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“Loyalty is the only thing motivating me,” Nicolo nearly spat the words back at her and true anger burned in his gaze.
The princess laughed to herself. “Keep telling yourself that, Nic. But we both know better.”
With that, she sashayed out of the room, leaving me to wonder at what existed between them, not to mention the fact that she’d just called him ‘Nic’—a name I’d never heard anyone dare to call him. Not even Balduin.
Women were a part of Nicolo’s life, of course, and I’d seen glimpses here and there of Nicolo dealing with the ladies of the court. Though some propositions were more welcome than others, and although he could be cold and indifferent in general, I’d never seen him anything other than courteous to those of the court. But as he watched Princess Alder leave, the look on his face exuded a hatred I’d never seen from him before.
His eyes snapped back to me. “What are you looking at?!”
I was taken aback of course, but managed not to flub my words when I spoke. “I was waiting for your orders, Master.” Though I was often anxious around Nicolo, I didn’t think I’d ever been scared of him before that moment. Even the time he’d slapped me—I’d felt only shock and anger, but not fear.
His expression relaxed and he breathed out a long, pent-up breath. “Yes. Of course. Come along then, Charlotte.”
***
If Princess Alder had thought she could hide behind her royal blood, she was sorely mistaken. If anything, her royal lineage made matters worse as Nicolo was determined to leave no stone unturned.
Every room was ransacked. Barrels of wine in the cellar were upended and spilled across the flagstones; mattresses in the fine bedrooms were slit open to ensure no one was hiding within them; wardrobes were emptied; the contents of cupboards were scattered and shattered on the floor. Squealing maids ran from their dormitory as the soldiers surged through them. Angry nobles demanded to know on whose authority their rooms were being overturned, and then turned red and silent when they received their answers.
Nicolo strode through it all, easily playing the part of entitled overlord, as if making sure everything was done with as little regard for status as possible. His loyalty and love for Balduin drove him in his search for Wylder, of course, but I couldn’t help but wonder if he was also getting some sort of pleasure from it. I couldn’t forget that look of hate in his eyes when he watched the princess leave, and it seemed to me that he was taking more than just a little pleasure in the opportunity to get revenge on her. But… for what?
That was the question.
I didn’t know if it was relevant to my mission (seemed unlikely to be) but I also couldn’t help my curiosity. And surely everything I’d learned about Nicolo helped me in better understanding him as my target? Didn’t it? Of course, I’d been using that excuse for a lot of foot-dragging in the last month.
And speaking of the month that had gone by, I was running out of time to finish my job.
“Master!”
The cry echoed through the corridors of Castle Ventnor.
They had been found.
It turned out, there was no sign of Wylder himself, but a huddle of dissidents had been discovered behind a false wall in the cellars. There were two dead bodies on the floor and we quickly learned they were two servants who had been slain because they were going to report the whereabouts of the murdering party.
“The dissidents must have come in through the drains,” gaped Duke Prius, genuinely shocked by the presence of Wylder’s men in his home.
“They do that,” said Nicolo, coldly. Based on his angry expression, I was sure he realized that since there was an obvious means for how the assassins gained entrance into the castle, there was no way he could pin this on Princess Alder. Now all that mattered was finding Wylder.
“You.” Nicolo pulled one of the captured men to his feet. “You killed the servants.”
“And I’d do it again,” the man sneered at Nicolo. “Their lives are nothing in the great struggle, and nor is mine.”
I could see Nicolo’s jaw tightening even more than it already was and his violet eyes seemed to bleed fire. As I watched, I was fairly sure the color was starting to hemorrhage to red. I blinked though and the violet had returned. It must have simply been a trick of the light.
“Where the bloody hell is Wylder?” Nicolo demanded of the man.
The man spat in his face. “I will die before I tell you where to find him.”
“I’ll save you the trouble.” Nicolo’s sword moved like a flash of lightning, slitting the man’s throat so he was dead before he hit the ground.
Nicolo then turned his attention to the rest of the huddle, all staring wide-eyed at their leader’s corpse. Nicolo pointed to the next man.
“You.”
Fear was a better motivator than pain, or at least Nicolo thought so. Of course, you had to make people afraid and a dead body did that admirably, but I still found myself thinking;Nicolo had picked the man who had indiscriminately killed the servants, someone who had done something to deserve death.
When the next man hastily revealed everything he knew about Wylder and his whereabouts, Nicolo didn’t have the traitors sent back to the Great Castle for further ‘questioning’, which would involve few questions and a lot of screaming. Instead, he left them to be imprisoned by Duke Prius. They were confined so they couldn’t hurt Balduin again, but it was still a kind of mercy.
