You are the damnation of your people.
Lying down on the cold ground, Ahnna curled around the spike holding her in place. And though she knew what pleasure it would bring him, she could not fight the tears that slid down her face.
26
Keris
Keris reached up to pluckan orange from one of the trees, and then absently peeled the fruit as he stared through the glass of the orangery at the hedge maze beyond.
“A bit strange to grow trees inside,” Saam said, reaching up to pick his own orange. “It’s warm and wet—they’ll grow outside just fine.”
“The wet is likely your answer.” Keris ate a piece of the fruit and eyed the raindrops pattering against the glass ceiling. “I doubt the Harendellians care to take their tea sitting in the rain. I certainly don’t.”
“You don’t drink tea.”
Keris shrugged. “I don’t like to do anything in the rain.” He walked through the orangery eating slices of the fruit and examining the wrought-iron benches made comfortable with thick velvet cushions and small knit blankets. At one end was a mahogany dining table with six chairs, the top well polished but also marked with dings and scratches from years of use. On one leg, three names were carved: Will, Jamie, and Ginny. Keris ran a finger over the childish script, one of many markers that this was a home that waslivedin. The whole of Fernleigh—at least the rooms Keris had explored—was filled with the same. Furnishings of the highest quality, but all bearing signs of heavy use, and rather than expensive artwork, portraits of the royalfamily adorned every wall. The shelves in the library were filled with books of fiction and poetry, stacks sitting on side tables as though awaiting the return of the family member who’d been reading them. It smelled of oranges and fresh bread, wood polish and leather, but above all else, it smelled of extreme wealth. The Harendellians were so good at being the richest people in the world that they didn’t feel compelled to prove it.
“My father would have hated everything about this place,” he murmured, toying with the corner of a chair where the leather upholstery had come unstitched, thinking of the Vencia palace and how everything was flawless, expensive, and utterly devoid of personality. Perhaps the Sky Palace in Verwyrd was the same, but he doubted it. Harendellians believed that if you tried to impress, it meant you weren’t impressive at all, and the Ashfords epitomized what it meant to be Harendellian.
“I think it’s all right.” Saam was leaving small piles of orange peels littered across the orangery. Keris considered warning him that his stomach might rebel from eating so many, then decided to leave his friend to discover that information himself. “Are you going to write to Zarrah?”
Keris made a noncommittal noise. Daria would be well into her journey back to Pyrinat with an explanation of where he was and why, and though the written word was normally his forte, he’d only stared at the blank sheets on the writing desk in his room and then set his pen back down.
What was he supposed to say? He was doing the exact opposite of what she’d asked him to do, and while Zarrah would understand the logic of his choice, Keris suspected that Daria’s explanation would still hit like a punch to the stomach. It made him wonder whether, for all Zarrah loved him, she wished he were a different sort of man. Someone who’d say and do all the right things. Who’d be an asset rather than the liability he undoubtedly was to her.
You could be that man.Keris shoved away the thought in favor ofabandoning the orangery for the main house. He was waiting to speak with William, but the king and Lestara had been gone all day visiting a horse breeding farm north of Sableton. After leaving Keris in the care of her servants, Alexandra had pleaded pain and exhaustion and retired to her room, which meant he’d accomplished exactlynothingother than sending one of Saam’s most trusted soldiers back to Ithicana with a verbal account of all that Alexandra had told Keris in the carriage.
He’d given no opinion on his interpretation of what Alexandra had said, but continuing to cling to the belief that Ahnna was innocent now bordered on delusion. Edward had threatened the lives of Aren, Lara, and Delia, and while Ahnna might not murder for pride, anger, or country, Keris suspected that she might do it for family.
With Saam trailing at his heels, Keris walked through the soft silence of Fernleigh, the rooms lit with the warm glow of lamps and hearths, but as he went to climb the main staircase, he paused. The wide landing had an enormous portrait of William standing with a horse, but in the lamplight, he noted that the paint surrounding the frame was slightly darker in hue—as though a larger piece had hung in place of this one until recently.
“Excuse me,” he said to a maid crossing the front entrance carrying a tray of cakes and a steaming cup. “Is this portrait of His Grace recent? The artwork is magnificent.”
The woman bobbed a curtsy. “Not new, Your Highness, but recently moved to this wall to replace one of the Good King Edward. The queen mother, God bless her heart, was brought to tears every time she looked upon his face, so she asked that it be stored away so as not to test her strength in these dire times.”
Keris blinked. That sentiment was deeply at odds with the Alexandra who’d declared to him that Edward had deserved his fate for what he’d done to Ahnna. “Such a terrible loss,” he murmured, then carried on up the stairs to his room.
“The Harendellians have the estate under heavy guard,” Saam saidas he fell in alongside Keris. “But we’ll post a rotating guard of our own outside your door and below your window, and I’ll also have a few doing a stroll about to keep an eye on things without stepping on Harendellian toes.”
Keris only shrugged. “If the oranges were poisoned, you’ll be the first to know.”
His friend’s stomach chose that moment to give a mighty gurgle, and Saam’s lips parted in horror. “But how? They have peels.”
“Inject them with a needle, I suppose. The Harendellians are masters of poisoncraft. If they want us dead, dead we shall be.”
Saam’s stomach gave another violent gurgle. “Oh God. My stomach hurts.”
“You ate fourteen oranges. That’s on you, not God.”
Saam nodded, but his eyes suggested he was at greater risk of poison than indulgence as he swiftly inspected Keris’s room, then said, “Don’t leave.” Without waiting for a response, he shut the door, his boots moving rapidly down the hall.
Going to the sideboard, Keris stared at the heavy crystal decanters filled with amber liquids, sighed, then poured himself a drink from one of them. Only for his eyes to catch on a folded piece of paper sitting on the writing desk that hadn’t been there earlier.
Sipping the brandy, he examined the paper, which had a small drawing of a foxglove blossom on it.
Cardiff.
His hands abruptly turned cold, and he drained his glass before flipping open the page.
