Wicked Crown (Shattered Kingdom Book 2) Read online

  Addie rolled out of bed and changed into a fresh set of clothes. She blindly pulled out a moss green gown. It would go well with Gandrett’s eyes, was what she thought, and that the young lord would notice, too.

  For a long moment, she stood at the door that led to the young lord’s rooms. It was an effort to set foot after foot until she made it to his chambers where she knocked softly, not willing to disturb his sleep but also restless in the worst way. She needed things to do. A task to keep her busy. And it was always better to take that secret corridor to his rooms than to meander down the hallway and have whoever was out there—friend or foe—witness her morning visit.

  To her surprise, the door sprang open with little delay, and a clean and freshly dressed young lord greeted her with a tired gaze.

  “I apologize, milord, for disturbing you so early, but…” There was no but.

  “Come in, Addie.” He mustered a smile and opened the door wider.

  No matter how many times he had let her into his chambers, no matter how many times he visited hers, it always instilled the sense of someone pulling a rug from under her feet. And his hazel eyes might have something to do with it—as much as his smile. But Addie couldn’t afford to even consider letting her thoughts wander there. The young lord was grieving, and he was setting things in motion to prepare his court for the time when Joshua Brenheran would take up the throne. He had other problems than a servant girl.

  So, Addie returned his smile in the most harmless way she could imagine and stepped past him, not failing to notice that he smelled like lemon-soap and summer morning. The latter might have had something to do with the open windows, which were letting in a warm breeze. The sound of waves breaking against the castle walls reminded her that the Eedpenesor was still streaming past at the foot of the west tower where her new quarters lay.

  “I’ve been awake for a while.” The young lord closed the door behind her and gestured at the small table by the window where a large tray held pastries of all sorts along with a teapot. “Please, eat breakfast with me.”

  Addie knew better than to decline. She had insisted she eat in the servants’ kitchen the first few days, which had ended in an outburst by the young lord, at which time he had explained how she was no longer a servant. And that he wouldn’t idly stand by and watch as she behaved like one. Addie hadn’t cared to voice her disagreement. She was born and raised on a farm and had spent some time in a prison and a year in his aunt’s service as little more than a slave. She had been groomed to be a blood sacrifice for Shygon. They hadn’t spoken about that either. Every now and then, the young lord asked if she was still in pain, and every time, Addie half-shook her head. Not in pain. Not constantly. Just the nightmares that wouldn’t stop.

  He sat across the table from her, leaning back in his chair, and eyed her with that same tired gaze. “You didn’t sleep much either, did you?”

  Addie nodded and reached for the teapot to pour two cups of tea.

  “What’s the schedule for today?” she asked as she raised one steaming cup to her lips.

  There was always a schedule. In the beginning, it had been spreading the lies about Linniue’s death, that she had secretly suffered all those years and her illness had finally claimed her. It had been Addie who had spread those lies to the servants before she had moved out of the servants’ quarters.

  She didn’t know what rumors her relocation inside the castle had caused, but whenever Deelah visited, bringing food or just checking in to see how she was faring, the kind woman would say that things will change for the better and that she shouldn’t worry.

  Naturally, Addie worried.

  “We still have some men in the dungeons who need to be questioned about their involvement in Linniue’s plans.” The young lord took a sip of his own tea before he continued, “Even if I have my trusted men questioning them, I want to at least give them a chance to confess to me in person and to join our cause…” He gave her a dark look, and both of them knew what it meant.

  There had been beheadings and not few. Some men and women in Linniue’s service, even when the spell she had put on them had been broken, continued to act as if the god of dragons himself had entered their minds as much as his aunt’s spell. Those were the ones who were made examples of—the ones, the young lord insisted, he couldn’t let live without risking they would one day bring chaos over Sives.

  “How is your father doing?” Addie asked instead of commenting on what they both knew would happen to some of the remaining prisoners.

  Armand shrugged, eyes turning darker as he seemed to dive deep into thought. “He is the same as a week ago.”

