Page 119 of Ironling
A tear splattered onto the page, smearing her father’s words, and she quickly put the letter down.
The soggy words stared at her without remorse, their message stark.
Aislinn was alone.
“Milady…?”
She looked up to see Fia watching her with obvious concern, the color drained from her freckled cheeks.
“I need paper. The good paper. And more wax. And find Captain Aodhan. And Sorcha. And and and—”And Hakon. I want Hakon.
Fia grabbed her hands and squeezed. “It’ll be all right, milady. It’s all right. Whatever it is, just—we’ll make it right. Let me find Miss Sorcha. Just stay there, I’ll be right back—!” And she flew from the room on her errands, feet hardly touching the floorboards.
Aislinn did as she was told, staying right there. She didn’t think she could move, the enormity of her father’s letter pressing her into her seat.
The shock delayed her threatening fit, but she thought she was past a fit, onto something she’d never known.
Hopelessness.
The gaping maw of it opened wide inside her, sucking down everything good and pleasant.
Her father and reinforcements weren’t coming.
Her father could be dead even now.
Fat tears spilled down Aislinn’s face, but she couldn’t move her hands to wipe them away. Frozen in place, her breathing came shallow and reedy, and her fingers went numb.
Fates, what was she to do?
Bayard couldn’t know. No one, beyond those she trusted most, could know.
She had to write the king and queen. It didn’t matter what the king might do, so long as he sent aid, Aislinn would pay the price. She had to write to all her vassals, command them to send reinforcements, and test their loyalty in a way she’d been hoping to avoid. She had to make safe the city, one already infested withBayard’s men.
She had to—had to—there was so much she had to—
All she could do was bury her head in her hands and weep.
28
His plan was insanity—pure madness—and had more holes than a sieve, but it was all he had, and Hakon was desperate. The old sagas told of the insane, reckless, dangerous things orcs did when suffering with unrequited mate-bonds, and he understood them all.
Hoisting the rope higher on his shoulder, he slipped around the east side of the castle, craning his neck to spot the third-floor balcony of Aislinn’s solar. The night was a dark one, the moon merely a sliver, leaving the shadows deep and inky despite the puddles of light from the tall torches lit throughout the courtyard.
He couldn’t be too careful. In fact, it’d be smarter to give this whole asinine scheme up entirely. But he needed to see his mate.
It was more than the angry beast rumbling in his chest.
It was more than the aching loneliness carving his heart in two.
Something was happening. Something had changed.
Dundúran Castle was already mired in tension before Baron Bayard and his men arrived. Now, with almost double theknights in the barracks but half unfamiliar and loyal to the baron, a sense of fear had begun to permeate the very stones. Maids kept their heads down and hurried from task to task, not stopping long enough to be harassed by the visiting knights. The stables were overwhelmed, and the kitchens ran at all hours, the ovens never allowed to cool.
No one could quite understand it. Bayard’s knights felt more like an occupying army than the reinforcements Captain Aodhan and Aislinn both claimed them to be. The strain was evident in both of them, covert, unhappy looks passing between them.
As far as any staff knew, no word had come about Lord Merrick or Jerrod and his mercenaries, so why the sudden presence of Bayard—with so many armed knights?
Hakon couldn’t shake the feeling that danger was closing in around Aislinn, and he wouldn’t stand for it. He had to see her.
