THIRTY-SEVEN
Undergrowth crackles beneath our boots as Stefan shuffles me deeper into the forest. Laurel is close behind, issuing orders even now. I work my jaw, trying to find another angle to bite the hand over my mouth again, but it’s clasped too tightly.
And I was dreading the dessert course.
Laurel catches up to us, her gown gathered in one hand to keep it out of the brambles. With the other, she fishes a small, flat disc out of her bodice and turns it over in her palm.
A portable postern like the one Bishop has. Fear floods through me, the little food I ate threatening to come back up.
“He’ll meet us a few miles east of here,” she says to her guard. “Then we’ll be done and we can go home.”
Something tells me she isn’t talking about Journey’s End.
The guard slows to a stop in a small clearing, but he doesn’t release me. No matter how many times I kick him.
“Keep fighting me and I’ll knock you unconscious,” he hisses in my ear.
I still. I need to be conscious if I’m going to get at my sword and slice his fucking head off.
Laurel steps in front of me, the look on her face almost apologetic. “I’ll have him let you go if you swear you won’t shout.”
I nod against his hand.
She tilts her head at Stefan. He hesitates as though he disagrees with this choice, but he releases me. The instant my body is free, I tear away from him, drawing the sword at my hip.
Stefan watches me, faintly amused.
But I direct my rage at my brother’s fiancée. “You won’t get away with this.”
“Oh, I will.” She turns the postern in her hand like she’s admiring a ring. “There’s no version of this where I don’t. I’ve been very careful. Waiting for this moment. Encouraging Broderic to let you come home. Inviting you to dinner.”
She sounds like she’s reciting a recipe.
“Poisoning the sauce,” she adds, and a fresh bolt of terror hits me. “Your brother. Your sister. Andry. Bishop. Everyone at the table tonight enjoyed the meal except you … and me.”
Cold filters through my veins. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not.” She holds up a small bottle stoppered with wax. “This is the antidote. Enough for all of them. If you go through the postern without making a fuss, I’ll see that it makes it into their dessert wine. They’ll be fine.”
I don’t ask what’s waiting on the other side of the portal for me.
“And if I don’t?”
She shrugs. “Then they’ll all die in the parlor sometime in the next hour, waiting for us to come back from our walk.”
Acid rises in my throat.
“At first, it only has a soporific effect,” she says. “But once the poison takes hold, I hear death can be quite painful.” She shrugs. “Unfortunately, you didn’t seem hungry tonight.”
“Twelvetide,” I say, my grip on the sword’s hilt growing slick. “The bellanotte. That was you.”
“Not me. I was here, accepting your brother’s proposal. But as you know, my uncle can deliver anything in Antares. Even assassins.”
So much for Vennaro being impenetrable. “It must have been disappointing to wake up engaged and find out your uncle’s assassin failed.”
“Don’t worry. We won’t fail this time. A Ravenell cannot rise to power.” She shakes her head.
I roll my eyes. “Because I’m so scary?”
“Because Order Velesont will be the most powerful order. Nothing can threaten that. We’ve worked too hard to find ourselves licking another set of boots.”
By worked, I assume she means schemed against the other orders. Just like they’re doing now.
“At least you came home before I had to marry him.” She grimaces, and I feel my heart crack a little for Broderic.
The sick feeling rises another inch in my throat, and I clamp my mouth shut.
“You’re not going to give them the antidote,” I say.
She actually looks hurt. “I will. Why wouldn’t I?”
Because she hates them. That much is obvious.
“Once I’m gone, your job is finished. I’m sure your uncle didn’t pay you to go the extra mile.”
“He’s not paying me,” Laurel says, an edge in her voice.
“He’s freeing me. Do you have any idea what it costs to be the niece of Patron Velesont?
He would have made me stay the rest of my life if I didn’t deliver you.
Now, I’m done. I don’t have to marry your brother.
I won’t rot in Damalis, a farmer’s wife.
” She shudders, then brightens. “I can go wherever I want. Do what I please. For the first time in my life.”
My gaze flicks to Stefan. He’s been silent this whole time, watching me with the patience of a man who’s done this before. Probably more than once.
“What’s your story going to be?” I ask Laurel. “You walked into the woods with me and walked back without. How will you explain that to them?”
Her face changes, mouth drooping. A tear slides down her cheek as easily as a leaf falling.
“There were three of them,” she says, her voice softening and then breaking a little as she starts to cry.
“Hooded. They came out of the trees. They wanted Arden. They told me they poisoned our food. They had the antidote. They said—” The words catch in her throat, more tears falling.
“They said if I gave them Arden, they’d give me the antidote.
