Wicked Crown (Shattered Kingdom Book 2) Page 11

  Mckenzie’s emerald eyes, the only trait all three of them shared, flashed at Josh. “Why don’t you remember that I am your sister and you just suggested I feign interest in these men?” Josh went paler than usual at her tone. The girl who was now throwing back his words at him was no longer the little girl he used to train, he used to protect. “And if you, for one moment, believe that I will sit still while you watch how Mother arranges a marriage behind my back—” She threw up her hands, very much unlike the demeanor that was expected of a woman in court. Especially a woman who was seeking a husband. Maybe that would be what might save her. No matter their mother’s plans.

  Brax reached out for her with his hands and tucked her to his side. “Walk with me, sister.”

  And just like that, they left the Prince of Sives standing in the hallway with the damnable list he had created, inviting the wolves and vultures into their home.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Addie’s heart was beating in her throat as Armand Denderlain held out his hand to lead her into the carriage. She tried—tried and failed—to see past the ornate gold and silver decorations along the frame, the intricate lace curtains embroidered with the Denderlain coat of arms.

  “Are you sure?” She breathed as he wiggled his fingers, inviting him to lay her hand in his.

  “Without a doubt.” His smile was a subdued version of the one he sometimes gave her when they were alone, his stance that of a settled lord who had nothing to fear in his own court. He didn’t even comment on his father, who had stormed through the castle an hour earlier, lamenting over the waste-of-space son he had brought into this world. The only thing Armand had retorted before he had turned and led Addie out the door was that it hadn’t been his father who had brought him into the world but his mother, may the gods cradle her soul.

  Now, he was offering his gloved hand, inviting her on a journey to a place where no one but the heir to the throne of Sives knew that she was a servant.

  Addie exhaled a shuddering breath and laid her hand in his, grateful for the leather between their palms, for it masked the sheath of sweat on her skin that didn’t originate from the mild afternoon breeze.

  Armand guided her forward, steadying her as she climbed up the wrought iron stairs into the spacious carriage, and only released her hand once she was sitting on the comfortable cushion of the bench that allowed her to look out the back window. She didn’t fidget as the corset of her dress pushed into her ribs when she leaned back but studied Armand’s lean shape as he followed her into the compartment and sat across from her on the Denderlain-blue velvet, his body angled at the door until the driver closed it with a thud. The carriage swayed as the man moved into position, and after a short call, the horses set in motion, pulling the heavy vehicle out the front gates.

  Out.

  Addie couldn’t remember having ever hoped she would get out of this castle. And now, the sentries riding behind the carriage were not preventing her from leaving but escorting her out the gates, guarding her, making sure she was safe … well, making sure the Lord of Eedwood was safe. But that was good enough for her anyway.

  “Nervous?” Armand winked as he leaned back in his seat, one shoulder against the tapestried wall of the carriage. He held his hands up in front of him, pulling off his gloves, and dropped them beside him on the bench, flexing his long fingers and inhaling audibly.

  “You?” Addie asked in return and earned a broad smile.

  “Not in my dreams.” He snickered. “Just beyond relieved to get away from the tragedies of Eedwood Castle for a while.”

  Addie could empathize. She had watched him return from the meetings with his father, day after day, since that incident in his chambers, and every time, his face had been paler than the last. And each time, she had patiently listened to what had happened. To how his father had put him down, had scolded the true Lord of Eedwood—

  She chewed her lip and thought how little Armand deserved that. Especially after he had lost his mother—and now his aunt.

  The carriage swayed along the dusty path until it turned into the forest, and Addie’s heart lightened as the sound of the raging Eedpenesor was replaced by the calm rustling of leaves, a gentle carpet under the rhythmic noise of the trotting horses. This was the road to central Sives. They would roll past the grain fields in a day’s time, and the air would fill with the scent of drying hay. Then, she would see the meadows stretch and the sun tint the mountains in the west. Addie’s heart did a small leap.

  “You look different, Addie,” Armand noted, and when she looked up, she found him studying her with curious hazel eyes.

  She didn’t blink, savoring the moment of his full attention. “I didn’t believe I would get out of your castle alive,” she said truthfully. “Not after your aunt took me into those caverns.” She absently reached for her shoulder, the stinging returning as she went through the memory.

  Armand’s face changed at that, hands folding in his lap. “Have I ever told you how sorry I am that you were pulled into all of this?”

  Addie couldn’t remember. If he had, it must have been in those first hours after they had found out about Joshua Brenheran—the thought of the Prince of Sives and what he had been through still made her shudder.

  “It is not your fault.” She massaged her shoulder, fingers sliding over the lace-trimmed neckline of her pale-gray cotton dress. She had asked Deelah about something that matched her eyes for the ball, and the woman had returned with a whole assortment of travel clothes, all new and in shades of blue and gray and silver that brought out her electric blue eyes and contrasted with her raven hair. Deelah had dismissed her words of thanks and apologies for her selfishness with the words, “You deserve to own something that was made for you instead of for someone who never wanted to be here.” The woman had winked at her with a knowing smile.

