Chapter 50 - Smoke in the Sky
When Riyan and I returned to the Bloodstone Fortress keep, Evereon and Rosaline were waiting for us.
Riyan opened his arms to Rosaline as soon as he saw her sitting in the cavernous dining hall. Despite Riyan still wearing only Daigen’s borrowed cloak around his hips, Rosaline ran across the room with no hesitation and crashed into a hug.
I smiled as the two friends reunited. At least Riyan would still have Rosaline when Derrick left the fortress with me.
Annalisa soon came over with a big lump of fur in her arms. With Hyton Palace erupting into chaos after we escaped, Rosaline and Evereon could not leave without Magnus the Bedwarmer.
The din of impatient soldiers filled the hall. The entire Bloodstone army was crammed along the sides of the hall, waiting for us to arrive.
Brietta parted through the soldiers to join us when Evereon stepped over with Erik at his side.
My brother gave me a look I instantly understood—he had told Evereon about my bargain.
Evereon gave Brietta a respectful nod. “Duchess.” He turned to me. “Baron.”
I looked him in the eyes and shook my head. I could not accept the title of Baron, not when the entire Bloodstone army would see me kneel before the Duke of Lycaster as soon as the next sunrise.
He would have to hold onto the House pins for a little longer.
Evereon’s eyes flared for only a moment before Annalisa’s voice cut through the tension. “Hello, it is I, nothing, with no title. Nice to meet you.”
She glared at him with Magnus still in her arms. Instead of apologizing for not addressing her, Evereon flashed her a vulpine smile. “Lovely to meet you too, nothing. ”
Her glare sharpened but Evereon turned back to me. “You might be deathless, but the rest of us aren’t. We have to make a plan.”
I swallowed the bitter guilt that I had again failed the North as Riyan took my hand. We sat on the bench of the long dining table and listened as Evereon stood in the center of the room and addressed the army.
He started with the story of their escape. He and Rosaline had taken a ferry across Odeneye lake before the Lycaster army gathered at its shores, but they passed beneath a soldier hanging from the gatehouse as they ran from the palace. Evereon said his eyes had been gouged out before he had been executed.
My blood ran cold. I never thought Derrick would go that far.
Rosaline leaned over to Annalisa and reassured her that they left Merri in a safe location in the city. Annalisa let out a relieved breath and scratched Magnus’s ears.
Brietta sat next to me and listened intently, scribbling notes on parchment with a piece of charcoal.
We learned the caravan that I had sent to distribute food to the starving peasants of Ravenwood had returned, only my father had not come back to the fortress with them. The soldiers reported that as soon as Father heard the Lycaster army was approaching, he abandoned their party and disappeared.
I never thought my father would be such a coward.
From what Evereon reported, Derrick had horses, foot soldiers, and support of the Barons—all to bring the Duchess of Lycaster back to the palace.
Endre leaned on his knee with a dueling sword resting at his hip. “So what do we have to fight back? Weapons? Supplies?”
Evereon folded his arms. “That all depends if the wall is fixed.”
“Give me and some men a few hours,” Riyan grumbled at my side. His muscles tensed. “I can move stone bricks faster than you can blink.”
“Then it becomes a waiting game,” Evereon said. He scanned the soldiers gathered in the hall. “Horses and arrows do nothing against stone walls and the Lycaster army has no siege weapons. They’ll block the gate for a few days and see if they can starve us out.”
Brietta wrote “negotiation” on her parchment and underlined it.
“Nikkolas Bloodstone prepared me for this exact situation,” Evereon said. “We will just have to rely on our food stores until Alastar the Mad gives up.”
The Mad. My heart ached.
Brietta grimaced at the name, but she hissed out a breath and kept writing notes. I cut a glance at all her plans neatly lined out on the parchment—none of it was any use. She had never met Alastar, he would never allow Derrick to yield.
“What food stores?” Calder Anson shouted. “You mean the ones the fucking sorceress sent to Ravenwood?”
The bench jolted backward as Riyan leaped to his feet.
“Watch your fucking tone,” he growled.
The whole room went quiet. Some of the soldiers clutched the hilts of their swords, but Calder did not let up.
“Nice to see where your loyalties lie, for now. ” He sneered. “Of course, when the General comes to the gate, you’ll just roll over for him like always.”
Riyan lunged toward Calder, but I wrapped a rope of magic around Riyan’s wrist, yanking him back before he could jump over the table.
I sent a whisper into Riyan’s mind, “ Calm down, Riyan. ”
He set his jaw and sent a message back. “ I don’t give a shit if you’re Baron or not, no one runs their mouth about my family and lives. ”
He held onto his fury and kept his eyes locked on Calder. Calder did not even flinch, but Endre stood between their death glares.
“Fire in the blood is what we need to stand against the Duke,” Endre said with a confident smile. “If it comes to steel against steel, we will need that passion to win!”
Brietta’s soft voice floated over the crowd, melting the tension in the room. “The Hytons do not fight with steel, but with false information.” Every soldier turned their eyes from snarling Riyan to her. “Captain Mydina, what have the Hytons been saying?”
The air in the room shifted as the collective attention turned to Evereon. Endre walked to stand beside him, keeping his weight on his toes in case someone else lashed out. Erik stayed seated at the table, watching everyone over steepled fingers.
I released my magical hold over Riyan’s wrist. He sat down at my side, rubbing his wrist where the tears must have tickled his skin.
