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“Ogden hasn’t given you a role?”
“No, and he’s unlikely to. He’d prefer to forget about me. And Razak. He doesn’t see the threat. Delaying gives Razak time to maneuver. We should be rallying together against him.” Draven arched an eyebrow, and I laughed, rubbing my face. “I’m sorry, my rants must be tiresome by now.” During every walk and usually halfway through each bottle of wine, the conversation always found its way to Razak. When I wasn’t dreaming about Lark and his quick fingers and strong hands, I dreamed of Razak’s blade plunging into my side.
Draven leaned toward me. “No. I agree with you. But I am a mere lord and you are…” He gestured, trying to find a word I wouldn’t take as an insult.
“A prince without power?” We could talk all we liked, but neither of us could do anything. “Do you know if there are plans to retaliate?”
“There are always plans for war. Plans aren’t the problem.” He sighed and squinted across the oasis. “Some talk of mustering an army as a show of strength. That is all I’ve been able to discover.”
It wouldn’t work. Razak didn’t see strength in numbers. “He’s not interested in battles. He won’t fight a war, he knows he’d lose. He’ll use sleight of hand. He’ll trick his way to victory. Poison, assassins. He’ll cheat.Thatis how the Court of Pain fights.” I’d let my gaze wander too, and now Draven had fallen quiet, I turned my head and found him staring at me.
“How do you know this?” he asked.
“Lark.” I clasped my hands together, and rubbed them, needing to move out of frustration.
“He told you how Razak fights?”
“Not explicitly. We didn’t talk of his court, or where he came from. I just knew, and then… he knew I knew, and well, that was enough. He showed me, in his way.”
Draven nodded and leaned away, half slumped in the corner of the bench. “There is rumor you and he were… involved.”
I laughed. “Lark was involved with everyone.”
“Yes, I’m aware.” He chuckled too, as though he knew what beinginvolvedwith Lark felt like. Had they been intimate? Probably. Lark had said he’d visited Draven. Is that what he’d meant? Somehow, Lark’s escapades continued to surprise me. Although they shouldn’t. Of course he’d fucked Draven. A debut warlord in my court, as handsome as Draven—Lark would have been fascinated. He’d have wanted to riddle him out, see what made him tick, and then collected Draven’s secrets to tell the Court of Pain later.
What would it have been like had I let him riddle me out from the beginning? Four years we’d have had, instead of just a few weeks.
“Then you do not deny it?” Draven squinted, shielding his eyes. “Caring for him?”
“I suppose you think it makes me look like a fool.” I no longer had the taste for lies. And what harm would it do, him knowing I’d been intimate with Lark? He had been, so what difference did it make? “I used him to learn how to be ruthless. To do that, I had to get close to him, make him believe I cared. He’d have returned to Razak if I hadn’t, and I needed him. I planned to show Razak how Love was not afraid of Pain.” Saying it aloud left a bitter taste in my mouth. Ihadused Lark, right down to those final moments when he’d been on his knees, my dagger at his throat. I’d never wanted that. I’d told myself I was saving him, but really, everything I’d done had been for me.
He likely despised me, wherever he was. Which was probably for the best. He and I, his world and mine, we were too different, poles apart.
“Then you do not care for him? He was just a tool?” Draven asked.
I swallowed, looked away. “Four years I watched him, and I kept my distance. But for all my efforts, I couldn’t guard my heart completely. Sometimes I hated him so much the rage was blinding, but there were other times…” Like when I’d stood in the library, his arms around me, hands on my wrists, trying to teach me to juggle. It wasn’t even about the sex, or how he’d brought me to the height of passion in that library with one hand over my mouth and the other on my cock. There was a softness to Lark, hidden so deep that I wasn’t sure whether I’d dreamed it. But if it was real, then the Court of Pain would torture him, even if it was his home.
“I see.”
“Lark was a tool. My use of him was… complicated. It happened. It’s over. And he and I are not entirely relevant when it comes to holding Razak to account for his crimes—”
Draven raised a hand. “You misunderstand. I’m not judging you. In fact, in all truth, I liked Lark, the sly prick. I will confess, that mouth of his is quite something.” He hesitated, sensing perhaps my own judgement in what hedidn’tsay. Clearing his throat, he added more sternly, “But others have judged you. Your name is ruined, your court gone. They think you weak. Rumors speak of how you fell in love with the fool and he played you like he plays the fiddle.”
“That’s not— He didn’t…” I groaned and buried my face in my hands. “I knew what he was. It was deliberate!”
“A Lord of War would have fallen on their own sword had they shamed themselves so.”
I huffed through my nose and glared at Draven’s grinning face. “Is there a point you’re getting to or would you like to rub more salt in my wounds first?”
“There’s a point.” He grinned. “Actually, a proposal. Something that might help you and see to it you have a voice among the courts again.”
Then why wasn’t he speaking it? “Go on.” I needed to be heard, I needed a seat at Ogden’s court. Like I was, Draven may as well have left me for dead in the meadow.
“It’s rather… unorthodox,” he said.
“Well, now I’m intrigued.”
“Marriage.”
