The Beauty of Darkness (42 page)

“Why did they believe the lies?” I asked. “How could a whole kingdom believe I would marry the Komizar and betray a company of soldiers, including my own brother?”

Gwyneth sighed. “They were cut to the quick,” she said, “grieving and desperate. Thirty-three of their finest young men were dead, and the Chancellor stepped forward and provided them with an easy outlet for their rage—a face and name they knew that had already turned her back on them once. It was easy for them to believe.”

But if I hadn't run away, I never would have found out about the Komizar's plans—or the traitors. I'd be blissfully living in another kingdom with Rafe, at least until the Komizar turned his attention toward Dalbreck. And the young Vendans who were barely big enough to lift a sword would get the worst of it all, sacrificial lambs the Komizar would place on the front lines, probably to storm the gates of the city. He would use the children to prick the consciences of Morrighese soldiers. Neither my brothers nor their comrades would ever strike down a child. They would hold their weapons, hesitate, and then the Komizar would move in with his arsenal of destruction.

Pauline gently laid her hand on my thigh. “But not everyone believed the lies. Bryn and Regan didn't believe a word of it.”

Maybe that was why they were on their way to their deaths now. They had asked too many questions.

*   *   *

We sat there in the dark, each of us lost to our own thoughts, my hand throbbing in time with my heart, the strange tingle of the cobwebs against my skin running up my arm like a thousand tiny spiders.
A kitchen remedy.
Something the court physician would never use.
Not on his own.
The blackness swirled in front of me, and the thousand tiny spiders became a field of golden flowers. A face rose out of them, calm and sure.
He never asked me about the gift because he knew I had it.
It was what had made him afraid of me all along.
She will expose the wicked.
And I saw a wide continent of kingdoms, each with their own unique gifts, the face receding, and fields of flowers rippling in the breeze until they became spiders again, resting in my palm.

The door opened, and we were blinded by the sudden light. I heard the Chancellor's haughty sigh before I saw him.

“Gwyneth,” he said, drawing her name out in exaggerated disappointment, “I thought you were smarter than this.” He clucked his tongue. “Conspiring with enemies.”

Gwyneth shot him a withering stare, and he returned it with a smile. Then his eyes met mine. I got to my feet and limped toward him. He resisted stepping back, not wanting to show any fear. I was, after all, injured, weaponless, and a prisoner. But I saw a brief flicker in his eyes, a heartbeat of doubt. It confirmed he'd read the Song of Venda.
She will expose the wicked.
What if I did?

He eyed my bloodied bandaged hand. His arrogant sneer returned. I didn't look so mighty now. I was only the nuisance that had forever plagued him, one with a name he couldn't quite explain, but I was not a threat. The small doubt that ate at him vanished.

“Don't do this, Lord Chancellor,” I said. “Don't kill my brothers.”

A satisfied puff of air escaped his lips. “So that's what did it, what made you finally run to your father.”

“If my father dies—”

“You mean
when
your father dies. But I wouldn't worry, it won't come as soon as your own death. We need him a little longer—”

“If you surrender now, I will spare your life—”

The back of his hand swung, his jeweled fingers meeting my jaw, and I stumbled into the wall. Gwyneth and Pauline jumped forward. “Stay back!” I ordered.

“You spare my life?” he sneered. “You're insane.”

I turned to face him again and smiled. “No, Chancellor, I only wanted to give you a chance. Now my obligation to the gods is done.” I briefly fluttered my lashes, as if the gods were speaking to me.

The doubt trailed through his eyes again, like a stalking animal he couldn't quite shake.

“Take off your jacket,” he ordered.

I stared at him, wondering about his motive.

“Do it now,” he growled, “or I'll have them do it for you.”

I pulled it off, letting it fall to the ground.

He nodded to the guards and they grabbed my arms and turned my back toward him. One of them yanked at my shirt, ripping the fabric from my shoulder. The silence stretched, marked only by his slow restrained breaths. I could feel his hatred burning into me.

