She kicked the horse into motion, her carving knife tucked into her belt, her grandmother’s courage burning in her chest.
It was a good day to die, she thought grimly, because that was what the ballads always said about heroes riding into danger. But she wasn’t planning to die. She was planning to find the Silent Reaper and point him toward his enemies.
And then, Lord Alaric would learn what happened to men who hurt the people she loved.
Through the longest night of her life, with nothing but a kitchen knife and a servant’s courage, Marian rode toward dawn—and toward the man who would burn the world to get his lady back.
CHAPTER 23
The border lord’s hall was warm and smoky, filled with the drone of men discussing grain supplies and the cost of mercenaries to supplement their own ranks. Gareth sat at Lord Blackwood’s right hand, his presence a silent weight that kept the negotiations civil. Three days of this—endless talk of borders and tribute, of Alaric’s growing boldness and what must be done about it.
Talk. Always talk. Words circling like crows, never landing.
He’d left Elodie safe behind Greywatch’s walls. Safe with Bertram and Miles, with fifteen trained guards and stone walls three feet thick. Safe. The word had become a prayer he repeated with every mile between them.
Lord Blackwood was mid-sentence—something about a se’nnight’s warning before any joint patrol—when the doors burst open.
A girl stumbled through. She was small and slight, her servant’s dress torn and filthy, her hair escaped from its cap in wild tangles. Mud streaked her face. Blood, too—a cut on her forehead that had dried in a dark streak down her temple. She moved like someone who’d pushed past exhaustion intosomething beyond it, her legs trembling with every step. Gareth was on his feet before he recognized her.
Marian.
The kitchen maid’s eyes found him across the crowded hall—wild, desperate, burning with something that made his blood go cold. She opened her mouth, but no sound emerged. Her hands rose instead, shaking so badly he could barely read the signs.
Attack. Greywatch. Dunharrow men.
The hall had gone silent around them. Lord Blackwood’s guards moved forward, hands on sword hilts, but Gareth was already crossing the distance between them, his boots loud on the rushes.
Marian’s hands kept moving, the signs frantic.Postern gate. Cecily let them in.
He caught her shoulders before she could collapse. Up close, he could see how young she was. Seventeen. A kitchen maid who’d never ridden alone in her life, who’d somehow crossed twenty miles of dark roads to find him.
Slowly, he signed.Tell me.
She drew a ragged breath. When her hands rose again, they were steadier.
Cecily betrayed us. Midnight assault through the postern gate. I got the children out, the servants, through the old passages. Sixty-three souls, my lord. I counted.Her chin lifted, even as tears carved tracks through the dirt on her face.They’re safe in the caves by the north stream.
Elodie.He shaped her name like it might shatter.Where is Lady Elodie?
Marian’s face crumpled.
She came back for the others. Bertram tried to stop the soldiers—Her hands faltered.He fell protecting her. They took her, my lord. Lord Alaric’s men. They took her.
The world narrowed to a single point. Gareth heard Lord Blackwood saying something behind him, heard the scrape of boots and the murmur of voices, but it all seemed very far away. Like sounds heard underwater.
Bertram, he signed.Dead?
I don’t know. There was so much blood—Marian’s hands dropped to her sides, then rose again with visible effort.Cecily. She stood over Lady Elodie’s body and laughed. She said?—
The girl’s jaw tightened. When she signed the next words, her movements were sharp as knife strikes.
She said. Lord Alaric has your faerie. Come and get her.
Something inside Gareth went very still.
Three years. Three years of silence, of patience, of watching Alaric circle his lands like a wolf waiting for weakness. Three years of swallowing his rage until it became part of him, cold and constant as the scar across his throat.
His faerie. His Elodie. In that monster’s hands.
