Enzo #3
I caught him. He pressed. Gods, he was good. Of course he was good.
I had trusted him because he was good. Had kept him at my back because he was steady and ruthless and precise. Had given him command because he could read a field in two breaths and hold a line with half the men another captain would require.
Now all of that stood in front of me with orders to put me in the ground.
He drove me back three steps. The fourth cost me blood.
His blade slipped beneath my guard with a movement I had never taught him, Shadow Court footwork married to Tharros discipline. The first strike I stopped. The second I turned. The third kissed through leather and opened a line across my ribs.
The bond above me went white. I felt Nadia move before I saw her.
“Nadia,” I said without looking away from Aldric.
She stopped. Barely.
Aldric looked at the red on his blade. For one heartbeat, the captain I had known stood there instead of the traitor the morning had made of him.
“My prince,” he said quietly. “That shouldn’t have landed.”
“But it did.”
“Yes.”
He seemed older suddenly. “I’m running out of time.”
“I know.”
“She’ll kill me if I cut you again.”
“Yes.”
His gaze flicked toward the balcony.
Nadia hadn’t moved from the rail, but there was nothing still about her now. The bond was a living thing with teeth.
Aldric looked back at me. “You should let her.”
“No.”
“Lorenzo—”
“You have one more pass,” I said. “Yield, and riders leave within the hour for your family. Fight, and I end this in front of the household. Either way, you answer to me alive.”
The yard held its breath. Aldric closed his eyes. When he opened them, he’d made his choice.
“They have watchers here,” he said softly. “They will know if I yield too easily.”
“Then make it convincing.”
A broken sound moved through him. “You always did understand the ugly parts first.”
“Come, then.”
He came for my throat. Full intent. Full reach. Every ounce of skill he’d hidden, honed, or stolen in the last six months poured into one final pass meant to look like obedience to whoever watched from the cracks in my house.
The first strike rang against my blade. The second slid close enough to cut air from my breath. The third would have opened my throat.
I stepped inside it. Close enough to see his eyes change. Close enough to smell leather, sweat, and the grief of a good man broken into a weapon. I caught his sword arm with my left hand and drove my blade across the inside of his elbow.
His grip failed. The captain’s steel hit the stones. I put him on his knees before the sound finished echoing. My sword rested at his throat.
The yard was silent. Aldric closed his eyes.
“Prince.”
“Yes.”
“The riders.”
“Will leave before the hour bell.”
“Thank you.” His throat moved against the edge of my blade.
I could have ended him there. The bond screamed for it, terror wearing the costume of rage.
Finish him. Now. Don’t give him another breath near you.
Nadia’s fury filled me from above, brutal and old and utterly without mercy. It didn’t care about politics. It didn’t care about witnesses. It cared that my blood was on Aldric’s blade and Aldric was still breathing.
For one breath, I wanted to obey it. Instead, I lowered my sword.
“The dungeons,” I said.
Aldric opened his eyes and looked up at me. The ruined smile returned. “As my prince wishes.”
Geren moved first. The household guard closed around Aldric, lifted him to his feet, bound his hands, and took the captain’s blade from the stones. He didn’t resist. Didn’t speak.
When they led him beneath the western balcony, he bowed his head to Nadia. She didn’t return the courtesy.
The yard began to breathe again. I stood in the center of the ring with blood warming the cut at my ribs and my sword still in hand. I had perhaps fifteen seconds before Nadia came down from that balcony and made her opinion everyone’s problem.
I used them.
“Geren.”
He was at my shoulder.
“Six riders,” I said. “Fastest horses in the stable. Aldric’s sister’s holding.
The address is in his quarters, or he will give it from the dungeons.
They leave within the hour. The sister, her daughter, the grandchildren—alive, they come here under guard.
Dead, they come home for burial. Either way, they don’t remain in the north. ”
“Yes, my prince.”
“Vessa. The sending stone in his quarters. Find it. Do not destroy it.”
Her voice sounded from somewhere behind me. “I know better than to break useful things.”
“Good.” I closed my eyes for half a breath too long.
The shadow at the edge of the yard folded open. Nadia didn’t use the stairs. She stepped out beneath the western arch, crossed the ring in a line so direct the household guard found reasons to move out of her way, and reached me before I had fully turned.
She said nothing. That was how I knew how angry she was. Her eyes dropped to the cut at my ribs then lifted to mine.
The bond had gone quiet in the way a blade was quiet just before it slid between ribs.
“Nadia,” I said.
She took my hand.
Then she yanked me into the shadow beneath the arch.