Little did he know that I’d cut the beast out of my own chest before I would ever force him into committing fratricide.
Chapter 37
Emrys
I don’t know what I’d thought would happen after she’d gasped under my touch in my room, but seeing Isca’s playful tête-à-tête with Nisien in the days following was not something I’d imagined. They didn’t kiss again, and I didn’t see him touch her, yet every glance between them felt like a dagger plunged between my ribs. I was too afraid, too wretchedly jealous, to look too closely, so I kept my distance and pretended not to care.
I should’ve been happy for him, and for her, too. But I’ve always been the villain and I thought we had…something growing between us. When I saw the two of them leave the great hall after lunch one day to walk in the garden, I relegated myself to the stables, moving horse manure with magic to save the stable hands the work.
If my mind and mood was going to turn to shit, I could bloody well muck it.
I was tempted to leave again, to find another raiding party to drown myself in blood and screams, but Isca’s plan to study the raiders’ tactics was sound. Attacking them now would only wreck her entire strategy.
So I turned to something I could control. I called for an earth mage who did engineering work, someone from the Guild in Carmarth to avoid bringing in anyone too closely acquainted with Assembly leadership in Caervorn.
Nisien peered over my shoulder and chuckled when he saw the letter confirming the engineer’s arrival. “Didn’t know you’d started playing steward, brother. All for a bit of settling?”
“Yet again, I’m cleaning up one of your oversights,brother.” Perhaps it was the ice in my voice that kept him from arguing. Or, perhaps, he’d finally realized I was right, that he’d been ignoring a few pressing problems in favor of keeping our court happy.
It didn’t help that I wanted to punch him every time I saw his perfectly handsome face, every time I remembered them dancing at the festival when I wished it had been me in his place. It wasn’t his fault; he was just playing into what the Assembly wanted for our kingdom. It was mostly that I couldn’t stand the idea that he’d enjoyed it so much. Or worse, that she might’ve too.
The bastard had everything I wanted and didn’t even seem to notice.
I needed something real. Something I could fix. And stones didn’t bleed when I failed. Which was how I found myself standing at the bottom of the western glacis, trying to squint against the rays of sunlight peeking out between the clouds. The mage engineer was looking at me like I was mad—I was—but at least he was trying not to show it.
“There’s nothing here worth panicking over, my Lord Prince,” the engineer said, brushing the intermittent rain off his boots. “Some seasonal erosion. Normal for a stronghold so near to the coastal storms.”
I crossed my arms. This was one of those situations I had to decide whether I wanted to make the man piss his britches or not. I decided to hold my tongue, because his was wagging enough for both of us.
He shrugged. “She’ll stand another hundred years yet.”
I growled, “She was built to stand a thousand.”
He wisely didn’t respond to that.
I stared up at the section Isca had pointed out. The ground was beginning to slump, and the soft mud gave way under my feet when I explored it briefly. The water’s passage was clearly visible, even to my untrained eye, as deep channels etched into the earth at the bottom of the slope.
Although I’d been back home for a year now, I’d overlooked what she’d noticed on her very first stroll. Unprompted, she’d gone out of her wayto look into a problem she’d seen onmyancestral lands—to no benefit to herself. It shamed me how blind I’d been to a problem I’d likely caused.
I liked that she cared about my home, that she persisted in pushing me to open up, even when I met her with silence and fear masked as fury. At dinner last night, she’d suggested a minor adjustment to our new soldiers’ training protocol—something small, saving thousands of gold coins over time—and I’d nodded, pretending it was nothing. But it gutted me that she’d done more good here in weeks than I had in a year.
That doubled my certainty that I needed to avoid her for her own good. I couldn’t risk tainting her with my darkness.
But the cursed gods were toying with me on that rainy day. Before she even spoke, I could sense her aura and hear her light footsteps on the gravel path leading to my meeting with the engineer.
She came walking along the hill with Catrin beside her, cheeks pink from the wind, strands of her wavy hair turning to curls in the humidity as they escaped her braids. My resolve, so carefully fortified, collapsed at the sight of her smiling face.
Catrin carried a basket. Isca had her arms tucked close to her sides and a folded piece of leather clutched in one hand. It seemed they were headed to a picnic, likely in the nearby copse. The weather seemed unsuitable, but I wouldn’t ask.
Isca’s green eyes found mine and held. The distance between us wasn’t more than a few paces, yet it felt more treacherous than a battlefield. I looked away first, of course, being the runner that I am.
“My Lord Prince,” she greeted, voice polite, neutral.
The engineer glanced between us then back to the earth, clearly hoping for any excuse to be done.
“Nisien told me you brought in a structural mage,” Isca said, stepping on sure feet to the edge of the slope upward. She moved with the same surety that she seemed to do everything—taking careful steps even as her skirts grew heavy from the wet grass.
“It seemed prudent,” I answered, careful to sound cool, distant. “After what you pointed out.”
