Chapter 23
JO
I think I hate him.
My mother throws the ball of dough onto her workbench in the center of the staff’s kitchen. She’s stress baking loaves of bread. “You need to eat,” she insists as she begins to work the dough.
Beau eyes my mother, then me, but keeps whatever she’s thinking to herself. Probably a good decision considering I feel like I want to rip off my skin. Or someone else’s. That seems like a better option.
He brought his wife.
“Who are we waiting on?” Messer asks, sitting at the end of the kitchen table, feet propped on the edge of the surface, chair tilted back on its hind legs.
“Sam,” I state.
“Of fucking course,” Drake mutters.
My mother eyes me as she kneads furiously. “Will you please eat something?”
I take a deep breath to temper my reaction. “I’m not hungry.”
She dares to look to Beau for confirmation, who shakes her head in caution. “She’s not hungry.”
I slap my palm down on the table “I just said that!”
Everyone shares looks of trepidation, the room falling into uncomfortable silence.
I squeeze my eyes shut, massaging the pressure building in my temples with my fingertips.
The sound of Messer’s chair slamming back to the ground has me opening my eyes, and I watch him leave the open doorway of the kitchen, heading into the pantry.
He’s gone for less than a minute before he returns again with an apple, placing it on the table before me.
I give him an exasperated glare, but I bring the apple to my mouth anyway.
The bite is loud and obnoxious. Each successive audible crunch emphasizes the stretching silence.
It’s not as terrible as I thought it’d be, putting food in my belly.
I suppose I didn’t realize exactly how hungry I was after skipping dinner.
The clock on the wall tells me we’re nearing midnight.
Sam snaps into existence on the other side of the table, right in front of the last vacant seat. His uniform is clean, indicating there hasn’t been any further fighting with the Strou since I last saw him.
“Fill me in,” he says, pulling the seat out and sitting.
No one answers, all of their gazes flitting between the other occupants of the room, wondering who was going to be the first to broach the topic at hand.
I all but roll my eyes, rotating the apple in my palm with my fingertips. “The metal slinger has arrived.”
Sam’s eyes widen a fraction, head tilting back at the revelation before he adjusts to the news. “Let me guess,” he says. “He wants to reconcile.”
My mother spits Sam’s name in admonishment at the same time Beau does something underneath the table’s surface that has him flinching with a bark of pain.
“A little sensitivity, please?” Evelyn hisses through clenched teeth.
I feel foolish for having fantasized about a different kind of reunion with Acker. He didn’t come for me. He came for my men.
I think I hate him.
Messer rocks his chair back on its rear legs as soon as he sits down again. “Believe it or not, he came to seek an alliance.”
Sam’s eyes lock on mine and I hurry to reassure him. “I declined, obviously.”
“Bringing his wife didn’t exactly help his case,” Drake murmurs, scratching at his chin.
There’s not an ounce of tact in this room.
“For all that, he did reveal that Wren has decided to jump sides in the war,” I say, inspecting my apple, debating if I want to take another bite. “And he hinted at having knowledge of his father’s iniquities.”
This gets Beau’s attention. “And you believe him?”
I shrug. Who the hell knows. And it doesn’t matter; I won’t agree to join his cause either way. “Drake put them in one of the abandoned cottages. I have a small contingent of soldiers keeping watch over them.”
“Wait, you didn’t send them on their way immediately?” Sam asks.
“They’ll be on a ship back to Kenta the day after tomorrow, but I believe Wells and Olivia will choose to stay,” I say.
His expression turns incredulous. “You can’t be serious.”
“Olivia is pregnant. She’s currently being seen to by some midwives.”
The confirmation that I’m letting them remain in the city by offering them resources seems to upset him even further. “That’s the equivalent of handing the enemy a knife and inviting them to stab us in the back. You know that better than anyone,” he accuses.
“Watch it,” Beau warns.
He stands from his seat and appeals to my mother. “Evelyn, you can’t possibly allow this.”
My mother places a portion of dough into a bowl before covering it with a cloth. “It is her decision to make.”
Sam balks at her calmness, looking over the rest of the room’s occupants for support, outraged. Messer continues to rock in his chair with a grin on his face, but Drake doesn’t look up, unwilling to speak against his queen or his previous commander.
