CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE #3
Brennan’s jaw clenched, but he nodded graciously and stepped back, his expression looking torn between annoyance and relief.
“Of course.” His gaze met mine. “The next dance belongs to me.” He took my hand, squeezing it quickly, before placing it on the Hermit’s arm.
Rowan and Kienan emerged from the crowd and slapped their arms around Brennan, pulling him toward a servant with a tray of fresh drinks as they laughed.
I watched him walk away, biting my lip longingly, feeling the loss of his warmth, his kiss, his body. His lifeforce. My heart thundered.
“The hell is wrong with you?” The Hermit hissed, pulling me against him. “You look like a love-besotted teenager.”
“Well, I’m not,” I said, standing straighter.
He began to walk me through the choreography of the new song that played.
“I warned you not to get your heart involved. You know what has to be done.”
He will die.
“I know,” I snarled. “You’ve been gone, by the way. Could have used some advice.”
“Well, I’m here now, and you seem to have fared just fine. So tell me,” he spun me around, his indigo eyes darting to a dark corner of the room, then back to me. “What the hell was that slime-fuck Geoffrey saying to you?”
I took a deep breath. “He told Jaron an Azete is in the castle. The same one he met at his tavern. And I have to fucking pay him to keep him from telling him that it’s me. I already gave him three bracelets. He wants more tomorrow.”
“Well, he was never going to take less than you gave Cecelia.”
“You saw?”
“Of course, I did. You were foolish, and even more foolish in the garden.”
“How did you-you know what? I don’t want to know. Just tell me what to do. Let him blackmail me? Or something else?”
Surprisingly, the blood oath on my wrist hadn’t reacted through any of this.
The Hermit shook his head. “Do nothing. Give the slimeball a few trinkets.” He rolled his eyes. “If he wants to resort to extortion, then appease him. It will keep him quiet. At least for now.”
“And what if Jaron offers him more? Changes his mind for answers?”
He shook his head. “He already has. Geoffrey is a lot of things. A genius is not one of them. But he’s smart enough to know it's better to continue receiving payment regularly than one lump sum all at once—one he’d likely gamble away.
He’d rather his money continue to flow. It’s the same reason he didn’t give you up to Jaron before. He could have, but he didn’t.”
My stomach twisted. This wasn’t new information to me, but yet, hearing it out loud, hearing what I really meant to him after all these years, after what I’d put myself through, put my body through, made me sick. I knew he’d used me—but Gods.
“Do you think he will betray me?” I asked.
“Him? Oh of course, he will. It’s only ever been a matter of time. He just needs a few more things to fall into his lap. For now though, I think he’s quite happy with his arrangements.”
I nodded, feeling heavy. This was so fucking hard. Every second of every minute of every hour, I was using exorbitant amounts of magic and energy, constantly thinking of what to say, how to act, how to convince everyone I was who I claimed to be. Gods, even the way I walked took thought.
And all while growing closer to Brennan, knowing that every second we spent together was another second I was hurting him.
And if tonight proved anything, it was that neither of us was getting out of this unscathed.
The connection between us didn’t make any sense, yet neither of us seemed able to resist it.
“We’re almost there. I got you in, got everyone believing it.
We just need to get through the next week, get to your wedding night.
However, everything remains delicate, everything even down to the sound of your breathing, especially now.
Geoffrey knows I’m here. He knows who I am, and he should know better.
” His jaw clenched in a way that reminded me of who he was.
The Hermit, a survivor of the Doom. Hundreds of years old.
Someone with every stone on his stave, with more accurate prophecies in the Book of Orsete than any other witch in history, dead or alive.
But even he couldn’t save me if Geoffrey spoke too soon. Or something else gave me away. To Jaron. Or Brennan.
Or both.
When I was finally able to return to my room, Abigail unlacing my corset, I heard the crinkle of parchment in my pocket. The one from Geoffrey. The one with my image on it, the Azete they were all hunting.
I couldn’t let Abigail see it, couldn’t allow her to wonder where I got it, or why I had it. The mere thought of an Azete or demonos in connection to me was something I needed to avoid with her. I’d already fucked up in front of her, more times than I wanted to think about.
“I need a moment to relieve myself,” I said, and hurried to the bathroom, closing the door behind me before she could object.
There, with my throat dry, I pulled out the paper and slowly unfolded it, expecting to find the image of myself rendered on it.
The woman they were hunting across Eskalon.
The one Brennan had handed to his personal soldier.
I could still see it in my mind, the picture I’d seen through Brennan’s eyes when we connected.
But the parchment I unraveled did not reveal my brown curls, nor Samara’s eyes or mouth or cheeks.
Not one feature I’d possessed for the last two years could be found in the drawing.
It was nothing like the one I’d seen in Brennan’s hands.
The art couldn’t have even been produced by the same artist.
Instead, the girl that had been drawn on the parchment before me had red hair. Wider eyes than Samara’s stared back at me, along with a smaller mouth, even smaller hips. It was Alyra. Alyra who’d been drawn, the version of me that Jaron had known. Not Samara.
My breath caught.
If Jaron was the head of the search for demonos, if he was the one sending his soldiers out to perform boxings, wouldn’t Brennan have offered him information he knew?
Wouldn’t he, despite his low opinion of Jaron, still want to give him the description of my most recent disguise?
Wouldn’t he have shared the picture of me as Samara out of a mere duty to his realm?
But he hadn’t. As far as I knew, he’d only given it to one soldier, the one from his guard, the one he’d sent to speak to Finlay.
Geoffrey had told me that the parchment he gave me was the one being handed out to everyone. The image they were all hunting.
If only Brennan’s men had the art of Samara, and every other soldier in Eskalon had art of Alyra, then that could only mean one thing.
Brennan wasn’t hunting me at all. He hadn’t shared what he knew, or what he’d seen, with Jaron.
He didn’t just have feelings for Samara—he was still trying to help her. He was trying to find me before Jaron could, before anyone else realized what I was.
And he was betraying every law of his father’s, of the king’s, of his country. Betraying even the way he was beginning to feel about Olivay.
For me.