Chapter 12 - Traitors Bane
Isolation. Darkness.
But then there was music.
I could not place the tune, but I danced alone in the dark. I slowly moved my limbs to the sweeping notes and gentle melody.
And then a voice made my feet freeze.
“Keep that crystal on your skin, Litlnadr. And tell the truth as it benefits you.”
I opened my eyes. I was in Annalisa’s bedroom and my fist was wrapped around my Nordingaard crystal.
Daigen had somehow invaded my dream and talked to me. Annoying, but about damn time he gave me some advice.
I pushed myself up from the mattress to see Annalisa at her easel. I was not eager to wear the illegal Nordingaard crystal around the palace, but Daigen was deliberate—what little information he gave me was important.
Trusting an old sorcerer from the mountain was testing every ounce of sense that I had.
I slipped the crystal under the blankets. Daigen had only said to keep the crystal on my skin, he never specified where.
As I watched Annalisa to make sure her eyes did not leave her canvas, I pulled up the hem of my nightgown and tied the choker just above my right knee. Unless someone committed the unspeakable offense of lifting my skirt, the crystal would go undetected.
Annalisa’s eyebrows raised at the sound of me shifting on the mattress and she peered over the canvas to look at me. “How are those giants supposed to look?”
I stretched like I had just woken up. “Grey. Fifteen feet tall. Lumpy.” I shot her an incredulous look. “Why are you painting giants? I thought you said the ugliness of the real world does not belong in your bedroom.”
Her face disappeared behind the canvas. “This is a portrait of Grigory’s victory on the mountain, a present for when he returns from his secret assignment.”
Grigory’s victory? Riyan had slayed all the giants.
Annalisa’s brush flicked across the canvas. “He assured me in his most recent letter that he should be back for me soon.” She sighed. “He misses me so much.”
Despite the Hyton and Thornebow rivalry, Annalisa and Grigory seemed to have fallen for each other. Their marriage was already consummated, so I could not blame her feelings on Fraleigh’s enchantment.
Maybe the affection her and Grigory shared was actually real.
Annalisa peered around her canvas again. “Get over here. I need you to pose for me.”
I rolled my eyes and climbed out of bed. Annalisa pulled me in front of her easel and positioned my arms to look like I was holding an invisible bow and drawing back an arrow.
I felt ridiculous. “Grigory is going to come out looking rather small.”
Annalisa scowled. “You know I always use more than one reference.”
I looked down at the table next to her. Beside her collection of paints was a faerie book, open to an illustration of the heroic Prince Haldar. The book was an older version than the one I grew up with, so instead of his signature dark curls, Prince Haldar had hair down his back with braids framing his face like an ancient warrior.
I smiled. Riyan had said Prince Haldar was his favorite faerie story growing up. He definitely emulated Prince Haldar’s gallant qualities.
Yes, that was something I remembered liking about him. I looked back down at the illustration—the handsome Prince Haldar stood in a field of flowers as he journeyed to slay the giant.
Handsome. Heroic. Gallant. That is what I remembered about Riyan.
My chest started to feel warm for the first time in days. My eyes traced the red flowers on the illustration in the faerie book and suddenly a song filled my head.
“ Just as blossoms bloom and whither… ” I sang.
Annalisa stopped painting. “What are you doing?”
Great question. It was the same tune as the song in my dream, so maybe I had invented it. “Oh, appreciating Prince Haldar.”
She scoffed. “Really? Everyone knows The Snow Princess of the North has the superior protagonist—you cannot beat talking to animals and coming back from the dead!”
My womb cramped like a fist wrapped around it and I lowered my arms. Annalisa probably had a vial of motherwort nearby, her cycle always started a couple of days before mine.
“Hurting, huh?” Annalisa said as her brush stippled on the canvas. “I will have a maid bring up a cup of tea to help.”
A cup? Just one?
I pressed my hand against my lower belly to help with the pain. “What about you?”
Annalisa did not look up from the grey and white splotches in front of her. “Mine has not come yet.”
