CHAPTER24
Ihad woken up with a dead fish on my stomach. It was freshly caught, wet and slightly bloody, and the mix of water and fish blood had soaked through my nightshirt. My pet stelka must’ve decided that an emergency snack would make everything better.
I took the fish off, set it on a plate I had stolen from the kitchen yesterday, and left it by the bed. Then I used the bathroom and washed my face and my chest. My left side was black and blue where the Butcher had rammed the pommel of his sword into my ribs. I was pretty sure one of them was either cracked or broken because it hurt like hell if I bent the wrong way.
I brushed my teeth, braided my hair, got dressed, and went downstairs to the kitchen. Hiding in my room wasn’t an option. Sooner or later he would find me. Last night, as I lay in bed, I had thought of a plan. It was time to get it started.
Everyone was already there. I took my usual seat. Everard was sitting across from me. He’d tried to look like Reynald today. He was back to emanating that quiet strength, his terrifying magic hidden, his dark smoke put away, but it was too late. Iknew.
Breakfast was served in silence. Gort was quiet, seemingly absorbed in the food on his plate. He wouldn’t look me in the eye. Shana sat next to her husband, her face unreadable. Will and Lute watched me and Everard, waiting to see how things would shake out. Clover had scooted her chair slightly closer to mine than usual and seemed ready to jump up and hover over me at the slightest excuse. Only Kaiden was blissfully unaffected by it all, stuffing his face with handpies.
From my spot at the table, I could see our courtyard and a chunk of the sky through the window on the left side. Thick gray clouds had piled up overnight, like clumps of dirty cotton strewn across the clear blue. It would likely rain later in the day.
The Dukedom of Selva shared its eastern border with the Crimson Empire in the south and the Goryni Kingdom in the north. Goryni, a small nation, occupied a mountainous area and was renowned for its mineral wealth and unbeatable military. They imported a lot of their food. Its treacherous, rocky coastline made commercial fishing and trade difficult, and in a few months, an underwater earthquake would take out their largest functional harbor. When the Crimson Empire invaded Rellas, which would be bleeding from Hreban’s rampage, the Gorynians would be on the edge of starvation.
The future Goryni required a port. The future Everard needed allies and reinforcements to hold off the tide of Crimson Legions. They united through a marriage alliance. Selva opened its eastern ports to the kingdom’s ships, and Everard married Omelyana of Gor, who brought as her dowry three thousand elite strikers of the Gorynian Guard.
Omelyana was two years older than Everard. She was a talented commander, a superior warrior, and a shrewd politician, seasoned both on the battlefield and at court. She’d had multiple lovers prior to her engagement and was experienced and calculating, and she’d arrived in Selva with no illusions as to the nature of her arranged marriage. Within six months, she would be eating out of Everard’s hand.
How that came to be was open to interpretation. Some people chalked it up to magic-dick syndrome, where a character was so good in bed, his partners lost all of their common sense. But it wasn’t as crude and simple as just sex, although by all indications Everard was scorchingly hot in the bedroom and sex was a part of it. No, it was far more insidious and subtle.
He paid attention to her. When Omelyana did something that helped him, Everard would spend time with her. He opened his schedule for dinner, a hunt, a hike in the mountains where she would have him all to herself and during those times, he would be all in, listening, interested, and attentive. When she failed him in some way, he never chided her. He never criticized. He simply withdrew from her life, and she would turn herself inside out trying to regain his attention.
It was very clear that Omelyana was obsessed with him, and some people liked to fantasize that he was in love with her. The narrative was vague at this point since there were no scenes from Everard’s point of view in the whole series. He was a mystery to the end.
I didn’t think he loved her. He tamed her like a pet because Selva needed her strikers to survive, and he couldn’t afford to have dissension in his backyard. I had never understood how exactly he managed it or why a sophisticated, smart woman like Omelyana would fall for it.
Now I knew. I almost fell for it, too.
To Everard I was the golden key to avoiding a horrible war. He saved me last night, because the Butcher was about to run me through and he didn’t want to take a chance on me permanently dying. The way he had managed me up to that point was nothing short of brilliant. He had recognized that things would be infinitely easier if I wanted to work with him of my own free will and so he became my friend and protector. He would’ve become my lover if I had worried a little less about honesty. The more devoted I was, the better.
Except now it had all come crashing down around his ears.
He would try to regain control, and he would make it seem like sliding back into the warm embrace of his power was my idea. Right now, with our relationship on the verge of breaking, he would be most agreeable to making concessions. I had to make the most of it, because as much as I wanted to throw my plate at his face, I needed him. He was right. We had failed to stop the Butcher. Hreban was still on his way to his reign of terror and Reynald’s son would still die.
“Who did the Butcher kill this time?” I asked.
Everyone stopped chewing.
“Velpor,” Everard said. “Highly decorated, recently retired. He was one of Wynand Bors’s Conquerors.”
“What happened to the body?” I asked.
“The Shears took it,” Everard said.
Knowing Solentine’s people, they had either destroyed the corpse or stashed it in one of their caverns. They had some sort of preservation chamber in there. A wise choice. Otherwise, we’d have the entire Order of the Conqueror running amok in the capital, exhaling rage and looking for blood. Speaking of that . . .
“I saw blood on one of the swords last night.” I kept my voice neutral. “Was it yours or his?”
“His,” Everard said.
That meant the blood on my clothes was the Butcher’s as well. Score.
I kept my voice even. “How badly is he hurt?”
“Nothing that would incapacitate him. The cut will bleed for a few days, but meanwhile he can go about his business.”
“In that case, I have to go out,” I said.
