Page 42 of Her Cruel Redemption

I held up a finger, and he immediately fell silent. ‘Do you know what I learned growing up in Yaakandale, Voss?’

‘In… in Yaakandale?’

‘The rumours have spread pretty far by this point. I assume you’ve heard a bit about me by now.’

‘Just… just bits and pieces, sir.’

‘Then you know I grew up in the dead king’s glittering palace, surrounded by all the gems dug out of the mountains. The funny thing about money is how little it matters when it comes down to a matter of life and death. Which, for you, it just has. So what do you think, Voss? How much money is your life worth?’

The sweat was trickling down his face now. I watched it drip off his nose as he began to beg for his life. This was whatsheshould have done. By the river, while she was still on her knees after I’d pulled her from the water.Begged.After all, I’d caught her. And the last time I’d seen her, she’d betrayed me and run a dagger through me. I owed her for that, for turning on me, for running, for thinking there was any version of the world where we made sense apart. I’d thought—hoped—the anticipation of my rage would be enough to humble her. I’d hoped she’d be a little scared of what I might do to her when I caught her. But even if she’d been on her knees, everything about the way she’d looked up and met my eyes had saidI dare you. The part of me that was predator had stirred, hackles raised at the challenge, baring fangs and flexing claws. Ready to give chase. And I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t some satisfaction in seeing her run from me and hunting her down. She could tolerate a little fear. I had every intention of exacting penance for what she’d done to me, just as I was sure she would in return for what I’d done to her. The problem was that I craved her surrender on a level that wasn’t rational, and she would never give it to me.

But the magic had changed everything.

‘Voss,’ I finally snapped when I grew tired of his babbling. It just wasn’t the same when it was so easily won. ‘Sit the fuck down and tell me everything that happened at Garlein. And this time, leave nothing out.’

Twenty minutes later, he’d confirmed some of my worst assumptions. That Rhiandra had over-extended herself. That she’d wound up unconscious. That she’d thrown magic around like there was no price for using it. The fact that she’d done the same when she’d faced me wasn’t just because I’d provoked her to lose control of her rage. If I’d known before I’d seen her, could I have reasoned with her? Could the fear quickening my pulse have settled my anger enough tobereasonable?

Unfortunately for Orrin Voss, it was too late to find out now.

Chapter Twenty

It was cold and drizzly when we arrived in Sarmiers, with grey clouds tumbling across the sky overhead, choking out the afternoon sunlight. I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but the sight of the sooty buildings clustered beneath the outer wall disappointed me. It looked no different to Lee Helse, and I couldn’t even see a hint of the ocean I’d heard so much about. Perhaps there had been some naïve part me that had expected something more romantic of a foreign city by the sea, but it looked like more of what I’d spent my whole life around: clotheslines flapping in the brisk wind, horse shit in the streets, a child by the side of the road with big, liquid eyes who was holding out a hand and begging for coins in a hopeless whisper.

As the carriage rolled towards the city gates, I eyed Gwinellyn. She was seated across from me, next to Elias, staring out the window. She looked calm. Determined. I hoped she was ready to do what she’d come here for; to wrangle a court of exiles to heel and convince a foreign king to throw his lot in with hers. No small task.

‘I can smell the sea,’ Daethie said next to me, and when I glanced at her she had her eyes closed, a faint smile on her face. Like she was tasting a delicacy, savouring the flavour. I sniffed, trying to pick out what she smelled. There was a taint to the air, I supposed. Something fresh and brisk and bracing. Perhaps it really was the sea, but I’d never been anywhere near the coast so I wouldn’t have known either way.

I eyed the city that rose up around us as we passed through the gates, trying to spot differences. The buildings were lighter-coloured than those in Lee Helse, constructed mostly of pale stone, and the streets were busy despite the drizzle of rain. We pushed through thicker and thicker traffic as we went, carriages and horses and pedestrians aplenty, despite the wide streets. I didn’t catch my first sight of the ocean until we were far enough into the city that the walls were no longer visible. We crested a rise, and on the other side the ground sloped down towards the edge of a sharp cliff, upon which the many turrets and towers of a pastel-coloured palace spilled out, looking like it was hanging on the verge of plummeting over the brink. And beyond it, the ocean, steel-grey and swirling with white crests that rose and fell as I watched. That bracing smell was stronger now, blown in on a wet, cold wind that found its way around the door of the carriage to chill our skin.

The carriage slowed down as the captain who’d brought us in pulled up beside the window and knocked on the glass.

‘That’s Bright Keep, princess. The palace,’ he called through the glass. Unnecessarily. What else could that monstrosity be? Gwinellyn nodded and smiled, though. When we arrived at Bright Keep, that chill, salty wind attacked us as soon as the carriage door opened. I wrapped my arms tighter around my torso as we stepped out, and I watched as the rest of our party climbed out of the one that had pulled in behind us, considering anew that slippery way it felt to look at Tanathil, with his disguise of magic doing funny things with light and shadow. The others were no better. We’d been able to get away with their disguises on the road, where we weren’t spending much time in one place or with any people beyond our own party, but here?

