38. The Return Home #2
“Run, Payen?” Henry scoffed. His voice was brittle around its bravado. “Did the Welsh make you a coward? You fall from your horse once, and now you want to run?”
Erik held up his axe, pointing the blade at the man who’d taken everything from him.
The weight of it made his arm shake. “I won every time because I knew I could win. For nearly two years, Lord Henry, you’ve fought Madoc when every captain advised you not to.
You thinned our numbers and bled our men dry.
And for fifteen years, Madoc and the Welsh chiefs have built their armies. ”
He jabbed the axe butt toward the kneeling Seren. “Believe me when I tell you—we will not survive without her.”
A murmur of anxious whispers rippled through the great hall. Chain mail shifted. Spears tapped nervously against stone.
For the first time, Henry’s men did not look certain.
Henry tugged at the tight collar of his cloak, twisting his head as his eyes swept his captains—searching for loyalty and likely finding only fear.
“You married me for peace,” Seren said. “So have your peace, my lord husband.”
Not in the soft voice she used with him. It lacked the courtly demure tone.
It was her voice, her true voice.
Erik glanced back. Seren shakily lifted her necklace, tucking the cross back against her chest as if reclaiming something sacred.
The hall reacted before Henry did—guards shifted as the captains exchanged uncertain looks. Her courage climbed the walls like heat rising.
Henry saw it, though he likely felt it first.
And he crushed it beneath the first command he could muster.
“Disarm the savage.”
Two guards lurched forward. Their hands shook as they seized Erik’s axes. He let them take the weapons. If Henry still wanted her dead, he still had the dagger in his boot.
Henry descended the dais, boots striking the single step like a drumbeat of judgment. “You want peace?” he shouted at those in the hall. “You all want peace?”
He spread his arms, looking to each face as though beseeching them for loyalty he had long since lost.
“Then you will have peace on the morn.” He flicked his wrist, and the two guards shuffled Erik backward so he could seize Seren by the nape, fisting his hand in her hair. She didn’t flinch.
“In the morning, you will walk out of Thornwyck Keep,” he hissed. “You will meet your father on the fields of Mortlande, and you will barter peace. If you care to see your son one last time, you will return here. And if you don’t—then stay in Madoc Keep and die alone.”
“I came for peace, Lord Henry,” Seren said, steady and unbroken, “and peace we shall have.”
He released her hair with a shove. She caught herself on the floor with grace.
Henry turned and struck Erik across the face. The rings split skin; blood beaded instantly.
“That is for disobeying me,” Henry snarled.
Erik’s breath punched out through clenched teeth. He wiped the sweat from his brow and the blood from his cheek, never taking his eyes off the lord he had once obeyed, though everything blurred and his legs begged for merciful rest.
“And you’ll keep your life this time, Montfort,” Henry said, lifting his chin with smug self-satisfaction.
He flicked his hand and strode to the dais, toward David. “Take the savage to the dungeon. Flog him for his disobedience and remind him where his loyalty lies. If he defies me again, he’ll die a torturous death and join his son and wife.”
A guard tapped Erik’s shoulder with a spear. Another guard stepped up behind him.
The room spun, and Erik knew he couldn’t move without tipping.
Henry seized David by the sleeve and yanked him into the seat beside him. Then Henry struck him hard across the cheek.
“No tears for any woman. Do you understand? They mean nothing—every single one is replaceable.”
David swallowed, nose dripping blood, eyes burning. “Yes, Father,” he gritted.
The look on David’s face was familiar through the haze. It was the one Erik had worn for nearly two decades—rage restrained in a cage of duty.
The spear tapped his arm again, urging him forward, but he didn’t move, afraid of toppling. So he lowered his hand to the woman he loved beside him on the floor.
Seren took his hand as she stood.
His chest thumped with an erratic heartbeat, pumping hard to keep himself upright. He closed his eyes and stumbled, but Seren caught his arm. The warmth of her fingers burned his frigid skin.
Their eyes locked. Her face came into full focus.
He could only pray she knew what she was doing.
He would have gladly cut down Henry when the surge fueled his body and accepted the execution to follow.
If Seren returned from the meeting with her father, she would die, and Erik would have no recourse left to save her.
But peace lived in her gaze. She gave him a tiny nod, or maybe he just imagined it.
Cruel darkness edged his vision. Air twisted his lungs.
He hoped a lie had passed through Seren’s pious lips regarding Ragnar. His eyes misted at the thought; his breath hitched if it was true.
Father Osbert entered the hall with a pointed finger at Henry.
“It is one thing to make me leave, but you dare lock me away?” the priest thundered. “I am the Church!”
The words rang too loudly in Erik’s ears. He still didn’t look away from Seren. He couldn’t. If he did, he would fall. His body swayed, cold swallowing the edges of his vision. Nothing made sense except her—the woman he’d crossed death to reach—and the brightness he’d come to know in her gaze.
“Return to your domain, priest,” Henry snapped. “Take him there.”
Men moved, boots scuffing across the stone, but the sound came warped and distant.
Seren’s fingers tightened around his hand. Her brow creased with knowing, with resolve. He felt the warning in her touch: hold fast.
That was when he realized how violently his body shook.
The spear tapped his arm again.
His knees threatened to buckle, but he locked them, teeth gritted. He would not fall—not here. Not now. Not in front of her.
Seren turned her full attention to Henry, drawing his wrath away from Erik. Her action steadied the hall.
Geoffrey stepped to Erik’s side, lifting a hand to hold the guard back, buying Erik a moment to gather himself. Even so, Erik’s breath came thin. Air scraped his lungs. The walls of the room wavered.
He stayed standing only because Seren had anchored him there.
But cold dragged at him, trying to pull him under its dark spell. His heartbeat thudded unevenly in his ears. His fingers went numb around hers.
The world tilted without Seren in focus.
His vision blurred again—then steadied, just barely—as he forced himself to endure, to hold fast, as she had told him in her gaze.