A loud knock rapped on the door. That did not sound like a maid.
“The General summons Madame Bloodstone.”
My heart stopped. The General had been so insistent that I go to Bloodstone Fortress and stay with Riyan, it was no surprise that he would want to inquire about me returning alone.
“Uncle Ragnar can wait until we have breakfast,” Annalisa replied. She swirled her paintbrush in a small jar of oil with an annoyed clink.
“He requests her immediately.”
“I request that you go away immediately.”
It was a rude hour to call upon a lady, but I needed to speak to the General anyway. I could not fault him for promptly giving me an opportunity to find out more about Riyan.
I quickly put on a pair of Annalisa’s slippers and grabbed a dark blue robe hanging on the side of a massive oak wardrobe. Hopefully Annalisa would not mind me borrowing her clothes.
I slung the robe across my shoulders and pulled the satin belt tight. “Anna, quit making a fuss. I am sure your uncle just wants to ask me about Sir Bloodstone’s whereabouts.”
Tell the truth as it benefits you.
I could not lie and I had no idea if my magic would even work on the General, but I had one weapon in my arsenal if all else failed—I knew Riyan was his son.
A stone-faced guard stood on the other side of the door. I pulled the edge of the robe tighter across my chest and followed the guard down the hallway. The snores of the other Hyton daughters filtered under their doors as we passed.
The guard stopped at a seemingly random spot in the middle of two doors. He pulled the metal bracket of a sconce and a thin panel opened up the wall. He slipped into the secret passage as I made a quick note of its location—across the hall and four doors down from Annalisa’s room.
The guard sealed the panel shut behind us and we were within the walls again.
All the smoldering sconces on the walls were identical and the roughly hewn bricks in the passages were a monotonous grey. How did anyone find their way?
I kept pace with the guard as I nibbled on the skin around my thumbnail. The moment the coppery tang of blood hit my tongue, I swiped my thumb on the stone.
The slight twinkle of magic in my blood sang out to me as I left it on the wall. The small tear in my skin healed almost instantly because of my magic, so I bit my thumb again.
I repeated the bite, bleed, and smear over and over as we traveled through the narrow halls and down a set of spiraling stairs. As soon as the guard opened up a door and the smell of crisp morning dew filled my nose, I placed my hands demurely in front of me.
My crystal warmed against my thigh and I threw a quick sweep of magic behind me. The trail of blood on the stone glimmered like moonlit pebbles in my mind.
A smile flicked up my lips. I had a path out of the palace.
The guard wordlessly led me to a small castle built into the wall surrounding the palace—the guard house.
Horses whinnied in the stables as we approached the guardhouse door. The guard reached for the door handle when a shadow washed over us.
“Not the front door, Jonson. This is no place for a lady.”
The guard whipped around. General Hyton stood behind us, his towering height blocking the rising sun. The sun’s rays gave the General’s white hair a golden glow, making him look nearly identical to his son.
If Riyan were not fifteen feet tall, anyway.
General Hyton quickly unpinned his cape from his shoulders. “And I told you to wait until the lady was properly dressed.” He wrapped the cape around me, shrouding everything below my neck in Hyton Blue. “No one should see the wife of the future Baron of Bloodstone in her nightclothes. What were you thinking?”
The guard swallowed. “You said—”
General Hyton’s eyes flashed a deadly look. The guard mumbled his apologies and then disappeared.
The General turned to me and warmth filled his voice. “My deepest apologies, Madame Bloodstone. Please, join me.”
I placed my fingers in the General’s waiting palm. Even though the top of my head did not even reach his shoulder, he was careful to keep pace with me as he led me around the guard house to a more secluded door.
The door led to a staircase lined with Hyton Blue banners bearing the House emblem—the rearing bull. We passed so many bulls as we ascended the steps I felt like I was in the middle of a stampede. At the top of the steps was a single door which the General unlocked with a small iron key.
