Joshua, to his credit, didn’t move. “It might be a mercy, cousin.” His eyes were bleak as they held Armand’s furious gaze.
His words made the young lord yield, though. “We had an agreement.” He lowered the tip of his sword to the height of Joshua’s chest, not seeming to notice as Addie inched forward.
Armand’s fury was intimidating. A facet of the young lord she had never before appreciated. But she rallied her courage anyway, searching deep in the well of her heart for the words that might spare Joshua Brenheran—and save the young lord from the biggest mistake of his life.
“How many times did I want to hit your face on the delicate tea table in my chambers,” Joshua said with a dark kind of humor.
He stopped as Armand’s hand twitched, bringing the blade dangerously close to his skin. He gave Joshua a feral grin. “I’d like to see you try now.”
Addie didn’t think as she stepped in front of Joshua, pushing the flat of the young lord’s blade aside with her bare forearm. “You’d make a mistake killing him.”
Armand’s eyes wandered to her, incredulous and wide, but there was a warning there.
“Why did you lock her up in that cell?” he asked, not moving his sword. “What did she ever do to you?”
Joshua was quiet for a long moment before he said, “She offered to help me get back to Ackwood.”
Armand’s blood turned cold. “She offered what?”
Joshua, half-hidden behind Addie’s slender shape, was about to repeat what he had said, but Armand was already wheeling around, pacing rather than spearing his cousin like he wanted to.
He had seen the necklace on Gandrett. The same necklace that Joshua was wearing. A Brenheran heirloom.
There were three of them—one for each of Lord Tyrem’s children. And one of them had to be running around without it right now. It wasn’t Joshua for sure since his necklace was visible beneath his unbuttoned tunic.
“Tell me who she is,” Armand demanded. “Tell me now.” He could hear the urgency in his own voice, the shaking, the loss of control.
Years. He had spent years with Joshua, getting to know him, plotting how they would eventually put him on the throne. How the future king of Sives would bestow peace on both halves of the territory. And all this time…
“I don’t know who she is,” Joshua said calmly. “At the dance in honor of Demea was the first time I ever saw her.”
At least it sounded like he was telling the truth, but… “How can I know you’re not lying now?” Armand hissed.
To his surprise, it was the servant girl who responded, “Because he wasn’t himself when he locked her up.”
It took Armand a moment to understand the words she had spoken.
“Someone put a spell on him,” Addie explained before he could ask specifics. “We suspect his mother.”
To his surprise, Joshua nodded.
“He has been under a spell since the very first day he came here,” Addie added.
From the very first day? Armand stopped and watched the clouds pass by his windows, his mind racing. If what they claimed was true and Joshua hadn’t been himself—
And as Addie and Joshua told him everything they had figured out—the Dragon Water, about which he added he knew had healing properties, that the last Dragon King’s dragon had resided under the castle, the suspicion of aunt Linniue worshipping Shygon, the god of dragons—it all made sense. Painfully perfect sense. That Joshua had stopped fighting from one day to the other. That he had roamed the castle freely, never as much as asking to send a message to his family. That he had been perfect. Perfect and invisible, his identity a secret to all but a few. Armand broke for his cousin’s fate of a mother who had given him away just to bring him back as a prisoner—even if his prison had been in his mind.
“Was any of it real, cousin?” The question was as simple as it was scary, the answer of it defining whether what he’d been working toward—what his mother and he had been trying to achieve—had all been a lie. He turned around to face his cousin, who looked even paler than usual.
Joshua’s face was unreadable as he said, “I told you I would have given anything to smash your pretty Denderlain face into the coffee table so many times.” He exhaled a long breath and gazed at the ceiling as if calling for Vala’s aid. “The goddess knows, I have been occupied with two minds in my head—the one that grew to agree with your plan, and the one wanting me to get you to spill every detail of the plan to have something to hold against you one day.”
“So that’s what she wants?” Armand prompted, betrayal thick in his voice. “She wants to rid herself of me?”
Joshua shook his head. “I have not the slightest idea what her ulterior motive is.”
“Not her love for her son, for sure,” Addie added darkly, and both of them gave her a look that could only be described as pained agreement.
“But she has been encouraging me to make my plans with you.” Joshua glanced at him with those green eyes that seemed haunted. There was truth in them. Even if there were so many open questions. Why would Linniue spend years deceiving this court if she wanted her own son on the throne? “I don’t know what she is waiting for… What her plans are.” Joshua sighed through his nose, frustration and pain plain on his face.
Armand’s own mind was trying to grab a hold of what was going on—what had been going on all this time, unnoticed. That all he had been working toward might have been a lie. And Linniue? Could she truly be behind this? He’d known his aunt to be eccentric, difficult even, but this? Deceive her entire family about the father of her child, only to one day use her son against all of them? Was it truly Linniue alone, or was Joshua deceiving him as well? Was there even a spell?
“And where is that spell now?” Armand returned to the sofa where he planted himself in front of Joshua, sword still in his hand. “How do I know you’re not lying right now?”
“Because if I were, I would not be sitting here telling you this but would rip your sword from your hands to ram it into your stomach.”
Joshua’s words were as harsh as they were convincing. His cousin had never raised a finger against him. Never… And it had taken long for him to trust Joshua. With his Brenheran heritage and his claim to what should have been Armand’s… If his mother hadn’t paved the way for trust, he might have been convinced this was purely Joshua’s craving for power. But with all they had been working toward, with what he had promised his mother, with the proof of Joshua locking up Gandrett in the dungeons and attempting to kill her—
It couldn’t be him.
It had to be Linniue. If they were right. Even so, betrayal by the aunt he had known his entire life was hardly any easier than by the cousin he had been seeing as the future of Sives.
“Our plan is still intact, Armand,” Joshua said to him, his green eyes like clear waters. “That is—” He rested his back against the sofa, exhaustion creasing his forehead. “If we can make one adjustment.”
Armand raised one eyebrow as he waited, still uncertain what or who to trust.
“Get me out of Eedwood. Return me to my father’s side. Take over your own lordship of Eedwood and end your father’s reign of terror so together we can build up the future.”