AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Asker turned to face me. “The girl?”
I gave him a curt nod. “I took care of her.”
“Of course you did.” A shadow hushed across Malyr’s sneer. “Always so eager to comfort Brisden’s daughter.”
“You can kiss me where my tail feathers grow, Malyr,” I snapped, my mood about as foul as his over that damn ache in my chest… “What happened to the envoy?”
“Temporarily situated in the castle under guard,” Asker said. “The rest of them made camp some five miles northeast. I already sent out a pathfinder with a message carrying Captain Theolif’s writing, informing them of the delay. A few days of calm contemplation will do us all some good.” Asker bowed before Malyr. “Please think of Marla. I need my mate back.”
I waited until Asker’s footsteps indicated he was out of earshot before I spoke again. “You’ve gone too far.”
A sarcastic laugh rolled from Malyr’s chest. “At least it provided you with an opportunity to fly behind her for another… heroic rescue, I presume.”
“Heroic rescue!?” The cup trembled in my hand, then against my lips for another sip. “I just… stood there, doing absolutelynothing!”
I had done nothing.
Just like five years ago.
“As you ought to!” he shouted. “Because she’s a fucking Brisden!”
“She’s an innocent woman!” That shout ripped from my throat, along with a swell of sour bubbles. “One who placed her trust in me, hoping I would—” My stomach contracted as sourness swished over my gums. I heaved, quickly bending over for a spray of red vomit to speckle the grass. When the last slimy string dislodged from my lip, I shook my head, my posture still slightly hunched. “Do you have any idea what it felt like for me in there, Malyr? It felt like that night all over again, because I did absolutely… fucking… nothing.”
I should have.
Malyr shifted in my periphery before his hand appeared near my face with a black cloth clasped between his fingers. “It’s my fault you spent the last three days wasting away in that… filthy tavern. I shouldn’t have said what I said that morning. I am sorry.”
Well, so was I.
For Galantia.
I pressed the cloth to my mouth and straightened, staring at the cup in my hand. That morning? I’d left her behind to wake alone. What if I hadn’t? What if I hadn’t spent the last three days in some tavern? Hadn’t been in that library earlier, barely able to stand straight?
I might have looked.
I might have done…something.
The cup dropped to the ground with aclankas I shook my head. “I fucking hate you for how you put me in that situation.”
“She killed… my… brother.”
“Are you truly so blinded by hate that you believe that?” I didn’t bother to wait for an answer. “Malyr, that was what? Ten years ago? How old was she then? Eight? Nine?”
“She confessed,” he ground out. “Crushed his skull with a rock.”
“So what exactly are you picturing, hmm? Whenever little Galantia got tired of her needlework, she skipped about Tidestone, grabbed rocks, and crushed Raven skulls? Can you—for just a moment—listen to how ridiculous that sounds?”
Seconds ticked into a minute where he just stared at the ground, finallythinkinginstead of acting on that stupid infestation of rage at his core. “How then? How did he die?”
“She tilted a basket of apples to slow his escape. He stepped on one, fell, and hit his head on a rock. She told me right before the meeting.”
He turned and opened his mouth, sucking in a breath as if to challenge it, but then luckily, swallowed it down in favor of more quiet thinking. Minutes of it. Until he strode to the edge of the pond, staring blankly into the water.
He clenched and unclenched his hands by his sides, and I only now noticed the bloody cuts on his knuckles. “Apples.”
“Bold choice of weapon, even for a killer as vicious as your little dove, isn’t it?” I walked up beside him and jutted my chin at his wounds. “What’s with your hand?”
He lifted it to his face, staring at the cuts before he shook his head. “I locked myanoain a cage before I went to her. And a good thing I did, or she would definitely be dead by now. Myanoa, however, wasnotpleased when I returned.”