The guards let go, pushing me forward, and the Chancellor said, “Kill them. Once it's dark, take the bodies far outside the city and burn them. Make sure no trace of that thing on her shoulder is left.” As he turned to leave, the guards moved toward us, drawing thin silk ropes taut between their hands, a silent, bloodless way to dispose of us. But then there was a sound—the distant ringing of bells.

“Listen, Chancellor!” I said quickly, before he could leave. “Do you hear that?”

“The abbey bells,” he snapped with irritation. “So what?”

I smiled. “It's an announcement. An important one from your office, no less. You didn't happen to notice your seal was missing? The last of the bills are being posted. Citizens from all over the city are reading them as we speak. Princess Arabella has been captured. All citizens are invited to the trial and hanging tomorrow morning in the village plaza. It would be a shame indeed if you didn't produce her. Embarrassing, even. How would you ever explain your incompetence?”

I watched a splotchy red patch on his neck spread to his cheeks and temples, like flames in a wildfire, out of control and consuming. “Wait!” he said to the guards, and ordered them out. The door slammed shut behind all of them, and I heard him yelling for the bills to be ripped down. But it was too late. He knew it was too late.

“Well done, sister,” Gwyneth said. “But tomorrow morning? You couldn't have put the trial off a week?”

“And give them more time to find a way to dispose of us quietly? No. We'll be lucky if we last until morning. They would never give me a chance to speak at trial. All this does is buy us a few more hours, but at least now they will be frantic, and perhaps making stupid mistakes.”

I felt my way along the wall until my foot nudged Gwyneth's leg. “Get up,” I said. “Both of you. In the meantime, I need to show you some moves I learned from a Dalbreck soldier—ways to kill a man without using a weapon for when the guards come back.”

 

CHAPTE
R
SIXTY-THREE

Footsteps tramped down the stone passageway only an hour later. I'd thought we'd have more time. They were loud and hurried. Angry. We all stood, braced against the opposite wall waiting for the door to open, dirt gathered into our fists, ready to fling into their eyes.

“When the door opens, give your eyes a chance to adjust to the light,” I said. “We only get one chance at this. Make your aim count.”

Pauline whispered prayers while Gwyneth uttered curses. They had ripped several strips from Gwyneth's dress and woven them into a tight thin rope, knotting the ends so they would each have a good grip on it. The guards wouldn't be the only one with garrotes. My left hand could do little, but I could still do plenty of damage to a windpipe with the knuckles of my right hand. I had told Gwyneth and Pauline the weak points I had noted on the guards. Besides their eyes, their groins, noses, and knees were all vulnerable—and their throats. They wore only weapons, no armor. At some point in our planned melee, I hoped to secure the weapon of at least one of the disabled guards.

The footsteps stopped outside the door.

Keys rattled.

The lock rattled.

Muffled curses. More rattling.
Hurry.

My grip tightened on the dirt in my hand.
Hurry!
Something about it didn't sound right.

An angry jangle of keys.

Dammit! Stand back!

A crash shook the door. And another. The
crack
of splintering wood juddered off the walls.

A hole breached the door, then a ray of light, and the silver tip of an ax.

The ax tip disappeared momentarily, and there was another loud crack as it broke through again. The door swung open, and I was ready to lunge, but then—

Bright eyes and a grin.

Black ropes of hair.

Sights I didn't expect to see.

“Wait!” I shouted, putting my hand out to stop the others.

Kaden stood on the other side of the splintered door, the ax still gripped in his hand. Sweat glistened on his brow, and his chest heaved with exertion. Jeb and Tavish stepped past him, and I told Gwyneth and Pauline they could be trusted. Jeb extended his hand. “Thank the gods that we found you. This way,” he said. “We don't have much time.”

I dropped my fistful of dirt, thinking how close I'd come to crushing his windpipe. Jeb smiled. “You remembered.”

“Did you doubt me?”

“Never.”

Pauline ran toward Kaden, slamming her hands against his shoulders. “The baby!”

“He's fine,” Kaden answered. “Berdi has him and fetched a wet nurse. I told her to go to the abbey to hide.”

