8 #3
As for her strange demeanor moments ago, I must have been projecting. Unaccustomed to reading Aspen, I could neither reconcile whatever hints she gave off, nor trust myself to decipher their meaning.
Where I had intuition on my side, Aspen had deception on hers. She’d been groomed by Autumn’s original traitors, the Masters having trained her from an early age. Therefore, she excelled in the art of duplicity and saw this map from yet another angle.
With our combined strengths, this clan formed an invincible unit. If any band should be equipped to uncover the treasonous Autumn soldiers who sided with Rhys, it was us.
Or so we thought.
One crucial benefit my sojourn had yielded were the locations of Rhys’s recruits in Spring and Winter.
Of the former, Eliot and Briar’s ladies had assisted in bringing this knowledge to light.
From there, Basil and Fatima dealt with the traitors inconspicuously, disposing of the soldiers in prisons once they proved unwilling to divulge Rhys’s strategy.
They would be judged according to the law once the rest of Rhys’s Seasonal faction was uncovered.
As for the latter nation, Jeryn stabbed his index finger against every treacherous group of knights stationed across the map. “Three insurgent camps per Season.” Then he set one ringed finger upon this nation’s border. “Yet only one in Autumn.”
“That’s all you,” Poet praised his wife.
“It’s both of us,” Briar corrected softly.
From the moment she defied her banishment and stated her case to the troops, the leadership between this princess, the jester, and their queen had influenced my brethren, strengthening the army’s devotion to the Crown.
This explained why Rhys hadn’t succeeded in mobilizing more than one unit in this kingdom.
Over his lifetime, Jeryn had earned his share of respect from his army as well. That aside, the king forsook supporters after announcing his love bond with Flare. Not giving a shit what anyone thought, this couple had braved the consequences.
For Jeryn’s part, he’d quietly picked off the traitors like fleas in a lab, torturing them for information they ultimately didn’t have. No matter how much blood had coated Winter’s fingers, the soldiers in custody knew nothing about the disloyal troop in Autumn.
Rhys was spiteful. The coward relied on instilling fear, feeding on a soldier’s bitterness like a cobra, and commanding them to act in his stead.
At any rate, Summer should believe the Spring and Winter units had been dismantled by sheer bad luck.
That most units had panicked, changed their minds, and restored their allegiance to their rightful sovereigns, whereas the rest killed themselves off out of petty disagreements, tensions, and competition over rank.
Spring and Winter had conspired with Queen Giselle to circulate this fabrication across Summer, certain it would reach her husband’s ears.
Yet after being humbled more than once by this clan, neither was he entirely foolish.
All this time, Summer had been waging a gradual campaign, to the point where even Queen Giselle couldn’t verify her husband’s Autumn recruits, nor justify their migration patterns.
Ultimately, that he relocated the traitors before I reached them spoke volumes.
“Somehow, Rhys knows of Autumn’s vigilance,” I stated. “Somehow, he knows of my mission. In which case, he must also suspect the collapse of his Spring and Winter faction was not happenstance after all.”
Aspen stuffed an errant lock of hair into her hood. “Giselle could try charming the answer out of him. His ego is so big, it wouldn’t take more than fluttering her eyelashes. It’s a basic but effective trick.”
My ears rang. “How the bloody hell would you know?”
“I’m going to assume that was a rhetorical question.”
“It was. Yet an answer would still benefit us.”
She indicated Poet. “I’m standing next to a Spring artisan who practiced that very tactic for years. Besides, pretentious men are easy targets. Especially this king.”
The jester scoffed. “To gain this sort of information, flirtation wouldn’t be enough.
She’d have to suck his cock with enough force to dislodge it from his body.
Rightly so, ’tis out of the question for Giselle, who can barely stand to discuss the weather with Rhys over breakfast. According to Summer’s Queen—who confided in Avalea and Briar during the last Peace Talks—Rhys has been appealing for sex more often lately, only to be refused.
The entreaties alone are turning Giselle’s stomach. ”
My cheeks heated. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Should we, er… be told this?”
“Giselle has given us leave to share these interactions with the clan,” Briar reassured me, then flattened her palm midair. “But yes, we’re getting off track.”
Poet splayed his fingers atop the table. “The pubescent cocksucker is too stupid to act this smart. It shouldn’t have taken us this fucking long to uproot his cult.”
On the map, I tapped every site I had pursued.
“Each time I’ve come close to their unit, I arrived mere days, or hours, too late.
Restlessness in the atmosphere vouched for that.
Always, the troop departed in haste, sometimes because they expected an ambush.
” I paused in thought. “Other times, they departed as though on their way to cause an ambush. Yet it would be folly to swarm nearby army camps.”
“Not when it would incite a war,” Briar agreed. “And certainly not when Jeryn and Flare have deprived Rhys of Winter soldiers. That drawback alone has placed Summer at a loss.”
Jeryn hooked his thumbs into his coat pockets. “Without treasonous backup from Winter, he doesn’t have the balls to act. Nor the military strength to win.”
“And not without a guarantee the news wouldn’t reach us,” Flare added.
“Allow me to play devil’s advocate,” Poet solicited. “He might not conduct a bloodbath on a grand scale. But he would in bite-sized batches over extended periods of time. That would disguise his involvement and conceal his cult.”
Briar rethought the matter. “My husband’s right.”
“Do I get a treat, Highness?”
Glimpsing the subtle curve of Poet’s lips, the princess tossed him a look saturated in enough diplomatic heat to light a bonfire, thus implying he would find out later. “Then indeed, it’s plausible the targets are fellow knights still loyal to Autumn.”
The notion produced a twinge in my gut. I could not deny this logic.
“That they avoided capture half the time proves they somehow anticipated me,” I concluded.
“As for any ambushes they had planned to cause, even if they’d been hellbent on small massacres, the spontaneous endeavors were futile.
Upon tracking their movements, it appears they never actually succeeded in staging these attacks.
For there were no targets to be found in those intended areas.
One might think the traitors had been given the wrong directions. ”
The moment Aspen shifted, I speared my gaze toward her. “Is there something you’d like to share with us?”
As if the others rarely noted her body language, the female straightened. “No.”
“Because I’ve never known your smartass mouth to remain shut.”
“You haven’t been here to monitor my smartass mouth in a long time.”
My gaze slid to the anatomy in question. “That can be rectified.”
Aspen parted her lips to retaliate when another voice interrupted. “We have a spy.”