The Broken Realm Read online

  “You expected wrong.” A dark look passed over Khallum’s face. “I’m not prepared with the right words, seeing as I didnae expect to see ye here. But your brother, Ryan, he is out, lad. He carried out his task with near perfection. And the man he went in for? Free. Alive. We have him somewhere safe, for when the time comes.”

  Jesse noted that Khallum didn’t call Darrick by name. A handful of men knew of Darrick Rhiagain’s fate before Ryan was sent to the Wastelands. He wondered how many knew it now.

  Whatever the number, they could add Esmerelda to the list. He’d had no choice but to tell her when she’d come to him with her intention to return home. It had worked in staying her energy for the idea, but she’d kept to herself since, hardly saying a word to anyone. If he hadn’t been consumed with his own troubles, namely the strangeness, he would’ve tried harder.

  “I knew he would do it,” Jesse said, finding his words. But he didn’t want to move forward into the next moment, for there was a reason Khallum hadn’t said anything about Ryan’s own health. Nor could he delay and live in this moment of intentional ignorance, either. “And Ryan?”

  Khallum hung his head. “He’s alive, but he’s nay gained consciousness. Hamish is with him, at his side. There he’ll stay, until Ryan wakes or I call for him to deploy my men for war.”

  Jesse had no choice but to take a hard swig from the ale, or risk launching the bile in his throat across the table. “What do the physicians say? Do ye have healers with him?”

  “We cannae risk a healer, but he has Rutland’s wife tending him. One of her nurses, anyway.”

  “Rutland’s wife is hardly a nursewife!”

  “Rutland’s wife is the only one not already leaving him to a promise spent, young Strong.”

  Jesse grimaced. He swallowed his anger, though he preferred it to the pain tickling at the center of his belly, threatening to spread. “And what does Rutland’s wife say, then?” he asked through clenched teeth.

  “Tha’ there’s naught much she can do, other than keeping broth in him and his sheets clean.”

  Jesse laughed to fend off tears. “But she doesnae know Ryan. Not a force exists that can keep him down forever. All she has to do is tell him to sleep, and he’ll wake, just for the chance to be contrary.”

  Khallum nodded. He didn’t look convinced. “Let us hope so. Ryan has done a great service to this kingdom. He deserves to live to see it through.”

  Jesse realized then that he’d never prepared himself for this possibility. In his mind, there was no outcome that didn’t have Ryan emerging victorious, sporting the self-sure grin that had gotten him in more than enough trouble, and the confidence of a man twice his rank. He found he couldn’t even conjure the image of his brother convalescing in bed, riding the line between life and death.

  “There isnae a day that passes where I donnae miss my Esmerelda,” Khallum continued with a hard sigh. “But this? This woulda broken her heart. I denied her in life, perhaps the Guardians will grant her wish in death.”

  “No. One day, but not now,” Jesse said, shaking his head. “As you said, Ryan deserves to live to see what he’s done for all of us. And he will. I know him.”

  Khallum shoved his chair back and stood. “It isnae for me to say, and I willnae order you to do it. But one man in the Westerlands can do little. One man at yer father’s side may do everything. Especially if I call him to service for this kingdom.” He turned behind him. “Now where did James take them?”

  Jesse felt as if he had the entire kingdom on his shoulders as he stood to join his lord. “They’re at the abbey. I’ll escort you.”

  * * *

  Jesse looked more disheveled than usual when he walked through the door. Ravenna was surprised to see him at mid-morning. Usually he left at sunrise and returned just as the last of the day’s light slipped behind the forest, in time for whatever they’d eaten to be reheated over the dying fire. Sometimes he conversed with them. Often, he preferred to be alone with his thoughts and the silence.

  His eyes widened in relief when he saw her. That alone perked her suspicion.

  “Ravenna, thank Guardians it’s you,” he said, looking around the room, searching for something. “Where’s Esme?”

  “Resting. She was up half the night at the privy.” She pointed at her belly.

  He stopped. “Is she all right?”

