“I think not, Your Highness,” he said, his breath hot on my ear.
He pressed so close, I could barely spin to see who it was. He pinned me against the table and smiled, waiting for recognition to wash over my face.
It did.
I couldn’t breathe.
He reached up and touched my neck, rubbing the small white mark where the bounty hunter had cut me. “Only a nick?” He frowned. “I knew I should have sent someone else. Your sensitive royal nose probably smelled him coming a mile away.”
It was the driver from the stable yard. And now I was certain, the tavern guest Pauline had mentioned to me. You didn’t see him? He walked in right after the other two. A thin, scruffy fellow. He shot plenty of sideways looks your way.
And also the scruffy young man I had seen one night with the Chancellor.
“Garvin, at your service,” he said, with a mock-genteel nod. “It’s lovely to watch the wheels spin in your head.”
There was nothing about him that would stand out. Medium build, ashy uncombed hair. He could blend in with any crowd. It wasn’t his appearance that had left an impression on me. It was the startled expression of the Chancellor when I stumbled upon him and two scholars in a dark nook of the eastern portico. Guilt had flooded their faces, but I hadn’t registered it then. It was the middle of the night, and I had just snuck in from a card game and was so concerned about my own detection that I hadn’t questioned their odd behavior.
I glared at him. “It must have been such a disappointment for the Chancellor to learn I wasn’t dead.”
He smiled. “I haven’t seen him in months. As far as I know, he thinks you are dead. Our hunter has never failed us before, and the Chancellor had gotten word that the Assassin was on your trail too. There was little doubt that one of them would finish you. Wait until he finds out the truth.” He chuckled. “But the spin of your greater betrayal to Morrighan in marrying the Komizar may serve his purposes even better. Well done, Your Highness.”
His purposes? I thought of all the jeweled baubles that graced the Chancellor’s knuckles. Gifts, he had called them. What else was he getting in return for delivering wagons of wine and the services of scholars to the Komizar? A few sparkling ornaments for his fingers could hardly be worth the cost of treason. Was it a ploy for more power? What else had the Komizar promised him?
“I would tell the Chancellor not to spend his riches before they’re in his greedy palm. I’ll remind you, I am not dead yet.”
Garvin laughed, and his face loomed closer to mine. “Here?” he whispered. “Yes, here you’re as good as dead. You’ll never be leaving again—at least not alive.”
I tried to push past him, but he tightened his grip on the table. He was not a large man, but he was wiry and tough. I heard the snickers of the scholars, but I could see only the stubble on Garvin’s chin and feel his thighs pressing close to mine.
“I’ll also remind you, though I may be a prisoner of the Komizar, I’m his betrothed as well, and unless you’d like to see your thin, sour hide served on a platter, I would suggest you move your arms now.”
His smile disappeared, and he stepped aside. “Be on your way, and I’d advise you not to come this way again. These catacombs have many forgotten and dangerous passages. One could easily get lost forever.”
I brushed past him and the scholars, tasting the bitterness of their betrayal, but when I was a few yards away, I stopped and slowly scrutinized them.
“What are you doing?” Argyris asked.
“Memorizing each of your faces and how you look in this moment—and imagining what you’ll look like a year from now as you face death. Because as you all well know, I do have the gift, and I’ve seen every one of you dead.”
I turned and left, and heard not a shuffle nor a whisper in my wake.
It was the second time in less than an hour I had perpetrated a sham.
Maybe.
Because in a brief cold second, I saw every one of them hanging from a rope.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
I sat on a wooden bench near the servants’ stables, staring at a feather stirring on the ground, my feet and fingers numb, my thoughts jumping from rage to disbelief. Secrets at home, secrets in the caverns. Deceit knew no boundaries.
Secrets. That was what I saw in Argyris’s startled eyes and felt pressing on my chest when I passed through the cavern. A dangerous secret.
Movement in the distance caught my eye. He walked toward me.
The ultimate betrayer.
He stopped several feet away, noting that something was off. “Where are your escorts?”
I didn’t answer.
“I’ve looked everywhere for you,” he said. “What are you doing out here? It’s freezing.”
So it was.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
I studied Kaden, his eyes warm and searching. Kaden wanting a truce. Make everything better, like we were walking in a meadow after one of his drunken tirades. Kaden bringing me a basket of crabapple dumplings. Kaden holding me as I watched my brother die, saying how sorry he was. Kaden with his steady eyes. His deceptive calm. His devastating betrayal.
He stared at my jiggling knee.
It wasn’t I who had betrayed him.
“Lia?” he said as if testing the waters. Lia, is it safe to approach you?
“You knew,” I said. My knee bounced. My hands trembled. “All along you knew.”
He took a cautious step forward. “What are you—”
I flew at him, slapping at him, beating at him as he retreated, step after step, trying to dodge my blows. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know! All along you played games, telling me you were trying to save my life while you planned to exterminate every last person I love! Walther and Greta weren’t enough? Now it’s my other brothers? Berdi? Pauline? Gwyneth?” I stopped advancing on him and glared. “You want to kill every last person in Morrighan!”
His shoulders pulled back. “You saw the army.”
I returned his passionless stare. “I saw the army.”
He was quiet for only a moment and then he lashed out, his hand sweeping the air as if that could dismiss my accusation. “What of it? Morrighan and Dalbreck have their armies too. Ours isn’t going to kill everyone. Only those who suppress us.”
I looked at him in disbelief. Did he really believe that?
“And I’m sure that includes your father, a highborn lord. He’s probably first on your list.”
He didn’t answer, but his jaw clenched.
“So that’s what it’s been about all along. Vengeance. You’re so consumed with hatred for your father that you want to kill every last breathing person in Morrighan.”
“We’re marching on Morrighan, Lia. We’re removing those in power, and that includes my father, and yes, he may die.”
“May?”
“I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know what kind of fight we’ll face. With our numbers, they would be wise to lay down their arms, but if not, yes, he and many others will die.”
“By your hand.”
“You’re a fine one to talk about vengeance. Ever since Walther’s and Greta’s deaths, you’ve chased after revenge, telling me no matter what you did, it would never be enough. Your eyes glow with vengeance every time they fall on Malich.”