Page 82 of Morfran, Dark Lord Reformed

She’d stopped. “Drat.” From the light of the torch, he saw that the tunnels forked three separate ways. Also his doing, in case his enemies did manage to find out about the tunnels.

He perked up. He could just lead her down the wrong one—

“Wait, I remember.” She began running a hand down one of the walls. “I notched an X in the wall of the path I used.”

“Why are you so resourceful?” he replied, irritated.

“It’s this one. Come on.”

As she led the way, he lifted the rock in his hand a little higher. All right. He had to be careful with this. He didn’t want to cause any lasting damage. Just knock her out long enough to move her to a safe location.

“Bernard,” she said after a moment. He lowered the rock behind his back. There was steel in her tone. “There’s a chance we might run into not just Ravana up ahead, but Morfran himself, too.”

“What?” he asked, distracted. “Ravana said he succumbed to poison. He’s dead. Why would she lie about that?”

Her head was a silhouette against the torch’s fire. “Grandfather Tortoise said he was a thinker. That he’s cunning. He would have known if his food was being poisoned. He would have known who’d been doing it. Could have prevented it.”

“Ravana can be clever, too,” he dismissed. “And love can make you blind. It’s not a stretch to think she offed him before he realized it was her.”

“She is clever, and that’s why she didn’t kill him,” she murmured. “She needed him, if not for love then for his mind. She needed him to keep rebellions at bay. She wouldn’t have killed him.” Then, after a few long seconds, she added, “I don’t think he’s dead.”

He needed to hit her aside the head. Now. Just swing. Just swing—

“He may be in the castle just up ahead. Maybe even imprisoned against his will.” She sounded almost excited about this prospect, then mused, slightly less animated, “Or he may have escaped. Fled.” He didn’t like how she lingered on that last word. “If that’s the case, after Ravana’s dead I’ll chase him to the ends of the earth.”

Morfran huffed, his irritation suddenly skyrocketing. “You can’t grasp the fact that he’s already dead, can you?” he said, none too gently. “You need him alive. Otherwise you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself.”

He knew it needed to be said. He wasn’t expecting just how harsh it sounded. How harsh he sounded.

She bristled, and he knew his retort stung deep. “Better to chase a ghost than let a monster live.”

Now it was his turn to stiffen. “What if he fled for the good of the kingdom? Perhaps he realized how despicable the things he’d done to the kingdom were and left to prevent himself from damaging it further—”

She let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “He doesn’t get to outrun his consequences. I’ve been preparing to kill him for fourteen years. He can feel guilt, but I wouldn’t care. He deserves death for all he’s done.”

“Does he?” he growled. “You believed I could turn a new leaf. You gave me a second chance. Why not him? What if he’s done good things since then? What if—”

“I understand he was your friend, Bernard, and I sympathize with that—”

“You don’t, though. You just can’t let things lie. Listen, Bronwen. He’s gone, so you just need to stop chasing it!”

“How can you say that?” Her boots cracked angrily against the ground. “You want him to get away with all he’s done? At some point the weight of ill actions outweighs any chance of forgiveness, and only death is the answer!”

“And if he saved your life once? Then what?” he snapped. “You told me that right after failing to assassinate Ravana, you ran into him, and he showed you these tunnels and let you escape. He let you live!”

She halted mid-step as his voice funneled down the tunnel. The torchlight burned a waning, cold yellow, casting their long shadows against the walls. His looked particularly warped, lurching over her own. With barely any breath at all, she whispered, “I never told you that.”

He froze.

“I never told anyone that.”

A great, terrible silence swallowed up her words, although they rebounded and echoed throughout Morfran’s head like she’d shouted them. She’d told no one that, and no one knew.

Except one other person.

She hadn’t turned. But her chest was rising and falling more rapidly now with shallow breaths. “Bernard?” The way she said his false name, with fading hope, with slight fear, put ice into his blood.

She turned, dagger held low at her side. There was indeed dawning fear in her eyes, and disbelief, and pain, and, gods, why had he blurted that out? Her eyes fell to the rock in his grasp, and he felt like she’d instead caught him with blood-soaked hands. He dropped it, but it was too late. Her eyes widened.