Imogen bowed her head, very graciously,notlooking at the rail of dresses Avette had walked straight past. “Of course, Your Majesty. I’ll bring you another at once.”
“No.”
It was only one word, spoken softly, but Goddess, Ger’s stomach was beginning to hurt. That pain writhed like a sentient thing, up and into his ribs, binding his chest deliberately. Avette was still as all those living sculptures she’d made; still as a predator on the hunt. Only her eyes moved, gleaming in the glow of the fire as they turned to capture Mareda in her sights.
“Cousin,” she said, the word somehow both gentle and barbed. “We have spent little time together this evening. You shall help me; let Lady Imogen take her rest.”
Nobody moved. Ger’s pulse bleated like a beast facing the cold flash of steel.
“Get up,” said Avette. Still so soft, and lovely, and absolutely poisonous. She turned, hair swinging elegantly over her pale shoulders, and glided away again as though buoyed on the winds she commanded.
Silence rang. Mareda grabbed at the armrest and scooted forward, her slim arms trembling as she tried to hoist herself quickly to her feet. On her broken leg, the awkward angle of her foot caught her slippered heel against the carpet, and she fell back to her seat with a sharp, short gasp. Imogen hurried over, reaching over the settee to retrieve Mareda’s wooden crutch, then grabbed her arm and dragged her upright.
“Would you like to help, Gerard?” she hissed over her shoulder.
He would have, actually, little love though he had for the princess. He recognised that blank panic on her face, even if he’d never actually stopped to consider his own terror in the mirror. He wanted to help her, but his limbs were heavy, pinned in place by the roaring, vibrating rush of his blood.
“What on all of Adhlas is taking so long?”
Avette’s voice was close again, but this time, Ger couldn’t manage to turn around; couldn’t manage to do anything but force slow, wheezing breaths through his tight lungs. His body was shrivelling from the outside, fighting to make him small enough to escape notice, and leaving no room for the storm of panic raging within his chest, crushing his breath.
“Its—” Imogen began, glancing around for Mareda’s crutch again and then thrusting it into her hand. “She’s broken her leg, Your Majesty. She moves a bit slower—”
“Yes,” Avette said, sounding rather bored amid the tense, breathless panic that had seized the rest of them. “I had, in fact, noticed. Where is the break?”
Slowly—stiffly—Mareda stretched out her broken leg and lifted her skirt over her shin, revealing the thick white cast that encased her leg from her heel to just below her knee. Ger felt a surge of sickly guilt at the sight, the echo of Mareda’s scream ringing in his ear as he’d scrambled backward off her awkwardly bent leg to a chorus of winces and gasps.My fault, he thought.
“I see,” said Avette quietly. “Well, that won’t do, will it?”
A flash of blue cut through the fog of Ger’s dizzying nausea, and he found his limbs responding, finally, turning him just in time to see Avette’s eyes close, her fingers lightly resting on her pendant as its light throbbed and pulsed in time with the rising Winds. Ger’s hand scrabbled, without his bidding, for his sword hilt.
I’m protected, I’m a—
But he wasn’t a protector. He hadn’t been for some time now. He knew it with the way his fingers slid right over thehilt and grasped at his own roiling stomach. He knew it with the shameful sinking in his chest as Mareda’s brow flickered—then crumpled entirely, her scream ripping free of her lungs, swallowing even the sound of Ger’s own drumming pulse. She folded under the pain, sliding to the floor with another choking, ragged scream that lit Ger’s every nerve ending on fire. And he knew, as Imogen dropped to her knees at Mareda’s side, that he had lost the right to call himself a Gard of Eisalaan.
“Gracious, thedramatics,” Avette called over the princess’s sobs. She gave a slight, soft tut, and her cold aura withdrew as she moved away. “Lady Imogen, fetch my dress. Gard, you may remove the ungrateful girl’s cast. She will not need it any longer.”
Ger didn’t answer her.
Protector,pleaded that youthful, hopeful voice of a man he no longer recognised.
He was no one’s protector. He never had been.
Chapter Nine
Kai
TheArabidaewas due to return for them at the break of dawn.
Alun and Os met Kai at the palace gates when the sun was little more than a flush of peach balanced on the glinting knife edge of the ocean. Bleary-eyed though he was, Kai was taken aback to find Eda hobbling along in their wake.
“Good morning, sweet,” she crooned, reaching up to pat and pinch his cheek. “Room for one more?”
Returning her embrace, Kai glared over her head at Alun and Oswalt, but each of them held up their hands in a silent statement of innocence. Kai frowned. How in the world had she known then, where to find them and when? He knew that to ask her was to receive a frustrating answer about age and intuition, perhaps balanced with a sly tap to the side of her nose. Alreadytoo on edge for such theatrics, he cut in with his protests the moment she released him.
“Eda, I’m not certain this is a good idea,” he said. “There’ll be time yet to meet the other Merrow, but this particular trip might be—”
“Dangerous?” She croaked, rheumy eyes brightening. “Aye, so I’ve heard. They’ve been drowning the sailors, is that right?”
