Under that flaccid mustache, his complexion bleached whiter than an onion, and a messy noise sputtered from the king’s beanpole of a throat. He swallowed the fib like water, clean and easy. Considering his tirade eons ago during the bonfire ball of Reaper’s Fest, he had no trouble buying this probability. Since the Autumn warriors he enlisted still detested born souls, it supported the notion that they might turn on Rhys and publicize this slander.
I sighed dramatically. “I traveled here to get the facts straight before fucking up the knights’ supplies. With your sanitycurrently in question, their loyalty has been challenged, and they’ve had a private change of heart. Sire, they weren’t going to take up arms against your targets.” I pasted on a conspiratorial expression. “They were going to use them on you.”
Rhys’s grip on my arm shook like jelly, uncertainty and terror scrambling across his ugly features. He teetered at the fringes of another booby trap, critical intelligence about to trip off his lips. One false word, and this cretin might confirm the heir’s importance while losing trust in those Autumn soldiers, which could provoke him to scale down his own army.
Summer broke from the haze, a fresh scowl trailing in its wake. “Bah. Farming tools to bring down a king? I don’t think so.”
“Think again,” I vouched. “Disguises would still be essential. Nobody wants to be caught stabbing a monarch in the back.”
“Then why not attack me while I inspected the camp? There would have been no witnesses.”
“That’s assuming your bodyguards wouldn’t have survived or escaped. Autumn is prudent and takes excess measures. They were probably waiting for the perfect opportunity to set everything up.”
“Even if what you say is true, the evidence of that medicine was destroyed because of your insolent attack.” His complexion purpled, and his fingernails nipped my markings like tweezers. “Idiot woman. You acted without my permission!”
“Scream any louder, and we’ll be overheard,” I warned. “Besides, I had no time to ask for your permission, Sire.”
“Why did your knight and the simpleton tag along?” When I gaped, he sneered in perverse satisfaction. “Yes, I have eyes. I saw them.”
Eyes? Sure.
Brain? No.
I recovered, neutralizing my tone. “The Royal Son—”
“He will never be a Royal,” the bigot vented.
My fist ached to punch a hole in his cranium. “Whatever. Anyway, the lad’s been feeling rebellious at his age, we presumably felt like having an adventure, and the First Knight is his bodyguard. It’s a good alibi for me. And if I recall, you assigned me to shadow Aire.”
In the past, Rhys would have doubted my sincerity. He’d threatened Mama and treated me like a disposable weapon. But my performance on the night I said goodbye to Aire convinced him I’d reached a spiteful limit with the soldier. As I hoped, this shallow king believed me to be a woman scorned, and I exploited that impression by pretending to be unappreciated by the clan. To Rhys, this gave me a reasonable motive to cooperate, overruling what he did to Mama.
His Royal Shithead scoffed. “If you’ve decided to whore yourself out to gain that man’s trust, I have no objection. Behave like a slut for all I care. Though I still wonder, why you’d go to all this trouble on my behalf.”
“Extra credit,” I listed. “You’re a king. And I hear being in a king’s favor is a perk.”
“Mmm.” His expression curdled like sour milk. “And where did you get the explosives?”
“Brought them from the castle.”
“Who else is residing with you?”
As much as I’d rather keep Lyrik out of it, lying about this part was unhelpful. Best not to have another thing to keep track of.
“Some treehouse squatter,” I dismissed. “A peasant like me, I’d say.”
“Does he know about the camp?” Rhys demanded. “What has he told you?”
“Can’t help you there. It’s a big colony. The squatter keeps a low profile and doesn’t say much.”
The king deliberated, his parboiled face searching mine. Then he released my arm, jerking it away as if handling a pest. I clamped my molars and tightened my grip on the axe.
“Make sure it stays that way,” he muttered. “Watch the fire pits in case I send word. But if you pull a fast one on me, I’ll have your mother gutted like a fish, along with your fuck-toy of a knight.” Malevolence gleamed in his pitted pupils. “And that simpleton.”
Nicu.
Red flooded my vision. The axe lifted, and in my mind’s eye, I pictured Rhys’s head rolling like a barrel across the wood planks.
By the time I stopped myself, he disappeared into the fog. My free hand grabbed the railing as two details lingered in his wake.
