AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His lip twitched slightly before he relaxed and straightened the hem of his surcoat. Dropping back to his chair, he gave a shallow nod. “Yes, your Majesty,” he murmured quietly.
Aunt Berna had yet to relax, her nostrils still flaring, her face still contorted with disdain. I stood and stepped in front of her to block her from Castemont’s view.
She softened before me, her familiar maternal energy returning as she reached a hand toward my cheek. I lowered my face to meet her and savored the feeling, basked in the glow that was her love for me.
“This is something I need to do,” I whispered to her, my eyes closed.
She didn’t answer, but when I opened my eyes, the look on her face almost gutted me. It wasn’t disappointment — it was far, far worse. She looked at me withpity.
How would Autumn Eyes look at me the moment I drove the dagger into her chest? Maybe she’d be angry that I stopped her pursuit to burn the world. Maybe it would be confusion I saw, dazed at the fact that I’d known about her plan all along. But what I saw in my mind, the look that was on her face when I imagined the moment…
Hurt. Gut-wrenching, soul-crushing hurt lined the features I’d already memorized, like the wound I would open between her ribs would be nothing compared to what I would do to her heart. How could I imagine this when I’d spoken to her only once? I could see it so clearly — her brows would furrow, her mouth would fall open and she’d look to her chest to see a dagger protruding and my hand around its grip. Would she fall to the ground at my feet? Would she rip the dagger from her chest and toss it to the side and clutch at the wound, trying to contain the Saints’ blood that pulsed through her?
I hoped that with her last breath she’d turn the dagger on me. Because a world where I was the reason those eyes were forever closed… That was not a world I wanted to live in.
“I have to do this,” I repeated to Aunt Berna, though the words I spoke were for me.One life for the good of many.
Aunt Berna’s lips thinned and her stare lingered for a moment before she turned away, her skirts swishing across the marble as she marched for the door.
My gaze turned to Castemont, his face hard-set with resolve. His mouth opened to speak, but I threw a hand up. I didn’t want to hear his voice, didn’t want to look at his face a second longer.
“I’m going,” I said quietly, my voice flat and emotionless. But cold, endless anguish rushed through me with every beat of my heart.
Chapter 29
I figured I could kill two birds with one stone with my first trip to Inkwell as the King of Widoras. I could check in on its residents, see where I could start trying to help, and I could monitor the Daughter of Katia. And I could make sure she healed okay after the explosion at Cindregala.
So… Three birds with one stone.
I told myself I didn’t care if the wound on her forehead healed. She was going to die anyway. But it had been bad. There would no doubt be a scar left behind.
Castemont told me I’d probably see his spies lingering around Inkwell, and he wasn’t lying. I recognized a dozen of the men he’d introduced me to as he explainedthe plan, and these motherfuckers werebold. When I passed Copper Street, the street where Autumn Eyes lived, I could see one of them standing right outside her house, making no attempt to hide the fact that he was staring directly in her front window.
I was in plainclothes, and it actually felt kind of good to be out of my leathers. I had a pouch of coin to hand out to anyone who may need it. And shit, every person I passed needed it. I prayed to every Saint that I wouldn’t hear that woman’s pleading screams again. I kept my head down, the hood of my cloak covering my face as I traversed the rough dirt streets of Inkwell.
“Me first,” a snarled man’s voice sounded from behind me.
I almost didn’t look over, but then I heard it. “Please.” Her voice was quiet and weak. It wasn’t the same voice I’d heard coming from the Painted Empress, I could tell. But nonetheless, it was a woman begging. “Please, no.”
“You took ’er first last time,” another man answered. I turned my head to see the backs of two men standing side by side, just a few feet from the side of a dilapidated, vacant wooden cottage. “It’s my turn.”
“Please, just let me go.” I couldn’t see her, but I could tell she was trapped between the two men and the building. Shit.
I was moving, assessing the situation as I approached. Two men, each about six inches shorter than me. Slim. Wouldn’t be a fight. That is, if they decided to be stupid and provoke me. “May I be of assistance, Miss?” I asked, peering over the heads of the two men to see the woman. She was a petite redhead, so thin she looked sickly. Her eyes were hollow. I knew she had no fight left in her. This wasn’t her first interaction with these men.
“She’s ours,” the first man answered. Looked like he was choosing to be stupid.Saints, he looked like shit. Smelled like it too, with hair so greasy I couldn’t tell if its true color was brown or blond. His crooked nose had been broken, maybe more than once. I could tell I wouldn’t mind breaking it again.
“She’smine,” the second man answered, and he didn’t look any better. A massive scar ran from the left side of his forehead across to his right cheek. His lips were chapped and bleeding, and the teeth behind them were rotted.
I looked past them again, to the woman cowering before them. “May I be of assistance, Miss?” I repeated.
“Back the fuck off, mate,” the first man growled, staring up at me, completely unafraid. “We had ’er first, and we’ll have ’er again before you get yer turn.”
I raised a brow, dumbfounded at the audacity. “Yeah? Is that what she wants? Because it seems to me that’s not the case.”
“Doesn’t matter what she wants,” the second man answered.
“What do you want, Miss? Would you like to lie with these men?”