The room on the other side of the door looked more fit for a prince than the General of the Lycaster army. A four-poster bed sat on a raised platform. The blue and white striped Lycaster flag hung above a crackling fireplace. A tapestry bearing Alastar the Conqueror with his signature spear and shield stood guard over the room.
General Hyton led me to a small table where I sat in a chair carved with snowflakes and flying birds. No desk—he did not conduct official business in the room. Regardless of whatever General Hyton had in mind, he intended to make the meeting look like a friendly visit.
As if to illustrate my point, he crossed over to the fireplace and removed an iron kettle from the fire. He poured the tea into two waiting cups that sat on a nearby cupboard.
While his back was turned, my eyes darted around the room—taking in as much information as possible. A map labeled “Nordingaard” was nailed to the wall next to the Alastar the Conqueror tapestry. A lock of red hair laid on the edge of the night table. Below it, the tail of a crimson ribbon peeked out from the top drawer.
The floorboard creaked. My eyes snapped forward and my gaze fell on his perfectly-made bed.
General Hyton set the glazed teacup in front of me. I kept my hands folded politely in my lap, even as the rising steam tantalized my nose.
He moved around the table to sit across from me, setting down his teacup with a tiny clink.
He rested his forearms on the table. “Imagine my surprise to hear you came back so soon, even after my warning about the…delicate situation the House of Hyton is in.”
General Hyton had told me to go to Bloodstone and leave the Hytons behind, but it was not for my safety. They were just concerned that I would keep Derrick from consummating his marriage to Brietta. Since the future Duke and Duchess of Lycaster were irrevocably bound, my presence was no longer a threat. Why was he so concerned?
“We have not had a war with another country in centuries.” General Hyton raised an eyebrow slightly. “What, then, do you think my job is as the General of the Lycaster army?”
I took in a breath, smelling the fragrant tea. “Well, I know you run the military academy and I assume you oversee the palace guard.” I dipped my head slightly to look up at him through my eyelashes. “But a man of your caliber is capable of so much more.”
He gave me a small smile. “So young and yet so clever.”
Nothing like a dash of flattery to disarm a General.
He rose from the table and slowly stepped toward me. “I am the head of the Dukedom’s law enforcement.”
I held my breath as he got closer.
“Sure, every province handles their own petty crimes, but the serious affairs all come to me.”
Like sorcery.
He softly ran his fingers along the edge of the table. “A nice young lady like you could not imagine how many criminals there are—or should I say were —in the Dukedom.”
He passed me and stopped at the wall. I let out a breath as my eyes followed him.
A massive sword hung on the wall beside General Hyton and his deep blue eyes did not leave the blade. “When my father died, I devoted my life to protecting my family. I never graduated from Heaston and never had my own Selection Night—all to keep the House of Hyton secure.”
I kept my mental calculations hidden behind a polite mask. If my arithmetic was correct, Riyan was born mere days before Baron Thornebow murdered Alastar the Wise. Did the General even know about his son then?
He turned from the sword and his eyes met mine. “On the morning of my brother’s coronation, I executed Baron Thornebow.”
I did not have to feign the shock in my voice. “But you would have only been twenty!”
“And because I was young, I was messy.” His eyes were hard, but his mouth flicked up in a disarming smirk. “Three swings of the axe before his head came off.”
He ran his knuckle along the flat edge of the sword’s blade. “I do not like messy things, so I had this smithed—Traitor’s Bane.”
Another weapon with a name. Unlike Daigen’s knife, at least the General’s meaning for the sword was clear. My stomach twisted into a knot.
The General turned from the sword to me. “Those charged with high crimes face numerous forms of execution…but for the last twenty-two years, every single traitor to the crown has died by this sword.”
There was the threat.
I shifted my knees and grounded myself in the weight of the crystal against my leg. He had just served up a death threat like breakfast and I was somehow still calm.
Maybe the crystal did more than just tell me when my magic was ready.
Regardless, the General knew nothing. Brietta would not sell me out without ruining her own plans. No one else was around to hear my confession of sorcery in the bathing chamber, either.
