The mage smiled, triumphant. He was right. He possessed the bargaining chip that might well get him and what remained of his troop out of Tineroth alive. A good thing he was skilled at bluffing. If the king even suspected he had no intention of killing his hostage, they were all dead.
“Put down your weapons, Your Majesty and surrender. Otherwise I kill her.”
Cededa eyed Dradus for a long moment, and even from the safety of both height and distance, Dradus shuddered under the touch of that cold-blooded gaze.
Axe and sword fell at Cededa’s feet with a discordant clang. Those Castagher soldiers still alive and uninjured closed around him. He didn’t fall at the first punch or even the third kick. By the sixth, he was on his knees. At a dozen, he fell and lay still, bloodied and defeated.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Imogen wakened to a splitting headache and the rhythmic creak of wheels. She cracked open one eye, squinting as the light worsened the throbbing in her skull. As she grew more alert, she discovered her hands wrapped and bound, every part of her skin once bared now covered. Even her hands were bandaged. She sat up slowly, startled when a man in dented armor struck the side of the wagon and ordered her to be still.
Oh gods, the invaders. Horses and injured men surrounded the rickety wagon in which she rode. A river roared beneath them, and the statues of the ancient Tineroth kings loomed above her as the procession marched across the bridge and away from the city.
She pushed herself up, ignoring the same soldier’s harsh reprimands, gaze sweeping the crowd in search of Cededa. If the gods answered prayers, he remained safe in the city.
Her prayers went unanswered. She glimpsed flashes of pale hair splashed with red in the group following her wagon.
Imogen tottered to her feet and jumped from the wagon. The men walking behind it leapt out of her way as she rolled on the hard stone. Gasping from the shock of hitting unforgiving ground, she stood, swaying unsteadily. “Cededa!” Her cry echoed over the wind whistling across the bridge and the river thundering below it.
Stripped to just his trews, the Undying King had been reduced to a stumbling wreck of bruises and welts. Purple and black patterns of fists and boot heels mottled his torso, and his hair stuck to a battered and bloodied face. He stumbled behind a horse, tethered to the saddle by a length of rope that cinched his wrists so tightly blood trickled under the knots. The rider yanked on the rope, sending Cededa to his knees where he was dragged across the rough stone until he lurched to his feet once more.
“Stop it!” Imogen wove an unsteady path toward her lover. “Let him stand!”
She never reached him. A firm hand on her elbow whirled her about so that she faced the man who’d struck her senseless. He bowed briefly, eyes icy with both curiosity and disdain.
“He’s of no concern to you any more, Your Highness. Please return to the wagon.”
Imogen stared at the stranger, angered and astonished. What was he talking about? This man had hit her hard enough to rearrange her eyes and now he addressed her as if she were royalty. While his expression held only contempt, his voice was one of deference and civility. Had the world gone mad?
“Get your hands off me,” she snarled and yanked her arm out of his grip. The soldiers who’d jumped out of her way earlier closed ranks again, blocking her view of Cededa.
She wrestled the stranger as he grabbed around the waist and hauled her back to the wagon. Her desperation to reach the king gave her added strength but she was still no match for her captor. He slung her none too gently in the wagon. Red-faced and breathing hard, he glared at her.
“Be still, Highness, or I’ll be forced to do what I did in Tineroth.”
Imogen gathered every bit of moisture in her mouth and spat. He was quicker than she expected and dodged her shot. “Do that again, and I’ll gag you.”
She opened her mouth to hurl at him every epithet she’d overheard in the marketplaces but halted at a panicked cry from the end of the procession.
“The bridge! It’s fading! Run!”
Chaos ensued as those in the back of the line surged forward, crowding those closer to the front. Imogen’s captor leapt into the wagon with her and shouted at the driver to move it. The wagon bounced and rattled. Imogen held on to one side as it careened from right to left, knocking against horses that raced for the safety of the land. In the mayhem, the orderly ranks of marching men broke as they ran with the horses for safety. The rider holding Cededa’s rope raced past them, his captive no longer tethered.
Imogen saw him then, standing alone and still as the bridge vanished behind him. “Cededa!” She screamed his name, stretching out her bound arms as if she might catch him before the span disappeared beneath his feet. His bloodied mouth turned up in an enigmatic smile, and his voice whispered to her over the thunder of hooves.
“Farewell, my beauty.”
Her desolate cry carried through the gorge as the bridge disappeared and Cededa fell silently into the chasm to the river below.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Summer lay fully upon Castagher. Imogen stood on her balcony and watched the sun set on the harbor. She’d never been this close to the sea before and admired the way the water turned to liquid fire in the sun’s reflective light. Ships rocked on languid waves, and farther out, in open water, Castagher traded on its newly acquired shipping lanes.
A door opened and closed behind her, alerting her to a visitor. She recognized the click of her cousin’s boots on the floor and braced herself. “I’m out here, Your Majesty,” she called to him.
The clicking grew louder, accompanied by the scent of rosemary and beeswax candles. Imogen turned to Hayden as he took his place beside her. Charming, handsome, and with a sharp wit, Hayden of Castagher oozed insincerity. His overtures of friendship rang false, and his gaze on her made her feel like a moth trapped in a spider’s web.
“Out on the balcony again, I see.”
