Chapter 27
Rikard
The endless complaints he heard at the Nadir’s desk were hardly audible, because all he could think of was flying. Even with repaired membranes, would it even be possible again after years of keeping them bound on his back?
Yes, his heart cried, drowning out all the other voices around him. Anything seemed possible now.
But it was not the cries of his heart that met him when he returned to Rose House a few hours before dawn. Another cry was audible from the front gate, the sound spilling into the street.
Rikard’s heart quickened. Was it Hanna? No, there were two voices. One he recognized as Hannalinde’s steady, sweet tone. The cries were Carlijn’s, ragged and wet and exhausted.
He let himself into the dark front hall. Lamps extinguished, the moths were long gone. He followed the sound upstairs, where the door to Carlijn’s room stood ajar and the light from a single candle threw long shadows across the floor.
Hannalinde sat on a settee with Carlijn’s head in her lap, stroking her brown ringlets. Carlijn lay curled on her side, her face buried in a handkerchief, her shoulders heaving. Hanna looked up with hollowed eyes when he hovered in the doorway. Behind her composure, she was distressed, too.
“Can I help?” he mouthed.
She shook her head. Not now.
He went to their room to wait for her. The crying continued from down the hall, though it muffled now, subsiding like a storm. When the sobs had thinned to silence, Hannalinde appeared. She closed the door behind her and leaned against it, one hand on her belly.
“Carlijn is pregnant, too,” she said. Then her eyes flew open, seeming to recognize what she’d said. “Not like me. It was Lucan.”
Ugh. Not that news he wanted to hear. Of course, part of him was not surprised that they’d taken their flirtation that far. “I hoped they would be more careful.”
She nodded, looking tired. “She told him tonight. She’d hoped he might…she hoped it would change things between them. That he’d take her as his mate.”
Rikard sighed. He knew Lucan, and he’d seen Carlijn’s distress, so he knew the answer before he asked. “And?”
“He broke it off with her. He said she had been a diversion, and she should visit a healer for an ‘antidote to her affliction.’ Those were his exact words. He was very civil, but of course she’s devastated.”
Anger rose in Rikard’s chest. How could Lucan discard her like that, right when she needed him most? “He could have at least accompanied her to a healer.”
“I offered to take her, but she didn’t want to go. Still hoping he’ll change his mind, maybe. I don’t know. She’s sleeping now,” Hanna added. “Or trying to.”
“I told him,” he growled, pacing up and down the room. “I told him not to treat her as a plaything.”
“He’s not the only one to blame. I warned her, too.”
“But she didn’t take the heartstone vow. He did.” Fury scalded his tongue. “I’m going to speak with him. If you need me, send word to the tavern on the second tier, as I’m sure that’s where I’ll find him.”
“Rikard.” She caught his arm as he passed. “Be careful, please.”
He covered her hand with his. The brief contact grounded him, focusing his anger. “I will deliver a scolding, no more. I’ll be back before dawn.”
Lucan perched at the bar alone, toying with the stem of a goblet full of wine. He looked up when Rikard approached.
“Before you begin,” Lucan said sullenly, “I know you’re here to flay me alive. You can save your breath because your mate already did. She needn’t send you to sing the same tired tune.”
“I came of my own accord, so you’ll have to hear it twice.” Rikard signaled the barkeep for a drink. “Carlijn’s carrying your child.”
“She told me.”
“And rather than comforting her and helping her, you left?”
“Staying would have been a worse cruelty.” Lucan’s voice was stripped of its usual music, reduced to a flat cadence that Rikard barely recognized.
“What can I offer her, truly? Winds aid me, I can’t mate with her.
My family is seventh-tier. If I mate a human, I’ll lose the roost, the rank, and every family alliance my family has forged since I was hatched.
You wear gold on your horns, so you know this as well as I do. ”
“That’s nonsense. I haven’t lost any standing by taking Hanna as a mate.”
Lucan scoffed. “We might be the same tier, but we don’t have the same standing. You can’t fly, Rikard. You had nothing to lose by mating a human, because everything you stood to lose was already gone. I still have my wings, my prospects, my future. Am I supposed to burn all of that for a human?”
