Turning to Graysen, I lifted a hand to shield my eyes against the bright sun. A gentle caress of a breeze teased the loose strands of hair that had come free from my braid. Sunlight edged his tall figure and bled across one side of his stubbled face. After a good night’s sleep, the weariness that had lined his features had been erased.
He went to speak, but my attention slid away.
At the foot of the tower, servants were cleaning up the destruction I’d wrought. They gathered shattered wood and busted metal, clothes and belts, and the board games I’d tossed like frisbees. Their white-trimmed black uniforms were somewhat old-fashioned, the long skirts reminding me of something from the early last century, especially compared to the modern cut of the servants’ uniforms on my family estate.
Penn helped with the cleanup, loading the broken pieces into a wheelbarrow and the clothes into a wash basket. She noticed our arrival, and silent approval flashed in her eyes when she saw me standing in front of Graysen.
“You’ll be needing new replacements,” Penn advised Graysen. I saw the twitch of her lips as if she were holding back a laugh.
In the background came the sound of clashing steel, the clack of wood on wood, grunts, and boisterous banter from the soldiers who leaned against the wooden railing of the trainingpit. Graysen nodded to Penn, but his gaze was on the pit where the sound of battle faded. His thick brows nudged together, and his jaw clenched as though he was bracing himself for something orsomeone.Three of them more likely.
Penn dipped her head and left us both, heading toward the northern side of the fortress.
Graysen’s tower and its wraparound balcony was a crow’s nest that allowed me an unhindered view of the Crowthers’ home. The tall, imposing structure of the Keep surrounded the inner courtyard, much like a water well. Sunlight should have been restrictive, casting most of it in shadows for the vast proportion of the day as the sun moved across the sky, but the Crowthers had set up banks of shimmering magic along the roofline, almost undetectable. The magic acted like mirrors, reflecting sunlight downward and to the opposite side of the fortress to maximize the sunshine.
Clever.
Extremely clever.
“Where first?” Graysen’s bored-as-fuck tone had returned, and my spine stiffened to hear it once more. “A walk—”
“Your home.” I pointed to the western wing. “What’s that over there?” The structure on that side of the fortress seemed new, and it jutted out in a strangely tiered way. I’d been curious about the wooden fences and iron gates running across each of the four levels. They looked like homes. The past few days, I spent most of my time on the tower’s balcony keeping a careful eye on the comings and goings of the Crowthers and their servants, jotting everything down in a notepad stolen from Graysen’s work desk and kept hidden in my bedroom.
Strangely, I hadn’t seen anyone but servants leave and return to that side of the fortress, and I was curious. “Is that where your relatives live?” Maybe they resided there and had an alternativeway of leaving rather than using the open walkway in front of each level.
“No, those are our staff homes,” he replied before angling himself toward the eastern wing with its bloated body and half-towers that broke up the straight lines. “My cousins, aunts, and uncles live over there.”
Surprise flooded through me. I turned to gape up at him, thinking how big the western structure was. Homes, he said. They probably shared the space, with several servants in each home. And if so, with how many iron gates I’d counted on each level, they must have a lot of servants working for them. “They take up a great deal of real estate within the fortress.”
“Keep,” Graysen corrected.
I rolled my eyes, popping a hand on my hip. “Fortress. Keep. Dungeon,whatever.”
“You’re right,” he conceded as if bored with my argument. “It’s not technically a Keep anymore. It’s grown since then. But it’s the name that we’ve kept.”
Fair enough.
“How about I show you?” Graysen met my gaze. There was nothing but coldness showing in his expression. Gone was the man who’d kept me company up in his tower, replaced by who he’d been when he’d spent the last day of every month with me on my family’s estate. Amask, exactly as Penn had revealed to me last night. One he wore even with his family.
I nodded warily.
The cobblestones were rough beneath my bare feet as I walked behind him. As we crossed the inner courtyard, the sound of chatter and banter from the Crowther soldiers died, along with the ringing of steel coming from the training pit. I could feel every single pair of curious eyes slide my way.
Though my shoulders were a rigid line, my poise imperious, inside I was more than a little nervous at what I was goingto encounter when I entered the intimidating fortress and the people that inhabited it. But I’d never let them see me weak.
And then the Crowther brothers climbed the open wooden staircase that wound around the inner sides of the training pit. One by one. Kenton, Caidan, and Jett stepped up into the courtyard, carrying quarterstaffs with bloodied knuckles. They came to stand in a line as Graysen stalked ahead of me and watched us all. Cold. Emotionless.
Fire warmed my blood. Anger.
It wasn’t Graysen’s earlier reminder to keep my anger in check, but my father’s deep voice flowing through my mind.
Calm, calm, calm.
I had a plan. A very basic plan. I needed free of Zrenyth’s magic, and I needed off this estate. Free of the collar, my wyrm would get me out, and a little mass destruction was appealing. My wyrm was adolescent, but we could bring down a wall or two or create an oven inside the adamere fortress with wyrmfire and outright gut it.
However, I might have to resort to subterfuge and sneak the hells out somehow. Somewhere in the fortress, I’d learn how to do this. I also needed to know my enemy and discover their weaknesses.
Which meant I had to get Graysen to trust me so he’d let me out of the tower and eventually allow me to wander around unattended. Yet, I wasn’t stupid enough to think he’d let me free straight away. No doubt he’d shadow me, and then at my urging, let Penn accompany me instead. And she’d be far easier to slip away from.