Evereon cleared his throat. “The latest story Rosaline and I heard was that a sorceress absconded with the Duchess and is holding her prisoner.
Brietta rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Of course.”
I bit my tongue. I was the villain in Derrick’s narrative, not that I did not deserve it.
“And there’s an archer going around saying the sorceress placed a curse on his bride—made her skin boiling to touch,” Evereon said, his gaze jumping over my head as he addressed the crowd. “He’s showing everyone the burn marks on his neck to prove it.”
The soldiers murmured. Endre turned to me and I felt Erik’s cold black eyes on me as well. Although pride surged through my veins at having marked Grigory, I still turned to Annalisa. Her face had blanched. She had even stopped petting Magnus.
Evereon addressed the crowd, not me. “The army’s plan is simple—kill the sorceress to reverse the curse and free the Duchess.”
An invisible fist squeezed my heart. Derrick could not kill me, but he could make me wish I were dead. I could only hope Alastar merely hungered for conquest and not revenge.
The soldiers murmured, a few even shouting over the crowd.
“What will he do when he finds out she can’t die?”
“This is ridiculous!”
“Just turn the bitches over once he gets here!”
“I’m not dying for any damn Hyton!”
Brietta stood up and threw her shoulders back, but Annalisa slipped off the bench and ran. Magnus gave a low meow, upset at having been abandoned.
She passed me and pouring rainfall clattered in my mind. I placed my hand on Riyan’s shoulder, ready to send him a message to protect Brietta while I ran off for Annalisa, but a strong voice made me still.
“None of you will die for me!” Brietta shouted.
Every eye turned to Brietta as she stood at the table. She kept her brown eyes on Calder. “I may not know you, but I know your struggle. The Hytons have used you and abandoned you, leaving you to starve in the famine they created.”
My brows knitted. I had thought Brietta only cared about Ravenwood’s plight because she was my friend, but…she actually cared. She not only listened to me, she understood.
Brietta stepped away from the bench and walked into the center of the room, sweeping her eyes across the faces of every crimson-clad soldier. “The Hytons have taken so much. They took your sons and your brothers. They robbed you of your hope…and mine too. We will fight the Hytons not because of a mad Duke, but we will fight for us.”
“Us?” Calder sneered. “What do you mean ‘us?’ You are just a spoiled noble girl.”
Brietta reached down and grabbed the hilt of Calder’s sword. Before he could stop her, she held out the blade to the crowd.
The iron must have been heavy, but her arm did not tremble and neither did her voice. “I am the Duchess of Lycaster. Alastar the Mad cannot kill me without destroying himself.” She dropped the tip of the sword to the floor with a soft tap, punctuating her point, and turned to Evereon. “I am your greatest weapon. No steel or stone will dare cross the gate if I am standing atop it.”
The soldiers around us murmured, but not with dissent.
“Never again,” Brietta said. “Never again will the Hytons crush you underfoot. Never again will your cries go unheard. Never again will the lamentations of women go unpunished. If anyone should fall, it will not be for me—it will be for the freedom of everyone in the North.”
Riyan cut me a look and sent a message into my mind: “ Is she sure she wants to be a Duchess and not a General? She is brilliant. ”
I smiled as Endre rushed to Brietta’s side, instantly rallying support for her cause. I had once thought her greatest talent was poetry on parchment, but with only a few words from her lips, she had shifted the entire battle. Instead of morale that would wither the moment I gave myself up to Derrick, the army now had something to fight for. She had braided her own ambitions of freedom with the North’s desperate thirst for it.
Brietta had her own army…but Annalisa was still in pain.
I gave Riyan’s back a quick pat and then I weaved through the crowd of cheering soldiers. My magic searched for Annalisa as I ascended the spiraling staircase, following the sound of sheets of rain.
Annalisa’s voice echoed off the stone. “Get lost, Bird Brain!”
I rounded the corner and found them. Annalisa stood near a large window in the hallway, her cheeks shining with tears. Erik stood in front of her.
“Do not listen to those ruffians downstairs,” Erik said calmly. “You are safe here.”
“Oh, I already know what a Ravenwood’s definition of ‘safe’ is,” Annalisa snapped. Her watering eyes turned to me as I approached. “A curse in my blood. Separating me from my true love. Taking me away from my family!”
This again? “Anna, I already told you—”
“Justify it however you want.” She clutched her arms so hard that her fingernails must have pinched through her sleeves. “You never gave me a choice. You got to choose Riyan, Brietta got to choose a war for her freedom, but I never got a choice.”
I avoided Erik’s judging eyes as my stomach knotted. I had just wanted to protect her, but she was right. Just as I was grieving the last hours of my autonomy, Annalisa was grieving the loss of hers.
And I had taken it away from her.
“I am sorry, Anna.” I looked into her glassy eyes and her lip trembled. “You deserved a choice too.”
Just as Annalisa’s brow softened, I caught sight of a dark swirl in the clouds. I cut between Annalisa and Erik and gripped the windowsill, looking through the glass panes to the south.
Over the trees was a large cloud of smoke. Judging by the distance, it was coming from the Bloodstone apple grove.
“Derrick,” Annalisa whispered. She pressed her hand against her heart. “Oh, Derrick.”
The destruction was not just cruelty, it was a message. Derrick did not intend to wait us out like Evereon had predicted. He was an Alastar. He was a conqueror.
He was going to smoke us out.