59
Aire
My swords thrust outward, one blade crashing into Poet’s staff, the other blocking the incoming lash of Eliot’s garrote.
In the castle’s private training yard, we paused.
From their respective positions, the jester and minstrel leered, seizing this opportunity to challenge both of my weapons at once.
Not only did this progress our clan’s ability to fight in sync, but apparently we looked good doing so. I sensed this penchant from the jester, his vanity renewed now that we had returned to the stronghold seven days ago.
In the distance, red leaves dripped from The Maple Pasture. Farther off, the morning sun poured golden light across The Wandering Fields.
Because we combated in shifts, my turn had come to be the central target. I ducked, evading another dual attack as we launched into a second round. Poet’s torso beaded with condensation, Eliot’s lute tattoo rippled along his bare arm, and my inked raptors flexed with each block.
My brethren were exercising their own drills in the troops’ lawn, where Aspen and I originally reunited. By comparison, this area remained exclusive to the Royal family, to be used for practice sessions away from public consumption.
To say the least, Poet rarely preferred this option.
He would rather be seen flaunting his naked muscles.
Even if the man had eyes for only Briar, the jester’s origins preserved his desire to remain a showpiece.
But since we had just arrived home, our clan opted to keep a low profile during the first week.
Poet spun across the grass while rotating the staff around his body.
This tactic impaired a victim’s equilibrium before the jester executed his blow.
The majority of the time, it worked. For the man possessed a speed and flexibility that defied the human race, a product of discipline, kinetics, and a level of agility each knight aspired to.
Eliot whirled the garrote, perfecting a fluid sequence of moves. This became easier now that a certain weaponsmith had adjusted his weapon, enabling it to extend farther and swing with less effort.
My swords diced toward the jester’s abdomen, forcing him into a backflip. Snapping upright like a contortionist, he twisted and angled his body, catching my second thrust with a backhanded maneuver.
Poet and Eliot flanked me, plotting their attack three steps ahead. As dawn burnished the castle’s brown masonry, I lunged into motion, and my partners intercepted. How I had missed these mornings with them. But while my mood soared in their company, more than one distraction compromised my focus.
Hazel eyes. Smoky voice.
A rod swooped into my vision.
Goddammit. I spun at the last second, my sword trapping the jester’s staff in place.
His green eyes twinkled. “You’re either stalling—” clap , “—or pining—” clap . “Either way—” clap “—it offends me—” clap “—to know—” clap “—that I’m not—” he quirked a brow “—the center of your attention.”
“Such a brat,” Eliot sniggered. “And they call me theatrical.”
Poet tossed the minstrel a sportive fuck-you grin, to which the man chuckled. Mischievous, thespian bastards. They pivoted, the staff windmilling toward my head, the garrote toward my calves. Grunting, I vaulted the broadswords like wings, fending off each blast.
We disengaged, panting for breath. Daylight spilled across the grass and embossed our skin, trickles of sweat cutting down our chests. It had been an arduous but fruitless match, for I had not performed at my best.
The jester flipped his staff until it landed atop the bridges of his shoulders, his arms dangling over the rod. “’Twas only nostalgia that kept me from cracking that gilded head of yours.”
“Hyperbole at its finest,” Eliot joked while tipping back a tankard of water, then spritzing his hair in a display that would bring half the male nobles in this fortress to their knees.
I drove my sword into the dirt. “I beg your pardon. I’m preoccupied and slept poorly.”
“Mmm-hmm.” The jester’s silken voice humored me. “Does your cock have anything to do with that?”
While taking his second draught of water, Eliot lurched forward, fluid spraying from his mouth. “For fuck’s sake, warn me next time!”
“My tongue never gives anyone warning. Not even my favorite redheaded wife.”
“I beg of you,” I grumbled while scrubbing my nape with a hand towel. “Do not elaborate.”
Yet Poet wasn’t wrong. It had been a long odyssey home, days in which Aspen and I had kept our hands to ourselves amid the clan, even if Poet and Briar hadn’t. At this juncture, my yearnings rivaled my cravings.
To see her. To hold her.
Regardless, Aspen had needed time to reunite with her mother. Honoring that, I returned to my chamber in the west wing. There, I spent too many nights tangled in the sheets and immersed in fantasies, my heart in tatters and my phallus behaving uncooperatively.
