Chapter 10
Chapter
He put her in his bed.
He. Put. Her. In. His. Bed.
The potent smell of mint rips me from sleep.
I’m lying in a room that doesn’t belong to me. Above me is a low-beamed ceiling, fitted with cobwebs. To my left, obscure shadows cast by a small chamber stick dance across a faded brick wall. But that isn’t what sends my pulse racing.
At the center of the dimly lit room stands my future husband. Rigid. Imposing. Entirely unaware that I’ve awoken as he stares down his nose at something in the corner.
No. Not something.
Someone.
The ache in my arms sharpens as I shift, but I ignore it. I need to see who stands at the foot of the bed. Or rather, whose presence stirs that of the realm’s most petulant prince.
I’m expecting to find Xander or Rhidland. Preparing myself for the ensuing banter that is all but promised in their company. But only silence greets me. Silence, and the fleeting gaze of autumn green eyes.
My cheeks heat, dappled with a new kind of panic. The masked knight looks so at home in the darkened corner that one might overlook him entirely. I, however, can’t help but to look.
Frog takes a single step forward and my lungs seize.
I hadn’t realized just how much the stormy night had hidden.
The masked knight is well and truly a cause for curiosity.
Even larger in the daylight lanterns, he stands.
His limbs, long and rippling with lean muscle, tighten beneath my stare, as if he’s waiting for my permission to breathe.
Or maybe it’s the fear seizing his lungs, too?
The stinging memory of his words twists something inside of me and I tear my gaze away. But not before catching how Frog’s brows dip, his head tilting ever so slightly in my direction. Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t—
I look. Frog’s eyes are still trained on me. But it isn’t fear I see in them. It’s…remorse?
Thoren follows the knight’s gaze, his eyes bouncing between us. I dip my chin, silently praying the heat flooding my cheeks fades before they give the prince the wrong idea.
Too late.
Thoren lunges at the knight, his lip curled into a wicked snarl.
“Stop!” I shriek, lurching upright from the bed.
The prince growls in reply as he attempts to shove his finger into the chest of Father’s most lethal hand. Only to meet the cool metal of the knight’s blade, fixed as a shield between them. I could have never expected something like this would be an arousing thing to witness.
“Did you not hear me, blade?”
I suck in a sharp breath, taken aback by the prince’s brazen use of the outdated slur. But while my face contorts into outrage for the knight, he couldn’t appear less bothered. It’s his lack of reaction that has the prince blowing hot air out of his nose like some kind of deranged animal.
“Leave. Now,” he barks.
“I heard you well enough the first time.” The dark knight straightens, but his posture is free of unrest, his body as steady as the words that slip past his masked lips. “Your voice, no matter the volume in which you use it, carries the same amount of power. Which is to say, very little.”
Three small lines bracketing either side of the knight’s gaze accentuate the subtle lilt in his tone. If I had to wager, I’d say there’s a pretty good chance he’s smiling behind that mask of his.
“This is not your kingdom. And I am not your blade.”
The mussed-up sheets clutched tightly to my chest fall to the wayside, taking the lower half of my jaw. I stare, utterly titillated by the knight’s apparent way with words.
Did he say as many to me last night? I cannot recall.
I barely have time to process the vicious onslaught of memories from last night or the rapidly growing heaviness in my chest when the cutting sound of metal zings through the air.
Two men have squared off, their swords aimed at the other’s chest. Where they think their swords will go, aside from caught in the lowered beams of the small guest quarters, is beyond me. And apparently beyond reason.
“I suppose I should be grateful for that. My knights would never allow a Redhood within the castle’s walls. Let alone within ten feet of its princess,” Thoren bites.
Frog’s eyes flicker to me, softening in a way fear would never allow.
His guard is down, only for a moment, but that is all it takes for Thoren to find exactly what it is he’s looking for. A weakness.
And for reasons I can’t begin to make sense of, this knight’s weakness is me.
I pace the narrow corridor outside of Father’s chancellery, where he’s holding an audience with both Thoren and Frog.
The men speak in hushed tones. A disgruntled noise here. A mirthless laugh there. Meaningless chatter, is all it is.
Not once have I heard Galahand’s name.
There is no Memorial to be held. No mourning to be seen.
All I have to go off of is the comment Thoren made. He believes the Redhoods are to blame. Though no real reason has been shared outside the theory of it being from petty theft.
So, naturally, I have no other choice than to spy through the little metal keyhole that’s been fashioned into the large door. A plan that would work great if I could just—
“Keen on losing the other eye now, are you?”
I jump, guilty as a Gretel whose mouth has been found covered in crumbs.
Until I see who’s sauntering toward me.
My relief melts into a grin. “Brother.”
“Sister.” He meets me with a damp hug and a limp smile. “I heard about Galahand. I’m so sorry.”
Me too.
Gally may have not been the most sensical person, or the most pleasant to be around, but he didn’t deserve what happened to him. He didn’t deserve death.
I let Xander hold me in his arms, despite the wet chill now racing over me.
Though, I do wonder how he came to be this way.
Did Father send him out to find the Redhoods?
Or did he simply favor the rain over a bath?
With there being no sun to shine on our reservoirs, our running water is but a few degrees short of freezing.
I pluck at his half-dried tunic when I spot the fresh bruises hidden just beneath. I lean back. He looks worse than the day before. And his eyes? They’re no longer the vibrant lilac I remember. They’ve dulled into something paler, nearly unrecognizable.
“Who did this to you? Was it Father?” I breathe, noting the familiar marker of Father’s right hook. “Was this because of me? Because I didn’t listen to your warnings about climbing to my tower’s window?”
“No,” he hushes, pulling me back into his arms so that the irrefutable evidence is no longer in my line of sight. But there is no dismissing what I saw.
He’s hurt. And I’m leaving.
My stomach knots picturing him trying to dress his own wounds. “Promise me you’ll take care of yourself? That you’ll wash your wounds and not just bandage them in dirty linens?”
“Hey, I wash my clothes at least once a month.”
“Promise me, Xander. Promise me you won’t let this place ruin you. I can’t leave without knowing you’ll be okay.” I choke, and his grip tightens around me. “I need to know you’ll be okay. I—”
“Shhh. It’s alright. I’m alright.” Xander presses his wet lips to my forehead, rocking me in his arms.
“Because of you, we are all going to be okay. And not because some curse says so, but because of who you are. In here.” His bruised knuckles touch the flat of my chest, carrying the weight of his words in their heat. “You carry the promise of hope in every beat.”
My eyes swell, stung by the prickle of unshed tears.
“So keep this safe,” he says. “Whatever you do. Understand?”
My head shakes, not because I don’t understand, but because I do. “What of you, brother? Why stay?” My mind loops around the offer Father had once made him. One that would have promised him freedom.
That’s when I see it. The way his gaze lingers toward the shadowed hall that leads toward the castle’s caverns.
“Ella?” I whisper.
His heart stutters beneath my cheek, spurred by the very mention of her name. “I’m going to get her back.”
I tilt my head on his chest, utterly useless as I watch the pain build in his eyes. If only the fates had seen fit to switch our places. He’d be allowed to marry Ella. Thoren would be left to rot in her place. And maybe, just maybe, Gally would still be alive.
I cling to my brother. To the ludicrous fantasy that such things like right and wrong, sorrow and joy, could come in equal measure.
To the belief that if my brother and I hold each other just a little longer, squeeze a little tighter, we won’t have to say goodbye.
And for a moment, I almost fool myself into believing it.
Until the large doors of the chancellery swing open, and I am once again thrown at the foot of my fate.