“I’ll meet with them,” Beau says. Her nervous swallow is audible but she seems firm in her decision. “I’ll be able to get a sense of their intentions.”
I tilt my head as I look at her. “Beau—”
But she’s quick to stop me. “I need to speak with my brother anyway,” she says. “For my own sake.”
She’s never said it aloud, but I know she still wrestles with her own feelings of guilt about betraying her brother.
I had assured her and her mother, Greta, that I’d never use Beau as a tool for my own gain.
It was a condition I made in exchange for Beau helping me in taking down the king of Kenta.
And I meant it, too. No matter how tempting the idea of utilizing her gift to see Acker’s aura is, I never want her to feel pressured into doing so by me.
It was at my insistence that we had offered Acker the choice to take his father’s throne, but Beau felt Acker’s allegiance to his father was too strong to be included in our plans ahead of time.
That if given too much time to dwell on it, he might reveal our plans to his father.
Then, after the conversation I overheard where his father insisted that Acker marry Irina, I was doubtful enough about him to follow her guidance.
We agreed that the best way was to spring the option on him at the very last minute, but he never saw the chance to usurp his father as the mercy I meant for it to be, just as another layer to my betrayal.
In hindsight, it was probably for the best, despite the pain Beau suffered at having to be the one to strap her brother to the chair.
She was the only person capable of subduing Acker, even if only for a few minutes, as he would never have seen it coming.
Those last moments she shared with him in their home were so difficult, the guilt biting as painfully as the spikes on her metal rope that cut into her brother’s skin.
After she gives me a look of assurance, I nod. “I’ll send Fredrich with you.”
General Samasu is flabbergasted, shaking his head. “And the prince? Do you at least have him restrained with mangi stones?”
I take a bite of my apple, ignoring his question.
The slight shake of his head turns into nods. “All right. Fine. Since you’re not interested in my council, why have you requested me?”
“I need you to travel to Roison and update Chryse on the situation.” I made the deal with Chryse when it appeared Kenta was on the losing side of the war, I still don’t want to ruin the alliance on the chance things go south with Edmond and Wren. Which is likely.
“A bird is not sufficient?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I’m not risking it getting intercepted. And with winter closing in, your arrival is both quicker and guaranteed.”
His mouth thins. “If Chryse finds out secondhand that the prince of Kenta is here, he’s going to come to the wrong conclusion. The sooner we inform him of the truth, the better,” he says.
“I’m glad we agree.”
Neither of us point out the potential ramifications of the Strou finding out that their own heiress may be conspiring against them, especially after her marriage was intended to secure their alliance with Kenta. Or worse, if they believed we were holding her hostage here in Maile.
I ask Drake to retrieve a map from the library and we slide some of my mother’s bowls to the side when he returns, making room as he lays the map flat on the surface.
We all huddle around it as we go over the last known whereabouts of the Roison leader and what his potential movements might have been since then.
It’s likely Sam will have to do a bit of jumping about in order to find him.
“It shouldn’t take me longer than a day. Two at most,” he says.
Drake soon has to leave, needing to return to the wharf and pass along the instructions to keep the Kenta ship anchored offshore.
The crew will be fed and well kept, but confined to the ship; we don’t need them spreading news of the prince’s arrival.
Whether Acker coming here is an act of treason against his own father or an act of aggression against me, it’s imperative we keep as tight a lid on the situation as we can for the time being.
My mother gives an assortment of baked goods to Messer before she departs for bed, and he makes an off-color joke about my mother that has me chucking my half-eaten apple at his retreating head as he ducks out of the kitchen.
Sam disappears not long after. Then, it’s just me and Beau left to make our trek out of the kitchen, into the main hall toward the stairs to our bedrooms.
When we first came to Maile, Beau lived in a flat next to Messer near the gulf, but it didn’t take long to figure out that living in the city wasn’t a viable option for her.
She would go days, sometimes more than a week at a time, not stepping a foot outside.
There were too many people. While she’s gotten a lot better at not getting overwhelmed in large crowds, she said their auras had started seeping through the walls, the population too dense for her to get any reprieve.
