Page 73 of The Warrior Priest
“I’m fine.” I shook like a leaf in a breeze, but I wasn’t harmed.
Rhys drew me into a fierce hug, one hand buried in my hair, the other at my back. I almost threw my arms around him but remembered his wounds and instead rested my hands at his waist. I leaned into him and soaked in the comforting rhythm of his heartbeat and familiar scent.
After a moment, he drew in a deep breath and pulled away. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here earlier. Neither your message nor Giselle’s reached us until after training.”
“Your timing was perfect. I’ll have to thank Mistress Blundle.” I’d given the apothecary a note to deliver to Rufus, Vizah or Andreas at the temple before I left to meet Giselle. I’d told themnotto inform Rhys. I hadn’t wanted him involved at all—his wounds were too fresh. At that point, I’d simply thought Giselle wanted to kidnap me. I hadn’t known her true intention or that she’d sent a note to Rhys summoning him here just as she’d summoned me.
“You should have waited for them,” Rhys told me. “You shouldn’t have come alone. Merdu and Hailia, Jac, when I received Giselle’s note and realized what she intended to do…” He scrubbed his bearded jaw and looked in the direction his friends had gone through the trees. “I thought we wouldn’t make it.”
“What did Giselle’s message say?” I asked him.
“She demanded money for your release or she’d hand you over to the governor.”
“Ah.”
“Ah?”
“That was a trick to ensure you weren’t prepared for what you saw when you got here. Her real plan wasn’t to kidnap me.”
He touched my chin, forcing my gaze to meet his. “What was her plan?” he asked, voice as dark as a moonless night.
The return of his friends stopped me from answering. “She got away,” Andreas said as he dismounted.
“Are you all right, Jac?” Rufus asked.
“I’m unharmed, thank you.”
“She was trying to kill you, wasn’t she?” Vizah asked, proving he wasn’t a fool.
I nodded. “She planned on blaming my murder on Rhys. That’s why she wanted to lure him here, too.”
Rhys frowned. “No one would believe I’d kill you.”
“She planned to let the constables think you loved me but were tortured by the oath you’d taken.”
None of the men met Rhys’s gaze. “No one would believe it,” Rhys said, somewhat forcefully.
“She was going to leave behind evidence. She had a knife engraved with the symbol of Merdu’s Guards.”
“She wouldn’t have one in her possession,” Vizah said. “Would she?”
Rhys absently scrubbed his chin through his beard then suddenly stopped. “No. No, no, no.”
“What?” Andreas asked.
Rhys tipped his head back and groaned. “Master Tomaj’s knife went missing after his death. It wasn’t on his body.”
“How did Giselle get her hands on it?”
Rhys looked to me. He knew me so well that he could tell when something troubled me. “Jac?”
It was the moment I was dreading. Giselle’s betrayal was upsetting, but the high priest’s betrayal would be a brutal blow for Rhys and his friends. “Giselle said she stole it from the high priest. He’s her client.”
Vizah scoffed. Rufus and Andreas cast grave glances at Rhys.
Rhys took a step back as if he’d been shoved. “Jac, what are you saying?”
“She told me the high priest hired her to kill me.”
