Chapter 36
Trystan
When Trystan first became The Villain, he took pleasure in very few things.
Massacre Manor became his haven, where he went to lick his wounds, gathering himself and training to rise until he was a force Benedict could not ignore.
And he’d accomplished it. Over the years, Benedict had sent Valiant Guards, private assassins, and mercenaries to capture him. To kill him. All of them had failed.
He took pleasure in that.
Trystan turned the key in the lock but didn’t open the door. Instead, he looked down at Sage, noting her pretty white dress, her curls pinned back by a white comb that looked like a dove, a stark contrast against the brilliant rouge on her lips.
And the way she’d straightened her shoulders the moment they stepped down into the dungeons.
“Why don’t you take the lead on this one?” he heard himself say. “You’re perfectly capable.”
Her wide eyes were fixed on him immediately. “No, that’s, uh—that’s okay. I’ll just observe.”
“No, you won’t. I won’t let you.”
“Let me?”
He knew it would infuriate her, had been banking on it. He fought to keep his face impassive.
“You don’t let me do anything,” she continued. “I make my own decisions.”
“Really?” Trystan challenged, backing her up to the wall. “Because you always want to join me for torture interrogations. I would say you’ve even been eager at times. And now you prefer simply to observe? Do you make your own decisions? Or are you influenced instead by what you’re afraid of?”
Her irises were two blue flames as she stared back at him; all the while, he smirked like the bastard he was. “And what, pray tell, am I afraid of?” she asked.
“That no matter your role in the story, you’ll never be enough.”
The force of her magic rammed into him so hard, he stumbled back. Angry tears formed, but she blinked them away, that spark within her flashing to the surface.
“Fuck you.”
There you are, little tornado.
The key to the large wooden door was turned, and in she went, unsheathing her dagger with each step forward.
It was inconveniently arousing.
“Good morning, Calvin.” Sage greeted the son of Otto Warsen with kindness. It made her even more unsettling.
And even more arousing.
Damn it.
“What do you want, wench?” Calvin was considerably weaker than when they’d last seen him.
Probably because Trystan had broken his kneecaps.
“I don’t want anything,” Trystan replied evenly. “But my partner might have a few questions.”
“I wasn’t calling you a wench, you loon,” Calvin spat.
Trystan felt that cold rage rise to the surface. “How strange, because I know you weren’t calling her one.”
Calvin shuddered, shaking his head. “What do you want to know?”
“When I found you in the kitchens and you attacked me—you were trying to take apart the window. I thought it was because you didn’t want us to find the prophecy when we put it against sunlight… But that wasn’t why, was it?”
Calvin laughed, throwing his head back with the force of it. “He was so sure you’d never figure it out. Poor sod.”
“Who? Benedict?” Sage asked, the dark magic spilling out of her fingers and pooling around the floor.
Calvin stared, his face unreadable. “Sure.”
“Thank you for cooperating. Perhaps we can do something with those chains soon.” She gave him a soft smile, but Trystan found this highly unreasonable.
“The minute I’m out of these chains, Ms. Sage, I’m going to squeeze the breath from your lungs,” Calvin sneered.
Sage’s smile grew. “I did not say you would be alive. Did I?”
The man froze, and so did Trystan.
Deadlands, she was exceptionally good at this.
“How did the second book of Rennedawn become part of the window, and how do we undo it?” She asked the straightforward question, playing with the tip of her dagger, walking back and forth.
“I don’t know.”
“Of course you do, Mr. Warsen. How else were you going to remove it?”
“With my arse.” He leered.
“And here I thought you only spoke out of it.” Sage rolled her eyes before sighing, an authenticity to her piteous expression. “Calvin, I’m going to level with you. One, because we don’t have a whole lot of time and two, because I really do not like you.”
Calvin’s lips parted, his eyes looking to Trystan like, Does this belong to you?
He merely folded his arms. And smirked.
“What were you going to use to take out the book? And I’d strongly advise you not to give me an insult for an answer. Unless you’d like this interview to end…early.”
Calvin glanced up, something breaking in the way he shook his head and then his rattling hands. “I want a healer for my kneecaps.”
“Done,” Evie said before Trystan could object.
“Guvre venom.” Calvin grinned. “Fate’s creatures for Fate’s copy of Rennedawn’s story. Their venom sealed it, and it will release it, too. If you can come by some, that is. I was merely sent to remove it before you realized the value in the thing.”
It was interesting that Sage had been the one to see the value in that window from the start. Spending endless hours staring upon it. She did that, found value in things some would overlook.
Trystan, for example.
He grinned.
And Calvin grinned back because he assumed the knowledge would be fruitless.
Sage didn’t let up. “We could take from the two younglings we have abovestairs, I’m sure.
” She patted his cheek as his face fell from smug to baffled.
“Thank you, Calvin. You were very helpful. I’ll have someone down to look at your knees.
You’ll need full use of them when you’re begging for your life. ”
“I— What?”
But Calvin’s fearful question got lost when Sage narrowed her eyes at Trystan and murmured, “Meet me outside, would you?”
She was through the door without looking back, and Trystan contemplated her, then Calvin. “Out of curiosity…how long did it take for your kneecaps to break?”
“Immediately!” Calvin yelled.
“Excellent.” Trystan shut the door behind him, turning the lock, knowing exactly what he was about to face.
“You have no right.” Sage’s voice was coming from the shadowed alcove, a lantern above her head casting a gleam over her face. “No right to call me afraid. Of course I’m afraid! I’ve been afraid my whole life—I’m allowed! Because it’s never stopped me from doing what I needed to do.”
“I asked if your fear controlled you,” he murmured, eyes never leaving the way the red of her cheeks deepened, her breath quickening. “And it didn’t. It doesn’t. It never has.”
She blinked. “You—”
Trystan waved a hand toward the closed door. “You did that afraid, but you did it anyway. I’ve never known you to be any way else.”
“I don’t like being maneuvered.” She pointed a finger at him.
He grabbed her hand, looking upon it reverently, willing himself to release her, and failing. Instead, his lips pressed to the middle of her palm, his eyes shut tightly, and he did not release her hand even when he was through. “I don’t like you giving up on yourself.”
Her breath was clipped when she whispered, “I’m not—”
“You are.” He felt angry suddenly, like he wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her until she saw sense. “You were the one who told me that we get to decide who we are. Not magic, not Fate or Destiny or anyone else. You and me. We decide.”
Her lashes lowered, damp from tears she was trying to blink away. “You don’t understand. Every time I think I can rely on someone, every time I believe I get to be happy, something happens to ruin it. Every time. And every time, I pick myself up and keep going.”
When her eyes met his, they were so serious, so full of anguish that it crushed him. “If something happened to you, let alone something that was my fault? I wouldn’t keep going. I couldn’t.”
“Because you want me,” he stated, not allowing her to avoid it.
“Of course I want you!” She threw her hands up, and her face twisted in outrage.
“None of this has anything to do with how much I want you or love you or desperately need to be with you all the time. Thinking about you the moment I wake up, the moment I go to sleep. When I’m so sad I feel like I cannot stand it, I still want you. ”
She breathed in and out, and he could see the wheels turning in her beautiful mind, could see the wall going up.
“But—” she started.
He kissed her.