“Hurry. This way,” Tavish ordered. He turned and led us down a passageway. I recognized where we were now—the citadelle armory—one of the outbuildings. It was small compared to the armory at Piers Camp, meant only to arm the citadelle guards. They must have been holding us in one of its storage rooms, but this only confirmed my suspicions—while the citadelle guards might be complicit in the traitors' schemes, it didn't mean soldiers in the ranks were. I heard a battery of shouts ahead. Jeb, who brought up the rear, noticed my slowing steps and said, “Don't worry. They're ours.”

Ours?
I tried to make sense of it as I ran.

We poured through a door that emptied into the main supply room, and in the center of it were five men, partially dressed in various stages of pulling on uniforms. A half dozen more lay facedown, their hands shackled behind them, the tips of swords held to their necks by just as many plain-cloaked men. Sven ripped shirts into strips and called Jeb and Tavish to help him gag the shackled men.

“Are you all right?” Kaden asked, taking another look at me and reaching for my hand.

“I'm fine,” I said, pulling away. “The Watch Captain is in on it, and at least some of the citadelle guards are Vendan too. They speak flawless Morrighese. It seems the scholars were busy tutoring in languages too.”

Anger flashed in Kaden's eyes. There was so much the Komizar had never told him, but that was the Komizar's way, using many people like puppets, but never sharing too much information with a single one. The power had to remain all his. Kaden grabbed a strip of cloth. “Let's wrap it a little more,” he said, lifting my bloody bandaged hand.

He saw me blanch with pain. “How bad is it?”

“I'll live,” I said. “Malich not so much. He's dead. The Komizar and his writhing nest of cavern worms have developed another interesting weapon—a crossbow that shoots multiple iron bolts at a time. Luckily only one of them got me.”

He gently wrapped the strip of fabric around my hand. “Hold your breath,” he said, before pulling the fabric tight. “A little pressure will help stop the bleeding.”

The pain jolted through me and then pulsed up my arm.

“I'll get you a cloak,” he said. “You can't walk out of here looking like that without drawing attention. And then there's more I need to tell you.” He went over to a jumbled pile on a table, the discarded clothes of the half-dressed men, I presumed, and sorted through them.

Father Maguire came up behind me, startling me with his attire. A sword was belted at his side, almost hidden by his robes.

“You know how to use one of those?” I asked.

“I'm about to learn,” he answered, and then he told me he had finally found the information in the archives that I had asked for. “There were no relatives.”

I nodded. This was only further confirmation—another piece of the blurred picture that had come into focus in the darkness of the cell.

Gwyneth and Pauline had already stepped into the middle of the room, taking in the bustle of activity and becoming part of it—a plan in the making that I was beginning to grasp. At the far corner the room, I spotted Orrin pulling halberds from a rack and then Natiya carrying an armful of baldricks, all tooled with the Morrighese insignia. She handed them to the half-dressed soldiers and crossed the room to Gwyneth and Pauline, a chatter of noise and explanations I only half heard because in the opposite corner, something else caught my eye.

A warrior. Someone swinging a flanged mace to break the lock on another weapon cabinet. The lock flew into a wall, and the cabinet banged open, but then he stopped, seeming to sense me at the same time. He turned, his eyes finding mine, and then his attention dropped to my bandaged hand. Looking down, I saw that my trousers and shirt were covered in blood. He crossed the room, his steps measured.
Calculation.
For all his zeal in shattering the lock, there was restraint in his movements as he approached me.

The stiffness of his stride.

The pull of his shoulders.

Holding back.

That's what I saw in his movement, but not what I saw in his gaze when he stopped in front of me. In his eyes I saw him drawing me into his arms, his lips lowering to mine, a kiss that would never end, holding me until the kingdoms vanished and the world stood still, being everything we had ever been to each other.
Before.

I waited. Expected. Wanted.

Some things last. The things that matter.

And yet he held back. Distant. A king. A soldier calculating his next move.

“There isn't time to explain,” he said.

“I don't need an explanation. You're here. That's all that matters.”