Chapter 2 Nes
Nes
Nes walked the line between the Bark and the Ditch.
She passed several carefree drunks, their stumbling steps a dance whose music only they could hear. A couple jittery pickpockets, their fingers itchy with emptiness, tried their luck with her. She forcibly redirected them to the toe-tapping drunks.
Anger was an avalanche inside her, sweeping sense and reason away, burying all thoughts aside from those of retribution.
She wanted Phineas to feel the burn of her betrayal just as she felt the sting of his.
But she had to be careful. One misstep, one indication she was acting against him, and he could have her drowned. And she had more immediate concerns.
She stopped in front of the Northern Gate. The Walled Prison loomed above her, the great monstrosity an enemy she no longer knew how to beat.
The Walled Prison was legendary for being impenetrable.
Split into two sections, it housed permanent residents in an inner circle, while the outer circle kept watch over the more fleeting inhabitants—everyday crooks and thieves.
Because permanent residents weren’t allowed visitors, it had been years since Nes had last laid eyes on her father.
Her father had been a member of the Orlonean King’s Guard.
After her mother died giving birth to her, her father tried to return to the Guard.
But when Nes aged from newborn to toddler then to a young child, the Guard grew less and less forgiving of her father’s absences.
So he’d left, knowing he’d be running for the rest of his life.
For the only thing Orlonea hated more than the Witch was a deserter.
Nes and her father traveled the entire continent of Kreiena—from Lorut, the booming fishing town on the southern tip of Lusa, all the way up to Teese, the tiny town in northern Martou known for its lumber, stopping anywhere and everywhere in between.
They’d run for eight years before the fateful day when guards had swarmed their small camp and carted her father away.
After that, it had taken her two years to find him in Gadore.
She couldn’t lose him. Not again.
Turning her back on the prison, Nes took the closest street on her left, the dirt of the Ditch dusting up her boots.
She knew of several Ditch residents who would get arrested for petty crimes just to have a bed for the night. A year ago, when she’d felt desperate enough to try a similar tactic in hopes of seeing her father, she’d met Mikaud.
Lieutenant Res Mikaud, recorder of every name in and out of the Walled Prison, had a room on the top floor of an old boarding house close to the wall.
Lucky for her, the buildings here were just as squished together as the rest in the Ditch, and getting to the window on the fourth floor was simpler than walking through the front door.
With one hand pressed to the corner of the house and the other to the wall, Nes hopped up so she straddled the two. A lightly sweet scent, filled with winter berries, flitted toward her as she climbed.
Mikaud wasn’t expecting her tonight. She enjoyed surprising him. Especially when he didn’t enjoy the surprise.
She’d once caught him unaware, holding a meeting with other guards in his legion. That hadn’t gone over well. But she’d also caught him unaware in a bath once. She could still remember the feel of the soap suds squishing between their skin.
She knew enough not to call the things they did love. No one mixed convenience into a recipe for love.
She hadn’t picked Mikaud out of a dozen prison guards for the way he kissed her senseless. She’d picked him to be her backup plan if Phineas betrayed her. Mikaud wouldn’t break her father out of prison, but he could at least give her the right cell so she could do it herself.
Shimmying up the corner, Nes climbed until she was level with the window on the fourth floor. Feet secure, she grabbed the windowsill and swung herself right into Mikaud’s room.
It was empty.
She noted the bare hanger on the hook behind the door, his uniform missing. He was on duty. No matter; she could wait. She eyed the smooth sheets and perfectly tucked blanket on the mattress. Maybe he would be more inclined to help her if she waited for him in bed.
Before she could act on the thought, the floorboards in the hall creaked, and the door swung open.
The light from the hall illuminated Mikaud from behind, casting his long shadow across the room.
With blond hair that lay ruffled atop his head even on a windless day and a sculpted jaw, Mikaud was handsome.
His King’s Guard uniform was free of wrinkles and crisp, the muscles beneath it pressed to crispness in an entirely different way.
She remembered how the tip of her finger had traced circles over those muscles. Around and around. Teasing him. Tantalizing, he’d called her touch. A touch that became downright wicked by the end of the night.
He blinked once at her before stepping into the room and shutting the door behind him.