  “I understand this is expected when a woman is with child,” Ravenna replied. Her words were a recitation of things she’d heard from her mother and grandmother. She had not experienced this, and would not now anytime soon. Her belly was starting to shrink. Somehow, she’d read all the signs wrong. There was no child growing within her. It may have been as simple as the change in her diet since fleeing The Rookery. She might never know, but she’d been wrong. Horribly, painfully wrong.

  But the damage she’d wrought upon matters at the keep was done and could not be undone.

  Jesse nodded with an absent look. “Better that she’s resting if she’s unwell. This might make her worse.”

  “What might?” Ravenna moved closer, careful to keep the distance between them. Each second she spent in his presence only deepened her regret at what had happened in the river. He hadn’t come to her bed later that night, or the next, either. Of course he hadn’t. He wasn’t in love with her. He wanted her, and that was different, but Jesse wasn’t a typical man, following his lusts. He followed his loyalty. Something she had shown herself to be absent of, at every step of her journey. “What happened?”

  He stopped pacing and looked at her. “The last thing I ever expected. Khallum Warwick is here. He’s come to the aid of the Westerlands, despite his prior claim that he had no intentions of it. And now he’s here. Here, in Greystone Abbey.”

  Ravenna’s mouth parted. “Esmerelda’s father? Is here?”

  “The very one.” His mouth drew into a loose frown. “And she cannae know this, you understand? The distress might cost her the bairn’s life.” He moved around the room again, this time collecting things, piling them in his arms. Esmerelda’s scarf. Her house shoes.

  “You possess a lot of fear over that baby’s life.”

  “It might be all that’s left of my brother.”

  “It’s more than that.”

  “My mother... she lost a few that way. I know what stress can do to a bairn.”

  “I think you may underestimate Esmerelda. She has a right to know.”

  “Maybe you’re right. But what if you’re wrong?”

  “What, then? You cannot hide this from her, or him, forever.”

  “Aye, but I can for now, just as I’ll not tell her that Ryan is finally free of that wretched prison camp, but isn’t expected to wake.”

  Ravenna gasped. “Jesse! I’m so sorry.”

  “I cannae think on it now. It’s more important than ever that his son and wife are protected.”

  “Are we leaving?”

  “Not yet, but soon,” Jesse said. “Soon as I know where the feck to take her.”

  “I wish I had a helpful idea, but I don’t know this kingdom at all.”

  “I donnae need your ideas, but...” He regarded her with fresh curiosity. “Tell me about your magic.”

  “My magic?”

  Jesse nodded in impatience. “Aye, aye, what can you, you know, do?”

  “I can heal those who are unwell or have come to harm,” Ravenna replied with a sigh. “I can lay minor protections. Obfuscations, meant to confuse those who would intend us harm.” Sometimes this was her only consolation to all she’d done. She knew that without the magic she’d lain to keep the men of Wulfsgate off their trail, Drystan and the others would never have made it to their destination. They would’ve never made it farther than Torrin’s Pass.

  Yes, but they were led the rest of the way as prisoners. And you did nothing.

  “Ravenna?”

  “Sorry?”

  Jesse pointed his finger, moving it in a circle around him. “We need one. Here. At Dungarde
Keep. To keep Khallum and his men from wandering in.”

  “I can do that, but... you know she sometimes ventures into town. She can’t help herself. It’s hard being here, alone, all the time.”

  “Your job is to stop her.”

  “She’s more stubborn than I am!”

  Jesse rolled his hands. “Use your magic, or something.”

  “I don’t have the magic to do that.” Ravenna sighed. “Maybe she should know. I know how you worry after her, but she’s not fragile. She’s not even a little fragile. She’s stronger than I am.”

  “Esmerelda is my responsibility. Bringing her here... she’s changed. Strong she may be, but she’s waning, and I donnae know how to stop it.”

  Ravenna bowed her head. “I’m afraid at least some of that is my fault.”

  Jesse shook his head. “I donnae know what you’re talking about.”

