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“This is savagery.”
“If that is what you would brand those who wish to protect their country, let us all be savages, then.”
He released her, and Riona scrambled backward until she hit the opposite wall of the carriage. The guard nodded to someone outside her line of sight, and she heard the clanking of the gate opening. Through it all, the heads wailed. The sound made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Nicholas Comyn was sending a message. He could have let her enter from the western gate—where most visitors from Rivosa would enter the city—but he had wanted her to see those heads, to know what he’d done.
To know what he could do toher.
The driver snapped his reins, and the carriage jolted into motion, carrying her into the city that would be her prison. The gate clanked shut behind it. The heads continued to scream, their voices growing distant as the carriage advanced into the heart of the city.
“TRAITOR!”
“Liar!”
“murderer...”
“…monster…”
The gravel of the castle’s carriageway crunched under the wooden wheels, and the carriage rolled to a stop before the grand entrance. A royal guard opened the door and gestured for her to climb out. Every instinct within her rebelled, but she had no other choice. If she disobeyed, the guard would simply drag her out. If she tried to run, he would kill her. She lifted her chin and climbed out. A man stood on the carriageway beside the guard, and Riona’s heart stuttered at the sight of his smug smirk, his blind eye, his grizzled, scarred face.
Nicholas Comyn smiled at her, malice glittering in his good eye. “Welcome to Sandori, Lady Riona.”
* * *
“Riona?Riona!”
She jolted awake, her breath catching when she realized she lay in the dim interior of a carriage. This time, though, she wasn’t alone. Lord Winslow, her father’s oldest friend, was leaning forward from the opposite bench, reaching out a hand as if to comfort her. Concern shone in his pale blue eyes.
“You were having another nightmare. I should have woken you sooner, but you’ve had such little rest since we left Sandori.”
“Not that I rested muchinSandori,” she replied, pushing herself upright. Her waist-length braids hung loose around her face, devoid of her usual gold beads, and she wore a simple linen traveling dress.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She shook her head, her fingers rising to the eudorite pendant at her throat. It was shaped like a crudely-carved arrowhead, its facets smooth as glass, its edges sharp as a blade. The metal was warm from her skin.Nicholas Comyn is dead,she reminded herself,and we will soon be home.The words brought her some comfort, but not nearly enough. The memory of those horrible rotting heads was too fresh in her mind.
“It’ll be better when we’re back in Innislee,” she said. “I’ve missed Father terribly.”
Winslow smiled and reached out to part the curtains over her window. “Take a look outside, my lady.”
She winced as bright sunlight flooded the carriage. Once her eyes adjusted, her heart leapt. Beyond the fields of long, swaying grass, Innislee rose tall and regal in the distance, framed by low, rolling hills. They were close enough to the capital that she could make out the ancient walls surrounding the city and the dark, pitched roofs of the houses within. The sun was high, and its rays sparkled on the Royal Theater’s gilded spires. Above it all, Innislee Castle sat proudly atop its rocky crag, overlooking the sprawling city.
“We weren’t gone for even two months, but it feels like a lifetime,” Riona murmured, more to herself than Winslow, as the carriage rolled up the cobblestone road toward the eastern gate. “I thought I was going to die in that wretched city.”
“In truth, I feared the same,” he confessed, shuddering. “After what Percival did at your wedding celebration—killing all those nobles—Nicholas Comyn would have happily executed you both if King Tamriel’s army hadn’t arrived. Another day, and your heads might have joined the ones outside the city gate.”
The carriage passed through the gate and joined the bustle of traffic on the King’s Road, its wooden wheels bouncing over the pitted, ancient cobbles. Riona gazed out at the tall row-houses that lined the road, their façades covered in lattices of ivy that danced in the languid breeze. Even in the city, greenery bloomed everywhere she looked: ivy crawling up the sides of the houses; window boxes bursting with flowers; trees rising high from each side of the road, lanterns dangling from their boughs to light the city at night. As they continued along the King’s Road, the buildings grew larger and grander, wood becoming stone.
They continued up the gently sloping road and came to a stop in the castle’s forecourt. Her father was already waiting for them before the heavy portcullis gate, accompanied by a handful of royal guards. Although he was quite a few years younger, Lord Lachlan was a near double of the king—tall and broad-shouldered, with large hazel eyes and rich ebony skin. He beamed when Riona stepped out of the carriage and ran to him. He met her halfway and crushed her in a vice-like hug.
“You’re home, my darling girl. Really, truly home,” he sighed. “I can hardly believe it.”
A lump formed in her throat. In Sandori, she had been a stranger in a foreign court, alone and at the mercy of a power-hungry tyrant. It had been hard not to resent her father for remaining in Innislee. He’d had court duties to attend, of course, but there had been so many nights she’d wanted nothing more than a hug from her father and a promise that everything would be alright.
“I should have ridden to Sandori the moment we received your letter asking for aid.” He held her at arm’s length and scanned her from head to toe, searching for injuries. “If something had happened to you, I never could have forgiven myself for sending you to that Creator-forsaken kingdom.”
Yet you were content to marry me off to a man I’d met once, years ago,Riona thought, but she held her tongue. There would be time for that conversation later, when they didn’t have an audience. She nodded toward Lord Winslow, who had climbed out after her, and the guards riding on horseback behind the carriage. “I’m fine, thanks to them.”
“I’ll see to it that you’re well rewarded for your service to my daughter,” Lachlan said to the guards, then turned and clasped his old friend’s hand. “Winslow, you have my unending gratitude for accompanying her. As much as I dread what shall come of saying it, I owe you.”