“What are you doing here?” His voice was gruffer than usual.
She tilted her head to look at him beneath hooded eyes. Rolling her shoulder so the edge of her cloak slid off, she said, “You know exactly what I’m doing here, Mikaud.”
His heated gaze was enough to chase away the chills skating up and down her back. But the second she stepped forward, he looked away.
“I can’t tonight,” he said. “I’m on duty.”
Not one to be put off so quickly, she took another step forward. “They’ll wait.”
He shook his head. “I only came back for my belt.”
He turned his gaze and she followed. Sure enough, a black belt sat atop the skinny four-drawer dresser to her left.
She snatched it before he could. “Stay,” she implored. “You know I’ll make it worth your while.”
He met her eyes, a smirk toying with the crease between his lips. “I have no doubt you would. But not right now.”
His decision was firm. She could hear it in his tone. No amount of sultry words or moves on her part would sway him. It seemed everything tonight had slipped beyond her control. First Phineas, and now Mikaud.
She held tight to the belt, the leather sticking to her palms.
“Later, then?”
A hint of surprise softened his growing smirk. “You’ll wait?”
She slid closer, forcing herself to look up his broad frame. “Only if you promise to make it worth my while.”
He grinned then, full and wide. “Happily,” he swore.
She grinned back. Still holding his belt tight, she asked, “Anything for me?”
He slid a hand in the pocket of his coat and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She reached for it, but he held it high over his head.
“My belt, if you would be so kind.”
She held out the belt. He lowered his arm. They swapped leather and paper at the same time.
Relief swept through her at the sight of her father’s familiar handwriting. She folded the page back over her father’s words and watched as Mikaud slid his belt through the loops on his pants.
He had been willing to pass notes between her and her father for a year now. She had to believe she could coerce him into giving up the location of her father’s cell. She didn’t have another way.
With his belt latched and secure at his waist, Mikaud looked back at her. She smiled innocently at him.
“I’ll be here when you return,” she said.
He leaned down for a kiss, his hazel eyes searching her face for the usual iciness she displayed at such intimacy.
He wanted more between them. And she’d always shut him down, reminding herself that she could keep no lovers, no friends.
No attachments to Gadore. But she couldn’t afford to keep him at arm’s length anymore.
She swallowed back her reservations and met his lips halfway. She kept the kiss brief—he couldn’t grow suspicious of her sudden change of heart. When she pulled back, he did too, straightening to his full height.
“I’ll see you soon,” he whispered. There was a new gentleness in his voice, and it made a soft chime of guilt sound in her heart. She shoved it away with a heavy sigh.
“Get out of here.”
She turned her back to him, opening the letter from her father again and settling onto the edge of Mikaud’s bed. Keeping her eyes trained on the page, she listened as the door opened and shut, Mikaud’s footsteps retreating down the hall.
Once she was sure he was out of earshot, she groaned. She lay back on the bed, not caring if she rumpled his pristine sheets. Holding her father’s letter above her head, she began to read.
My dearest Nes,
From your last letter, you sound well. It is nice to hear you have made a friend. Suriadne seems like a lovely young woman. I am glad you two found each other.
She knew Mikaud read all the letters he passed between them, so she couldn’t tell her father about Phineas or how close she’d been to getting him out of prison. In her latest letter, she’d decided to tell her father about Suri—the friend she had made against her will.
Have you considered visiting Lorut? It pains me to think of you staying in Gadore just for me.
I want you to live your own life. And if you don’t know what it is you want, go out into the world and find out.
Find someone who cares for you and spend your life with that person.
There is no one way to live happily, my Nessie.
It was the same speech he gave her in every letter.
Get out of Orlonea. Leave him behind. She would never do it.
Even if he begged her. There was a hole in her chest that only her father could fill.
She dreamed of the day the two of them could walk side by side across the continent, father and daughter, together again.
Finding happiness can be like turning over a rock and finding a crystal on the other side. It may take dozens of rocks for you to finally see that sparkle, but never doubt that it’s there, waiting for you—
A cry split the night. Strangled and short, there was nothing but agony in the sound.
Nes’s heart clenched.
Stowing her father’s letter, she ran to the window. Mikaud.