Chapter Twelve Patrick #3
“And the Artisans will mourn,” Lord Shop countered. “And they will not trust a new Head of House that does nothing in response to Tanner’s assassination. There must be some punishment.”
“Lie to them.”
“My ministers are not fools, Mr. Colson,” Lord Shop huffed. “This is not a child’s game. In order for many to prosper, we must make sacrifices—”
“It will be public,” Theo cut in, his cheeks still aflame. “She’ll be whipped in the middle of the city, so that we may appease the ministry. Isn’t that right, father?”
The lord looked for a moment as though he wished to shout.
Instead, he took several steadying breaths.
He laid a black stare on his son and said, “I’ve tried in earnest to mentor you, and still you act like a boy.
” To the room, he said, “She will be whipped, yes, but she will heal. She will not be killed. After that, she will look, for all intents, like a prisoner of the House, working to meet our ends. It is a performance. This is politics, gentlemen. We walk a treacherous tightrope. But, if no one oversteps, we will achieve what we set out to do.”
So, this was the price for truce. Nina would be forced to her knees to take the whip from the very people who needed her.
“To use a woman as your scapegoat,” Patrick uttered, still shaking, “you must be the worst sort of man.”
Shop hardly seemed moved by the comment. “Your soldiers have killed countless women and children in your rash explosions and bombings. Nina will live. She will help us bring peace to the continent.”
And she’d be a slave to the House again, digging up their terranium for as long as she drew breath.
“This is the way of it, Patty,” his father said, coming to clap a hand over his shoulder. “The road to glory’s a bloody battlefield.”
If there was a hidden message in that, Patrick couldn’t glean it.
He eyed the contract atop the desk, the barrel of the gun in Shop’s hand.
“We have the same goal, Mr. Colson,” the lord said. “As regrettable as the means may be.”
Patrick closed his eyes for a moment, trying just to think. To find a solution.
The doors opened again. Ridgeback and Kilmartin came through awkwardly, each of their arms looped under the slack form of Nina.
Her head lolled. Her eyes blinked, unseeing, and then closed. Both arms were tightly wrapped in white gauze.
“You can leave her on the settee,” Lord Shop said, but Patrick had strode forward and taken Nina in his hands. He shouldered Ridgeback and Kilmartin away, and they relinquished her with relief.
She seemed to weigh nothing. Her face was younger, her eyelids purple. He was momentarily startled by the memory of a girl with a lopsided ribbon. He walked her to the settee, all of her bones and organs in his hands. He was suddenly terrified that he would break her.
Nina barely twitched when he lowered her down onto the cushion. Her blond hair was matted in places, her lips bloodless. There was gore on her neck, and he wiped it away with his thumb.
“She’s right powerful, ain’t she?” came John’s voice over Patrick’s shoulder. “Shook the whole bloody ground. Thought we were all goin’ to hell for a bit there.”
Patrick had the alarming thought that if Nina died she would look like this, and he placed the palm of his hand tentatively against her chest. Her heart beat reassuringly against it.
She stirred, eyes slitting open. Hazel and green-flecked, they caught onto Patrick’s immediately. They were so painfully close.
Patrick swallowed. “You’re all right,” he told her, though it couldn’t be further from the truth.
He only knew that he couldn’t stomach the crumpling of her face.
Perhaps unconsciousness was better. Soon, the visions would wallop back.
The noose and the lever and the snap of the neck.
He could see it happening now. Her eyes misted.
He felt the compulsion to strip her of the memory and hated that he couldn’t.
She shut her eyes again as if shutting out reality, and after several long moments, slipped back into unconsciousness. Patrick cursed beneath his breath.
He stood and turned to face the newest in a long line of enemies, crooked thieves, and thugs. They were all the same, whether branded or from the brink. They were all men clawing a lofty existence out of a world that owed them no more than their breath.
Lord Shop stared back at him expectantly, as though he had already choreographed Patrick’s every move.
Patrick thought him a man at least as cunning as he. Maybe more so.
Poison coated Patrick’s tongue. He’d bet the bastard’s jaw would shatter with a single punch.
His ribs would snap like twigs. There was nothing to him—he was as reedy as the cane he held.
The man had surely never seen another man bleed to death, never gouged out a man’s eyes, never smelled the burning flesh of a town on fire.
He’d die badly, screaming and pissing himself.
Patrick’s bloodlust couldn’t be satisfied, though, not yet. Lord Shop was a man of games.
If Patrick was to win, he’d need to play.
“When will it happen?” he said.
“Noon tomorrow,” replied the lord. He held the quill aloft. “I’ll ensure it is quick.”