“Anyway.” Poet rotated the staff between his fingers with lazy strokes. “I’m thinking of customizing this beauty. You know, embellishing it with something…” he wiggled his free fingers, the black-painted nails flashing. “Something more me .”
“Gaudy, you mean,” Eliot remarked while shrugging a tunic over his damp head.
“Nay, think grander,” Poet scoffed. “Something narcissistic. Perhaps poison inlays or thorns that draw blood, to match Briar’s throwing quills. Or a bit of tinsel that impairs vision. Also, my immortal name engraved into the steel.”
I huffed, emulating the minstrel’s discretion and donning a vest. “Your name is already engraved into the staff.”
“Not nearly large enough.”
“Having a fancier weapon won’t make anyone a better fighter.”
“Being a better fighter won’t make anyone a better hero,” the man countered.
Such advice never failed: Do not play verbal chess with a jester.
We chuckled as I jammed one end of the towel into my back pocket.
“So tell me.” Poet tilted his head. “Are you acquainted with any splendid weaponsmiths? One to whom I might entrust this flattering job? I’ll spare no expense.”
He surveyed me in a way that only the Court Jester surveyed his targets. The gaze of a consummate manipulator who picked through vulnerabilities like threads, deciding which ones to snip in half by means of wit or mockery.
Or in this case, friendship.
“Indeed,” he goaded. “A new weapon commission is in order. Mind delivering the message for me?”
“Drop my name on the waitlist, while you’re at it,” Eliot requested, gaining the jester’s side. “I hear she’s well sought after.”
“In other words,” Poet murmured. “Get your ass to that forge.”
Despite the jump in my pulse, I wavered. “She’s indisposed,” I reminded them. “Her mother—”
“Has enjoyed her daughter’s private company for a week. Trust me, I know when the time for a reunion has arrived. Your fierce lady awaits you.”
“Aspen waits for no one.”
With quiet insistence, Eliot professed, “For those we love, we would all wait for eternity.”
Poet’s eyes glinted. “’Tis a strength. Not a weakness.”
Not wishing to intrude or impose myself, I had given my lady space, believing she would summon me. Yet if I had learned anything about our bond, it was this truth. Neither of us needed to call the other. Not with words.
I would have replied, were it not for a set of footsteps rushing toward the training yard. Our group turned as Nicu strode across the grass, his features in disarray.
“He’s not here,” my liege fretted. “Why didn’t he come?”
Poet balked. One glance at me, and I clarified, “The alchemist.”
I did not blame the jester for his confusion.
Nicu’s ambiguous behavior had been intensifying since Lyrik’s departure to Winter.
Withdrawn, the Royal Son had morphed into the opposite of himself.
He evaded his parents’ inquiries, when their offspring had never kept his grief to himself before. Certainly not from them.
I sensed the family’s distress. A quiet and unapproachable Nicu was a wholly foreign one, taking the jester, princess, and queen by storm.
My liege’s expression crumbled, his tenor thinning to a wisp. “I thought he would come.”
The sight crushed me. Although we had informed him of Lyrik’s transfer to Winter with Jeryn and Flare, the lad clung to a belief that the rogue would change his mind and turn up later.
Worry clouded Eliot’s face. Out of respect for Nicu’s privacy, he cleared his throat. “I have some new ballads to work on,” he consoled, then nodded to us and disappeared through the nearest door.
“Winter,” Nicu mumbled, gazing at the horizon fringed in wheat stalks. “Is that far?”
Poet’s eyebrows dipped. While he strove to interpret this heartrending side of his son, I said quietly, “Yes, Nicu. It’s far.”
“He didn’t tell me,” my friend whispered. “He didn’t say goodbye.”
The jester stalked forward, one index finger tipping up Nicu’s chin. “This upsets you.”
He searched Nicu’s distraught features until realization struck like a thunderbolt. At that moment, the jester’s visage went slack. “Wicked hell,” he breathed. “Nicu...”
“He really chose?” Nicu implored, the question wobbling on his tongue. “He chose to leave me?”
In the midst of Poet’s shock, I stepped forward. “Lyrik embarked with reluctance and a heavy heart,” I reported gently. “For what it’s worth, he does care for you.”
Sunrise painted Nicu’s profile in mellow orange tints. “But not enough.”
Glancing at Poet, Nicu’s eyes watered, and sob burst from his lungs. “Papa,” he pleaded, the word rupturing from his chest.