‘Maybe you should wait until you know what kind of reception we’re going to get before you bring the others before Oceatold’s king,’ I said, leaning into Gwinellyn to speak the words quietly. ‘There’ll be druthi here, and others who might be more skilled at seeing through their tricks than the people we passed on the road. Make sure you can protect them before you take the risk.’

She lifted her chin, looking like she was ready to disagree, but then she took another, longer look at her companions. She bit her lip. Nodded. ‘Okay,’ she said. A moment later, she was issuing instructions to Elias and the driver of one of the coaches to find the closest lodgings to the palace and then send word of where they were, and then the two of us were being ushered up the steps of the grand entranceway. I hesitated a moment before I went in, lingering on the last step. Touched my fingers to the mottled skin of my face. I’d been so fixed on getting Gwinellyn here that I hadn’t stopped to think of what it would be like formeto be immersed in this world of crowns and politics again. I knew the reception I was about to receive would be frosty at the very least, hostile most likely. Who had made it over the border? Whose accusations and malice would I be facing on the other side of these doors.

As we passed through the entrance into the hall beyond, a man I could only assume was King Esario strode down a staircase before us with his arms spread wide, cape fanning out behind him and a beaming smile on his face.

‘Gwinellyn! Welcome,’ he boomed, taking one of her hands when he reached her and kissing it. He was the sort of man who had a presence larger than himself, filling the entrance hall with his vitality. He was ruddy-cheeked and broad-figured, with a deep-timbered voice that carried without any need for projection magic. He was dressed in deep, rich blues with gold buckles on his cape and his boots, and an ivory sash around his waist. I compared him to his brother as I watched him, seeing little in his manners that resembled Tallius. They were both fair, and perhaps they shared a straight, defined nose, but he seemed to hold himself with more good humor. Less sour superiority. He stood back and took Gwinellyn in. ‘You are not the girl you were when last I saw you.’

‘A lot has happened since then. I’ve come to plead for refuge here,’ Gwinellyn said, her voice wavering a little. I watched her closely, watched the slight rounding of her shoulders, the way some of that confidence I’d seen in the Living Valley shrivelled, the way that determined young woman I’d seen on the road who made decisions and took the lead and held me to account grew translucent, showing that timid seventeen-year-old underneath. And now Prince Tallius—her would-be fiancé-- had reached the bottom of the steps and was walking towards her, and I felt like I needed to pull her around a corner and give her a shake. She needed to master herself and she needed to do it now if she wanted them to see her as an equal instead of someone they could use in whichever way furthered their agendas.

‘Thank Aether you’re alive,’ Prince Tallius said as he joined his brother and took Gwin’s hand, offering her a smile that could almost be called warm, if it weren’t for those ice chip eyes. ‘When we heard you’d been seen on the road here, we didn’t know whether to believe it.’

‘But the stories kept coming!’ King Esario added with a laugh, clapping his brother on the shoulder. ‘Little Princess Snow White, not killed by Creatish spies after all, but trekking through a war zone on her way to join her exiled court here in Oceatold! Explain yourself, I beg you. I’ve been wracking my brain trying to make sense of it all.’

‘She will,’ I said, finally breaking my silence and stepping forward, bristling at the way he’d called herlittle Princess Snow White.‘But we’ve had a long journey, Your Majesty. Princess Gwinellyn needs rest. I’m sure you’ll be kind enough to grant us your hospitality.’ A moment to rest. A moment for me to prepare her the way I should have been on the road. She shot me a shamefaced glance before turning her gaze to the ground.

Both men turned their attention to me, Esario with his eyebrows slightly raised as he took me in, clearly trying to place me now that I’d marked myself as someone who had the gall to address him directly. Tallius’s gaze combed my face, taking in the scars, before a slow smile spilled across his mouth.

‘This is not quite the woman I remember,’ he said, ‘but I think I we’re being addressed by Rhiandra Soveraux.’

I flinched with shock. Then rage tore through me, hot and sharp, hissing that name through my blood.Soveraux.My focus, my fury, narrowed on Tallius, his pale lips twisted with scorn, blond eyelashes over widening eyes. ‘Don’t call me byhisname,’ I snarled, barely an inch from his face. I must have moved towards him. I didn’t even realise.

‘Why not?’ he spat, the congeniality falling from him in a flash, dropping like a cloak. ‘Itisyour name, isn’t it?’

No onehad ever called me by it. Not once. I’d never even heard the words strung together. My reason caught up with me, beating down the reactive fury with a realisation. Talliusknewthat name.Draven’sname. He had been Martalos at court, and once he was king his last name had ceased being referenced at all. I only knew the name Soveraux from that carriage ride after our secret wedding, when I’d demanded he tell me his real name. Had he dropped the pretence himself? What else did they know about him?

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