Well, if he wanted to threaten me with no evidence, I could show him how to issue a threat with some teeth.
I smiled. “You are the perfect executioner, just like your son.”
General Hyton remained firm. I mirrored him, even though the air around us suddenly snapped tight.
The fact that he had not taken the sword off the wall and hacked off my head proved that the General needed me. I had information he wanted and I could not talk if I were dead.
I held my breath as the General took a step forward. “When Nikkolas told you…” Another step. “Did he realize the cost of what he had done? Does he realize the danger he put you in?”
My throat was warm with my white flames. “Nikkolas is dead.”
I quickly closed my mouth, but it was too late. How had I just let that secret out? This was not like when I was hiccupping my feelings to my oldest friend. The last thing I wanted to do was inform the Hytons that the North was in chaos and was vulnerable to invasion.
I bit my tongue as my mind spun. Maybe Daigen’s rule against asking him questions held more meaning. If the Man of the Mountain’s magic would not let us lie with our tongues, we could not lie with our silence either.
I could not refuse direct questions.
General Hyton’s jaw ticked and he quietly crossed to his end of the table. He grabbed the back of his chair with one hand and his teacup with the other. My heart slowly pounded yet I was frozen in place as he dragged his chair over to rest right beside me.
He gently placed his teacup on the table and sat down. Even his seated figure was imposing, but the somber look in his eyes softened him. “Riyan had another one of his accidents, didn’t he? That is why you are here.”
I kept my lips closed as the white fire scorched my tongue, compelling me to answer. I could answer the General’s question in the affirmative, telling the truth as it benefitted me…or I could go even further.
If General Hyton wanted to merely scare me into giving him information, he would not have brought me to his quarters and served tea. He wanted to know what had happened to his son in the North? We could make an exchange.
I forced my heated breath to cool with my measured words. “I will tell you…in due time.”
His brows knitted. “You dare refuse your Gen—?”
“You ask so many questions of me, yet my own questions go unanswered.” The flames spun within me. “And I am tired of not having answers. If you want another answer from me, you have to give me one.”
His Hyton Blue eyes examined me slowly, agonizingly slowly. I felt like I was going to vomit molten lead with every second I withheld the truth.
Finally, he conceded with a smile. “An answer for an answer. Ask your first question.”
The fire within me cooled, as if the magic in my own body agreed to our deal. “What was Riyan like at the military academy?”
The General shifted his shoulders and looked down at his folded hands for a few moments before answering. “He was…obstinate. A young man of his size with the strength of ten men needed a firm hand.”
From what Riyan had told me, “a firm hand” was a light way of putting it. He had made his own son hold up the bridge into Bloodstone on his back.
He took a sip from his cup. “Just when I thought I had him under control, he defied my order to marry Brietta Elvar.” He glanced at me. “Not that I have any objections to you, Serafina. Only when Riyan has no control…he is dangerous.”
I picked wool fibers off the cape as I remembered the axes thrown in anger, the barrels of wine he drank one right after the other, the shattered bed, the bend of my ribs when he did not realize he was crushing me…
I swallowed. “Riyan grew again and…fell. That is what killed Nikkolas and Hilda.”
The General’s cheek pitted like he bit it. “Where is he?”
I let my eyes wander to the map of Nordingaard on the wall. “Ganora took him…he gave his life for mine.”
His eyes widened only slightly. Riyan had once told me the General had sent soldiers up the mountain for years, gathering information about the giants and their queen. I carefully studied his stoic mask for any clue that he understood the sacrifice Riyan made and what it meant, but if he knew, he did not show it.
Though beneath his hardened surface, his eyes gleamed and his breath was still. He had his next question ready and he was desperate to ask.
I took advantage of the General’s desperation and risked my most inflammatory question. I tried not to think of the scar that split Evereon’s face in two as I asked, “How many people has Riyan hurt?”
A muscle in the General’s face feathered. “More men than I can count, but that was by their own choice.”
