69. Clash of Stone and Steel
Clash of Stone and Steel
Talyn
Talyn’s vision blurred then began to fade as Samhail cut off her air. She clawed at his hand with what little energy she had left, but his grip was iron around her throat.
“Samhail, let go of her!”
Bressen’s voice seemed far away as Talyn tried and failed to gasp in a breath. She winced as Samhail’s thumb dug into the side of her neck, but she was vaguely aware he could’ve crushed her windpipe in a second if he’d wanted to. She couldn’t fathom why he hadn’t yet.
Talyn’s eyes fluttered wildly as blackness overtook her. She thought she heard a roar of pain, but she knew it couldn’t be hers.
Then all of a sudden, the pressure on her throat was gone, and she sucked in a great lungful of air. She forced her eyes open but jolted to see Samhail crouched before her, his face strangely placid.
He snapped awake a second later and looked around. His gaze met Bressen’s and narrowed.
“What did you do to me?” Samhail asked, rising quickly.
Bressen stood as well. Both men now wore pants, likely one of Bressen’s glamours, and Talyn flushed to think they were actually naked.
“I stopped you from making a big mistake,” Bressen said. “Talyn is the only reason I got out of there alive and with my body parts intact.”
“She was also the reason you were there to begin with,” Cyra growled. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kill her now or let Samhail do it.”
Bressen looked pointedly at his wife. “Because rage and grief make people do desperate, ill-advised things, and they deserve the chance to make up for their mistakes,” he said.
Cyra blanched visibly and stepped back. It was clear Bressen expected her to know what he meant, but he still seemed surprised at her reaction.
“You broke into my mind,” Samhail cut in, drawing Bressen’s attention back to him. His tone was somewhere between anger and awe. “How did you break in so fast? You’ve never broken through that fast.”
Bressen exhaled a deep breath and looked apologetically at Samhail.
“I’ve always been able to break into your mind,” the lord admitted. “I have yet to encounter a mind shield that can keep me out for very long.”
Samhail stared at him.
“But…our training sessions,” Samhail said, still bewildered. His face grew dark with anger. “Have you been humoring me this whole time? You’ve been able to break past my shield whenever you want, but you’ve let me think I kept you out?”
“This is a conversation for another time,” Bressen told him. “We have more important concerns right now.”
He turned to where Morland still stood quietly next to them.
“Is he…do you have control of his mind?” Cyra asked Bressen.
“Yes,” Bressen said. “Aidan actually helped me get past Morland’s mind shield. He attacked it from the inside and weakened it.”
“Wait. Back up,” Axenus said. “What exactly happened? Why did Talyn take you? How did you escape?”
Bressen’s eyes swung to Talyn, seemingly asking for her permission to tell them, and she nodded as she rubbed her throat.
“Talyn needed my help,” he said. “She realized something about Morland, and she needed me to read his mind, but he was escaping with Sandrian and Magdalene, so she made a quick decision.”
He paused to give Talyn a meaningful look.
“In hindsight,” he went on, “we probably have her to thank for getting Aidan back so quickly. Who knows how long it would’ve taken us to track Sandrian and Magdalene down otherwise.”
Cyra and Samhail didn’t look ready to concede that point just yet, but at least neither of them looked on the verge of killing her anymore.
Then something clicked in Talyn’s head, and she pushed herself up along the pillar to stand.
“Lord Bressen, you’re in Morland’s mind right now?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Is he…can you…?” She couldn’t get the words out. Now that she was so close to the truth, she was almost afraid to know.
“Yes,” Bressen said gently. “Morland killed your sister.”
Cyra inhaled sharply, and Talyn closed her eyes as her legs turned to jelly again beneath her.
She reopened them and grabbed for the pillar to steady herself even as Samhail reached out to catch her.
Their gazes met as he stopped himself before he touched her, and she saw the emotions warring behind his eyes.
“Morland killed Talyn’s sister?” Axenus asked.
“He killed several women,” Talyn said. “He liked to kidnap young women and hold them for days while he raped and tortured them. I don’t know how many he took before my sister, but I learned of at least four others after her.
I began tracking him, and I thought I’d found him, but somehow I got the wrong man… and I killed him.”
The entire room had gone silent, and Talyn looked at Bressen to confirm her understanding of events matched what he’d seen in Morland’s mind.
He nodded. “Morland laid a false trail,” he said. “He led you to the other man to get you off his scent, then he left town after you killed the man. He didn’t know who you were, only that someone was onto him.”
Talyn closed her eyes to let it sink in how easily Morland had duped her into killing someone else.
She shook her head and opened her eyes before she went on.
“I only learned yesterday I might’ve killed the wrong man,” she explained to the group.
“I look a lot like my sister, and Morland recognized me. He told me I looked like her, and…there was something about the look in his eye. I just knew.”
Her eyes met Cyra’s and then drifted to Samhail’s. She didn’t delude herself into thinking she saw forgiveness or even understanding in them, but she at least dared to think the desire to kill her was gone.
“I didn’t know what to do when Morland retreated with Sandrian and Magdalene,” Talyn said, a hint of desperation in her voice.
“I couldn’t let him get away. Not once I realized my mistake.
But I was wrong once before, and I had to be sure.