  “I owe you a great apology, Jesse.”

  He glanced toward the stairs. “For?”

  “I didn’t send the dreams intentionally,” Ravenna said. The confession was coming now, and it felt good. It felt right. He deserved to know the truth, which was perhaps its own form of loyalty. It was his truth as much as hers. “But I may have, inadvertently. I may have, in my desperation.”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  Ravenna laid a hand on her belly. “When I came here, I thought I was with child. Drystan’s child. And, though he is reluctant to the task, Drystan is still the heir of Wulfsgate, of the whole of the Northerlands. Any child of his would belong to them, not to me. They would hunt me from coast to coast, north to south. His mother, especially, would not rest until the babe was with his father’s brood. I would have no means to fight them, an outcast of my own people, no allies of my own to protect me.”

  “But how... how would they have known? Drystan himself didnae know, did he?”

  “There are magic practicers among the Derehams. Seers. I needed there to be a cause for doubt about the father.”

  Jesse at last began to comprehend. A dark understanding passed over his eyes. “Me?”

  Ravenna nodded. She still couldn’t meet his gaze. If she did before the words were out, she’d lose the courage. “But, now I know, there is no child. I was wrong about that. As I was wrong to confuse you so. To cause harm to the closeness between you and Esmerelda. To deceive someone who has done nothing but help me.”

  Jesse fell back in the chair behind him. He stared blankly for several moments and then pitched forward over his knees, dropping his face into his hands.

  “Please speak. Say something,” Ravenna pleaded. “Anything. Even your anger I would welcome.”

  He peeled his hands away and looked up halfway. “I couldnae fathom why my own will was so weak. But it was never me. It was never me at all. It was you, all this time, and though I asked you, you denied it. Do ye know how many nights, how many long nights I questioned my own measure?”

  Ravenna slowly nodded.

  “Of course you know. You were there each time I’d awake, spent from dreams I didnae ask for. You were there, at the river, to give to me what I couldnae understand wanting. And for... for nothing?”

  “It wasn’t nothing. I didn’t know it was nothing.”

  “Why not just tell me, Ravenna? I would have protected you! I would have lied, as I’ve done for Esme, as I now do every day of my life, to keep that from happening to you! Can ye not see my whole life is a lie now? What’s one more?”

  “I couldn’t have known how you would react.”

  Jesse laughed. “What must the men of Midnight Crest be like, for you to look upon someone who has given you aid and see an enemy?”

  The tears flowed. She couldn’t stop them. “The men of Midnight Crest are no men. Drystan was the first man who showed me the meaning of kindness.” She wiped at her eyes, straightening. No, this would not do. She was apologizing, not seeking to wind him even further around her finger. Perhaps she could not undo the damage done, but she could prevent more from happening. “I was wrong. About you. About many things. I would say I was wrong to leave Midnight Crest, but that would be to create yet another lie. I didn’t belong there, and I don’t belong here. My fear is that I’ll never know where I do belong. That I’ll never know why I couldn’t do as the women before me did and rise to the honor given me. To know my role. But that is not your problem, Jesse Strong. It is mine, and I was desperately wrong for seeking to make it yours as well.”

  Jesse pushed himself to his feet. He moved to her, raising his hands. They hovered at the sides of her arms, debating whether to land. At last they did, and for a moment, he looked as if he might kiss her. Not the hard press of passion by the river that had stolen her breath and her resolve, but something softer, lingering. He dropped her arms and stepped back. “When I laid eyes upon you in the Hinterlands, I was in love with ye then, Ravenna. Guardians help me, I couldnae explain it, not for the life of me, but I was. And I fought against it with all I had, until...” He looked again toward the stairs. “But I can never know what was me, and what was you. And as I think about it, now, perhaps that’s best. For if I thought I could love you without the sway of magic, I wouldnae be able to do what I need to do, for her. For Ryan.”

