Page 127 of Unrivaled
“Now there is,” Kadan confirmed grimly, reaching for it.“Thanking you, friend.”
Callum squeezed Kadan’s shoulder.When he met my eyes, the worry there felt every bit as real and right as the joy when we’d been reunited in the bailey.“You’ve wanted to talk to him about the Council for ages,” he said, to Kadan.“You keep saying ‘I wish Chay’d heard that’ or ‘What I’d give to ask Chay about this.’”
My heart sat heavily in my chest.All I’d been doing here was standing beside doors.
“It’s true,” Kadan said.“But he’s bloodsworn, Cal.”
Callum squeezed his shoulder again.I got another look, this one a little apologetic.
My mouth was dry as the Steppes in summer watching their exchange.So much had changed since we’d sat in this keep together last.I wasn’t the same man I’d been.
I hadn’t progressed, either.
Later, I’d figure out if that was a problem.For now, I said, “If you tell me you must kill Audrey to go forward with this rebellion, I’ll help you find an alternative way to rebel.There should be no conflict, Dan.I think I can say I know your heart, still.I think I can say I know hers.You want the same things.”
“What does she want?”he asked me.Then he shook his head.“I’m sorry, my friend, that wasn’t a fair question.Forget I asked it.Rather, tell me—do you think she’ll wed Luca?”
The fury that rushed through me caught me off guard.“Still, with him?”
Kadan shrugged.“He’s still pushing that angle.It’s still as valid as it was a year ago.There’s still only one man standing in the way of it.”He reached out with his good leg and bumped my knee with the tip of his dusty boot.“Mayhap…there are two?”
“She can ally with him,” I said, my voice harsh.“She doesn’t need to belong to him.”
“This is true,” Kadan agreed.“And I have, myself, explained that to Luca.He’s quite…” Kadan glanced at Callum.
“Stuck?”Callum offered, pouring me a drink, and himself.“Fixated?Infuriatingly stubborn?”
“Stuck,” Kadan agreed, with a gracious arch of his brows and a small, dignified nod.
The tiny moment of light-hearted jesting made the air move a little easier into my lungs.“If she says no, then it’ll be no,” I told them both.
“Got your back, brother,” Kadan drawled.“Willshe say no?”
I thought of the way he’d so craftily manipulated her in the orchard.The way he’d changed his tactics so swiftly now she was no longer wearing her polite and submissive mask.
“I can’t speak for her,” I told them both.“She doesn’twantto marry him.But I don’t know if that would be a deciding factor.”And, because they were friends, I added, “He’s also a manipulative, yellow-bellied bastard, and she’s still learning how to say no.”
“See?”Kadan said to Callum.“Itoldyou!”Callum just grinned.Kadan leant forward, nursing his cup between his knees while he stared at me intently.The black pips of his eyes were so large I could barely see the blue around them.“Anyone else, and I’d wait until the elixir wore off,” he told me.“For you—what do you know about the plague?”
The sinking feeling came back.I couldn’t help but lean forward, moving in close.“I know it was magical.”
“It hit La’Angi’s province the hardest,” Kadan offered.“It hit you first.It started in a riverland to the south.”
“No one knows exactly—” I began.
Kadan cut me off.“The people who poured the elixir into the river knowexactlywhere it started, Chay.”
I heard the drumming of my heart in my ears.The riverland to the south…as the Duke was passing through with the entire army.
“Why would the Council poison an army they wanted to take?”I asked, trying to make sense of the snippets of information.
“You’re assuming theCouncilpoisoned an army.It was more personal than that.”
Luca.
Wife-fuckingLuca.
I thought of how he’d been all over her, all sweetly concerned.
