Page 90 of Reign of Light
“And who might you be?” she says, her voice different than I’ve ever heard it before. Cold. Malicious. Seething.
“He’s calling himself the First Guard,” Guthrie says behind her. “Goes by Weston.”
“Ah, soyou’reWeston.”
My head snaps between the two of them as I try to piece everything together. Weston left Blackwood before Brynne had ever stepped foot into the castle. There’s no way he could know her. And the way she just said his name sounded like she knew exactly who she was meeting.
That could only mean one thing…
My stomach falls as the pieces fit together, the stories and details all working into one big picture, where I somehow became the center.
“Weston, how do you know her?” I whisper. My hands clench around his forearms as they still crush me to him, and I wait with bated breath for the answer I know is coming.
“This is who has been guarding you the entire time?” he growls, his volume rising as he shifts me to his side and steps in front of me, protecting me with his body despite his movements still being stilted from the cold.
“This is Brynne, the Second Guard.Myguard.”
I catch his head shaking out of the corner of my eye as he stares her down through the bars. “Her name isn’t Brynne, princess. It’s Briony.”
I choke on the breath in my throat. My jaw falls open as I stare past Weston at Brynne.Briony.
“How do you know?” I say. My voice is barely a whisper as she continues to smirk at me, armor clinking as she crosses her arms over her chest.
“She was…there,” he says, his voice is strained, as if he is trying to say something about Dawnlin, but couldn’t. “We saw her, and then one day, a long time ago, she was gone. We didn’t know if something had happened to her or if she had decided to go home, but we never saw her again.”
“Is that true?” I gasp at her, but all she does is smile.
“You know,” she says with a tilt of her head, “when time is on your side, you can do whatever you want. There’s nothing stopping you. Basking in the sunlight, making friends, getting fantastic at handling a sword.”
The memory of Brynne showing up at the castle comes racing back to me. A young woman walking through the gates, demanding to compete in the tournament where the winner is named the Second Guard to the princess. The fury she caused in the other guards as she bested them, one after the other, despite them seemingly having years of training compared to her. She appeared out of nowhere, claimed no kingdom, and immediately took to me, even in my young age.
“I don’t understand,” I say, shaking my head, but Weston doesn’t let me flounder.
“She’s with him, Lennox,” he murmurs, and the world I’ve known for years shatters around me.
There’s only one him Weston is referring to, and there’s only one way Brynne would have been able to leave Dawnlin.
Dane.
“This whole time?” The shock turns to rage as once again I feel like everything I’ve ever known has been a lie, but this time not one kept from me to protect me. “From the moment I saw you, you were working with Dane? For what, Brynne? Tell me why!” My voice rises with each word until I’m yelling, my despair connected directly to the increasing tension in Weston’s shoulders.
“Why doesn’t concern you,” she snaps.
“Doesn’t concern me? You don’t think I deserve the truth? To know why you were lying to my face for most of my life? Why you were faking it all? What is the reason?”
“Because without me, there would be no plan, and you were too young and naïve to realize it. I started it all. Someone had to be here to watch you, to make sure you were where you needed to be. It took time, but there wasn’t a single person in this castle who didn’t trust me, whodidn’t listen to everything I said. It was too easy to adjust your training schedule so you couldn’t protect yourself as well as you should have. Do you really think I just forgot to teach you how to use a dagger? That I let you focus on the bow instead of the sword? It was all so easy, and you were just so needy.
“And then when I overheard the old man talking to you about Dawnlin, I knew it was time. You thought you were so sly, sneaking out of the castle like I didn’t notice. You got out because Iletyou get out. All because I knew who was there to meet you all along.”
Her words land like a blow to the gut, and I can do nothing but stare. Brynne planned this, or at least my actions made me fall right into the palm of her hand. Memories come flooding back to me. The way the halls were clear. The way the kitchen staff didn’t bat an eye. The way the guards never questioned who I was. The way she just let me say I was going to find Dawnlin, and didn’t try harder to stop me.
She wanted all of this to happen.
“Half my work was done for me when the idiot king decided to isolate you. You were starving for attention. It was so easy to make you think somebody could be attracted to you, could love you?—”
Brynne staggers back when Weston springs toward the bars. His arm shoots out of the cell and swipes at her, but she is just out of reach. Once she realizes she’s safe from his attack, she regains her composure quickly.
“Careful, Weston,” she says silkily, before the sound of her slapping the top of his wrist echoes through the dungeon. “That’s a good way to lose a hand.”
