Wicked Crown (Shattered Kingdom Book 2) Read online

  “We’re here.” His voice rumbled through her, making her peel herself off his shoulder blades and open her eyes. “Welcome back.”

  Gandrett didn’t need to see his face to know he was smiling. How she knew, she couldn’t tell.

  For a heartbeat, she considered frowning at him, complaining that she had to get off the horse as she found herself in the yard of Ackwood palace. But when she turned her head, taking in the pale, stone facade of the building, something that had been slumbering for the past two days reawakened, and she remembered just how the Fae male had marched her into that palace the first time he had brought her here, who he was. Who she was.

  Gandrett loosed her grasp on Nehelon’s leathers and slid off the horse as if awakening from a dream … a nightmare. Her head bobbed from side to side in silent debate which one it had been. What exactly it had been that had silenced the core of herself for the ride with Nehelon.

  Then, he eyed her from up there, still on the horse, his eyes the shade of a storm rather than the gems she was used to. “You remember how to get to your old chambers,” he prompted before he jumped off the horse, a bit too fluidly for a human who had been riding for days, and stood beside her as she faced the gaping entrance to what she had once considered a prison.

  After weeks in the forest, sleeping in a tent, eating what Nehelon hunted, mourning and training, and being confronted with the brutality of that godless cult—not godless but devoted to the one god of destruction, of dragons, of the Dreads of the Skies—returning to the palace was like stepping back into a different life. A life she knew she should remember better, care about more, but all there was left was—

  “It’s good to see you again, Chancellor, Miss Brayton.”

  Gandrett whirled, hand at her sword as her trained instincts took over, and she found herself pointing her sword at the guard who had greeted her. The man blinked, his own sword half-drawn.

  “Maybe not so good,” Nehelon commented, mild surprise threaded with amusement in his tone.

  Not an enemy, Gandrett reminded herself as she lowered her sword with an apologetic shrug, and slowly, so slowly, Vala’s Blade awakened again.

  She sheathed her sword and shrugged as she followed Nehelon, who had stepped past the guard with a gesture of dismissal, and into the palace. Right. Chancellor. He had a role here in these dignified halls. Here, he was Chancellor Nehelon Sterngrove, human, a member of Lord Brenheran’s court.

  With half a thought, she marked the path up to her old rooms, letting Nehelon lead the way while she studied him, not his worn leathers, his hair—the way it shifted on his shoulders with every powerful, human stride. Him.

  “Don’t worry about explanations,” he said as they took a turn into the corridor that led to the stairs that would take them to her old chambers. “I’ll talk to the lord and explain that the Order decided to lend your services for an extended period of time, given that Joshua has returned to his home and the Prince of Sives will be established before all of Neredyn.”

  Gandrett nodded, knowing that he couldn’t see her but somehow convinced he’d still know, while she silently wondered how exactly Joshua was going to be established and how Nehelon knew. Then she remembered that with Riho as a whispering messenger, the Fae had means to learn whatever he wanted to learn. She shuddered, slowing for a moment to put a bit more space between them.

  Dust particles danced in the colorful light that filtered in through the equally colorful windows, the smell of blossoms carrying on the draft that flowed through the hallways, and with each step, Nehelon’s scent became more vague until the Fae male appeared as human to her as any of the people she had observed in the streets. But something inside her chest growled as they turned the corner and Nehelon glanced at her from the side. It wasn’t her magic.

  But Gandrett didn’t have time to wonder what it was, for down the hallway, illuminated by the afternoon sun, stood Brax Brenheran.

  “I had to come see for myself that it was true,” he said by way of greeting and sauntered toward them as Nehelon stopped by the carved double doors leading to Gandrett’s old room. The Brenheran boy’s eyes were on Gandrett even when he nodded in Nehelon’s direction. “Welcome back, Chancellor.”

  Gandrett took a step past the Fae, whose muscled back had tensed under the leathers, and wondered what would be the correct greeting now that she was technically back in Lord Tyrem’s service.

