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The other guard muttered his assent, still cradling his head with one hand.
The duke opened the door, and Riona followed him into the hold. The scent of blood struck her like a slap to the face. Valerian abruptly stopped just beyond the doorway, halting so quickly that Riona slammed into his back. He whirled around, his face pale, and lifted his hands. “I don’t think you want to see this.”
But she could already see what he was trying to shield, and her heart stopped. Behind her, still standing in the hallway, Ophelia began whispering a prayer.
Lord Farquar’s wrists were shackled, linked with a chain that had been looped around one of the hooks in the ceiling. He looked barely conscious, his entire body weight supported by the shackles and the chain linking them, and his forearms were coated with blood where the metal had cut into his skin. His face was utterly unrecognizable: his skin mottled with dark purple bruises, his eyes swollen to the point that they could not open, and his lips were a ragged, bloody mess of torn flesh. The doublet he wore had been sliced cleanly down the middle, and it hung open over his broad chest. Rivulets of blood trailed down his torso, painting his fair skin a deep, shiny crimson.
It’s still wet,Riona realized with a wave of revulsion. The attacker must have left just moments before their carriage arrived at the harbor.
Through the gap in his ruined doublet, she could just make out letters carved into the lord’s flesh. Riona started toward him and fought the bile rising in her throat as she pulled the sodden fabric away from the wounds. Lord Farquar stiffened at the contact, a sob escaping his ruined lips.
She peeled the last bit of fabric away and stared down at the three words that had been carefully and ruthlessly cut into Farquar’s chest:
Murderous
Treacherous
Snake
Riona lifted a shaky hand to her lips as Farquar began to sob harder, tears mingling with the blood coating his face. She hated Lord Farquar for his involvement in her uncle’s plots and his ability to weasel out of the punishment he deserved, but she had never wantedthis. Death would have been kinder.
“By the Creator…” Valerian breathed, sounding like he was fighting the urge to be sick. “What manner of monster…”
Riona started to turn away, but a flash of white caught her eye. A folded piece of parchment sat atop one of the boxes just to Farquar’s left, the only bright spot among the blood-splattered crates and barrels. She picked it up, a terrible sense of dread filling her as she unfolded it. On one side of the paper were six short lines, written in one of the northern tongues:
Dehan dhoh-sha mo tuijía, mo chroí
Cuille solis-sa aire mo sudhin
Bhiodha d’iarrain, bhiodha d’ireach
Làhm mo anam tro’na firinne tué
Is, Ceartan, mi dhoja daonan latha tué
She didn’t speak the language, but she recognized some of the words. It was the song Caelan had sung to her the night they had danced in the Royal Theater. The night he had confessed his love for her. The night Lord Farquar had sent men to kill them. She flipped the note over and found the translation on the back:
Be thou my savior, my heart
Be thou the light that guides me home
In the darkest night, in the fiercest tempest
Let my soul find its equal in you
And, Creator,give me a lifetime to love you
“What is it?” Valerian asked softly, moving to her side. “What does it say?”
Riona instinctively crumpled the paper before he could read it. It felt like a secret, what Caelan had written, and nothing that would do her betrothed any good to know. He loved her, but he had made it clear that there would never be a future in which they could be together. That there was no reason to cling to desperate, foolish hope. He had given her up, and now, she would pledge her life to serving Kenter.
She felt the weight of Valerian’s stare as she crossed the hold, pulled the nearest lantern from its hook, and set it atop one of the boxes. She lifted the latch and held one corner of the paper to the flame.
“Nothing,” she murmured as she watched the parchment blacken and crumble into ash. “Nothing at all.”
ChapterSeventy-Five
The Liar
