It was impressive how Joshua had been keeping track, all those years, of all those thoughts that had been his own, and how he had managed to stay sane. The only thing that still wasn’t clear was how much time he had truly missed during those blackouts and what had happened during those hours or days or weeks.
So they all were convinced there had been someone controlling Joshua’s mind. The only question left was if it was truly Linniue who did that to her son.
Armand turned to the side, trying to shut out his thoughts, when the sound of Gandrett’s voice disturbed him from the open door to the secret passageway.
“Armand, come quick,” she called, “it’s back.”
He was on his feet, sword in hand, and rushing to the secret door before he could even give a thought to what she might have meant was back. Too urgent was her tone, too terrifying the thought of her getting into trouble again.
A brief look at Joshua informed him the future king of Sives was fast asleep. The guards at the doors were not going to let anyone in or out.
When he made it to the corridor, Gandrett was standing halfway in, hand on the wall and a mixture of fear and excitement on her now completely healed features. Gods, had he ever acknowledged how beautiful she was?
“Do you see it?” She whispered, now that her eyes had spotted him in the doorway.
Armand closed the gap with a couple of quick strides, sword at the ready, his eyes on her, alive and healthy—and possibly the biggest liar of all times. For some reason, he didn’t care about the latter as much as he should have as long as the former applied.
“What is it?” As he asked, he saw it.
There was a door etched in the thick, stone wall. In a small alcove that he had passed countless times, there was a door.
He blinked, clearing his vision and hoping he had not seen right.
“Good,” Gandrett commented, “You see it too.” There was relief in her voice as if she had been doubting the existence of the entrance they both were staring at.
Armand reached out his hand and examined the door, the spider webs that had been torn in front of it. He could have sworn the door’s temperature was a tad cooler than the stone surrounding it.
“Where did it come from?” he mused aloud, fascination and alarm mingling in his stomach.
But Gandrett didn’t give him time to think. She grabbed him by the forearm, hand firm and unyielding as he attempted to pull it open.
“Listen to me,” she whispered, her eyes sparkling in the torchlight. “I came across this door the first night you sent me back to my chambers. I’ve been in there.”
What? “Why didn’t you tell me?” He remembered very well that night she had returned to her chambers, looking like someone had dragged her through the dirt. He had felt guilty for using her to provoke his father, had felt, with her history, she might understand him, better than anyone, his difficult relationship with his tyrant father. How she had deceived him—
“There was no indication I could trust you,” she plainly said, all ladylike words, all smiles, all pretenses gone, replaced by a fierceness that was illuminating the dim air around them.
He wanted to ask if she trusted him now, if that was why this time she had called for him. But he couldn’t bring himself to. Too much did he dread the answer she had in store.
“There are tunnels behind this door,” Gandrett continued, “and I don’t know where they lead, but we had better get a warm coat, or we won’t make it out of there again.”
He stared. At her bravery, at her practicality, at her not being any of the things every other girl he had met was. “You are intending to go in there?” he asked.
“Preferably just you and I,” she nodded. “I wouldn’t want to risk anyone else seeing what’s in there.”
Armand tried not to sound like a frightened boy as he asked, “What’s in there?”
The flesh on Addie’s back was raw from the beatings with the rod. She had endured it before at Lands End, and here in Eedwood, when Linniue’s guards caught her at her attempts to escape. So she bit down on her tongue and swallowed the pain.
“So…” Linniue strolled around her with a smile, making a small circle around the bucket beside her. “Can I expect you to do a simple task such as delivering a bucket of water properly next time—and not a day after the order?” Her voice was so sweet, almost as if she were talking to her friend Lady Isylte Aphapia of Ilaton—only, her fingers were still gripping the rod that had gotten acquainted with Addie’s blood instead of the teacup that she usually carried around the chambers.
Addie nodded. Not because she agreed she would do better, but to herself that she could do this—endure this and not break. Only until the lady let her out of her chambers again, and then, back to the young lord and the future king of Sives. A shudder ran through her at the thought of the events of last night. Could it be that there was hope? Hope in the shape of Armand Denderlain and an emerald-eyed prince—for that was who Joshua was. A prince of Sives. Probably the last if they didn’t manage to put him on the throne.
She shifted her feet, eyes glancing for the door. So close, she might be able to run… only to be dragged back by Linniue’s guards. Who knew how many other people in this castle were under her spell—
“Don’t even think about it,” Linniue answered Addie’s silent pondering and lifted her rod.
Addie cringed where she stood.
“I have different plans for you tonight.” She opened the door and called for one of the men guarding it, who saluted and on Linniue’s beckoning, grabbed Addie by her arm and dragged her to her knees. “I made a mistake assuming you would understand the importance of your task—your only task,” Linniue hissed as she bent down enough to look into Addie’s eyes. Linniue’s gaze beamed in a darker shade of the young lord’s hazel, and there was no warmth there. “As you have been trained in Lands End.”
“Trained,” Addie repeated, trying to make sense of the lady’s choice of words.
The response was a lash on her back.
Addie gritted her teeth as she panted through the pain. She should have known better than to provoke the lady, and any sign of being a coherent being with thoughts and opinions seemed to fall into the category of provoking.
Linniue giggled at Addie as she grabbed her hair out of nowhere and pulled her head back.
Addie tried to free herself, but the guard didn’t loosen his iron grip on her arm. Instead, his second hand grasped her by the chin and forced her mouth open while Linniue exacted a flask from the pocket of her dress, wheeled the lid open with one hand, and lowered it into the bucket before she brought it to Addie’s spitting lips.
“Drink up, Addie,” Linniue cooed, her eyes sparkling with insanity. “It will soon be over.”
Addie coughed up the water Linniue forced into her mouth, no longer a single doubt in her mind that it was Linniue who had spelled Joshua Brenheran. It was the water that she used for it—
Only, the water in Addie’s bucket was from Armand’s bathing chamber. A different sort of excitement rose in her as she remembered the scent in his chambers—wildflowers and something that she couldn’t identify that was very masculine. She thought of that scent, the people she was doing this for, as she fell into her role and finally gulped down the water and stopped fighting.