Page 68 of Untempered
I’d never gone to visit my mother’s grave. I’d visited her while she was alive after I became a squire, then again after I was knighted and had my own land, and later, when I’d heard my sister, Caitie, was back home widowed, with three little ones. Three times in total since I’d somehow gotten away with my life and enough of my soul intact that I’d been able to heal.
They’d never left. Ma had passed the winter before last. Consumption. Caitie was still there, best as I knew, smoothing over our old man’s bad temper and trying to shush her children so they didn’t attract attention. Her eldest would be almost old enough to take as a squire.
I’d planned on going back in a few years and seeing if he’d want to come on with me. But I’d never gone back to farewell my ma.
Every time I’d seen her, I’d said goodbye. Every time since I’d watched his hands lock around her throat until she went blue.
The keys rattled against the door, and I saw through the gap the flicker of light on a man’s irritated looking face.
Well, they weren’t here for my death, then.
The door swung open with an almighty groan, and I looked over despite myself, sick of my own company.
I didn’t know what the collar pin meant on the shirt of the man who held the keys, but Iwassurprised to see Her Ladyship Herself tight-lipped behind him. For just a moment, I remembered her as she’d been in the orchard—hard as steel and just as deadly.
She hadn’t left.
She ought to.
“Sir Chay,” Collar-Pin said stiffly. “You’re returning to your post immediately.”
The lady clasped her hands before her, looking at the guard expectantly. She’d had that same expression when she’d asked me to be her champion. My heart twisted in my chest at the memory.
“The guard apologizes for the misunderstanding,” Collar-Pin went on, color in his cheeks, the torch in his hand wobbling.
So I suited her better alive than dead.
Who else would slay a child for her?
Sick to my stomach, I hauled myself up. “You’re out without your proper escort,” I noticed, throwing salt on wounds. Whose, I wasn’t sure.
“The dungeons were closer than my tower after I’d been to see the Captain,” she said primly. “And Mortemon cannot be raised.”
She’d set that up. I was tempted to point out that Audrey had sent me after a mage while she trotted all over the castle just yesterday, and she hadn’t been kidnapped then. But I could see the way they were already looking at me and realized I hadn’t bowed or given her the title she’d been born with.
Too late now. I scrubbed a hand over my face and shuffled into the crowded corridor. Where Audrey went, so did Isolde and Thomas, of course, one old hound with trusting eyes and another ready to defend the hand that fed it.
Audrey looked me up and down so carefully that I wondered if she wanted me to lift a foot to inspect my shoes.
“I see you’re injured, sir.”
I didn’t look at the guardsman. I hadn’t started it, and I hadn’t finished it, either. But I knew I wasn’t the only one aching all the same.
“Sir?”
“Apologies, my lady. I didn’t know that was a question.”
“It wasn’t,” she agreed. “It was a polite conversation starter. The response is generally a similar comment on the same topic.”
“I’m not trained in politeness, my lady.” Behind her, Thomas’ eyes flickered closed briefly. I could almost hear the man’s prayers.
He was going to need them.
“I respect that, sir,” she said, and her smile was small and kind. “That’s why I explained it to you. Come, now.”
I saw red. She turned, and I was forced to fall into the crowd around her, ignoring the smug looks the guardsmen were sending me.
I’d been thrown in the cursed dungeons for killing innocent children to defendherneck, whenshewas too stupid to leave her own pretty prison, and she had the arrogance to take a shot atme?