  True. Gandrett had come to Eedwood on a mission to rescue Joshua Brenheran. She had never intended to stay. But Addie. She had chosen to stay. For him. For Armand. She wondered if he knew. If he had realized that she was here for him.

  “As Lord of Eedwood, I am responsible for the welfare of my court,” he simply said, “and after everything you have done to save Joshua … and the countless hours of cleaning out my guard and my aunt’s rooms, I consider you part of my court”—he gave her a half-smile—“in case you haven’t noticed.”

  Addie lowered her hand and wondered if there was anything sane she could say to that then chose to nod in thanks.

  “There once was a maiden who helped slay a dragon. For that, she was offered a place in the wagon, to a faraway palace where had once lived a prince, but put her in a corset, and the maiden will wince.” Armand had troubles keeping his face straight as he recited the horrible rhyme, as did Addie, who soon grinned along with him.

  They hadn’t made it out of the forest when the first black clouds appeared in the sky. Not the thick dark-gray ones that promised thunderstorms but black smoke that collected above the nearby village.

  Armand swore where he was lounging in his seat and pulled aside the curtains for a clear view.

  “Stop the carriage!” he shouted out the window, his hand mechanically wandering to the hilt of his sword.

  He didn’t wait until they had halted completely when he opened the door and jumped out, leaving Addie to choose for herself if she was curious enough to follow.

  She hesitated, trying to see through the open door what Armand was cursing about, sentries framing him on their tall horses, but this was the open land of Sives, and the door was open. So she rose to her feet and climbed out, ready to set foot onto the soil of freedom.

  Freedom wasn’t what she beheld when her gaze fell past Armand and his sentries, right at the burning village ahead.

  Her chest tightened at the image. She had known that the land was tormented by the conflict between Denderlain and Brenheran, but it should have stopped weeks ago, the second Armand had sorted through the guards and mercenaries, making sure each and every one of th
e corrupted ones no longer remained in his service.

  “Father sure has his ways to keep me on a leash,” Armand commented as Addie joined him, one of the sentries stepping aside, making room for her. She recognized the man to be one of the young lord’s usual guards at his chamber doors.

  Addie watched the wafts of smoke hover above the houses. They were too far away to see flames, too far to hear screams or movement. The smoke—thick and heavy as if Shaelak himself had breathed upon the world—was the only sign that something was horribly wrong.

  “You think he is responsible for this?” she asked without turning away from the sight.

  She remembered the clouds of smoke she had sometimes seen from a distance up high from her refuge in the northern tower; and the flames and smoke that night her family had been eradicated—all but her. And she had been brought to the northern mountains to become a vessel for Shygon. A blood sacrifice. Nausea rose in Addie’s throat making it hard to stand up straight as the memories flooded through her.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me.” Armand’s voice was laced with controlled anger; the anger of years, as he turned to his sentries. “Go, and find out what’s going on. Whoever did this, drag them back dead or alive—” He paused. “Alive would be better.”

  Addie didn’t need to ask to know that whoever the sentries found would choose death over facing Armand. She had seen him question those soldiers over the past weeks. He was a merciful ruler, but when it came to loyalty—

  She shook her head. The nausea of seeing the wafts of smoke was replaced with shudders from the image of that other side of Armand, who could kill as easily as any predator. Only, he rarely chose to let anyone glimpse that side of him. He had even told her. He much preferred for his father to underestimate him … at least until now. When she eyed him now, Armand’s noble face had turned into that killing cold. And she was pretty certain that he wasn’t going to pretend he wasn’t the one who brought the assaults on the villages to an end.

  How many times had Armand told her how he wished he could just spit in his father’s face for the way he kept insisting that there was only one path for Sives and that it was a path without any Brenheran in power. How he wished that his father understood that a peaceful Sives was the only Sives that had a future. That there was a prince waiting to take his throne. A prince without vanity or greed.

  Well, that day had probably come that Armand would smash all of it into the Lord of Eedwood who never truly was the Lord of Eedwood’s face.

  “I would go with them,” Armand said to her face unchanged, “but I can’t leave you unprotected.”

  Addie wanted to laugh. She had survived much, much worse than staying behind by a manned carriage while someone else was scouting ahead, potentially not even fighting, the real danger far away. But she nodded her thanks and asked if he planned to make camp where they stood and offered to make dinner.

  “You no longer are a servant, Addie,” he reminded her, something oddly concerned in his eyes.

  She shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I can’t help out.”

  At that, Armand’s expression smoothed over a bit, but he glanced back at the smoke towering in the sky and beckoned Addie to return to the carriage. “We set camp in an hour or two. Let’s get as much ground between Eedwood and ourselves as possible before we rest. The others will find us. They know the travel route.” With those words, he offered his hand again to help her into the carriage.

  This time, Addie didn’t take it but lifted the hem of her skirts with one hand while she slipped into the compartment with efficient—probably completely ungraceful—movements, but she did it alone.

  Armand followed without comment and settled back on the bench across from her.

  “One day, this will be over,” Armand said as the carriage set in motion again. “One day soon.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Nehelon wasn’t sure he was breathing as the earth opened before his feet in a long, narrow canyon. The girl—the woman a couple of reckless strides away—had just broken open the soil as if it was nothing. And she wasn’t even panting. Just raging about the Meister. About Pete Nemey.

