Chapter Eight #4
Over on the small white couch where Mareda had been alone all evening, both of the queen’s ladies now sat together.
Sat very close indeed. Imogen held Mareda’s face tenderly in both of her hands, whispering something in a low, urgent tone, her thumb pressed against the princess’s lower lip as though she could stop it from trembling.
Ger did not know where to look or how he could possibly make himself scarce without returning to Avette.
He took one, uncertain backward step toward the far wall—only to draw Mareda’s glassy gaze his way.
Her eyes widened, a tear spilling down her pale cheek, and at the small sound that squeaked out of her, Imogen sprang away at once.
The two women stared up at him; Mareda’s tear-stained face was horror-stricken, Imogen’s cold and defiant.
Ger could only stare back at them. Clearly, they hadn’t wanted to be found like this, though he had no idea why.
He remembered Adeline’s bitter disappointment over their long falling out, and how she’d hated playing their go-between.
How she’d wondered what had happened between them, and if there was anything she could do to fix it.
Personally, he’d assumed it had something to do with Mareda being a snotty, self-important pain in the ass, though he’d obviously never said as such to Adeline. Not in so many words, anyway.
This makes a lot more sense, he thought.
Mareda broke their three-way stare first, turning her dewy eyes to Imogen and worrying at her lip with her teeth. Though she didn’t look around, Imogen reached out to lay a settling hand on Mareda’s knee as she held Ger’s eye.
“Not a word,” she warned.
Despite himself, Ger scowled. He knew he could be obtuse, but he wasn’t a complete bloody prick. “I wouldn’t—”
“Ladies,” the voice pealed from the other side of the room.
Mareda stiffened, and Imogen snatched her hand away, hopping to her feet at once.
“Coming, Your Majesty.”
But Imogen halted after a few quick strides, and Ger didn’t have to turn to know that Avette had appeared from behind the screen.
The room had gotten impossibly colder, and his joints hurt as he spun to face the queen.
It would be taken for a gesture of respect and a credit to his extensive training.
Honestly, he could not bear to have his back to her; to know he was in her presence without having eyes on her every move, even if he knew it made little difference.
“Oh,” Imogen breathed. She clasped her hands to her chest, brows softening. “You look—”
Avette held up a hand. “I don’t care for this one.”
The clipped, cold words dragged at the fine hairs at the base of his skull. Their queen was in a mood now, which did not bode well for any of them. My fault, said a thin voice in his head. Daughters, he was such a fucking coward. He should have just—
What?
Let her kiss him, and hope he didn’t gag against her perfect, plump lips? Taken her right there against the mirror, and prayed she didn’t freeze his cock off on a cruel whim?
It was the right choice, said a very familiar voice in his head.
But Ger’s stomach was somehow both taut and roiling.
His ears rang, bracing for the shouting—a learned response, he knew.
Avette didn’t need to shout, but his body didn’t know that.
It only knew the physical familiarity of this feeling.
Standing on the precipice of fear and preparing to be shoved, without warning, into freefall.
“I want another dress.”
Imogen bowed her head, very graciously, not looking at the rail of dresses Avette had walked straight past. “Of course, Your Majesty. I’ll bring you another at once.”
“No.”
It was only one word, spoken softly, but Goddess, Ger’s stomach was beginning to hurt.
That pain writhed like a sentient thing, up and into his ribs, binding his chest deliberately.
Avette was still as all those living sculptures she’d made; still as a predator on the hunt.
Only her eyes moved, gleaming in the glow of the fire as they turned to capture Mareda in her sights.
“Cousin,” she said, the word somehow both gentle and barbed. “We have spent little time together this evening. You shall help me; let Lady Imogen take her rest.”
Nobody moved. Ger’s pulse bleated like a beast facing the cold flash of steel.
“Get up,” said Avette. Still so soft, and lovely, and absolutely poisonous. She turned, hair swinging elegantly over her pale shoulders, and glided away again as though buoyed on the winds she commanded.
Silence rang. Mareda grabbed at the armrest and scooted forward, her slim arms trembling as she tried to hoist herself quickly to her feet.
On her broken leg, the awkward angle of her foot caught her slippered heel against the carpet, and she fell back to her seat with a sharp, short gasp.
Imogen hurried over, reaching over the settee to retrieve Mareda’s wooden crutch, then grabbed her arm and dragged her upright.
“Would you like to help, Gerard?” she hissed over her shoulder.
He would have, actually, little love though he had for the princess.
He recognised that blank panic on her face, even if he’d never actually stopped to consider his own terror in the mirror.
He wanted to help her, but his limbs were heavy, pinned in place by the roaring, vibrating rush of his blood.
“What on all of Adhlas is taking so long?”
Avette’s voice was close again, but this time, Ger couldn’t manage to turn around; couldn’t manage to do anything but force slow, wheezing breaths through his tight lungs.
His body was shrivelling from the outside, fighting to make him small enough to escape notice, and leaving no room for the storm of panic raging within his chest, crushing his breath.
“Its—” Imogen began, glancing around for Mareda’s crutch again and then thrusting it into her hand. “She’s broken her leg, Your Majesty. She moves a bit slower—”
“Yes,” Avette said, sounding rather bored amid the tense, breathless panic that had seized the rest of them. “I had, in fact, noticed. Where is the break?”
Slowly—stiffly—Mareda stretched out her broken leg and lifted her skirt over her shin, revealing the thick white cast that encased her leg from her heel to just below her knee.
Ger felt a surge of sickly guilt at the sight, the echo of Mareda’s scream ringing in his ear as he’d scrambled backward off her awkwardly bent leg to a chorus of winces and gasps. My fault, he thought.
“I see,” said Avette quietly. “Well, that won’t do, will it?”
A flash of blue cut through the fog of Ger’s dizzying nausea, and he found his limbs responding, finally, turning him just in time to see Avette’s eyes close, her fingers lightly resting on her pendant as its light throbbed and pulsed in time with the rising Winds.
Ger’s hand scrabbled, without his bidding, for his sword hilt.
I’m protected, I’m a—
But he wasn’t a protector. He hadn’t been for some time now.
He knew it with the way his fingers slid right over the hilt and grasped at his own roiling stomach.
He knew it with the shameful sinking in his chest as Mareda’s brow flickered—then crumpled entirely, her scream ripping free of her lungs, swallowing even the sound of Ger’s own drumming pulse.
She folded under the pain, sliding to the floor with another choking, ragged scream that lit Ger’s every nerve ending on fire.
And he knew, as Imogen dropped to her knees at Mareda’s side, that he had lost the right to call himself a Gard of Eisalaan.
“Gracious, the dramatics,” Avette called over the princess’s sobs. She gave a slight, soft tut, and her cold aura withdrew as she moved away. “Lady Imogen, fetch my dress. Gard, you may remove the ungrateful girl’s cast. She will not need it any longer.”
Ger didn’t answer her.
Protector, pleaded that youthful, hopeful voice of a man he no longer recognised.
He was no one’s protector. He never had been.