Taking Lord Bressen wasn’t planned. I just knew if anyone could see the truth in Morland, he could.
I brought him to Sandrian to get me close enough to Morland to find out.
It was a stupid, foolhardy plan for so many reasons, but it was all I had in the three seconds I had to decide what to do before Morland disappeared through Magdalene’s portal. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
She looked at both Samhail and Cyra, then her eyes met Bressen’s. He was the one to whom she owed the biggest apology. It was a miracle she hadn’t gotten him killed.
“I’m sorry, my lord,” she said sincerely. Her eyes drifted over the cuts and bruises that still marred his face and upper body. “I put you in grave danger, and after you give me the month you promised, I’ll submit to whatever punishment you deem appropriate.”
“Month? Month for what?” Cyra asked Bressen.
Bressen didn’t take his eyes from Talyn as he answered his wife.
“Talyn would like to kill Morland, but I told her I wouldn’t allow it as long as Morland is still in Aidan’s body,” he said. “I’ve asked her to give us a month to find a way to get him out and restore Aidan.”
More silence.
“Even if we could pull Morland’s mind out of Aidan’s body, what would we do with it?
” Axenus asked. “In order for her to kill him, he needs some kind of corporeal form. We can’t just put him into a random body and let her kill it.
That would be…” He paused to consider the right word. “Problematic,” he finished.
“What about putting Morland’s mind into a magical object, like Praya did with the warriors in the collar?” Samhail suggested.
“It might be an option, but we don’t have a magical object like that,” Cyra said, “and as far as I know, we don’t have the means to create one.”
“Actually,” Bressen said, suddenly thoughtful, “we might. There was one more unintended benefit to my kidnapping.”
Everyone looked at him questioningly, including Talyn.
Bressen stepped closer to Cyra and put his hand to the side of her head. She looked at him in confusion for a moment before she gave a huge gasp and clutched his arm.
“Sweet gods above!” she said as her eyes locked with Bressen’s. “Is that…Is that real?”
“Yes,” he said. “A memory alteration, buried so deep even I couldn’t find it. Magdalene snapped it loose when she invaded my mind.”
“Did Magdalene see it?” Cyra asked. “Does she know…?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” he answered. He moved to Axenus and laid a hand on the side of the merman’s head.
Axenus frowned, then his eyes widened in understanding.
“The island!” Axenus exclaimed, but Bressen held up a hand to stop him from saying more.
“You think that might be the way to get Morland out of Aidan’s body?” Axenus asked Bressen.
“It’s the only option I can think of right now,” the lord answered.
Bressen looked at Samhail, and a few seconds of silence passed between the two before Samhail nodded, the lord having undoubtedly filled Samhail in mentally.
Talyn noticed then that Surgeon and Serise still stood behind them, both also wearing glamoured clothes. They looked annoyed that everyone else got to know what Bressen had discovered except them. Or perhaps they were just annoyed Samhail got to know.
“So what do we do with the assassin for a month?” Samhail asked.
He nodded his head toward Talyn, and something twinged in her chest. He was back to calling her “the assassin” rather than by her name.
Everyone turned to Talyn, and she met each of their eyes in turn, her gaze lingering on Samhail’s.
Axenus was the only one with a neutral expression. Bressen looked torn while both Cyra and Samhail wore their distrust openly. The twins looked like they’d be happy to keep an eye on her.
“You’re free for the next month,” Bressen said finally. “Go where you want. Do what you need to. I trust you’ll return here when the month is up. Until then, you can set your affairs in order.”
Talyn’s stomach dropped. Allowing her to ‘set her affairs in order’ meant he intended to send her to Revenmyer. She wasn’t surprised by his decision, but part of her had still hoped to avoid the prison.
“What are you going to do with him?” she asked, inclining her head to where Morland still stood silently, oblivious to everything around him.
“We’ll keep him in the dungeon here at the Citadel for now,” Bressen said. “I need to speak to Jasper about how to handle things in Derridan until we can free Aidan, but that’s none of your concern.”
“I’m not leaving him,” Talyn said. “I spent too long thinking I’d killed my sister’s murderer only to have the rug ripped out from under me. I need to be close by.”
Bressen shook his head. “I can’t allow you to walk free in the Citadel. You’ve proven too willing to switch sides when you see an opportunity, and you spent several weeks in my household spying and plotting to kill us. I think you can see how, all things considered, I can’t have you close.”
Talyn did see, and she didn’t blame him, but he didn’t seem to realize the flaw in his thinking.
“You realize I can just turn myself into one of your staff and hide out for the next month?” she pointed out.
She should’ve just done it without warning them, but some part of her wanted their trust…wanted Samhail’s trust back.
Bressen started to speak, but she cut him off.
“What if I let you put me in the dungeon with him?” Talyn offered.
Bressen’s eyes flared, then narrowed half a second later.
“You’re volunteering to be imprisoned for a month?” he asked.
“You won’t let me stay here freely, and I can’t let Morland out of my sight, so yes.”
They all looked at her incredulously.
“Do we have a deal?” she asked when no one spoke again.
Bressen and Cyra looked at each other, and Talyn was almost certain they were having a mental conversation about it.
Bressen finally turned back to her. “If that’s what you really want, then yes. You can keep Morland company in the dungeon for the next month.”