“Yes,” Emrys said slowly.
“Leave the mage scouts on the border with Larethia. Your alliance with them shouldn’t be compromised to fix this issue.” I thought for a moment. “Make them pay for their raiding in another way. Increase taxes on all goods coming in from the north. Tell the merchants the funds go directly into securing the roads they rely on. Have your men track every raid, every pattern until a strategic response can be crafted or until the princess or her cousin takes the throne.”
“Your plan funds itself,” Nisien said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
Emrys’s clenched hand loosened on the table. He looked at me again, this time not with longing or pain, but with something I hoped was trust.
Nisien raised his goblet. “To surviving. And maybe, not being complete fools after all.”
I lifted mine. “To building something better.”
Emrys’s goblet joined ours, his touch quiet but deliberate. Something shifted between us. It felt like a fragile accord, but perhaps it was the start of something else entirely.
And I finally,finallyhad something new to show Chancellor Maeron.
Chapter 36
Emrys
The relentless pounding on my door, barely an hour after our meeting with Isca, could only have been made by the metallic clang of a sword pommel slamming on wood. The rhythm of Nisien’s vehemence was nothing short of a war drum.
I opened it to have a sword slice through the air into the space where my neck had been half a second before I jumped back.Bloody idiot. If Isca’s magic weren’t still thrumming under my skin, the curse surely would’ve retaliated for that.
Nisien’s voice was deathly quiet, lacking the usual lightheartedness that characterized him. “Whatdid you do?”
My gut clenched. He knew or had guessed too much. I’d successfully avoided this conversation for a week, but now the debt was coming due.
“Hello, brother,” I said instead, holding the door open. “Come in. Let’s not add hallway theatrics to today’s list of my embarrassments.”
He let out a single, hearty laugh. “For once, you’ve become the measured one. Just don’t murder me in your room. I hope to die in my own bed, under a beautiful woman.”
I let out an aggrieved breath and closed the door behind him.
Nisien’s face hardened as soon as the door was shut. His eyes blazed as he unleashed his rare fury upon me, sword still in hand. “What did you do to Isca, Emrys? Should I expect an entire legion of Assembly mages to arrive on our doorstep within the fortnight to deal with you? I’m at the point I’d allow them to take you.”
The last hit me with all the force of a sledgehammer on overheated metal. He wasn’t a cruel man. He knew how much I hated them, so he was well and truly angry this time.
I’d already imagined my death at Assembly hands a dozen times. I could already smell the blood, the smoke, knowing the curse wouldn’t relinquish its host without a ruthless battle. Too many men would die to take down one man who hardly deserved to live.
I was too hard to kill. Cursed gods knew I’d tried enough times through my recklessness already. The effects of the curse were visible in the scars covering my body. Each stood as a testament to the unnatural, undeserved resilience it granted me.
As I faced down my brother’s wrath, I realized how exhausted from everything I truly was. I had resolved not to be an animal around Isca ever again. And then the way Nisien had touched her was like a spark, reigniting the fire of jealousy in me. It pushed me to throw myself at him or run from the room. Had she not already been offering the balm of her magic, I shuddered to imagine what I would’ve done.
Now I crossed the room and slumped into the chair at my writing desk. The rest of the lavender I’d had brought in still sat there in a vase of water. Nisien’s eyes drifted to it immediately.
His brow furrowed, and he pointed. “Was that…an apology?”
“You are intelligent.” I sneered, one hand propping up my head on the tabletop. “It’s what’s left of one.”
Less aggressively this time, Nisien repeated, “What did you do, Emrys?”
I’d slaughtered armies without blinking. Torn men apart with my bare hands. And yet this—I could not speak it aloud. The rotten core within my chest locked up, and my mouth went dry.
I rubbed at my temples. Eventually I said, “I questioned the Assembly’s ulterior motives for sendingherspecifically. I was…not entirely myself at the time.”
“Emrys.” Nisien inhaled deeply. “Tell me you did not call her a whore.”
“I did not.”