  Jesse reached for the pile of Esmerelda’s belongings and handed them to Ravenna. A palpable relief had replaced the darkness. He seemed now a man unburdened, of her, of all that had passed between them, and if that was the price of honesty, then she must bear it. She couldn’t tell him she’d done nothing in the Hinterlands. That whatever he felt had been his own. She wouldn’t tell him this, for in releasing him from his obligation to his feelings, she was freeing him in other ways, too.

  “I accept your apology,” Jesse said. “And in return, I ask you to aid me in protecting her. Just long enough for me to get her away from her father, once more.”

  22

  Ladies of the Mountain

  Asherley’s gown was crafted of pure alabaster silk. Even to someone who had never denied herself anything, this was an indulgence. The winter fruits left in her bowl while she was sleeping were another, as were the rich stews of tubers and squash prepared and slid into her room. There was no meat. Their abhorrence to it was another piece of information she had stored somewhere, for when it might matter. As it happened eventually with most of these things, the time of mattering had arrived, though she wasn’t sure her diet was as important as the reason she’d been brought here.

  She couldn’t say whether Midnight Crest was as she expected or not, because she’d not been allowed outside the small but well-appointed room. There was no lock, least not of the physical kind, but the magic was stronger than anything man could build with their hands. That she slept full nights was another kind of magic, and though this loss of control was maddening; the restfulness, grudgingly welcome. She couldn’t remember a time in her life where she’d ever slept so well.

  After the first day or so of screaming and banging on walls, on the ivory door, she’d adjusted to the idea of being their prisoner and decided that the loss of her peace would not join the loss of her freedom. She had no magic more powerful than theirs with which to best them and free herself, so waiting was all she could do. Her attempt to read whispers was thwarted by the absence of anyone passing anywhere near her proximity. If there’d been a block, the kind thrown up by magic wielders in the presence of other magic wielders, she could’ve sensed it, but there was simply nothing. She was well and truly alone.

  Asherley maintained this calm safe in the knowledge that if they desired her dead, she would’ve been thrown from the mountain like Assyria. They either wanted her, or needed her, and she could use that.

  She wondered if Anabella and the others had made it somewhere safe. She desperately hoped so. Had it been her plan, and not Assyria’s, she would’ve given the power to Anabella to begin with. Why should it not be Anabella with the choice to decide the fate of her son and herself? But Assyria was not a mother. She could not know what it mea
nt to sacrifice everything for your child. To give up even your freedom so that they could find their own.

  Thinking of her children was the only thing that threatened Asherley’s resolve. Emberley was in Wulfsgate, and for that she was grateful, but she’d had no word of Brandyn or Gabi. She still felt them, as if even way up here at the top of Icebolt Mountain their energies carried, but this was only an ephemeral confirmation of their survival. For all she knew, they could be in a prison of their own.

  The door opened. Through it walked a man. The same man who had stood before her on the mountainside and who was responsible for what happened to Assyria.

  She spoke before he could. “You murdered Assyria Rhiagain.”

  The man’s mouth curled into a bemused grin. “I did not.”

  “I saw you.”

  “I did not murder Assyria Rhiagain, for I cannot murder Assyria Rhiagain.”

  “It was your raven form that swarmed her and caused her to fall. I saw no others. Only you.”

  “Ahh. Well, yes, it was I who swarmed her, as you say, but I did not cause her to fall. She fell because she lost her footing.”

  “Your commitment to semantics is noted, but murder is murder.”

  “Yet the distinction is important. I cannot kill a Rhiagain, just as a Rhiagain cannot kill me. Whether my actions influenced what choices she next made, well.” The man held out his hands. “Sometimes fortune does smile upon us.”

  “Why?” Asherley asked. She moved closer to him, but he didn’t recoil from her nearness. He tilted his head to the side, studying her. “Why would you want her dead?”

  “I had no great motivation to see Assyria Rhiagain dead. But it seems to me she wanted you dead, and so I was left with no other choice, really.”

  Asherley narrowed her eyes. “Who are you?”

  The man bowed. His dark robe swept the white marble floor. “High Priest Argentyn Ravenwood. We share a common ancestor, as you know.”