Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAY
“To be born ignorant is common, to remain ignorant is noble.” ~ Southern saying
T heir steps echoed down the dungeon’s corridor. It was a group of them, this time, not the pair who’d gone down the hall and tormented the heir a few cells down.
Either they were coming to kill me or haul me back up to keep on serving.
Staring up at where the dark ceiling surely was, I couldn’t figure out which I’d prefer. And didn’t that just say everything there was to say about this whole situation?
I’d never gone to visit my mother’s grave. I’d visited her while she was alive after I became a squire, then again after I was knighted and had my own land, and later, when I’d heard my sister, Caitie, was back home widowed, with three little ones. Three times in total since I’d somehow gotten away with my life and enough of my soul intact that I’d been able to heal.
They’d never left. Ma had passed the winter before last. Consumption. Caitie was still there, best as I knew, smoothing over our old man’s bad temper and trying to shush her children so they didn’t attract attention. Her eldest would be almost old enough to take as a squire.
I’d planned on going back in a few years and seeing if he’d want to come on with me. But I’d never gone back to farewell my ma.
Every time I’d seen her, I’d said goodbye. Every time since I’d watched his hands lock around her throat until she went blue.
The keys rattled against the door, and I saw through the gap the flicker of light on a man’s irritated looking face.
Well, they weren’t here for my death, then.
The door swung open with an almighty groan, and I looked over despite myself, sick of my own company.
I didn’t know what the collar pin meant on the shirt of the man who held the keys, but I was surprised to see Her Ladyship Herself tight-lipped behind him. For just a moment, I remembered her as she’d been in the orchard—hard as steel and just as deadly.
She hadn’t left.
She ought to.
“Sir Chay,” Collar-Pin said stiffly. “You’re returning to your post immediately.”
The lady clasped her hands before her, looking at the guard expectantly. She’d had that same expression when she’d asked me to be her champion. My heart twisted in my chest at the memory.
“The guard apologizes for the misunderstanding,” Collar-Pin went on, color in his cheeks, the torch in his hand wobbling.
So I suited her better alive than dead.
Who else would slay a child for her?
Sick to my stomach, I hauled myself up. “You’re out without your proper escort,” I noticed, throwing salt on wounds. Whose, I wasn’t sure.
“The dungeons were closer than my tower after I’d been to see the Captain,” she said primly. “And Mortemon cannot be raised.”
She’d set that up. I was tempted to point out that Audrey had sent me after a mage while she trotted all over the castle just yesterday, and she hadn’t been kidnapped then. But I could see the way they were already looking at me and realized I hadn’t bowed or given her the title she’d been born with.
Too late now. I scrubbed a hand over my face and shuffled into the crowded corridor. Where Audrey went, so did Isolde and Thomas, of course, one old hound with trusting eyes and another ready to defend the hand that fed it.
Audrey looked me up and down so carefully that I wondered if she wanted me to lift a foot to inspect my shoes.
“I see you’re injured, sir.”
I didn’t look at the guardsman. I hadn’t started it, and I hadn’t finished it, either. But I knew I wasn’t the only one aching all the same.
“Sir?”
“Apologies, my lady. I didn’t know that was a question.”
“It wasn’t,” she agreed. “It was a polite conversation starter. The response is generally a similar comment on the same topic.”
“I’m not trained in politeness, my lady.” Behind her, Thomas’ eyes flickered closed briefly. I could almost hear the man’s prayers.
He was going to need them.
“I respect that, sir,” she said, and her smile was small and kind. “That’s why I explained it to you. Come, now.”
I saw red. She turned, and I was forced to fall into the crowd around her, ignoring the smug looks the guardsmen were sending me.
I’d been thrown in the cursed dungeons for killing innocent children to defend her neck, when she was too stupid to leave her own pretty prison, and she had the arrogance to take a shot at me?
Something heavy hit a locked dungeon door on the way out. Long, thin, dirty fingers wrapped around the metal a second later, and big eyes peered through the bars.
Thomas and Isolde both had pushed Audrey behind them. The torches in the group bobbed. “I thought you must’ve come to ask me to eat your pussy,” the woman said, her eyes fixed on Audrey. “Since we didn’t get to finish last time.”
Beside me, Audrey looked at Collar-Pin in accusation.
The prisoner’s whole arm looped out through the bars now, pushing up her sleeve. I figured, after what I’d heard, the odds of the darkness on her skin being shadow or dirt was low. I remembered Darrius’ words about a mage restarting her heart, his confidence in her breaking.
“I’d do it better’n them, and we all know it,” she said with a grin, big green eyes sharp as shattered glass. “You’re in my dreams, woman. Let me be in yours.”
I scratched at my jaw again. I didn’t hate that line, but by the Son, talk about a strange time to proposition someone.
But what an excellent time to get someone’s attention.
“I’m going to be sending Isolde to check on her well-being regularly,” Audrey said to Collar-Pin. “If I see any fresh bruises, I’m also seeing fresh heads on pikes. Are we clear?”
She didn’t see the patronizing look Collar-Pin sent at her back, but I did, and I didn’t love it. She was an arrogant shit who hadn’t learned when to cut her losses, but she was right. Whoever the hell that prisoner was to the South, and whether or not she ate cunt like a champion, she didn’t deserve what she was getting.
“Sir Chay,” Audrey said, two steps ahead of me on the stairs, the red in her hair drinking in the glow from the torches. I followed at the edge of her light, keen to get out of the dungeons. “Sir Thomas. Traditionally, executions are done in La’Angi with an axe. Are either of you proficient?”
I didn’t look at Isolde. I knew damned well what weapons the Matri’sion used, and how well. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the lady herself had been trained in the axe, even if she was useless in a crisis. Thomas mumbled something about preferring the spear.
“I’m only passable,” I offered in solidarity with the woman left in the dark. “If it’s just the occasional need, I can assist in cleaning up the mess. But if it may be a regular occurrence, I ought to increase my training.”
“Splendid. We’ll visit the armory.”
I recognized the noble we there; the collective that did not, in fact, apply to her.
I didn’t tell her the thought made my belly roll because it didn’t matter. I’d already become her executioner. I may as well be outfitted for the job.