I’m so sorry, Broderic. I didn’t know what else to do. I had to choose. Forgive me.”
She wipes her cheek delicately, and her eyes refocus on me as she grins.
I almost applaud.
“Something like that,” she says, no longer performing. Her smile widens. “I’ve been practicing.”
“And him?”
“He’ll be very dead when they find him. Three sword wounds from fighting bravely. A hero for buying me time to escape with the antidote.”
Stefan laughs.
“That’s commitment,” I say slowly.
“Let’s not pretend. You’ve been with the bishop too long. You know what he hunts. You know what Stefan is,” she hisses, eyes lighting up with delight.
A scion.
She really thought of everything. I might be impressed under other circumstances.
“He’ll resurrect by morning,” she says, “and meet us in Isoldoro. Where we belong. Well, not you. But you won’t be there for long.”
I stare at the bottle in her hand.
She won’t deliver it to them. Everything about her is an act, a weapon honed by her uncle. My family’s only chance is if I take the antidote from her.
“Okay,” I say.
Laurel blinks. “Okay?”
“I’ll go.” I lower the sword an inch. “Just give me the antidote. I’ll take it back. Let me say goodbye. I won’t tell them anything.”
“Oh, sweetheart, no.” Her real laugh is ugly.
“Please.” I take a half step toward her. “They’re my family.”
She hesitates, allowing the smallest crack in her plan, and it’s exactly the one I need.
I move, heart hammering against my ribs.
It’s the same recovery Bishop drilled into me over and over again in the rain. Step in. Hook the wrist. Twist. My free hand closes over hers, catching her by surprise, and she drops the vial in the brush at our feet.
Stefan wraps his fist around the pommel of his sword, and I point my own at Laurel’s throat.
“Don’t move,” I warn him.
But he laughs, the sound of it as dry as cracking ice.
“That’s the spirit,” he says. He draws his own sword in no hurry at all. “I’ve just been waiting for an excuse. Lady Laurel, why don’t you head back now?”
Laurel’s eyes flick from the sword aimed at her to him. “What?”
Exactly what I was thinking.
“Your uncle will be just as satisfied with her heart. He’s always happy when I bring him hearts. You know that. He might prefer her alive, but he’ll accept her dead.” He flexes his shoulders.
“And how do you expect me to walk away?” she seethes, still staring at my weapon.
“She won’t kill you,” he says.
I grit my teeth. “Try me.”
Laurel’s mouth opens. Closes. “But the antidote … without it …”
Shit. Maybe she meant it. My stance slips, sword wavering slightly. Stefan lunges, his sword knocking mine wide with a clang. Laurel darts behind him, eyes wide over his shoulder. I step into guard, waiting for him to strike.
“Just finish her,” Laurel orders, “so we can go back and give them the antidote. I’m not interested in killing a child.”
But Stefan shakes his head. Apparently, he’s done taking her orders. “Three patrons gone in a single evening, in a Marius outpost no less—even Bishop himself. Think how easy it will be to convince the rest of the court to consolidate power and close ranks.”
“My uncle said—”
“He’ll be delighted.”
She looks at the antidote on the ground, a decision moving across her face in stages. The flicker of grief. Real, I think. But then there’s recalculation. And finally, acceptance.
She tosses her head back, lifting her chin.
“You made your choice,” she says, determination erasing any regret. “Now your whole family dies.”
She walks past us without another look in my direction.
I brace as she passes the tree line.
Stefan comes at me fast, swinging low. I parry the first strike, twist out of the second, but by the third, he’s got our swords crossed as he pushes mine back. I almost lose my footing against his strength. There’s nowhere to go.
He shoves at me, advancing another step. But his heel snags, and he stumbles just enough for me to duck to his left. The forest floor is roots and stones and dips, and the man hasn’t trained on it.
I have.
I know where to put my feet without looking.
My blade scrapes along his ribs and tears through his uniform. Not deep. But enough.
He stops smiling.
I dodge his next strike easily, but as I twist away from him, he catches my arm with his free hand. Patterns of silver light erupt over the skin above his wrist—where a vestige hadn’t existed a minute before.
And ice shoots up my arm.
Not the cold of touching iron in winter. The cold of touching death. It races from his fingertips up through my shoulder, and the muscles in my arm slacken like dead weight.
Frozen.
My grip on the sword nearly fails.
I jerk away, my arm sluggish and numb.
He grins.
“Heart collector,” he says as if it’s a job title. As if he’s introducing himself at a party.
“You’re the one killing all those people,” I accuse, switching the sword to my left hand. Fighting with my left is worse. Much worse. But since my right is currently a slab of meat hanging off my shoulder …