  Lord Hamyn hadn’t left his own quarters since Linniue’s funeral. Addie didn’t dare ask what happened during those brief visits. The young lord’s tight face told enough that she preferred to give him some space.

  “Will you need my help with anything today?” she asked, not because she wanted to go into the dungeons and watch him interrogate those people who chose to believe the god of dragons was a figure worthy of worshipping, worthy of spilling innocents’ blood for, or who had shared Linniue’s dream of a conquered Neredyn at Joshua Brenheran’s feet. No, ever since she had been freed, she didn’t know what to do with herself. She shuddered, and the young lord offered her a pastry.

  “Deelah and I will be cleaning out my aunt’s chambers after lunch,” he said casually. “Maybe you would like to help.”

  Addie almost choked on the chocolate croissant she was chewing.

  “That is, only if you’re ready.” The young lord’s face was even, guarded. The clouds and shadows gone. It was the face she had seen him wear most of the time here at court… everywhere but his own chambers.

  “If you want me there—” Addie began, but Armand held up a hand to stop her.

  “It’s an offer. That’s all it is. I can understand if you’re not ready.”

  Not ready. Addie rolled his words over in her head. The last time she had been in Linniue’s chambers was when the lady had engraved one of Shygon’s symbols into her shoulder. Addie had no desire to ever set foot in that room again… But as she watched the young lord’s guarded face, something eased inside her chest.

  “I will be there.” She nodded as if the action would help convince herself that she could do it. The truth was it didn’t matter whether she was ready. The young lord wasn’t ready, and if she could do anything to help him through those difficult days, she would do it. If only to see that mask vanish and get a glimpse into the real Armand Denderlain once more.

  “Thanks, Addie.” His lips eased into a smile, still not fully relaxed, but a smile so intriguing it could win battles if he so pleased.

  Her heart stuttered a beat before she returned a hint of a grin.

  They had to move forward. Always forward. This wasn’t for her or him. It was for Joshua Brenheran-Denderlain and for the future of Sives.

  Chapter Four

  Gandrett looked like a ghost. He couldn’t think around it. Where was the radiant, wicked fighter who had struck him down on their first encounter? Where was the smart-mouthed girl who had saved the Prince of Sives from the claws of his enemies? Where was the girl who feared nothing and no-one?

  Her moss-green eyes stared back at him, expressionless as if he hadn’t just mentioned that her brother had escaped the flames. Something in her had changed… broken, he supposed. There was no better word he could think of.

  “Andrew is alive, Gandrett,” he repeated and hoped it would settle this time.

  She lifted her hands to her hair and mechanically braided it down over her shoulder until it lay there like a thick, chestnut rope. “Alive,” she repeated but didn’t rise from the bed where she had settled, perching on the edge like an animal ready to flee.

  “While you were taking a bath, I used the time well,” he explained, leaving out the details of how exactly he had attained the information. That the woman who had entered the inn earlier had willingly given the information between some
savage kisses. And Nehelon hadn’t cared that she had tasted like betrayal when he had coaxed the information from her lips—the information and then some more.

  He had been roaming the earth long enough to know who liked to gossip. One look at the stranger as she had walked in, and he’d been able to tell that the woman had stayed in town long enough to identify him as a stranger and would leave soon enough not to bother if she left a bad impression on anyone.

  When she had walked up to him, the moment Gandrett had left, he hadn’t hesitated to follow her into a dark corner of the corridor. The fact that there had been something about her that rang his magic-bell might have had something to do with it, too. The burned-down farmhouse hadn’t been destroyed by a usual fire. It had been more than that. Magic, perhaps. And the stranger whose throat he’d licked, to loosen her tongue, had given him enough details to fill in the blanks.

  “My father?” Gandrett’s voice was hoarse despite the relief that the news about her brother must have instilled.

  Nehelon’s chest tightened at her words, at the weak tone she spoke with, the look on her face that accompanied her inquiry.

