Page 43 of Untempered
“You’re here,” I told him, viciously. “Because you swore the same oath I did.”
“If you think undermining the Duke’s influence is a good way to protect the lady?—”
For a moment I heard my mother in my head, her words lost to time, just the urgent downward motion of her hand at her side telling me to be silent. “Fuck the Butcher,” I said, but kept the anger from my voice. Despite my dismissive tone, Thomas paled. “My only priority now is listening to the woman I’m bloodsworn to.” But I hadn’t sworn to be sweet and nice and let her bullshit us all. I’d never visited my mother’s grave. I wondered, now, if I should’ve. “Our loyalty is to her above all others, without question.” The words tasted like stale beer. My head throbbed.
“My lady,” he said stiffly to Audrey. “I apologize for my companion. He doesn’t understand how things are done in La’Angi.”
“Understanding and accepting are different things,” Isolde drawled, almost idly. “And here was me thinking we were going to discuss schedules and setting the Watch.”
“My lady, with all due respect, it wasn’t a quarter-hour ago your father was in here reminding us of what happened to your mother.” Thomas looked at me, at Audrey, then to Isolde, pleading, now. “We need to keep you safe, milady,” he added. “You know that means respecting your father’s wishes.”
“I don’t—” she shook her head, those whiskey eyes big and soft and round. “I never intended for?—”
“Intention is irrelevant,” Isolde said, and I folded my arms. The message hit home, and Audrey’s eyes dipped to the ground. It should’ve pleased me that she felt some responsibility over the situation, but instead, irritation gnawed at me. “Look, Audrey, things are moving fast.” She eyed Thomas speculatively. I remembered, clearly, how her eyes had skimmed over the prints in the dust earlier. I hadn’t seen her in action, but when I did, I didn’t want to be on the receiving end. I resisted the urge to step away from Thomas. “If you hear things that go against the Duke’s bidding and don’t help to keep those secrets, you are breaking your oath. Youknowhe’ll harm her.”
Frustration rumbled. I’d gotten myself up and out of the mud. The alternative was a gravestone.
“Stop!” Audrey said, aghast. “Stop, Isolde. Please. We have a banquet to attend, and Thomas’ whole world has been turned around already. Let him be. Have you a wife, sir?”
The word “sir” made him jerk like he’d been branded. “I—I do. And girls. Six of them. One on the way. Probably. My lady.”
Audrey stepped closer, resting a hand on his arm. With eyes big and soft as a doe, she murmured, “I won’t ask you to put yourself in danger. Iwillask that you keep my secrets, unless they are too heavy. If you cannot carry them, I can arrange for you to stay at…” her eyes skipped over to Isolde, who shrugged in answer to her silent question. “At your new lands.”
And yet here I was, trapped. Did I need to knock someone up to get some kindness?
His eyes closed. The lines were carved deep into his face. “I—I should go and get us both a tabard. We need to polish up.”
“Of course.”
“Is it your wish to attend tonight’s banquet?” I asked her again.
She sent me a cool look that made me want to snarl. “It is,” she said firmly. “And it is my wish that I follow all of my father’s requirements, as closely as I can, particularly in public. So please, Thomas. Go. And send a runner to your wife, let her know you’ll be home once the meal is done. I won’t be staying to socialize.”
He bowed to her and walked out. He had to walk around Isolde, who didn’t step aside as he left, watching him with unblinking eyes. I heard her drop the bar after him and didn’t move from my spot opposite Audrey.
I deserved to know what he was too much of a coward to hear. It wasn’t like I was allowed to betray her. I could hardly do my job if I didn’t know what I was doing.
She ran her fingers through her wet hair, shaking it out, color creeping up her cheeks. And when Isolde came back, I said, “So, tell me what it is you’re not telling him.” And I waited for tales of how they smuggled out injured women and terrified children for a fresh start elsewhere and sent those who were bloodthirsty back to the Matri’sion tribes.
She just arched her brows and looked me over in assessment. It was probably supposed to be terrifying, but she’d already taken my measure, and we both knew it. She’d at least kill me quickly. “What do you know?”
Bitterness was on the tip of my tongue. I didn’t like its taste. I knew that sometimes to kill the King, first you’d have to kiss the ring. I knew to get out from under the boot, you sometimes needed to press a kiss to it.
I knew I wasn’t going to drown in the mud.
“I know you’ve been lying to Luca.” Who wasalsobloodsworn to her. I wanted to laugh at the thought, but it wasn’t with mirth. She was gathering a collection of us. “That you’re Matri’sion,” I said of Isolde, and then turned to the woman who held my life in her hands. “Andyou’reMatri’sion trained.”
Something flickered over Audrey’s face. Worry, warmth. Something like that. Something more. I didn’t want her cursedwarmth.
“You’re his friend. Luca’s.”
If that was the most important thing she took from our interactions so far, no wonder we were here now, lambs to the slaughter.
Isolde tilted her head a little, as if I amused her. “You’ve traveled in the Steppes. You know of the prophecy.”
My heart twisted. “The Sweeping Stallion.”
She hummed in agreement. “First, he’ll unite the tribes. Then, he’ll take the known world.”
