Page 69 of Her Cruel Redemption

I turned at the sound of wheels behind me, watching a carriage as it drew up a short distance away. The driver jumped down to open the door and Leela stepped out, bundled in a thick cloak against the constant drizzle that plagued these parts, blond hair hidden beneath a deep hood. She looked about for a moment, blinking in quiet surprise. When she saw me, she cautiously approached, though there wasn’t the same fear in her now that there had been when I’d first taken her hostage.

When she was standing beside me, I nodded towards the swamp. ‘Head for the trees in the distance. There’s an encampment of soldiers there. They’re expecting you.’

She stared at me for a long moment, her pale face pensive. ‘When they said you were releasing me, I didn’t believe it at first. But then I realised, of course you would be.’

‘Your mistress will be waiting for you on the other side.’

‘What did she pay for my freedom?’ When I didn’t answer, a smile shadowed her mouth. ‘Not enough I’d guess.’

‘Enough for me.’

She turned to cast her gaze over the marsh. I couldn’t see why she was lingering. She’d been asking ceaselessly for her freedom. Now she had it and here she was, hesitating. ‘I’ve been worrying all this time about what you mean to do with Rhiandra if you get your hands on her. I was sure you’d burn her in the square like all the others,’ she said. ‘But you’re in love with her, aren’t you?’

I said nothing for a long pause. The wind stirred the fur lining the rim of her hood as she considered her path ahead.

‘You’re entitled to think what you want.’ I finally replied, after a moment adding. ‘Is that what you’ll tell her?’

‘Only if I think it won’t make a difference if she knows it.’ Still, she made no move to go.

‘This isn’t a trap. You’ll not be harmed in the crossing,’ I said, wondering if that was what kept her frozen.

‘I know. But only because I know you don’t want anything added to your pile of reprehensible acts to gain forgiveness for.’ She sighed. ‘You realise you’re only earning yourself resentment for it, though. You’d be better off leaving her be.’

‘I can’t do that.’

‘No. I suppose you can’t.’ She granted me one last searching look, like she was reading me and saw more than she should. ‘I suppose if you’ve known love to slip from gentle hands, you’ll grip it with teeth and claws. But just remember that you’ll likely destroy what you’re trying to hold onto.’

My mouth twitched in a brief smile. ‘Leela, are you giving me advice? Have all those afternoons sharing tea softened your opinion of me?’

‘Perhaps it would have, if I hadn’t been able to smell the smoke from the square drifting through my window.’ She looked sad as she said this, and I wasn’t sure if it was due to the burning pyres or the fact that she felt bound to hate me for them. She adjusted her hood and seemed to pull herself together, adding, ‘But from time to time these past months I’ve glimpsed the man you could have been, and I can mourn him. At least for Rhiandra’s sake.’

With that she finally made her way into the marsh without a word of goodbye and without so much as looking back.

I watched her go, mind already crossing the swamp ahead of her, reaching through the thicket of trees long before she would, finding who waited for her on the other side. Imagined what it would be like to go to her. I’d not be met with the same welcome Leela would receive. Not with the words she’d spat at me from our last encounter so freshly in my mind.

I want to hurt you and own you and destroy you.

As though she hadn’t already.

Everything about her had seemed primed to get a rise out of me from the moment she’d walked into that room. And she’d been dressed in men’s clothing, which stirred my blood for two reasons. The first being that the clothes had revealed her shape in ways I was unused to, the pants clinging to legs usually hidden beneath yards of fabric—when they weren’t wrapped around me—and the tunic gaping around her neck to reveal the sharp rise and dip of collar bones I had traced the shape of with my tongue. The second being that she was wearingmen’s clothesand the question still gnawing at me waswho’s clothes were they?And then that cockerel in the feathered hat had introduced her asTiercellinwhen she and I both knew that hadn’t been her name for quite some time. Anannulment, for fuck’s sake. As if I’d ever accept that. As if it made any difference at all.

Then, the bruising… I’d caught a flash of the woman beneath the rage when I’d revealed it. A flicker of shame in her dark eyes. The thought that anyone had tried to make her feel ashamed of herself made me itch for the battle to come, hungry to take lives. Why would she fight for a side who’d done this to her?

Though, I knewwhy.

Take her and it won’t matterthe voice in my head whispered, sending a chill skating across my skin. The marsh land was beginning to shift in my vision, the ground slithering like snakes. I blinked it away and slammed down on the voice, breathing deeply as I once again reinforced the mental walls the high emotion had weakened. When I turned my back on Leela’s retreating figure to re-join the retinue of soldiers waiting nearby, I was mulling over the question of how to get Rhiandra to listen to me when she hated me so much and the urge tomake her,totake her, had settled back down to a manageable impulse. We’d ride back to Port Howl fast, now, to beat Oceatold’s army to the gates. And when they arrived, there’d be a reckoning. Because Lidello hadn’t been in Port Howl. His records and his research had been moved, and to find it we’d likely need to take Sarmiers next. I’d be fighting a tide of entreaties to leave the walled city, to retreat and regroup, and in all reasoning that was exactly what we should do.

But I couldn’t do that while Oceatold’s King was primed to use Rhiandra’s magic as his weapon. Because I had to warn her. I had to force her tolisten. Because the magic would tear her apart, and the more she used it, the more she would be tempted to let it. That was the part her Yoxvese friends didn’t understand, as much as they knew the physical side effects of magic on humans. To them, magic was a force of purity, something that created life. They hadn’t lived what it became when it coursed through human blood: a siren’s call of power coaxing them onwards. They didn’t understand the fragile threshold between the point when magic felt like it was hurting you and when it hurt you so much it began to feelgood.Without understanding that, she’d follow the call, and it would kill her.

I wasn’t leaving Oceatold without making her understand that.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Ipaced between the tents where the ground was already turning slushy with footprints of the hundreds of soldiers camped here, watching the tree line. It had been a while since the last couple of Port Howl’s soldiers had appeared; they’d been dishevelled, wet with rain, and nursing injuries from the battle they’d lost a few days ago. They were all being checked over by the team of physicians and nurses Daethie had made herself such an integral component of, and as far as I’d heard there’d been no sign they’d been tortured or treated unusually badly. But that didn’t mean Leela wouldn’t have been. She’d been his captive formonths. What version of her would be walking through those trees? What if he’d taken his revenge on her when he couldn’t get at me? How would I live with myself if she had suffered because I’d abandoned her to his mercy?

And wherewasshe?

Finally, I spotted a lone figure picking their way through the trees. A figure in skirts instead of trousers.

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