20. Renard #4
He smooths his cloak with both hands, regaining himself piece by odious piece.
“The original spell failed,” he says, soldiering on with cracked composure. “It affected the crops, mostly. The Blight Mother’s blood will undo the spell, and I can begin again.”
“She is not simply the Blight Mother. Her name is Vireth,” I growl.
“Oh, who cares?” He says with a dismissive sniff.
Rage overtakes me, and I hit him. There is no honor in it, no chivalrous restraint, no elegant contest between men of equal standing.
My fist connects with his mouth with a satisfying crack, and he staggers into the desk, knocking over a stack of parchment.
The pain flaring in my hand is immediate and absolutely worth it.
Arden touches his split lip, blood staining his thumb. He looks at it with mild curiosity before laughing softly.
“You’re not as strong as you used to be.”
“And you’re still a bastard,” I snap. “All those dead at your feet,” I say. “My wife, my boys, our father, scores of our people—your people! And you stand there defending your actions—bringing a kingdom to its knees because you could not admit to your failures.”
“I haven’t failed, Renard. Not really.”
“Starving ravens, Arden!”
He wipes the blood from his lip with the back of his hand. “You were always so easily horrified.”
“And you were always less human than people realized.”
Finally, something breeches his icy exterior. I recognize it in the tightening around his eyes and the brief hardening of his jaw.
“Humanity is not a qualification for rule,” he says.
“No. But a soul helps.”
He laughs.
“And what has your soul done, Renard? Fed a few peasants? Whispered sweetly to your horse? Comforted a fae monster while the kingdom suffered?” He tilts his head. “I assume it’s for her you came slithering in through the drains and not for the city you’ve ignored so beautifully.”
My body goes very still.
“What have you done with her?”
“Oh, she’s comfortable enough below. The accommodations are plain, but fitting. Stone, iron, a few wards to keep her from turning my guards into compost.”
“Take me to her,” I demand, my disgust giving way to my desperation to see her—to be near her.
He smirks. “I would say you can meet each other in the spirit realm, but I wonder whether that will be permitted.” He leans closer, lowering his voice as though sharing court gossip. “A goddess of death might have standards. She may not care to welcome men who fail everyone they love.”
I raise my fist to hit him again, but at that moment the guards pour in, too many for the cramped room and too close for a clean fight.
I slash the first across the forearm with my dagger, and he drops his sword with a shout.
The second drives his shoulder into my ribs, slamming me against the desk—sending an explosion of pain down my side.
I bring my knee up hard into his stomach and shove him back into the third.
I manage to get one more strike in before something heavy hits the back of my skull.
The world flashes white and my knees finally give way beneath me.
Hands seize me from every side, wrenching my arms behind me with viciousness. Someone kicks the back of my bad knee, and I drop to the floor—my breath whooshing from my lungs. My vision flickers, and I taste blood.
“Alive,” Arden says, his cool, calculating voice distant. “For now.”
I force myself to look at him, pouring every shred of rage and disgust into my gaze.
He crouches in front of me, careful to keep beyond reach even with three men pinning my arms behind me.
His lip has swollen where I struck him. I hope it festers.
The sight gives me petty satisfaction—apparently the only satisfaction I can access at the moment.
“You always did make things more difficult than they needed to be,” he says.
“Happy to be a fly in your ointment, brother,” I slur.
“Take him to the old holding rooms beneath the east tower. Not near her,” he spits.
The guards haul me upright and my vision swims, and I nearly retch on Arden’s boots. My dagger is gone, and my pack is torn from my shoulder. One guard twists my arm high enough behind my back that sparks burst at the edges of my sight.
As they drag me down a corridor I don’t recognize, blood drips from my nose and lip onto my shirt. Somewhere in this dungeon is Vireth—the woman I love—hopefully faring better, though that is unlikely. Each step away from her feels like another failure.
No. Not another failure. The same one, mayhap. The only one I have ever truly feared—to arrive too late when I was needed… to love someone, and still be unable to save them.
Yet I refuse to count my failures before they hatch.
I won’t give up yet—not until one of us lies broken, our spirit knocking at the doors of the spirit realm.
It might feel like failure now, but it isn’t.
Not yet. Because somewhere in this crumbling castle, Vireth is alive, and as long as she still lives, so does the chance to make this right.