough. Not nearly enough. Get it together, Chay. Moons worth of following Isolde’s instructions, of noticing things and letting them go, niggled at me.
I couldn’t let it go. Not properly. The rage stuck like shit to my boot. But I tried. He stared at me, and I tried.
“You think I’m more a threat than her father?” he asked, slowly, as if the words were an unfamiliar language.
In that moment, in the shade of her orchard with the sound of her voice carrying to me on the gentle breeze, amidst her success, the threat of her father was obvious. We all knew where that was headed. “You’ll keep her in shackles her whole life,” I told him.
“A partnership—”
“It’s no partnership when one partner has no autonomy, Luca.”
“I’d never—”
“—Challenge the people asking her to dance,” I cut in, for the final time. “You’d just tell her ‘stand on my feet, I’ll protect you.’”
I turned away. If he’d grabbed for me again wild horses couldn’t have stopped me from breaking every finger in his hand.
He didn’t.
I’d taken only two steps before Isolde fell in beside me. Her hand on my arm was a welcome weight. “Breathe,” she said. “Keep my pace.”
I did both of those things, letting her guide us back to the horses. I knew what she was doing, and while I appreciated the company and the solidarity, my rage wasn’t going to vanish just because she hadn’t given in to hers.
Mayhap that was what we needed.
“They’re trying to crown him,” I told her. Surely Audrey had. Or had she been so upset with me at the time she’d had no words? I felt sick. “Take La’Angi, take the western army, take the west.”
“Who?” she asked. I couldn’t tell if the question was true confusion or mockery.
“Luca,” I said, because I had no time for games anymore. Because, even if Audrey had told her, they hadn’t heard.
She glanced over her shoulder. “Them? Crown Luca?”
The group was gathered around Audrey and Kadan. Luca was nowhere to be seen.
“Them, and their allies. They aren’t all here. The attempt on the Duke last tourney? Luca. The plague, Isolde—the plague. The man doesn’t deserve her.”
“That last part went without saying,” she said, her tone still even. “Tell me more.”
The more went on for so long. There were so many details.
Yet those little details seemed so small, so silly.
The meetings I’d stood before the door for.
The Southern rebel asking for aid and focusing on…
me? Kadan’s refusal to claim power. Brief conversations, loaded silences, quick shared glances.
Luca’s infatuation with Audrey and the army he could access through her.
“I told her,” I said, reaching for reason. “I tried to, anyway. Not all of it. Not the details. I’m on the fringe, Isolde. I don’t really…but she didn’t want to hear.” I shook my head. “I’m not jealous of Luca, Isolde. He’s got nothing I want.”
“Why would anyone be jealous of Luca?” she asked, frowning.
“That’s what Audrey thought.” I drew in a deep breath.
If anyone could convince Audrey, it wasn’t me; it was Isolde.
“She was…hurt.” I’d hurt her. But she wasn’t shrinking now.
She’d recovered. She was okay. “I am a…” the word protective was the only one I could think of, but I wouldn’t use it.
I’m a monster, too. Sometimes. I swallowed down the bile.
“I want what’s best for her. And he isn’t it. ”
“He isn’t even in the running,” Isolde said dryly. “Nor, might I add, are you.”
Heat swept through me again, the hideous combination of shame and hurt and rage. “I took myself off that field rather than hurt her. He doesn’t have half my grace.”
She grunted. “Noble of you.” It was said dismissively. For a moment I was a child again, invisible. The unreadable look she sent my way only increased the sensation. “You’re right, though. Does he know anything about poison, Chay?”
I struggled with the change in topic. “Poison?” I shook my head. “Not to my knowledge.” Before I could gather my thoughts, she vanished.
Relief rushed through me, driving back the darkness.
Audrey might be La’Angi’s beacon of hope, but it was Isolde who she trusted to scout the path ahead.