Chapter 13
Bran finds him in the corridor outside the tournament grounds, where the crowd is dispersing in the late afternoon light and the noise of the day is settling into the quieter rhythms of evening.
A hand on his elbow, large, unmistakable, and Bran's voice close to his ear. "A word."
Evran glances back. Vaike is still on the platform, deep in conversation with Aldric about something related to the border negotiations from this morning's council, his back to them, Leona at his side, which means he is as safe as he is going to be. Evran catches Bran's eye and nods.
They move away from the crowd, down a side path that runs between the tournament grounds and the outer wall of the Keep.
It is a service path, narrow, stone-paved, used by retainers moving between the grounds and the kitchens, and at this hour it is empty.
The wall on one side blocks the noise of the dispersing spectators, and the wall on the other casts a long shadow that pools at their feet.
Bran stops when they are far enough from the main thoroughfare that his voice will not carry.
He turns to face Evran, and his expression is the one Evran has come to recognize as serious Bran, the warmth still there beneath the surface but buried under something harder, something that belongs to the soldier he was before he was the jovial man Evran knows.
"Leona has made quick work of the assassin," Bran says without preamble.
Evran feels his pulse pick up. "What did she get?"
"Quite a bit. Harath allowed her access to the prisoner after his own guard took their testimony, and the man was more forthcoming with her than he was with them.
" He pauses, the pause weighted with the choice not to elaborate on what forthcoming under Leona's supervision means.
"He claims to have been sent by someone within the Drakkari. "
Evran frowns. "Within the Drakkari? That doesn't make any sense."
"Wait. Listen." Bran holds up a hand. "He claims the Drakkari connection, but he also describes the man who hired him." His eyes hold Evran's. "Short blond hair. Eastern accent. A man who told the assassin he was acting on behalf of the Drakkari clan's interest in succession."
The cold knot beneath Evran's ribs, the one that has been there since the night of the attack, the one that tightens every time he thinks about the purple-tinged blade, pulls taut.
"Sounds as though Torsten is already claiming to be Drakkari," Evran says.
"That's what Leona and I think as well." Bran's jaw is tight.
"He's positioning himself. Framing the assassination as an internal Drakkari affair, a succession dispute from within, rather than an external attack.
If it had succeeded, and if the story had held, it would have looked as though Vaike's own people turned on him.
Torsten steps in as the lost son, the blood heir, the man who can restore stability. "
"Disgustingly tidy."
"Aye."
Evran leans against the stone wall and crosses his arms. The evening air is cool on his face, and from somewhere beyond the wall he can hear the distant sounds of the grounds being cleared, the clatter of wooden weapons being racked, the murmur of fighters and spectators heading to dinner.
"What else?" he asks, because Bran's expression says there is more.
"The poison on the blade." Bran shifts his weight, his massive frame settling into controlled stillness that says the next piece of information is important.
"Leona worked with the Rendari healers to complete the analysis.
It's not a quick-acting toxin but a crippling agent, designed to kill slowly, over the course of days or weeks.
The victim weakens gradually. Fever, joint pain, eventual organ failure.
It would look like an illness, not an assassination. "
Evran's stomach turns. He thinks about Vaike weakening, Vaike in pain, Vaike's strong body failing by degrees while everyone around him scrambled to understand why, while healers searched for a disease that was not there, while Torsten sat in the wings and waited for the inevitable.
The image is so vivid and so terrible that Evran has to close his eyes for a moment and breathe through the horror of it before he can speak.
"Making the guilty party harder to track," he says, and his voice is flat, controlled. He does not let what he is feeling show on his face because if he does he will not be able to think clearly and he needs to think clearly.
"Exactly. A slow death gives the killer time to distance himself.
By the time Vaike succumbed, Torsten could be back in Windfar, hands clean, the perfect picture of a grieving half-brother stepping forward in his clan's time of need.
" Bran's mouth is a grim line. "The poison was not the assassin's own.
He says it was given to him by the man who hired him.
Provided in a vial, with instructions for application. "
Evran files this away immediately. A vial.
If Torsten provided the poison, he may still have more of it.
Arrogant enough to believe no one would ever think to look, he might still have evidence in his possession.
If they could find it, if they could tie it to the substance on the blade, that would be the proof they need.
But getting to it is another matter entirely.
"There's one more thing," Bran says, and his voice drops lower. "The assassin was given specific instructions about you."
Evran goes still. "What instructions?"
"He was told not to harm you. Explicitly. The man who hired him said there might be someone else in the room, the Warlord's husband, and that under no circumstances was he to be touched."
The words land in the space between them and sit there, ugly and cold.
Evran thinks about waking up to the sound of fighting, about Vaike shoving him off the bed, not because Evran was in danger but because Vaike did not know what the assassin's orders were. Vaike was protecting him from a threat that, as it turns out, was never aimed at him.
Because Torsten wanted him alive.
Because Torsten wants him intact.
Do you come with the throne?
Evran's jaw tightens until his teeth ache.
He stares at the stone wall opposite and breathes and lets the cold fury settle into his bones, because fury is useful, fury is fuel, fury is the thing that will carry him through whatever comes next.
That cruelty sharpens his resolve rather than dulling it.
Torsten ordered a man killed and another spared, not out of mercy but out of acquisition, the way you might instruct a thief to steal the jewels but leave the box they came in because the box is also valuable and you intend to use it.
