Chapter 29
Zarek
STUMBLE THROUGH THE DARK
Lilias watches me with wide eyes. Damn, I wish I had some other place I could bring her where we wouldn’t be overheard, somewhere that wasn’t the stinking manure piles.
I wanted to bring her back to Bertha’s pub, but I don’t dare push my luck.
Acelina visited her earlier today, and that probably means Malrik has taken some renewed interest in the princess of Marion.
Which makes this discussion even more pertinent. Nothing good comes of Vsenrog taking an interest in smaller kingdoms. My hand brushes the metal cylinder around my neck.
“What kind of man is he?” I ask, wondering how far I can push her.
She frowns and looks at me like she doesn’t understand the question. I take a deep breath. This is the woman who refused to cry during our wedding. And she held it together even after discovering her lover betrayed her.
“I need to know what kind of ruler he would be,” I say. “Is he competent? Does Marion’s Council of Mayors respect him?”
“Yes,” she says. Her frown deepens. “The Council respects him more than they respect my father. He’s been negotiating with them for years. In most ways, he’s already the ruler.”
“Shit,” I hiss.
I didn’t realize until this moment how much I’d been hoping her brother was incompetent, the sort of spoiled fool who would take a prize stallion or some bauble in exchange for whatever it is Malrik wants. Then, at least, he’d stay alive.
Gods. I should have known better. Of course, her brother isn’t an idiot. There’s steel in this family.
“What’s wrong?” Lilias asks. Her hand tightens on my arm. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Malrik is planning something. Hells, he’s probably planning half a dozen things, with backups and alternate strategies.”
I think of Malrik sitting behind his desk, flanked by his servants and Mortimyr, angrily smacking a piece of parchment that accused my wife of being impure. That was his first plan, to demand redress from Lilias’s father.
I thought he wanted the mine. At least, until Malrik asked about her brother.
“Malrik wants something from Marion,” I say.
“The mine,” Lilias replies.
I shake my head. “That’s what I thought too,” I say. “But he’s been spreading rumors about your father, saying he’s ill. And he asked me when your brother is coming to visit. It all feels…off.”
Her breath catches. It’s slight, but it’s there.
“I— I don’t know,” she stammers. “I haven’t heard—”
Her voice trails off as she shakes her head.
“Do you have a way to communicate with him?” I ask. “Something unofficial. A method the palace can’t track.”
Her brow creases, and she nods. “Anura,” she says. “She can—”
“Don’t tell me,” I snap, cutting her off. “It’s best if I don’t know.”
She nods. She suddenly looks very young, standing in the back of the kitchen garden in a dark cloak, looking up at me with those dark, wide eyes.
The vicious, smoldering anger that lies caged inside my chest flares suddenly, and for a moment, rage fills me, incandescent and blazing. I hate this godsdamn place. I hate what it does to the people trapped inside.
I hate what it’s done to me.
My jaw aches. I’m gripping the metal cylinder around my neck so tightly it’s cutting into my palm. I force my fingers to uncurl, then to drop to my side. I take a deep breath, pulling in the scent of decaying food and manure and the first chill of the night.
“Tell him not to come,” I hear myself say in a slow, measured voice. “Not yet, at least. Not until we know more about what Malrik wants from him.”
Her shoulders curl, but she doesn’t protest. I want to apologize, or to comfort her in some way, but what in the hells could I say? We’re both trapped in this cage, aren’t we? And I promised her I would tell her what I know.
Shit. I swallow hard, then tell her the truth.
“I needed to know if your brother is the kind of man Malrik might see as a threat,” I say. “And it sounds like he is. Or he could be.”
She trembles. I raise my hand, wanting to reach for her, then clench my fingers into a fist and drop them to my side. My comfort is the last thing this woman wants.
“If your brother were an idiot,” I continue.
An angry look flashes across her face, there and gone.
“I’m not saying he is,” I go on. “But, if he was the type of person who could be swayed, or bought, or bribed—”
“He’s not,” she says.
“Right,” I reply. “And do you see how dangerous that is? If Malrik can’t buy what he wants from your brother? If he feels like he has to take it instead?”
She frowns, and then it comes to her. Her eyes widen, and she shakes her head like she’s trying to escape what I just said.
“But, what would Vsenrog want with the kingdom of Marion?” she asks.
My hand twitches again, desperate to reach for her. I cross my arms over my chest.
“The gods only know,” I say. “And until we figure it out, the more distance between your brother and Malrik, the better.”
She sighs. It’s sharp and hard, the sound of someone who’s used to being disappointed.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, thinking of Petrys. Of Gerrart.
She shakes her head again. When she looks at me, her eyes are hard and sharp.
“I’ll send him the message,” she says.
Her mouth opens again, but she hesitates. A rooster screams from somewhere behind her, voicing his displeasure with the way things are progressing in his little kingdom.
“Thank you,” Lilias finally says, in a much lower voice. “For telling me.”
I nod, not quite trusting myself to speak. She stares at me, then at the long shadows growing before the garden walls.
“I should probably go back by myself,” she says, almost under her breath. “Right?”
“Can you find your way?” I ask.
She nods.
“Then yes,” I say. “The less you’re seen with me, the better.”
She opens her mouth, like she’s about to say something, then closes it again. A moment later, she’s moving away from me, her cloak fluttering across the path. She seems smaller, somehow, as she enters the shadows of the garden. Smaller and lonelier.
Somehow, Gerrart rises in my mind again. I remember the way he cried after I first confronted him about the godsdamned drugs.
“I hate this place,” he screamed at me. “It’s nothing like home!”
And I slapped him. He stared at me in shock, tears streaming down his cheeks, his eyes wide. He looked smaller too, in that moment. Small and alone.
Gods, how I hate that memory.
“Shit,” I mutter to the growing shadows.
I still can’t see the shape of Malrik’s plans. And I’ve lived here long enough to know how dangerous it is to stumble through the dark in this palace.