  And it took him all he had to speak what he had learned. “He passed away years ago.”

  Centuries couldn’t prepare him for the look on Gandrett’s face as, without a doubt, her heart was cracking further, and tears filled her eyes anew, silent witnesses of what was happening inside her chest.

  She stared at him through the moisture, never blinking, as if she was fighting to hide the proof of her grief, to pretend it wasn’t happening. And Nehelon wasn’t sure if placing a hand on her arm would earn him gratitude or a blow in the face. So he remained where he was, staring at those red-rimmed, green eyes as they stared at him, and waited.

  “How?”

  Nehelon had an answer to that, too. Not because the woman had told him but because when the woman had only spoken about a boy, he had assumed that Mr. Brayton had been spared from the flames through a much earlier death. Indeed, the innkeeper had confirmed with a shrug how accidents happened in the fields all the time, and not everyone is lucky enough to recover.

  He swallowed. “He was injured, working in the field.”

  Gandrett’s eyes widened as if she couldn’t believe it. But Nehelon confirmed, “His injury got infected, and he died of sepsis.” Breathing was difficult when Gandrett stared at him like that—like he could have done something about it. If only he had that power to change the past, there were so many things he would change. Starting with defying Lord Brenheran’s order to retrieve the girl before him from her parents’ farm at the age of seven and damn her to a life in solitude where all she learned was fighting and surviving. But nothing that would fill her heart with laughter and warmth. He had broken the girl as badly as fate itself.

  Gandrett was grateful she was already sitting.

  Her father was dead, too. Not taken by the fire but by an infection that had followed an accident. It was a stab in the heart and a relief all at once.

  But Andrew—Andrew was alive.

  As Nehelon studied her with cautious eyes, she pushed back those tears. She couldn’t let him see how deeply it had hit her, how years of hope had been shattered within a matter of moments.

  “I want to see his grave.” She had to be strong, had to fight those emotions, couldn’t let the Fae male see how much it had affected her. First rule for the fighters in the Order of Vala: keep your heart controlled, or it will control you.

  “He’s buried by the temple,” he said, a tone fit for a battlefield gracing his words. “Do you want to go now or sleep first?”

  His eyes flickered as she tried to get to her feet and had to give in to the lead weight of her body.

  “Sleep first.” She hid the tears that were coming again by twisting onto her bed and curling up on the rough blanket.

  There was no sound that would have announced that Nehelon had moved, but he was beside her, the mattress shifting under his weight, making Gandrett roll slightly toward him.

  “I am sorry,” he repeated those words he had spoken in the darkness by the house, and there was something more in them, some texture that allowed her to glimpse that man--male—who had come to Eedwood to make sure she made it out alive. The male who had embraced her.

  Warmth radiated off his body as he slid closer and rested one hand on her arm—so carefully, so lightly she didn’t even flinch. “I am sorry, Gandrett.” This time, his voice was lighter as if he had pushed a weight off his chest.

  His heat seeping through her sleeve let her realize just how cold she was and how different the feel of him next to her was… how wrong. Wrong, because that warmth made her crave to seek shelter against his muscled chest and give those tears free rein.

  Chapter Five

  In the earliest hours of the morning, Brax Brenheran patted his brother’s shoulder and set down his wine glass. “That’s a hell of a story,” he said and leaned back.

  He just needed to rest his head for a moment as Joshua’s words swirled inside his skull like the liquor that should be served with the type of horrors his brother had endured. All those years, Joshua had been gone—forced by someone else’s mind control, always a spectator in his own torment. Brax swallowed the emotion that came more strongly than usual with the wine.

  Joshua measured him with those same emerald eyes all three of them shared; Joshua, him, and his twin sister. Mckenzie was already fast asleep on the sofa, her breathing even. She had always been the happiest of the three of them until that day Joshua had disappeared. How he hoped that with all drama over, she would return to that happy place. Every day that had passed with tears on her cheeks had been torture. And it was exactly because of her grief and despair that he had put on that mask of cunning and joking which at least kept her occupied in arguments enough that she’d forget about Josh’s absence for a little bit.