The truth hit like stones, accurate and brutal.
“You’re right,” Rikard acknowledged. “I had less to lose. But Carlijn has everything to lose, and you’ve made certain she’ll lose it.
” He turned on the bench to face Lucan fully.
“She trusted you with her heart and her body. And now she’s pregnant with your child, without protection, without your name or rank to shield her from what’s coming.
You know what Solvantis will do to a woman like that!
You have an obligation to her, even if you do not take her as a mate. ”
Lucan flinched, but then his face hardened into something ugly. “The child could be anyone’s. Maybe it’s human. Maybe it’s yours. Everyone knows you have a taste for humans, and she’s living under your roof. If the moths got hold of that idea, it’s very easy to believe.”
The anger that moved through Rikard was hot and blinding. “You know that’s a lie because you were there every night in her bed,” he spat. “Say what you like about me, but don’t drag Carlijn through the mud to justify your own cowardice.”
Lucan’s jaw worked, and he tossed back the remaining contents of his goblet. “I’m leaving for the hunting lands,” he said, setting the cup down hard enough to ring against the counter. “Drogan’s been asking me to join him for weeks. Good flying, open country. I’ll be gone before the gossip starts.”
“How convenient for you. I suppose Hanna and I will clean up your mess.”
“Normally, I’d invite you to come with me.” Lucan’s mouth twisted into a sneer “But since you can’t fly, what’s the point?”
The cruelty was deliberate, designed to push him away. Rikard recognized it for what it was, but it still stung.
“You and I both swore the heartstone vow,” Rikard said. “My life for their safety. My wings for their shelter. Carlijn is under our protection, and you’ve put her in danger by planting a child in her. That’s more than a lover’s failing. You’re violating the heartstone vow.”
“Don’t lecture me when you did the same thing.”
He had nothing to do with the terrible circumstances of Hanna’s pregnancy.
The comparison made Rikard’s stomach turn, but of course he could not explain that.
“The difference is that I didn’t abandon her.
I begged her to be my mate. I am honored to call her mine.
Unlike you, I didn’t fly away from my problems.”
“Because you couldn’t.” Lucan stood abruptly, knocking over his empty goblet. He dropped a few coins on the counter for the barkeep. “I’ll let you know when I get back.”
“Don’t bother,” Rikard said bitterly. He would never see him the same way. Never trust him or respect him, so what was the point of maintaining a friendship?
“As you like.” Lucan shrugged, then ducked through the low doorway and was gone. The snap of his wings opening carried from outside as the door drifted shut.
Another friend lost to their own arrogant stupidity. How disappointing after so many years of brotherhood.
The barkeep scooped up Lucan’s coins and eyed Rikard’s glass. “You look like you could use a refill.”
Rikard nodded, pushing his glass toward him. He needed to relax and compose himself before he returned to Rose House. He didn’t want to bring this…disgust home with him.
Why was he so affected by Lucan’s bad behavior?
Hanna had a point—Carlijn was as much at fault as Lucan, though she bore an unequal share of the consequences.
Lucan was acting dishonorably, but he’d never been a paragon of virtue, had he?
So why did he expect his friend to act any differently than he always had?
He stared into his cup, swirling the amber liquid. He wanted Lucan to be better. He wanted to believe that Lucan would do what was right and honor his vow. That he’d protect humans to his dying breath. He wanted to believe all gargoyles would do the same.
He wanted to believe that the gargoyle who’d bitten and brutalized Hanna, who’d forced a child into her belly, was the aberration. That, though her attacker was still free and had not answered for his crimes, he was the only gargoyle who would be so cruel and callous.
He wanted justice for Carlijn, but it was his failing that Hanna had not received her own justice. That’s why he was so angry at Lucan. For his own comfort and cowardice, he’d marked Hanna’s complaint as resolved when it was far from it.
His marriage to her had been so fulfilling that he’d forgotten it was one of convenience.
He’d forgotten that all of his contentment having her by his side and in his nest was a product of her pain.
And she would endure still more while healing his wings and birthing his child.
Everything he ever wanted, Hanna had to bleed for.
He owed her more, too. He owed her bravery. He owed her justice.