  “And you, Miss Brayton—” Brax stopped a stride away from them, gaze scanning her top to bottom and back.

  She decided to incline her head just in time to avoid Brax’s arms spreading wider.

  “I am relieved to see your brother remembers how to throw a party,” Nehelon said, straight-faced, and Gandrett wondered if she was missing something in the exchange of looks between the two as Brax’s shoulders stiffened and he folded his arms across his chest. “You don’t mind I brought a guest of my own?” It wasn’t really a question.

  Brax shook his head anyway, a mischievous grin spreading on his lips as he turned to the doors. “One of the guards mentioned a scary woman who isn’t reluctant to draw her sword,” he said as he walked inside, right up to the balcony that had a view on the gardens, and pushed open the door.

  “And you immediately thought of me,” Gandrett indulged him by following his train of thought as she stepped over the threshold. Behind her, Nehelon snorted quietly. She didn’t turn to scold him with a glare but unbuckled her sword belt to drop it on the small table in the antechamber.

  “My father will want to see you, Chancellor,” Brax dismissed the Fae male who could crush him with half a thought, not even turning as he spoke, a gesture to point out where exactly Nehelon was in the hierarchy at Ackwood palace.

  To Gandrett’s surprise, he bowed lightly at Brax and took his leave, but not without stopping to give her a deep look that could have meant anything, for his eyebrows had knitted together in a heavy frown. “I will let the lord know you are thrilled to be back,” he said to her, loud enough for Brax to hear but loaded with so much subtext that Brax turned to study the exchange in time to see her nod.

  The lace curtains flowed from the open windows into the room on a breeze as Nehelon left, taking the remains of his scent with it. Outside, the chirping of birds and the sound of party-preparations were a cheery carpet of sound that Gandrett wasn’t sure she was ready for.

  Brax stepped away from the balcony door and sauntered toward her, sunlight catching on the golden threads in his black tunic. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard it.” He loosed a breath, the tightness leaving his shoulders as he gestured at her. “I thought you were with your family.”

  The fresh air was suddenly not enough to let her breathe as he eyed her with an intense, emerald gaze that might have once made her nervous. Now, all it did was remind her of the pain it would cause her to speak about what had happened—if she even found the words to tell him. She bit down on her lower lip, debating for a moment, but when he didn’t balk, she inclined her head and marched to the table, settling in her usual chair where she had sat for countless hours during lady classes with Mckenzie. “Change of plans,” was all she said and prayed to Vala that Brax wouldn’t push for answers.

  He followed her to the table and took a seat across from her, leaning back in his chair, studying her. “You don’t want to talk about it,” he concluded after a while of happy chirping from the windows.

  Gandrett shook her head. “I don’t know if I can.” She didn’t bother to put on the smile that both Brax and Mckenzie had trained her to wear while navigating at court. She had thoroughly failed at that in Eedwood, and thank Vala, Armand Denderlain had a soft spot for outspoken women.

  Brax didn’t push, but even as his grin slapped back onto his face—the one that he had worn that first day they had met, the one that he had teased her with—his eyes remained thoughtful as they wandered to her neck, then her chest, searching for the necklace that she had tried to give back to him before she left Ackwood. It was safely st
ored away in the pack she and Nehelon had shared since she had sent hers to her brother together with Lim.

  “I didn’t lose it.” The smile came naturally at his caught look as she reassured him that the Brenheran heirloom he had gifted her was still safe and with her, and she leaned back in her chair, letting her shoulders slump a bit, then said, “It’s been a long journey. I could do with some of that stew Eugina used to sneak in here for me.”

  At that, Brax’s eyes brightened, the momentary awkwardness gone. “I can order some,” he offered, but Gandrett held up a hand. Not in refusal, but she had a different idea.

  Brax waited—not very patiently by his own standards—while Gandrett freshened up in the bathing room. He was still in shock that she was here, hadn’t trusted the guard who had informed him that he was speaking the truth. Yet, there she was, safe and sound and just in time for the solstice celebrations.