  Now that Josh was back, he wasn’t sure he would be able to return to who he had been before… years ago, when he had been more a child than a man, when his sister’s happiness had been the most vital thing to ensure. But things had changed.

  “Let’s see what the future holds,” Joshua commented beside him, a chuckle brightening his voice.

  “King of Sives.” Brax still had trouble wrapping his head around it. Even ten days after Josh’s return, it was still difficult to think of his brother as a half-brother. As the son of his enemy. To consider what it must have been like to endure having his mind controlled while he had been fully aware of his actions, fighting, holding on to that shred of hope that he’d break the spell and return.

  Return to them.

  He blinked and watched Mckenzie’s peaceful features, head lolling to one side and her fair hair spilling to the side in soft curls. And his brother, who had endured so much and was still smiling, hoping—

  Never again. Never would he let anything happen to either of them. No matter who Josh’s mother was—had been. No matter what Josh’s return meant for Brax’s status at Ackwood court. Never again.

  “What is the plan now?” he wondered aloud, glancing at the horizon through the open window. He could see down to the Ackpenesor delta from Josh’s chambers high up in the western part of the palace, and the salty breeze from the ocean carried on the morning wind. Brax took a deep breath, slowly feeling the effect of the wine clear. “Are you going to pursue your throne?”

  Josh wiggled his head, not indifferent but not in a clear yes or a clear no. “There are more factors to consider than my throne.” He reached behind his head with one hand, not at all kingly—or even princely—as he scratched his neck and grimaced with contention.

  “What factors would that be?” Brax was grateful Mckenzie was deep asleep on the couch. He wanted to spare her all of this. The horrors of what the future may still hold. What Josh seizing his throne may mean for this family. But she was no longer the blonde-curled, little girl he used to tease. Mckenzie had grown into a woman, and it was hard for Brax to think of the moment some suitor w
ould take her away from this court to the gods-knew-where—where he had no influence on her wellbeing.

  “I am not inclined to step up before Father lays down his position as Lord of Ackwood,” Josh said, lazily nestling into the broad armchair, resting his elbow on the rolled side. “And if things go the way Armand and I have been planning—“

  “Armand Denderlain should try to set foot into this palace, and I will personally spear him with my sword,” Brax interjected, cold fury taking him in an instant. Despite the role the young Lord of Eedwood had played in Joshua’s rescue, he had been the one to abduct Josh, to begin with, initiating all the years of horror for the Prince of Sives, taking away the only brother he had, and causing even their father to cry hidden tears. Armand deserved to suffer for this, at least, even if he partly redeemed himself helping Gandrett to get Josh out of Eedwood and cleansed of the Dragon Water and Linniue’s spell. But even without Josh … all the decades of feuding between the east and the west … Armand Denderlain was as much a symbol for it as Lord Hamyn was. It wasn’t something to swipe under the carpet overnight.

  Josh flexed his fingers on the armrest, studying Brax’s silent outburst. “Easy, brother. The moment Armand takes up his own rule as Lord of Eedwood, the west and east will no longer be enemies.” He gave Brax a significant look. A warning look. Brax swallowed his anger for his brother’s sake and scowled at the pink clouds gracing the skies. “We are working toward a peaceful, united Sives, and I will need both of you”—Josh gestured at Mckenzie and him—“to support my path, or this hatred, this war, will continue.”

  Josh did have a point. Only, Brax wasn’t sure he was ready to forgive the House Denderlain for the pain it had caused his brother, his father, his sister—especially his sister. He wasn’t so sure about what his mother’s position on Josh’s abduction and return was exactly. She had dedicated her life to bringing up the bastard son of her husband and then him and Mckenzie. But she had never shown a sign she loved Josh any less … in fact, hadn’t Josh revealed his true heritage at his return and what the meaning of it was, Brax doubted he would have ever found out from his parents.