She needed a more isolated place to reset.
It took some convincing, but eventually Beau moved into the palace.
The oil lamp swings in her hand, throwing our shadows dancing on the walls with every step. “How are you feeling?” she asks, voice barely above a whisper.
I release a long-suffering sigh. “I hate it when you do this.”
“Do what?”
“Ask me how I’m feeling when you already know.”
“I’m trying to be polite.”
“No, you want to know if what I say aligns with whatever it is you see in my aura. Then you’ll do your emotional sorcery where you sneakily lead me to the truth of my own feelings, because you don’t want me to suppress things. And, frankly, I don’t have the energy for it tonight.”
She blinks at me. “I see you’re frustrated.”
“Beau,” I all but growl at her, as we reach the landing that leads to our rooms.
“Fine.” She swings open her bedroom door. “But as much as you believe you hate him, you really don’t.” Then she slams the door shut, taking the lamp with her.
Alone in the darkened hall, I let out a breath that finally doesn’t feel forced—an exhale that I don’t have to concentrate on holding steady in order to appear put together, when everything inside of me wants to scream.
He didn’t come for me.
In my bedroom, I don’t bother lighting a lamp as I undress down to my undergarments.
The cup of tea sitting on my bedside table is ice-cold when I take a sip.
Then I take another, but only a little one.
I’m too nervous to drink all the sleep aid, given the circumstances.
Not with the tether refusing to settle below my ribs, riled up by Acker’s proximity.
It pulls even now in his direction. Insistent and frustrating, and I need something to dull the ache.
Before I climb into bed, I retrieve another necklace of stones from the bedside drawer, draping it on top of the gyve around my throat. I inhale shakily at the weight of them, the pressure increasing as they smother my magic even more. The tether is still heavier.
I’m chilled to the bone as I slide under the blankets.
The tea is already lulling me into a dreamlike state.
I usually down the entire concoction, which knocks me out within moments, but the smaller dose is dragging out my thoughts and memories of the day into long strings of vivid images.
My only solace is that I won’t remember any of this when I wake.
Even though I know he’s not here for me, I can’t seem to stop flashes of the fantasy I saw inside Acker’s mind when we were on the wharf from coming in quick succession.
Me in the dress I wore the night I betrayed him, an unkempt bed, skirts hiked to my thighs as I teeter on the edge of the mattress.
I could sense the stone under his knees when he knelt at my command today, as if he was anticipating the slight edge of pain.
I could tell he enjoyed it, even though his face betrayed nothing.
I fight the druglike pull of the tea, trying to control my own thoughts, but the dream plays on.
My hands pulling at his hair, legs draped over his shoulders, heels digging into his back.
The vision is sweet torture and I can feel my heart racing as I claw for a way out.
I don’t want to see the strength of his hand as his fingers dig into my thigh, or the shift of his forearm when he splays a hand over my stomach, or the—
Something about the sheets …
The perspective skews to a view of my hands as they grip the material between my fingers. Then to a wisp of gauzy material hanging from the bed’s canopy filters through the vision and I gasp, eyes opening at the realization.
On the wharf, I dismissed Acker’s fantasy as nothing more than an attempt to goad me into reacting. Which I did, like an imbecile, forcing him to kneel. But I hadn’t considered anything of it beyond that. I’d been so incensed by his audacity that I missed the obvious.
The bed. The sheets. The canopy.
My bedchamber.
How would he know what the inside of my bedchamber looks like?
Unless … unless he’s come through the Bond. Without my knowledge. Like when I’m … asleep.
Horrified, I reach for the lamp I know is on my bedside table, but the motion is lethargic. The tea is too strong to fight. I consider yelling for Beau, but what could she do? Keep watch over me in case an Acker that she can’t see appears in my mind?
Touching the stones around my neck, I’m at least assured by the extra set I added, and in the knowledge that Acker can’t hurt me.
Not unless he figured out how to break the blood oath.
But, just in case, I call my blade, keeping the dagger’s hilt tight in my fist as I finally allow sleep to claim me.
When I wake up the next morning, the weapon rests on my bedside table.
Its blade?
Sharpened.