Gandrett didn’t interrupt. Any information was better than having to search the entire castle for a captive whose face she’d only know from the similarities to the Brenherans with whom she had spent a month.
“Lord Hamyn…” Gandrett couldn’t suppress the mention of that thought.
“Not only him,” Deelah whispered.
Gandrett raised an eyebrow. This was a conversation she hadn’t expected. Deelah was actually worried about her.
“I haven’t kept my position in this castle for over twenty years because of Lord Hamyn’s kindness but because of Lady Aphra, the gods cradle her soul. And after her death, it is by Armand’s will only that I am still here.” The woman held Gandrett’s questioning gaze. “Armand doesn’t deserve to carry out his father’s bloody orders. Especially not when the only reason he is still Lord of Eedwood is because Lady Linniue declined the offer to rule long ago, giving her sister the throne instead.”
Those were secrets, weren’t they? How could she spill them in front of a near-stranger?
Gandrett studied the woman’s eyes, the sparkle as she spoke of Armand with the affection of a mother rather than a servant.
“Why are you telling me this?” Gandrett asked truthfully.
Her lips curled in response. “Because in all these months, you are the first and only one worth talking to.” She pursed her lips, hesitating before she continued, measuring Gandrett’s face.
Gandrett willed polite emptiness onto her features.
“If Armand is to choose a bride to continue the Denderlain line, I want her to know exactly what she is getting herself into.”
Gandrett’s heart pounded. “Bride?” She panted, for once unable to keep her calm.
Deelah knitted her forehead into horizontal lines. “Lord Hamyn is not a Denderlain by birth but by courtesy of Armand, who is the true heir to his mother’s title and throne.” She studied Gandrett with a careful, yet warm smile. “He could have taken it right after Lady Aphra’s death, but he chose to drift into a life of too many girls and few true friends, isolating himself even more than his position demands.”
Gandrett swallowed. She had heard it before from Mckenzie’s and Brax’s lips why they didn’t envy Joshua for being the one to inherit the West of Sives. But with Armand—
“If you are to be his bride one day, you will learn that Hamyn Denderlain doesn’t exactly look forward to being replaced on the throne.”
The throne. The way she said it reminded Gandrett why she was here. Why it was crucial she found Joshua and brought him back to Ackwood. Hamyn Denderlain was putting pressure on Lord Tyrem and Lady Crystal by holding their son hostage. That might clear the way for him to extend his reach even further west, once all those central-Sivesian villages had changed allegiance and hung blue-and-yellow banners from their windows instead of burgundy-and-gold.
So Gandrett let the woman believe what she wanted to believe and reached for her neck where the necklace Brax had given her hung alongside her mother’s, pendants hidden beneath her dress.
“I haven’t seen Armand this cheerful in a long time,” Deelah said with a knowing look, folding her hands on her apron. “So whatever you are doing to him, keep it up.” She winked, but her lips were tight. “And watch out who you trust in those halls. The kitchens have ears of all kinds, and you never know where a servant’s loyalties lie.”
“How do I know with you?” It was the first and only answer Gandrett could think of.
Deelah nodded in approval. “I want what’s best for Armand. He’s like a son to me, and if he has set his eyes on you, I want to protect you from harm so he can be happy.”
Gandrett huffed, taken aback by the simple truth of the words Deelah had spoken.
And the implications for Gandrett.
If Armand really was looking for a bride—
“Thank you for the warning.” Gandrett weighed the risk of asking, deliberating for a long moment before she spoke, “What kind of ruler would Armand be? Would he want east and west to unite?”
Deelah’s face filled with pride. “After decades of bloodshed, Armand would want peace.” It was a simple answer so full of hope that Gandrett didn’t dare ask any further.
So she made a mental note to give Armand more credit the next time she saw him.
Even if the memory of the frozen tunnels still leaked into her bones.
Nehelon be damned. She needed to figure out what was going on under this castle. Gandrett waited until Deelah had closed the door behind her before she jumped to her feet and wheeled around, darting for her pillow to get the Fae male’s knife.
Chapter Thirty-Two
With quick fingers, she checked Nehelon’s dagger, which was strapped to her thigh, then changed into the emerald gown Deelah had put in her room last night. The one that had enough space to accommodate the extra knife in her sleeve where she wrapped a piece of cloth around her forearm and bound the blade to it before she pulled the sleeve over it.
Not one minute late, for the door bounced open, and in came Armand Denderlain, face frosty as the mountain ranges in the west and north, no hint of the good boy Deelah had just talked about. He didn’t bother to give her a look before he flung himself on the crimson couch. “Will there be a day when being a Denderlain will get any easier?” he said by way of greeting, smoothing out his bloodied tunic. A sword hung by his side, the tang of iron still fresh from whatever battle he’d fought.
Gandrett, petrified by the fact that he had almost walked in on her hiding a smuggled-in blade, eyed him with what she hoped was more surprise than fear as beads of moisture were forming under the mass of hair that covered her neck.
Armand waved a lazy hand at her. “You, I suppose, dear Gandrett Starhaeven, are one lucky girl that your father doesn’t care what happens with you.”
With all the force of will she had, Gandrett sat on the edge of the bed and folded her hands in her lap. “And why would that be so, milord?”
He looked her over with the lackluster eyes of a desert mole and raised a hand as if saying, Isn’t that obvious?
It wasn’t.
“You know what my father expects of me?” He didn’t wait for her to think up an answer before he continued. “Slay the enemy.”
Gandrett hid the thrill his words induced. The enemy. House Brenheran. She didn’t speak for fear her words might stop whatever rush of words may come from his lips.
“Over and over again. And I, being a good soldier—” He swallowed.
Gandrett knew that look. Armand Denderlain was deeply unhappy. It wasn’t just that he made his father responsible for his mother’s death, but that he despised anything and everything the man asked of him. She knew because that was how she felt about the Meister.
Gandrett saw two paths before her: one shining bright. The path of pretending to be something less than she actually was. To hide her strength, her skill, her mind. The path Mckenzie had taught her, the path Nehelon and Lord Tyrem would push her to take. The other—
Gandrett sighed through her nose, besieging Vala for her guidance before she got to her feet and crossed the room to sit on the sofa beside the frustrated Denderlain heir. “Why are you telling me this, Armand?”