He’d lied, and gotten Ditmar out of the castle. He was a villain, not a hero.
“I name this castle under my control,” the knight announced.
Ayla drew a trembling breath through her nose and willed herself to be calm. To be as expressionless as she ever was in front of Ditmar. But this wasn’t her husband, this was a knight with traitorous motives and four dozen-odd soldiers, within the walls of Blackfell.
At the worst of times, it was tradition that held Ditmar back, kept him from injuring his wife too badly. He did not want visitors to see him as a brute, or to know what punishment he doled out behind closed doors. But the traitors would not care about that. If they were willing to break faith with the Queen, what would stop them from murdering, pillaging, ravaging?
They were lawless men. Like rabid dogs.
The knight’s eyes fixed on Ayla’s.
“Surrender the keys to me,” he commanded.
“I do not have them,” she said, her voice trembling.
“Then my man will escort you to get them.” His dark eyes were fixed too sharply on hers, like a predator watching its prey.
He wasn’t talking about the regular keys the steward kept, which opened the more ordinary doors, but the castle keys, the ones Ditmar hid in his study. They opened the treasury, the dungeon, and the armory.
Ayla gripped her skirts. She was the lady of the castle. She owed a duty to her servants and to her country. No matterhowterrified she felt.
“I do not know where they are kept,” she fumbled. “When my husband returns, surely he will give you...”
Another round of laughter from the soldiers behind her cut her off. The knight’s smirk slowly spread into a smile.
He swaggered towards her, the naked sword still in his hand. Ayla’s eyes went to it; the wicked gleam of the blade. Would he kill her?
Mercy. He might. She was a noblewoman of Enar. And they were at war.
“Slow one, isn’t she?” she heard a stranger behind her laugh.
“Woman,” the knight said slowly. “Your husband can pound on the gates all he likes, but he isn’t stepping foot back in this castle. He can keep the town and the woods, for all I care. Blackfell is mine.”
She honestly wouldn’t mind if he killed Ditmar. She knew she ought to care, a little, but she didn’t. The servants, though… could she bargain with him for mercy? Most of them lived in the town and only spent their days in the castle for work. He couldn’t keep them prisoner here.
“Sir Corin,” she began.
“That is my brother,” the knight interrupted. “Regrettably, we look much alike, though he’s the uglier. My name is Lord Niel of Mount Eyron. You will not speak his name again in my presence.”
The man before her was the Duke of Eyron’s younger son, the one who had sided with his treasonous father and declared war against the Queen.
She bowed her head, unwilling to meet his eyes. Ayla’s breaths were shallow, frantic.
“Tie her up?” a man asked.
A moment of silence. She couldn’t stop them, if they wanted to bind her. She needed a way to fight back that didn’t rely on strength of arms. Ayla stared at the flagstones beneath her feet. The knight sighed sharply, then snapped his fingers. She lifted her head to see him reach a large hand towards her.
Shivering, Ayla forced her legs to carry her closer to where he stood. He glared at her from beneath a heavy brow, seemingly annoyed by her slowness. So she walked even slower.
Up close, the knight seemed massive. She was not a short woman, but he towered over her, his broad shoulders made wider by heavy plated armor and a thick fur-trimmed cloak. He looked like he could crush her in one fist, sword not needed. She offered him her cold hand slowly, as if he might bite it off. She could smell blood on him, and the leather he wore. No more than a foot separated their bodies. Up so close she could see the way winter and wind had roughened his skin.
He grabbed her hand and ran a warm, calloused thumb roughly over her palm, sending a shiver through her icy body. His thumb pad traced down the length of her fingers as Ayla’s breath caught. Then he dropped her hand abruptly and stepped back.
“Soft hands. She has nothing of a warrior about her,” Lord Niel announced dismissively. “Sit, Lady Blackfell.” It was a command, not an offer. With his sword, he pointed her to her own chair, two steps below Ditmar’s throne.
What was she supposed to do, against an entire band of warriors? Head bowed, shame weaving in among her terror, Ayla approached her chair and sank into it. The knight stayed standing where he was. There had to be something she could do. If she could only get her mind to stop spinning, and to focus.
“Back already?” the knight asked as a blonde man strode into the hall. Ayla recognized him for one of the men who’d entered the castle initially—the one who’d led Ditmar away. He held a folded bundle of what looked like shimmering white leather hide with the hair left on. No mortal creature that Ayla knew had skin so iridescent.