Anguish consumed the jester’s expression. He opened his arms, mouthing “Come here,” and Nicu crushed himself to his father.
Loathing to witness this scene, I ducked my head as the jester embraced his crying, heartbroken son. Gut-wrenching cries wracked the young man’s frame. The sound thrust a hot poker through my gut, like a fractured silver bell that would never toll the same way again.
A lump budded in my throat as I thought of Raven. But more than my brother, I simply mourned for Nicu, who had become another sibling to me.
After a while, Poet’s features darkened over Nicu’s shoulder. Twisting, he spoke into my liege’s ear until the young man’s tears dried, the speech reinforcing his posture.
Easing back, Poet mustered a comforting grin. “Feel like upstaging your father?”
Nicu wavered, his eyes red-rimmed. “I don’t have my blade.”
“Off you go, then. You know where to find it.”
As my liege vanished inside to retrieve his weapon, Poet’s smile dropped like a guillotine. While staring at the door, he seethed in a deadly register, “What the fuck happened out there?”
“He didn’t touch him,” I counseled while also scanning the threshold. “Not that I know of. But something meaningful occurred between them.”
Be that as it may, this reassurance failed to erase the mayhem crowding Poet’s face. With fatal calm, he murmured, “If that little shit ever comes near my son again, I’ll put him in the fucking ground.”
Even his rage over Aspen’s betrayal hadn’t compared to this venom. Nor had I beheld Poet this murderous since Vex plunged a knife into Briar during the courtyard battle, then when she was banished from Autumn, and next when Poet attempted to burn Rhys alive for orchestrating the princess’s exile.
Nonetheless, I hedged. I might have reminded Poet that his son lived because of Lyrik’s sacrifice. However, in the jester’s current state, a debate would be ill-timed.
Later, perhaps.
Much later.
In the meantime, Poet’s threat was moot. Lyrik was not coming back.
If we saw the rogue again, it would be years from now. And it would be in Winter.
My liege sprinted back onto the yard with Briar in tow. Dismay flashed in the princess’s countenance, though she endeavored to repress this in front of Nicu. As such, he must have told her about this recent turn of events.
Focused on consoling their son, Briar swept across the lawn in sapphire leather pants and a corresponding linen shirt. Exchanging an ardent kiss with Poet, she inched back and swung an apprehensive gaze between her husband and me. “Everything all right?”
“Tonight,” Poet promised her.
They would discuss this at eventide.
With a nod, she rounded her shoulders. “May I join you?”
“Always, Sweet Thorn,” Poet invited while Nicu bobbed his head.
I shuffled back as the father-son duo lined up first. At my side, Briar adjusted the thorn quills in her locks while watching them with an ardent smile.
Instead of his staff, Poet switched to blades for this match. Flipping one between his fingers, he instructed, “Follow me like a ribbon.”
Nicu hunched forward, balancing his custom dagger. “What if I can’t—”
“You can, sweeting.”
“Okay, then. I’ll follow.”
“Splendid.” Fire brimmed in the jester’s pupils. “And when we’re done here, you won’t need to.”
Briar exchanged a warm look with me, then poised her chin as if echoing that statement. Despite the residual pangs lingering in their wake, the jester and his son prowled around one another like shadows of the same person. Magnetic and empowered in their own rights.
My lips curved. Given time, Nicu would overcome this. Someday, he would rise stronger than before.
While the princess watched her husband and son train, Nicu’s gleaming eyes met my own. Smiling, I inclined my head. The gesture conveyed everything I felt and everything he deserved to know.
It’s an honor to serve you.
Time was precious with those we loved. While a new dawn rose, I refused to take this privilege for granted.
Shuffling backward, I harnessed my swords. Leaving the family to their morning, I bathed, changed, and hastened for my stallion.
Normally, the warhorse wouldn’t be pleased to have his meal interrupted. But as I approached, the creature belted out a snort of mild impatience. If I didn’t know better, I would say he was lecturing me about taking so long to make this journey.
Mounting the saddle, I emitted a perplexed chuckle and patted the equine’s mane. “I’ve missed her too.”
My lady knight. My Brazen Creature.
The time had indeed come. I would not stay away any longer.
Riding toward the forest, my heart took flight. The last time I pursued Aspen from the castle, it had been to apprehend the woman. Now, it would be for a different reason.