Page 109 of Ashborne Forged

I didn’t allow any reaction to show, and took a small sip of the scotch.

Athos had been my mount since I was ten. He’d fought me, but eventually submitted. He was my favorite. The only part of this home I missed.

I’d warned myself she wouldn’t let him live, but discovered in that moment, hope had remained.

Mother stared at me, her eyes the hungry kind of avid that made my skin crawl.

“Seven years,” she said a moment later, setting her wine aside on the desk slowly. “Seven years since the tragic death of my son and his horse, and not a word. Not an inkling that he’d survived. We were certain that skeleton in the stable was his…” She folded her arms and stared at me. “We’ve remembered him every year on his birthday. Memorialized him as a hero, yet it appears the entire time he was simply a weak-minded coward, hiding in the shadows like a common fox. How vexing.”

I didn’t respond, because the more that was spoken to my mother, the more she learned about you. She was uncannily insightful. Nothing frustrated her like silence. Or rather, a person with the balls to remain silent in her presence.

She engendered a great deal of nervous chatter.

I sat, swirling the scotch in my glass, while she picked up the wine and sipped at it again, licking her lips to rid them of the blood-red liquid.

So fitting.

Then, to my shock, she placed the goblet down and slipped her ass up onto the desk, sitting there, crossing her legs at the knee under her skirts, like a common barmaid.

“Mother, how scandalous of you—”

“Tell me,” she said.

I frowned. “Tell you what?”

“Tell me why you’re back.”

For one blink, I pretended to be uncertain. Taken off guard. Then let my gaze clear and opened my mouth as if I’d tell her a prepared story.

Her lips pursed. “Do not spout that familial love bullshit. You and I both know if you’re here, you’re desperate. Or hiding desperately. So which is it?”

I dropped my eyes to my drink and pretended to think before trying, “There is a noble in Fyrehold, about to marry a woman I want. I need you to clear the path. For me.”

Her shoulders slumped and her head fell to the side, her expression disappointed in the extreme.

“Dear gods, are you serious? This is about love?”

“Actually, she’s going to bear my child, though he doesn’t know that. He’d kill her if he did. So, it’s rather urgent. He’ll learn the truth in less than a month. I’d really rather she survived.” Then I took another sip and met her eyes again.

She’d stiffened at the word child, but kept her expression fixedly bored. “So, kill him.”

“And foment war between our peoples? Why, mother, how reckless of you,” I drawled. “You taught me better.”

“One noble dying won’t—”

“He has the ear of his king. But you knew that. You know him. You know all of them,” I said tightly.

She frowned. “I can certainly reach out to my contacts and find out who’s soon to be married, but I hold very few intimates in Fyrehold and there’s no guarantee I’ll hear before—”

“As above, so below,” I murmured.

Her gaze locked on mine and her head tilted. “You’ve offered the bloodline vow? Why, Son, you bless me.”

“No, Mother.” I leaned forward and spoke very quietly. “I’ve been traveling. A great deal. Two months ago I stood in Fyrehold—where I met my soon-to-be-wife—and I was hired to investigate. I uncovered far more than I ever expected. Including a codebook that one idiot was stupid enough to store.

“I tried to tell myself that it had to be coincidence that your bloodvow was used in codes between spies, but the more I thought on it, the more sense it made.”

Despite my indifferent tone, sweat trickled down my spine. This was the crucial point on which this entire mission hinged. If I’d misjudged, if the codes I’d found in a foreign castle, in the hands of a Vosgaardian spy, weren’t influenced by her and her dark craft, everything I’d planned fell apart, right here, at the first hurdle.