  “One more minute,” she called through the closed door, so little lady and so much Gandrett as she cursed at whatever she was trying to achieve in there.

  After she had left to see her family, Brax had convinced Joshua to keep the rooms the way they were, just in case. He had even gone to the vaults in the guts of Ackwood palace and set aside a small amount of gold to make sure he would be able to hire the Child of Vala for services for the House Brenheran when she was done with her training. Just to have her around. Nothing more.

  Mckenzie had taunted him about it. Of course she had, and she was right. Brax had bedded too many women over the past years to have even a shred of credibility when he said that he didn’t care if Gandrett would never answer his feelings as long as he could have her as a friend—that would be enough. She had returned something to him that he had believed he lost—the sense that he was more than just a Brenheran. More than just a man with urges and impulses.

  Nevertheless, he couldn’t help turning a bit breathless as Gandrett emerged from the bathing room in a collarbone-high-cut burgundy gown, an adorable frown on her brow, and turned to expose the back, showing him the small buttons that were left open halfway up where she couldn’t reach with her own hands. “Either you get Eugina, or you do it yourself,” she said in a voice that made it so very clear that there was no other meaning in them than exactly what she had said. “I am starving.”

  So Brax got to his feet, forbidding himself to comment the way he would have with any other woman, and took the bottommost open button between his fingers, tempted to take his time. But this was a Child of Vala. The thought alone made his usually so sure fingers turn clumsy.

  “Maybe I should get Eugina,” she commented as it took him three attempts to loop that first button in. But Brax wouldn’t yield this moment to the servant.

  He took a steadying breath and forced himself not to acknowledge the creamy skin within the opening and, under the fabric, the thin scars that covered her in a crisscrossed—proof of ten years of training and punishment.

  Gandrett didn’t twitch, didn’t move, her breathing even, making her ribs expand and contract in a slow rhythm. Unbothered by his hands so close. Different. She had returned different somehow. A heaviness had entered her features, her movements, proof enough she was carrying a burden. And Brax would have given anything to have the words to ask, to let her know that he’d listen if she needed to speak. But what did he have to offer but his grin, his flirtatious comments? Would she even take him seriously if he acknowledged her on such a deep level? Or would she turn away?

  He closed one button after the other, words on his tongue not coming out, until he reached her neck and his fingers tingled to linger. “Done,” he breathed, lowering his hands, waiting for her to knock the air from his chest with one of those smiles she had mastered so beautifully.

  “Nyssa incarnate,” he said as she turned, and Gandrett held his gaze for a moment before she did smile—a shadow of what he’d seen on that face but a smile anyway.

  Then she simply swept the braid over her shoulder. “Let’s get something to eat.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Brax told her about the solstice celebrations all the way down to the kitchens where she had asked him to take her. He hadn’t even raised an eyebrow at her request, only asked, mischief sparkling in his eyes, if she wanted anyone else to join them for this late lunch. Then, at her response, he sent a servant to inform Mckenzie where they were going and that she was invited to join.

  The news about Lady Crystal trying to arrange a marriage for Mckenzie had been like a blow to the face, and all Gandrett wanted to do was give her friend a hug. Friend, because they had grown close over that month in Ackwood even if she had known she might never return after her mission was finished.

  Gandrett followed Brax down a narrow hallway that seemed less lively than the one leading to the servants’ kitchen at Eedwood Castle. The conversations of the maids and kitchen boys who fleeted past were hushed, their gazes less open and friendly than the kitchen staff that had indulged her with bothenia crust, but she didn’t complain when they readily welcomed them to the kitchens with bows and curtseys before they resumed their chores on the command of a woman in her fifties who asked them what she could do for them.