  He wondered for a short second if that was the real reason. That she hadn’t once in ten years heard the real name of the person who had trained her—tormented her if Pete was still using the same training methods.

  “Use her in whatever way you need?” Gandrett yelled at him as she turned on her heels and stormed away from the cleft in the ground, right to the stream where Alvi had been drinking water and was now bolting at the sight of a fuming Gandrett. “How exactly do you plan on using me?”

  Her words were like glass daggers to his ancient heart. Not because Gandrett was yelling, accusing him, but because those words were true—had been. He had never planned on developing feelings for her. As for the rest… Every step along the path he’d been walking since the Fae had fallen dormant in Ulfray had been in search of a solution. To free his species of the curse that had befallen it. And he was willing to sacrifice anything for it—well, had been. Until little less than three months ago when all his careful planning had gone to shit.

  “Tell me, Nehelon, if there is anything I can expect from you other than misery.” Gandrett had stopped near the stream and was facing him again, the crack in the earth following to her toes but no further. As if she was controlling it somehow. Not consciously, probably, but on instinct.

  An all-consuming silence filled his mind as he couldn’t form the words that he so desperately wanted to say, that he would do anything to make sure she would be spared. That someone else would take her place. But he couldn’t lie. So, he said nothing.

  She waited with rage, but also some last flicker of hope, in her eyes. Hope that would give her an explanation. The truth, possibly. But even if he wanted to, if he did, all those centuries of searching would have been for nothing.

  No. He couldn’t tell her anything other than bits and pieces. And it was a path more dangerous than walking through a hail of iron needles, but this was Gandrett, the fiercest, smartest fighter he had encountered in a long, long time—that was all he allowed himself to acknowledge as a reason. Anything else would destroy him—and she deserved to be heard in her anger. She deserved something. Even if they weren’t the words she wanted to hear.

  “The day I ran into Pete Nemey, over a century after I fled Everrun, was the day I remembered there was a future worth fighting for,” Nehelon said instead of answering her question.

  His words, calm and quiet and coming from right before her where he was standing on the other side of the canyon her magic had created, both fear and frown gone from his glamoured features, ran through her like an icy trickle of water. Was he talking about the same Pete Nemey? The Meister of the Order of Vala?

  “Why don’t you leash your magic, and then we’ll talk?” he offered, something in his eyes so reassured that she would be capable of doing so as he glanced from her to the canyon and back to her.

  Gandrett herself wasn’t certain if there was a way to just stop her magic. If she even wanted to stop. The Meister had written a message to Nehelon, giving the Fae free rein to use her. The man whom she had feared and hated for the past ten years had given the male she... She didn’t know if despised was the right word anymore. There were so many layers to what was between them. Had anyone asked this morning, she would have said they coexist well by now with some tension one or the other way—not thinking about that kiss that was still not confirmed. But now. After this.

  “Tell me I am not a slave,” she said, her anger dialing down and turning into something much more dangerous. The threatening moisture in her eyes.

  Nehelon said nothing, waiting, his gaze on the canyon now, and his hands … they were reaching over the cleft and under his attention, slowly, so slowly, the earth knitted itself back together.

  Gandrett felt it then, the magic—his magic—working against hers like an offbeat to the pulsing power in her veins. A shore to break her waves against. Somet
hing in her quieted as if her raging screams had been heard and there was no need for her to break the world apart.

  It was then that her body understood, her mind, that her magic wasn’t a beast in her chest, nothing to be chained and leashed and locked up, but that it was like the tide, able to advance and retract like taking a breath where the air had to go in and out, like the blood in her veins, moving with every thump of her heart. It was in motion. Constantly in motion. With every breath she took, every beat of her heart.

  So she tried, shoving down her anger little by little, and shook her head at Nehelon. She didn’t care what the male had to say, what story he was ready to tell her. It could wait. For now, she had finally found her magic, its beginning and its end, which were the same.

  She held up a hand and waited for her power to collect in her palm, feeling the headache slowly subsiding as she stopped forcing the writhing magic in her chest to silence. She inhaled and exhaled, the power building and building, her chest lighter and lighter and lighter, and she could feel it, that power as it vibrated within her. She could taste it on her tongue.

  Nehelon’s power had stopped pushing against hers and was now idle in the background as if waiting for the Fae’s command to step in. A grin spread on Gandrett’s face as a single flame flickered to life in her palm, and the shuddering in the ground disappeared, making way for her fire.

  For a long moment, all she did was stare at the flame. Nothing existed outside her body and the extended reach the fire had given her. Nothing but that simple realization that she could do it. That she no longer needed the anger, the rage, the pain to awaken her magic and the dulling edge of exhaustion to leash it again, but that that power was for her to shape and guide and breathe.

  And just like that, she winked out her flame and stepped onto the grass where Nehelon had healed the tear in the ground with his ancient power, and let her grin drop. “Tell me whatever you wanted to tell me over something to eat,” she said and walked back to the tent, following the scar her magic tantrum had caused on the pretty meadow.