Chapter 3 #2
It was unlikely the Horned God would hide under the guise of a heavy glamour in a simple stall, but starting with the obvious was still the best approach.
I wanted nothing more than to wander through the market with no purpose but enjoyment, yet I marched on, my gaze sharpened, mentally dividing the space into quadrants as I began my hunt.
I had a Horned God to find, and I hoped like hells he had Zrenyth’s mites among his wares.
Graysen’s hand on my upper arm stopped me. “Not so fast.”
My skirt swung wide as I spun around to face him.
The guards spread out automatically, monitoring the throng of patrons and performers while keeping us in sight. The constant drone of noise surrounding us provided enough privacy so that we could talk without them hearing.
Though outwardly irritation carved itself into his tight expression, he gently asked, “When did you last visit a market?”
I frowned. He knew my truth. “Never.”
“Exactly. So let’s just enjoy this first visit.”
I blinked, caught off guard.
“Take your time,” he urged. “As far as anyone knows, you’re leading me on a wild goose chase. Look around and buy whatever you want. Taste anything you desire.”
My smile rose slowly, like the sun. “Really?”
He gave an almost imperceptible nod.
Excitement rushed through me, bright and restless. Graysen’s hand went to his chest, fingertips kneading the taut muscle as his heartbeat fell into the same exhilarated rhythm as mine. His eyes lit with warmth before he smoothed it away behind that practiced indifference.
We spent the next hour browsing through the stalls.
I got to indulge myself while Graysen looked on with a fake, bored expression.
Curiously he bought several croissants from a flour-dusted baker and dropped them into the canvas bag with the roadkill stuffed inside, but mostly he dug out his wallet and paid for things for me to nibble on and items that had caught my eye like the mandarin and saffron-scented candles, a pretty shawl in dusky blue, and a wintry snow globe of the jagged mountain ridge that loomed behind Ascendria.
While we meandered through the rows of tents, we traded more questions.
This time, I didn’t bother to find out more about the Keep and how to open the wall that blocked the escape tunnel.
This time, I wanted to know what he was like.
What were his favorite foods? The worst movie he’d ever watched and why?
Favorite memories of growing up with his brothers and Ferne.
And he volleyed questions back of his own.
As we strolled by, admiring an artist sweeping her paintbrush coated in blushing scarlet over a canvas, I flicked a glance at Graysen beneath my lashes as he shifted the shopping bags to one hand and hitched the roadkill bag higher on his shoulder.
Today had been nice and normal and real, almost as if we were on a casual date.
And that strange fluttering sensation gathered in my chest once more when I realized how he’d kept pace with me.
Not ahead.
Not behind.
But beside me.
The thought lingered as we wandered on.
A while later we came to a standstill beneath the sweeping boughs of a tall, leafy tree planted in a stone bed, watching a weaver work a loom with a rainbow of threads.
Though I hadn’t finished the pistachio-crusted toffee I was noisily chewing, my fingers dipped into the bag of sweets to fish around for a new treat.
Graysen’s mouth pulled into a grimace as he turned to face me, giving the bodyguards hovering nearby his back, blocking their view of us. He pointed at my face. “You’ve got…”
“Huh?” I grinned, flashing my teeth, knowing exactly what he was trying to point out.
“Toffee. It’s stuck right across your teeth like fucking concrete.”
I sucked my teeth with my tongue. “Mmmm yum.” I offered him the bag of treats, jiggling it a little. His hair ruffled as he shook his head no, and I huffed and rolled my eyes. “When are you going to give in to sugary crap? It’s fucking delicious.”
“I have on occasion.” His nose wrinkled in distaste, but something flickered behind it, a shadow of memory I couldn’t place. “I just don’t like those.”
“Well, good,” I replied honestly and a little petulantly. “Some things like these deliciously-chocolatey-caramel sugary crap, I just don’t like sharing.”
It was admirable how hard he fought to hide his grin.
I thought now was the time to indulge myself with one question that had plagued me for a few nights as I stared up at my bedroom ceiling. “Why did your family step down from the Great House?” I’d been feverish to learn the truth ever since he told me his family had relinquished the position.
Graysen glanced covertly around him, marking the bodyguards and their distance.
He turned his attention back to me and raked his teeth across his bottom lip, hesitating for a moment.
The humid air thickened with anticipation, and those dark eyes flecked like starlight were mesmerizing as they held mine.
It was a single word that rolled sweetly off his tongue, and it shook me to my core. “Love.”
My fingers froze in the bag of sweets. For love?
His boots scraped on the ground as he shifted his stance to further hide me from his bodyguards. “My ancestor, Konrad, handed the mantle of Great House over to another family because he fell in love.”
“Who with?” I asked in a rush of curiosity.
“Posey. She was a field hand.”
“Posey?” The name sounded so charming. Already I was imagining a sweet-faced young woman, her face tanned and heavily freckled from working beneath the sun.
My eagerness to ask a million questions faded when I realized what else he’d shared.
