“If I did not mention it, it’s because very few can apply or remove bonds without harm coming to one or both involved. And Lexsea does as she pleases. I don’t pretend to have control over her.”
“Are you not her father? Her pretor?”
Estelar stared into the distance. A quick, subtle grin passed swiftly across his expression.
Taven laughed nervously. “Lexsea has agreed. It’s all that matters now.”
Elloven took another step forward. “Are we in agreement, Uncle?”
Estelar’s frown traveled between them. He sat at the edge of his desk, watching them. “And why does Taven think we’d kill Jesstin?”
“It’s... I only...” Taven sputtered. She’d never heard him so ruffled. “I was drawing conclusions from the matter, sir. He’s an outsider. I don’t reckon you allow many of them into Rivenholde, let alone suffer those to live who have bonded to one of us.”
“But as Elloven has said, it was not Jesstin’s choice.”
“The outcome is the same, though... Is it not? He is still...” Taven coughed, flicking a short, hard glance at Elloven. He was annoyed, annoyed she’d caught him in a lie. “I was only surmising.”
“Surmising.” Estelar’s scowl settled deeper into his features. “He is our cherished winner of the Labyrinth of Deception. He brought our Elloven to us?—”
“Sir, I?—”
“And I see no reason to punish him for it. Yet as Lexsea has agreed to assist, let us draw upon the brighter side of her fickle nature and see this done.”
Taven’s hands shot out to his sides with a frustrated exhalation.
She was missing something, and it was right there, so close she could grab it if only she could see it.
The esguards could be at the croft right now, as she wasted time with words. If he died, his blood would stain her conscience, and hers alone.
“Thank you, Uncle.” The words came out strangled. “Your diplomacy is appreciated.”
Estelar signaled an esguard, speaking in strange words that seemed like code. He took his seat again.
Taven’s relief changed the air in the room. He sighed and sank onto a chair.
Elloven stayed standing. Alertness grounded her, and she needed her wits, which had been scrambled, intentionally, by the men in the room with her. A woman cannot stand without a man’s guiding hand went the grotesque rhyme, repeated mostly by other women. Taven wanted her to believe Estelar would murder Jesstin. Estelar wanted her to believe Taven was making wild suppositions.
Lies or not, she’d do whatever they asked to keep them from hurting Jesstin. He might confuse that with weakness, but for all he’d been through, he had never once been as powerless as she had with a lord of the realm standing over her, brand in one hand, cock in the other, as his friends drunkenly cheered him into maiming her. The only mercy she’d been shown that night had been Fabrien declining the suggestion to put the brand inside of her, but there was nothing noble in the choice. He’d done it before, he’d said, and the women had scarred so badly, they were no longer “fun.”
Every one of them had taken their turn. Every one of them had been careless, causing her to lie awake at night praying none of them had put a child in her—a child her late husband vowed to slaughter in front of her, as though she had any control in the matter. Some nights she even prayed Fabrien would impregnate her, because it was safer than birthing a child who looked like one of the others.
Sometimes fighting didn’t look like violence or vengeance. Sometimes it was just surviving the night.
Lexsea entered with an air of unadulterated annoyance. Elloven bristled, thinking of the way the woman had exerted control over Jesstin. But she’d read that situation wrong as well.
She had clearly been pulled out of bed. She hastily tucked messy strands behind her ears, but half of her hair was still standing up in the center. She squinted at Elloven with an unreadable glare. Her eyes swept Taven with disgust before turning them back on her father. She shook her head and laughed. “The bond. That’s why you called for me, right?”
“The quicker you oblige, the sooner I’ll dismiss you,” Estelar replied tersely. He ran his middle finger between his brows. “No need for ceremony, Lex. You know what to do.”
Moments from now, Elloven would lose her connection to Jesstin. “What about...” She cleared her throat. “The child?”
“What child?” Lexsea snapped.
“When Jesstin and I were bonded, we were told I had to conceive in a year or we’d both die. I assume that requirement will be voided with the bond?”
Estelar’s eyes rolled briefly upward.
The half-asleep siren cackled. “Oh, love, you were lied to. They were messing with you. There are no rules to the bond. The bond itself is the rule! The pain of separ—wait, do you not feel his absence here?”