"He aims to lay claim to you," Bran says quietly, and it is not a question.
"Yes."
"Evran."
"I know." He pushes off the wall and faces Bran fully. "If Torsten provided the poison, there may be more of it in his chambers. If we could get to it, if we could match it to the substance on the blade, that's the evidence we need to bring before the council."
Bran's expression shifts. He sees where this is going, and Evran can watch the understanding move across his face, the recognition, the calculation, and beneath both of them a deep unease, the visible discomfort of not liking where the path is leading.
"If we had the vial," Bran says slowly, "and it matched the substance on the blade, that would be evidence enough. The assassin's testimony places a blond man with an eastern accent at the scene. The vial in Torsten's possession ties him to the weapon. Combined, it would be incontrovertible."
"Then we need to find it."
"Evran."
"We need it, Bran."
Bran's hands come up, palms out, trying to slow something that is already in motion. "We don't need to do anything drastic. There might be another way. Leona could search the room while Torsten is occupied elsewhere."
"Torsten's room is in the Windfar wing, which is guarded by Windfar warriors who answer to Merrik.
Leona can't get in without being noticed, and if she's caught, it becomes an international incident.
" Evran's voice is steady but his heart is hammering.
"I can get in. Torsten wants me there. He's been making that clear since we met. "
The silence that follows is heavy.
Bran stares at him. His ruddy face has gone a shade paler, and his hands have dropped to his sides, and he looks, for the first time since Evran has known him, genuinely at a loss for words.
"Lad," he says finally, and his voice is rough.
"I know what you're going to say."
"I don't think you do." Bran takes a step forward, and despite his size, despite the fact that he could snap Evran in half without effort, his presence is not threatening but protective, looming, every instinct visibly screaming at him to put himself between Evran and danger.
"I don't want to put you in there. I don't want you anywhere near that man's chambers. "
"And I don't want Vaike dead." The words come out sharper than Evran intends, and he sees Bran flinch, the words hitting him where they are aimed.
He softens his voice but not his resolve.
"If I don't go, if I don't get Torsten to trust me enough to invite me to his rooms, then how will we find it?
Who else can get in there without raising suspicion? "
Bran has no answer, and he knows there is not one, and the truth of it sits between them, ugly and undeniable and immovable.
"What happens if we bring our findings to Vaike?" Evran asks, though he already knows the answer.
"There's nothing he can do," Bran says, and the resignation in his voice is heavy.
"He can't publicly accuse Torsten without tipping him off and giving him time to hide the evidence.
If Torsten knows we're onto him, the vial disappears, the conspirators scatter, and we're left with an assassin's testimony and no physical proof.
It becomes a he-said situation, and Merrik's influence ensures the Windfar delegation closes ranks. "
"Then what are we supposed to do?" Evran throws his hands up, the frustration finally cracking through his careful composure, and his voice rises before he catches it, pulling it back down to a whisper that vibrates with urgency.
"If I don't go, if I don't get into that room, then we have nothing.
And the summit ends in two days, Bran. Two days, and then Torsten walks out of here and disappears back to Windfar, and whatever evidence he has goes with him, and the next time he sends someone after Vaike it won't be at a summit with doubled guards and four clans watching.
It'll be on a dark road, or in the dead of night, or somewhere there are no witnesses and no one to stop it. "
He stops. He is breathing hard, his hands curled into fists at his sides.
Bran watches him for a long moment. The big man's face is a map of conflicting emotions, fear and admiration and reluctance and resignation all fighting for dominance, and none of them winning.
His jaw works, the muscle flexing, and he seems to be arguing with himself about something that has no good answer.
Then he sighs, and it is a deep, resigned sound that seems to come from the bottom of him, from the place where his duty to protect collides with his respect for Evran's choice.
"If you go," Bran says, and his voice is careful, measured, each word placed with deliberateness, needing every one to land, "you go armed.
You take the dagger I gave you. You strap it where he won't find it easily, and you keep it within reach at all times.
" He holds Evran's gaze. "And you are prepared to use it.
Do you understand me? If something goes wrong, if he discovers what you're doing, if he tries to take more than you're willing to give, you use that blade. You don't hesitate."
"I won't hesitate."
"Promise me."
"I promise."
Bran nods, once, a sharp downward motion of his chin. Then he reaches out and grips Evran's shoulder, the same grip he uses on warriors before they ride into battle, firm and grounding and full of a faith that Evran is not sure he has earned but is grateful for nonetheless.
"You're the bravest foolish person I've ever met," Bran says. "Or the most foolish brave one. I haven't decided."
Despite everything, despite the fear and the fury and the weight of what lies ahead, Evran almost smiles.
"I'll let you know which one it is when this is over."
Bran squeezes his shoulder, holds it for a breath longer than necessary, then releases him. He steps back, and the soldier's face recedes, and the ruddy Bran that Evran knows reasserts itself, battered and worried but present.
They part ways in the shadow of the wall, Bran heading back toward the tournament grounds, Evran toward the eastern wing, both of them carrying the weight of what comes next.
The corridor is quiet, the evening light fading. Evran walks alone and feels the braid swing against his neck with every step and thinks about Vaike's hands in his hair, carving promises into the strands, and the word husband burning in his chest.
Two days. He has two days to end this, and the knowledge sits heavy and urgent and real, pressing against the inside of his ribs with every step. He walks faster.