Chapter 51 #2
Something about this didn’t feel right. Santhe would wager a fair amount that Lucien had deliberately arranged for something to preoccupy the mender. She doubted very much that he wanted Saul recovered enough to oppose him. “We need to get Kal out of The Hollows.”
Beulah’s full mouth turned down. “I’d need backing from the rest of the Conclave to overturn Lucien’s decision.
Regardless of Lucien’s manipulative tactics, Kal killed two citizens.
He interfered in a prisoner’s trial and has been harboring her since.
” She shook her head. “I tried warning him something like this would happen if he didn’t turn that girl over. ”
Santhe chewed a fingernail. Knowing now who Kitty really was explained a few things.
Kal couldn’t very well hand the damned Prima of Ilistaar over to the Cozened.
And by revealing Felíne’s identity to her and Adder, he’d made them complicit with whatever consequence followed, whether he realized it or not.
She supposed it didn’t matter now. Santhe wouldn’t betray Kal’s trust. “I know none of this makes sense, Beulah,” Santhe said.
“But we have to get Kal and Kitty out of there.”
“Oh, it makes sense,” she said with a wry look.
“I’ve known Kal for some years. He’s had the odd tryst time and again, but nothing that stuck.
” Beulah pegged Santhe with a firm stare.
“He loves that girl. It’s plain as day to anyone willing to look.
And the truth is, he can’t be trusted because of it.
The Conclave will never be able to hold her accountable because Kal won’t be able to stop himself from shielding her. ”
“Beulah—”
She shook her head again, chin wobbling.
“I’m sorry, Santhe. I know he is your friend.
Kal has done much for Meress. He is loved here.
Needed even. But he must allow Kitty to face her charges.
I may disagree with Lucien Cross’s methods, but for now, Kalevar is contained. And we have more pressing matters.”
Penn spoke up. “What could be more pressing than this, Ma?”
Beulah glanced up at the ceiling as though she could see through the wood paneling and heavy cross beams, expression pinched with worry. “The life of a good man.”
Saul looked awful. Santhe stood in one corner of the room, watching as Beulah wrung out a rag over a steaming bowl of clean water. Penn’s mother hadn’t permitted him in the room; the sulking teen slouched in the hallway.
“I don’t know what manner of illness this is, Penn,” she’d said. “I’ll not have you risk catching it.”
Beulah set the heated cloth over Saul’s creased forehead. His breath rattled in his lungs with each laborious inhale. He was pale as bleached linen. His lips pinched as she held a mug to them, coaxing him to drink.
“Here, let me,” Santhe offered, taking the mug. She sniffed it, nose wrinkling. “What is this?”
Beulah indicated the larger carafe sitting on the table. “Tea, I think. He’s been insistent on drinking it, but I don’t think it’s helping.”
Santhe hefted the window open and tossed the contents of the cup. “Well, whatever it is, it smells foul. Do we have any honey?”
Santhe fixed a new mug of ginger tea and managed to persuade Saul to consume a few sips. He was so weak, he could barely lift his head, and when his bruised lids fluttered open, there was no recognition in his gaze for the company he kept. “We need that mender,” Santhe said softly.
Beulah eased onto her considerable backside and nodded. “I’ve sent a note.”
They were silent for a time, the only sound in the small room being the rattling wheeze of Saul’s breathing.
“What do you think Lucien intends with Kal?”
Beulah didn’t answer immediately. “Lucien saw himself as Saul’s right hand before Kalevar found Meress. His involvement in things made him feel important. When Kal arrived and Saul so readily welcomed him, Lucien felt slighted. He’ll never admit that, but he’s wanted Kal gone for a long time.”
Santhe rubbed her hands together, wishing she’d thought to bring a jacket. “But Kal’s too important to Meress, to the Cozened,” she mused. “He’s too calculated, too connected, and too skilled to lose as an ally.”
Beulah pursed her lips. “Not just that, but he’s too good.
He cares about what we’re doing here. He helped turn a ragtag group of rebels into an organized resistance.
He lost his family to that evil kingdom and will stop at nothing to secure our independence.
We’d be fools to alienate him. Lucien knows that. ”
Santhe hummed. “But he hates him. So he’s devised a way to back Kal into a corner. Try to bend him to his will with the laws that bind them both.”
“It will backfire,” Beulah said, face creasing with lines of fatigue. “Kal is not one to be manipulated.”
“No,” Santhe replied. “He is not.”
Beulah might claim to know Kalevar Kaine, but Santhe knew him better.
She’d found the fourteen-year-old boy bereft and bleeding from wounds that none could see.
She and Cinah had been there for the worst of it.
They’d watched as Kal had shut himself away, buttoned up his emotion, and weaponized his rage.
They’d witnessed the boy buried and the man born.
“If you will not help me, I will go and get him out myself,” Santhe said. She couldn’t leave him chained in a dank hole while Lucien Cross gloated over his assumed victory.
Beulah’s blue eyes sharpened. “I won’t stop you, Santhe, but I urge you to wait. If I know Lucien, he’ll want to make a spectacle of enacting punishment. He’ll wait until morning, drag his prisoners into the square, and attempt to humiliate them publicly.”
“How exactly does waiting help this situation?”
“Lucien will be drunk on power long denied him,” Beulah explained.
“He will overstep. The other members have been occupied trying to pacify the public since Saul took ill. They don’t know this most recent turn of events.
Let me talk to Vorak and Stef. Let me see Saul through the night.
” She flicked a worried gaze at the cot where Saul lay unconscious.
“There is a process to the way we do things, a reason we are five members. We have a better chance at catching Lucien off guard and stripping his position if he believes he doesn’t need the rest of the Conclave to pass judgment. ”
Santhe considered her, dubious. “And if Lucien already went to the other members?”
Beulah sneered. The expression looked out of place on her matronly face.
“He hasn’t. Vorak and Stef are fair men.
They would have sought me immediately.” She reached out and squeezed Santhe’s hand.
“Give me tonight, Santhe. Let me help them the right way. There’s little you can do if you’re caught aiding an escape.
Even if you succeeded, it would only incriminate them further. ”
Santhe chewed at the stub of her nail. She hated the feeling of sitting on her hands, of feeling aimless.
As much as she craved a quiet existence, the stagnation of her current situation was unwelcome.
“Fine,” she said, eventually. “We’ll wait until tomorrow.
But, Beulah, you had better be right about Cross,” she warned.
“If anything happens to Kal, I will hold you personally responsible.”