I frowned. “Posey worked in the fields?” None of the upper ranks would ever deign to do such manual labor.
Which meant she must have been a servant.
“She was a mortal.”
It was a sharp slap of shock, and the words whistled from my throat. “A mortal?”
He nodded.
My eyes grew wider.
That was the biggest no-no of them all. It wasn’t uncommon for mortals to be brought into our fold when we needed to fill our ranks with soldiers, but even so, the upper ranks never married a mortal.
“Sirro didn’t give his blessing at their engagement.”
My mouth rounded into a surprised O.
Not that I should be surprised.
“Without the Horned God’s blessing, Konrad had no protection and security from the other Houses,” Graysen continued.
“It was Konrad’s choice, the safer choice, to hand the mantle to another family.
He knew none of the Houses would abide by a ruler who had married a mortal, nor would they give Posey the respect she deserved if she reigned as Matriarch. ”
It whispered from me. “You lost everything.” The Crowthers had given up everything for a mortal. Given up everything for love. For someone who wasn’t even part of our world of upper ranks and Houses.
And yet, after losing Great House, the Crowthers had done it again, over a millennium later when Graysen’s father had fallen in love with a servant and married her.
“But what about your mother? Did Master Sirro give your family his blessing then?”
He nodded grimly, then dragged his fingers through his hair, the ends feathering free as he dropped his hand to a hip.
“After Konrad and Posey were married, my family demoted themselves to an Upper House. And things were all right for a few years. But obviously,” his mouth thinned into a nasty line, “many Houses wanted a permanent removal. Many Houses conspired behind their backs. And in the dead of night, they retaliated. They overran the Keep, ransacked our treasure trove, killed all our servants, and almost slaughtered Konrad’s entire family too.
” He stared downward as he scuffed a boot over the cracked seams in the concrete.
“Well, they would have stolen everything and forced our family line into fucking extinction, but for Konrad and Posey’s son. He killed them all.”
My eyes flashed wide. “All of them?”
He raised his gaze, and it heaved with avenged admiration. His voice went low and gritty. “Every single one that had inflicted the slaughter. The others had already fled with the trophies they’d stolen from the treasure trove.”
“How old was he?”
“Eight years old. It was just Oskar and his blades battling in the middle of a howling storm until only he remained, knee-deep in muck and covered in filth and blood.”
How could an eight-year-old boy not only survive but annihilate everyone there? Adults well-versed in warfare. “Was he other?”
His fingers tightened their grip on the shopping bags. “There were no witnesses who survived his rampage. But maybe he was. Maybe he was a storm-weaver. Maybe he was something else altogether.”
I shook my head, trying to grasp the enormity of it all. “How did you win back your ancestral home?”
“Sirro stepped in. He locked off the Keep and gave Oskar the chance to rise through the ranks and win it back.”
“So that’s how you became a Lower House,” I surmised.
He clicked his tongue. “No. Sirro stripped Oskar of everything. He became a nobody with no rank. One of the older, loyal Houses that later fell to scheming took him in as a foot soldier. Oskar vowed that night we’d take back what once belonged to us.”
“I bet he did,” I murmured. Then I shot him a sly look. “I’m willing to wager that those Houses that had conspired against your family strangely fell to their deaths.” His white teeth flashed briefly within a vicious grin. I tsked him. “You’re such a ruthless family.”
He shrugged his shoulders casually in agreeance. “It took quite a few generations from Oskar’s offspring to prove ourselves worthy to Sirro and the Horned Gods until eventually we achieved Lower House and retook our ancestral home.”
I sucked the last remnants of toffee from my teeth.
Absentmindedly, my fingers rustled through the bag of candy. There was something else there too, amongst everything he’d shared. Something that itched my mind until it bloomed and revealed itself. “Your treasury. You mentioned it a while back too, that things were stolen.”
He raised an arm to brace his hand against the tree trunk above my head. “Yeah, they took what they wanted. Not everything. A few curses and poisons, rare gems and artifacts.”
“And even a few of Draxxon’s bones,” I added thoughtfully.
He nodded, the soft glow of skylight slipping between the leaves shifting over the waves of his hair.
Why would anyone want wyrmbone? Maybe because they were rare and no one else but the Crowthers possessed them. Maybe for their qualities. Maybe they were wanted for something else more sinister.
A sweet metallic chirp came from a clockwork nightingale perched inside an oversized gilded cage hanging from a low branch. My feet were sore, my soul full of goodness, and my mind whirling with what I’d learned.
Graysen tensed.
And I did too, with the abrupt change in his posture.
Suddenly, he pushed off the tree, jerking his head around, his body following.
His eyes narrowed, and he moved in slow footsteps toward the entrance to the restrooms, raising a hand and trilling his fingers as if feeling a stream of air and trying to figure out which direction the wind was blowing.
Except I had a suspicion that it was something else altogether.
Dark magic.
“Do you feel that?” he asked.
I checked myself, but I felt nothing. “No. What is it?”
“Something. A pull… It’s coming from in there.” And he pointed to the corridor that led to the restrooms.