Page 6 of Unrivaled
The older woman’s eyes flickered up and down my frame, as if measuring my worth.“She’s on the top level.”She took the jug and led me up the stairs, through the middle level dedicated to the lady’s every day, to the stairs to the top, which hadn’t been used since Audrey’s mother’s furnishings had been brought down.
The irritation had turned to anger.But not at the lady.She didn’t know.
My bad knee burned, and I tried to sift through what I could possibly say to her.You need to give me the same updates you give Chay.That wouldn’t do it.
Easier to beat some sense into him.
The way he’d reached out and put his hand over hers, just before midday after she’d had a run-in with one of the local bigwigs?Whereanyonecould’ve passed by and seen it?
My head was pounding as the top chamber came into view.
It was a damned miracle my heart didn’t stop when I saw them.
Standing beside one another, they both held a naked sword in their hands.They both practiced a three-move string.They both wore pants.They both had sweat-damp patches between their shoulder blades and beneath their arms.
The edges of my vision went gray.
“Three more,” Chay said to Isolde.
The pounding in my head warped his words, added laughter in.I remembered the minstrel at the tavern Rose and I had gone to when we only had Sandra.The roast venison and well-salted gravy that had congealed as the watch stormed the inn’s common room, grabbing the minstrel who’d been singing about the Duchess’s love for the horse-lord, and not the Duke.
I didn’t even think to avert my eyes, so furious was I.
How—how—was that boy’s Blood Oath not melting the flesh off his bones?With the amount of harm he was doing,how was he alive?
“Oh,” the lady said, seeing me.Color flooded her cheeks and finally I was able to yank my eyes away from her clearly defined form.“Hello, Thomas.Is everything well?”
My gaze had settled on Chay, who was sliding that sword casually back into its sheath, as if they did this every day.
And they did.It clicked into place, the times they’d go missing.I thought they’d been stealing kisses for hours every morning and afternoon.
They’d beentraining?
“She didn’t want to ask you to split your loyalty,” Chay said, swiping some sweat off his face with the roll of a shoulder.“That’s why she came to me.”
I remembered, suddenly, Sandy coming up to me, no more than eight.“I think I want to marry Julius when I’m older, papa.Will that be permitted?”
Julius, who was closer to fifty than he was to eight.Julius, who was known for providing treats he couldn’t afford to the children.Julius, who somehow everyone adored.
I’d refused.Father’s right.And, more, I’d forbade her from lingering with Julius.I couldn’t control what others let their children do, and I couldn’t deal with the man myself.Icouldstop mygirls from being hurt by the predator.
But the lady hadn’t come to me.
“So, you taught her sloppy shield work,” I said, the words popping out before I could stop them.“What else, son?”All of the other millions of imperfect things the man did flooded my brain, each as inconsequential as the next, adding up to a damning pile of bullshit that’d get anyone else kicked out of the guard for life.Not this man, though.He was stuck here, and seemed intent to do as much damage as he could in every way I’d never even considered possible.
“Itissloppy,” Isolde drawled.“Drink, Audrey.You need it.”
“I’ll be back in a moment,” Chay murmured, sending the lady a reassuring look as if I was some crazy old man who just needed some well-cooked stew and a nap.
“How do you think the Duke will react to all of this?”I demanded, waving a hand toward the city.“And then toaddto our crimes?He once killed a man for sneezing near the Duchess.”My voice shook.
“Best the next Duchess know how to defend herself, then,” Chay said mildly, bending to grab his shield.
The drum of my own heartbeat drowned out everything.I remembered the pallor of one of the servants who’dspoken toa man who’d cleaned this tower after the massacre of her mother and attendants.I remembered the silence of the Duchess’s funeral, broken not even by shuffling steps or sniffling.
“Draw your sword,” I told Chay.
He said something.The gray at the edge of my vision had become swirling snow.
