Page 13 of Untempered
“Yes, I’d heard,” Kadan said with a dismissive flick of his fingers. “We’ve passed on the information. There isn’t much more we can do, I suppose.” He grinned at Luca and added, “It’ll be done, one way or the other, won’t it?”
I wondered what it’d be like to be the daughter of the Butcher of Wolfswail. I wondered if it’d be much different from the way I’d grown up, as the sixth grandson of the illustrious General Charles of Black Peak, with the legacy he’d left behind of terror and poverty. It would probably take a few generations for La’Angi’s wealth to dry up. It had with us, anyway. The terror, though…that was a deep well.
I doubted she’d be mourning him.
Luca was wincing. “I wouldn’t mind walking away from the whole thing, honestly.” I kept my eyes on the fire as those words landed in my mind.Might be too hard. Mayhap I ought to retire for a spell, revisit this when the situation is more agreeable.That’s what he meant. Kadan and I both knew it. Typical Luca.
“Don’t wish too hard,” Kadan advised, uncharacteristically serious, and my attention sharpened. “I’d rather you live to see your hair start to gray. Wheels are turning already. We need to steer them, or be crushed.” And, bless his heart, he didn’t say,“As I warned you time and again.”
“It’ll be gray before midwinter the way things are going,” Luca muttered on a sigh.
Why Kadan liked Luca’s company, I’d never understood. When I thought of the way the Butcher’s daughter had sat at the high table, staring at her plate, barely visible she’d made herself so small… Luca’s whole head would be full of grays if he gave a single shit.
She wasn’t my problem. I was here to make sure everything went to plan, not to rescue anyone.
She had a Matri’sion maid. She was fine. Hells, mayhap the maid or the lady would do the job themselves if we gave them half an opportunity.
And yet, something dark coiled in my gut.
“Any extra information?” Kadan asked him, his eyes narrowed. “You can speak in front of Chay.”
They sure could. I wasn’t about to tell Luca to eat shit. He was the best option we had, aside from Kadan, who wasn’t an option. I’d long since stopped grieving the reality of that.
“Not yet,” Luca told him, with a shake of his head for added emphasis. “I’m worried about Audrey, but she’ll be okay, I’m sure.” Kadan made a hum of agreement and provided Luca with some quiet to fill. He sat there for a few moments in silence, before offering, “She takes ridiculous risks.”
“Oh?” Kadan asked, his face the picture of mild surprise. “Surely such a mild-mannered thing cannot be such a source of worry.”
It almost made me uncomfortable to watch him playing Luca.
Luca cocked a brow at Kadan. “Says an unbetrothed man.” And he grinned as if it were a joke. When we didn’t laugh, the grin faded and he drew a deep breath, lowering his voice. “She’s—in a difficult spot. I’m doing what I can to help, of course, but I keep coming up against Victor.”
My heart squeezed in my chest.Good.That was good, wasn’t it, that she had someone devoted to her? Shouldn’t we all have that? I reached down and grabbed a log, tossing it onto coals that didn’t need more fuel, and grabbed a poker to rearrange it.
“How so?” Kadan asked, sounding concerned. Knowing him, he’d be genuinely worried about Luca’s well-being. Luca was our friend, more or less. He’d been around us for a long time, anyway.
And he was about to wear the crown, if we had anything to do with it.
Because he was going to marry her. Take her father’s army. And take the country.
I poked the log too hard, and sparks tumbled everywhere.
“Victor’s a brute,” Luca said, his voice uncharacteristically harsh, his words unusually forthright. “I told you what the Duke did the last time the wedding was postponed.”
Kadan frowned, straightening a little in his chair. I recalled the conversation vividly. Kadan had played it cool at the time to better support Luca, but he’d been shaken. Add to that the history between Kadan’s father and Audrey’s mother, it was possible Kadan was especially concerned about the lady.
Or mayhap he was just lucky that shit still shocked him.
“Are you thinking of postponing it again?” Kadan asked him, all nonchalance gone.
“No. No. Even if I wanted to—which I don’t—it’d be too risky. He could kill her. He almost did,” he added, standing and pacing to the bottle of knappchs sitting on the empty table, pouring us all a short glass. What remained of the bottle, with its pretty little apple design on the label, revealed that none of us had been quick to drink the La’Angi spirits. “During the last tourney, I came to stay. She’s been keeping me away,” he told us, the words tight, the pauses long. “She didn’t say as much, but I can tell. She’s trying to protect me.”
Those hands had been strong and sure, that knife faster than I could’ve anticipated. She’d be able to protect him if it came to it. And something about that made me ache.
In my mind’s eye, I pictured how she’d shrank.
“From?” Kadan asked, his eyes slightly narrowed.
But the answer was in my own memory, and I felt the weight of it in my belly as flames danced over the logs in front of me. Physical capabilities didn’t protect you from the way your soul could be eroded.