I did not like that answer. “What do you mean?”
“That is two questions, Serafina.”
“Then I owe you another answer.” I pulled the cape tighter around me. “What do you mean it was the men’s own choice?”
The General let out a long breath. “Like I said, I oversee the executions of the Dukedom. For the worst crimes, I gave prisoners a choice: the gallows or five minutes in a room with ‘the Beast’ and a chance to survive. No weapons, just man-to-man physical combat. Many prisoners…chose to die the hard way.”
The floor fell beneath my feet. I thought Riyan was a perfect executioner of giants …not men!
He killed someone, many someones…in less than five minutes each.
Suddenly he was nothing like the gallant Prince Haldar at all.
The General’s eyes softened. “They were the worst criminals, Serafina. They deserved everything Riyan did.”
My skin crawled, imagining the same hands that combed my hair and gently stroked my skin beating the life out of another person.
Even those memories were tainted. Stained with blood.
General Hyton leaned on his forearms. “Did you consummate your marriage?”
A horrible shiver crawled down my spine and I squeezed my knees together. The hand that had been inside me had ended countless lives.
My throat trembled as I finally gave the General his answer. “No. He was fifteen feet tall and we could not…”
He scowled and hissed out a tense breath. “I have until the full moon, then.” His eyes focused again. “Many do not understand the magic of Nordingaard. Depending on what he felt for you, he may have invoked something more powerful than even he is.”
My brows knitted. He knew the rules of magic? The power of the bargain of a life made in love?
Maybe his admission was a clue. Ilsa might not have been a sorceress, but she was from the North. She knew the old lore, and she must have passed it down to at least one son.
I wanted to press for more information, but I could not trust the General just yet. He might have been Riyan’s father, but he was still a Hyton—wielder of Traitor’s Bane and loyal to his House. A few morsels of honesty between us was not enough for me to let my guard down.
General Hyton gestured to the tea in front of me. “Drink it before it gets cold—it’s motherwort.”
Motherwort? My fingertips shook as I placed them around the cup. He drank from the same kettle so I was certain the tea was not poisoned, but…
“You knew I was—?”
“I know everything that goes on within those palace walls.”
Shit. I wasted a question and owed him an answer, but at least I knew just how closely he was watching me.
The General leaned on his forearms again, looking me directly in the eyes. “I need you well for when I finally bring Riyan back. Your marriage cannot annul.”
I placed my lips on the edge of the teacup with painted larkspur. The bitter sting of the motherwort coated my tongue, but it was perfectly brewed.
Nothing the General just said was a direct question, so I was safe in letting him assume that I was still married.
“Just stay out of trouble and let me take care of finding him,” he ordered.
The last thing I planned to do was stay out of trouble, but if all my scheming led to the safe return of his son, the General might just forgive me for upturning the House of Hyton.
I just had to stay on his good side.
My stomach was still in knots as I took another drink. It might have been foolish to ask another question and owe the General two answers…but I had to know.
Before I left the privacy of the General’s quarters, I needed something of Riyan that was…good. Untainted by magic or death.
“General…” I instantly hated how vulnerable my voice sounded. “I know this sounds absurd, but…was he ever gentle?”
General Hyton was silent for longer than I wanted, but then his eyes found mine and he smiled softly. “He sang at night, like the lone wolf howls at the moon. Low and soft, just to fill the silence.”
My mouthful of tea felt warmer as I remembered Riyan’s voice. He had hummed into my hair as he stroked my back. He came up with silly songs out of nowhere. He sang to me while I slept for two days, calling out to me as the Man of the Mountain held me in the place West of the Moon and East of the Sun.
Riyan was a murderer. He had killed more men than the General of the Lycaster army could even count. He was…gruesome.
Gruesome. Barbaric. Merciless.
And though all that was true, no sound in the world was warmer than his voice.
I stared into my empty teacup as I swallowed. My heart sank and my Nordingaard crystal cooled against my skin.
Even a voice as warm as his was still not enough to make me love him.