Page 53 of Bride of Ash & Dust

“What’s wrong?” Lilias asks. Her hand tightens on my arm. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “Malrik is planning something. Hells, he’s probably planning half a dozen things, with backups and alternate strategies.”

I think of Malrik sitting behind his desk, flanked by his servants and Mortimyr, angrily smacking a piece of parchment that accused my wife of being impure. That was his first plan, to demand redress from Lilias’s father.

I thought he wanted the mine. At least, until Malrik asked about her brother.

“Malrik wants something from Marion,” I say.

“The mine,” Lilias replies.

I shake my head. “That’s what I thought too,” I say. “But he’s been spreading rumors about your father, saying he’s ill. And he asked me when your brother is coming to visit. It all feels…off.”

Her breath catches. It’s slight, but it’s there.

“I— I don’t know,” she stammers. “I haven’t heard⁠—”

Her voice trails off as she shakes her head.

“Do you have a way to communicate with him?” I ask. “Something unofficial. A method the palace can’t track.”

Her brow creases, and she nods. “Anura,” she says. “She can⁠—”

“Don’t tell me,” I snap, cutting her off. “It’s best if I don’t know.”

She nods. She suddenly looks very young, standing in the back of the kitchen garden in a dark cloak, looking up at me with those dark, wide eyes.

The vicious, smoldering anger that lies caged inside my chest flares suddenly, and for a moment, rage fills me, incandescent and blazing. I hate this godsdamn place. I hate what it does to the people trapped inside.

I hate what it’s done to me.

My jaw aches. I’m gripping the metal cylinder around my neck so tightly it’s cutting into my palm. I force my fingers to uncurl, then to drop to my side. I take a deep breath, pulling in the scent of decaying food and manure and the first chill of the night.

“Tell him not to come,” I hear myself say in a slow, measured voice. “Not yet, at least. Not until we know more about what Malrik wants from him.”

Her shoulders curl, but she doesn’t protest. I want to apologize, or to comfort her in some way, but what in the hells could I say? We’re both trapped in this cage, aren’t we? And I promised her I would tell her what I know.

Shit. I swallow hard, then tell her the truth.

“I needed to know if your brother is the kind of man Malrik might see as a threat,” I say. “And it sounds like he is. Or he could be.”

She trembles. I raise my hand, wanting to reach for her, then clench my fingers into a fist and drop them to my side. My comfort is the last thing this woman wants.

“If your brother were an idiot,” I continue.

An angry look flashes across her face, there and gone.

“I’m not saying he is,” I go on. “But, if he was the type of person who could be swayed, or bought, or bribed⁠—”

“He’s not,” she says.

“Right,” I reply. “And do you see how dangerous that is? If Malrik can’t buy what he wants from your brother? If he feels like he has to take it instead?”

She frowns, and then it comes to her. Her eyes widen, and she shakes her head like she’s trying to escape what I just said.

“But, what would Vsenrog want with the kingdom of Marion?” she asks.

My hand twitches again, desperate to reach for her. I cross my arms over my chest.