  She let Brax do the talking, observing the details of the spacious layout of the cutting area and the high windows that allowed for the summer sun to fall, not the herbs on the windowsills. The smell of spices and something sweet she couldn’t name climbed into her nose, and she was glad that Nehelon wasn’t there to occupy all of her nose’s attention. By the time they left with a basket filled with fresh bread, cheese, grapes, and some delicacies Gandrett couldn’t name but definitely weren’t fish, Brax led her further down the hallway until they got to a back door, which took them directly to the edge of the gardens where the noise of the party-preparations was just a hum in the background.

  “I am not sure what to expect,” Brax finally said, “with Josh announcing the dual heritage and his claim to the throne.” There was concern in his voice, different from the worried protectiveness when he had spoken about Mckenzie. “With the heirs of the other kingdoms here, this could go either way. They could see it as a chance for building alliances with Sives, or they could see it as a threat and act accordingly.”

  “They didn’t bring mercenaries, did they?” Gandrett was still surprised both Phornes and Lapidos had sent delegations and that both territories had let their heirs travel with nothing more than a couple of sentries.

  Brax shook his head and sat in the grass, setting the basket beside his knees.

  “They either don’t see you—you meaning the House Brenheran—as a threat,” she mused as she dropped into the grass next to him, legs crossed under her huge skirt. If those dresses weren’t for anything else, at least she could hide her unladylike sit-in beneath the circles of fabric. “Or…”

  She didn’t get to finish her thought, for a white-blonde, bouncing shape made its way toward them, slaloming between the business around the gossamer tents.

  Mckenzie flung herself at Gandrett, the hug so tight it almost cut off her air supply.

  “You won’t believe what’s happening,” Mckenzie said as she sat next to Gandrett, holding her hand as she reached into the basket to extract a grape with the other. “Wait, I thought you were with your family.” She glanced back and forth between Gandrett and Brax, who shook his head unnoticeably before he popped a piece of cheese into his mouth.

  Gandrett bit the inside of her lips as she watched the silent exchange and Mckenzie’s intention to ask what had happened. So she jumped in and said, “Brax has told me about your little act with the Aucrostas.” She forced a smile—one of which Mckenzie had taught her—and was sure the young woman saw right through her.

  Later, she willed Mckenzie to understand with a glance, I’ll tell you later.

  She had rushed from the palace the last time she was here, hardly stopping to try to give Brax back the Brenheran necklace and not spending much time on goodbyes, for she hadn’t believed she would see any of them e
ver again. And saying goodbye… It wasn’t something she had ever learned to do. Hugging Armand in Eedwood as they had left with Joshua had been the first time she could remember. Before—

  Well, before, it had been Tyrem Brenheran’s men who had not given her the opportunity to say goodbye to her family but dragged her out of the farmhouse, which now lay in ashes. She might have helped free Lord Tyrem’s firstborn, but that didn’t mean she had forgiven him. Or the men who had bruised her arms as she had jammed her feet into the ground while they forced her into that carriage—

  Gandrett’s stomach tightened as nausea hit again. Not as bad as by the riverbank but enough to make her double over for a moment. If she ever found the men in the black hoods … they should thank Vala she hadn’t seen their faces back then, for now that she was Vala’s Blade, she could take them out even without a sword. She breathed in and out, in and out, ignoring the sheath of sweat forming under her braid along the neckline of her dress.

  It was only when Mckenzie’s hand touched her forearm that Gandrett returned to the present and managed to sit up, a wry smile all she could manage. “It’s the heat,” she explained with a shrug that cost her all the willpower she had.

  “And here, I was thinking you grew up in the desert,” Brax said, his tone not by far matching the concern in his eyes. He handed her a grape then poured a glass of water, which Mckenzie took from his hands to raise it to Gandrett’s lips.

  “I’m fine,” she breathed and sipped. “It will pass.” She leaned back against the wall and watched the gossamer tents move, alive with the breeze.

  She didn’t fail to notice Brax and Mckenzie share another look that made clear they hadn’t bought her performances. So she took a deep breath, her stomach almost back to normal after the grape and the water—and the fear of the twins asking questions—before she faced Mckenzie and said, “Tell me everything you know about your mother’s plans. Maybe I can help.”