No.
And then…darkness.
Chapter 50
Emrys
Isca had left me feeling more level-headed than I had in nearly a decade. I could do this.
But each step that took me closer to Gelida and farther from the people I needed to protect felt like one of my scars ripping open. If I wanted to return to our tent and finish what Isca had only just begun—her mouth, her warmth, the way she’d looked at me like I wasn’t a monster—I’d have to keep my hands off the Gelidian bastard’s throat.
I barely felt my boots hit the ground as I dismounted. It should’ve been Nisien here. He was far better suited to diplomacy, and he could slice off the general’s head as cleanly as I could.
The field stretched in brittle brown and faded green between our two camps, the place neutral by treaty and soaked with the blood of old wars. How exposed it was made it a foolish place to parley. But for once, I wanted a confrontation to end quickly.
General Cadoc approached alone on foot. His armor, though polished, showed the marks of battle. I hadn’t expected him to appear so much older than the last time I’d spied his face across a battlefield. His beard was now more gray than brown, and burn scars trailed up his neck like ivy.
My father had put those there.
“Crowned Prince Emrys ap Euros of Darreth.” It was more a statement of fact than a greeting and he’d sneered through my father’s name. He stopped a few paces away, folding his hands behind his back. He didn’tbow; his spine remained straight as a rod, and his pewter eyes never wavered from mine.
“General Cadoc,” I returned.
His mouth curved, just barely. “You’ve gained quite the reputation.”
I said nothing, just let my stare settle into his with the weight of my disdain.
He tilted his head as if testing the air between us. “I trust you have come to talk, not to fight.”
“If I’d come to fight, General, you’d be remembering what burning feels like.” I couldn’t keep the wolfish grin off my face. It was too entertaining to watch the beads of sweat pearl on his forehead as he fought the urge to act out.
Cadoc’s lips twitched again, almost imperceptibly. “Then let us be quick, shall we?”
He gestured to the table they’d set up on this neutral ground. There were two simple stools, a crude table, and nothing to shield us from the open sky. If they thought concealing a weapon under the table or his chair would make the difference in his survival, or my death, they were highly mistaken.
Cadoc sat first, his posture now calm and relaxed, as though he had nothing to fear. I followed, pulling my chair out slowly, deliberately, making the act of sitting a gesture of control rather than submission.
I met his gaze across the table, letting the silence stretch for a beat longer than necessary. The sweat hadn’t abated.
Cadoc’s gauntlet tapped once on the wood before he folded his hands. “I expected to see your new diplomat with you.”
I stiffened. A vision of ripping his jaw off with my bare hands then using it to stab him in the gut played in my mind. The million ways I could kill him went on in more colorful detail before I reined myself in enough to answer. “She remains in Tir Darreth,” I replied, my tone clipped with the lie. “Her work is not your concern.”
Cadoc’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Of course,of course. It would be a shame to see such talent go unprotected…” He trailed off, his words almost an afterthought.
I decided his death would be excruciating if it came to it.
“To business,” I said gruffly.
He allowed a brief flicker of a smile, just enough to soften the sharpness of his gaze. “We’ve reviewed the reports. The recent raids—if they were conducted by Gelidian soldiers—were not sanctioned.”
“If?” I asked, the word a blade’s edge between us.
He shrugged slightly, as if the question were beneath him. “The border has always been this way, Prince Emrys. Some things are difficult to trace.” His gaze was steady, but I saw calculation there.
“Your men burned three villages,” I said, each word drawn through clenched teeth.
Cadoc’s expression remained unshaken, his fingers lightly tapping the table. “And you retaliated by destroying our garrison.”
