Chapter 10

Chapter 10

The Villain

The stupid godsdamn frog.

Trystan resisted lunging for Benedict and snatching the amphibian from his harsh grip. The magic living beneath his skin begged to be unleashed, to hurt, to punish, but it would only take the king a second to squeeze the life from Kingsley’s body. He couldn’t risk it.

“Sage, why is Kingsley here?” Trystan asked, attempting leveled calm.

“He likes cream puffs.”

And the calm was gone.

“Sage,” he bit out, furious beyond belief that he had been seconds away from leaving here, from being free of this wretched castle and returning to the one place he felt less broken.

“Let’s go home,” she’d said.

When he’d stumbled across the manor a decade prior, he’d thought it a good place to rest his head, to plot, perhaps even to disappear for a good long while. Nature had taken control of the crumbling structure hidden deep in the trees of Hickory Forest, its vines and overgrowth practically part of its architecture, holding it captive. It was easy for him to belong there. From the beginning, he’d worked to make the manor a place of coldness and bone-chilling fear. He’d replaced all the original, cheery stained-glass art in the windows with depictions of sinister acts—save for his favorite one in the manor kitchen. Every inch was made to keep people away.

It shouldn’t have surprised him that none of that had fazed her, that it had utterly failed against her impenetrable ability to spin the ugly into something not only amusing, but worth loving.

She’d found something worth loving even about a place called Massacre Manor.

And he would resort to whatever dark evil necessary to get her back there.

Sweeping Sage behind him, ignoring her yelped protests, he summoned his power. The dark-gray mist twisted and curled around Benedict, causing the king to freeze. A black spot pulsing by his jugular signaled the perfect place to strike, to rid the world of Trystan’s greatest foe for good—

Until Sage asked a question that slammed him back to earth. “Sir, wh-what is that?”

His brows knit together, his power halting in midair. “You are referring to…?”

She whispered, “The gray fog circling the king like a weird-looking storm cloud?”

There’s no conceivable way…

His lips parted, but nothing emerged at first. Then, finally: “Y-You can see my magic?”

She squeaked. “Is that what that is?” Her fingers left his shoulder, her head tilting as she took in the violent power with a charmed curiosity. “How interesting. I didn’t think it would look like that.”

“What are you two conspiring about?” Benedict asked, clearly unable to see the mist yet stopped in his tracks anyway. A prickling began at the back of Trystan’s neck, climbing to the sides of his head before settling into a steady pounding at the top of his skull.

It was only Sage who could see his magic.

How unreasonably terrifying.

Trystan decided he was better suited to ferocity than the new emotion fighting its way to the surface. He did not experience fear. He merely caused it. “We’re just having a chat about all the different ways I could kill you, Benedict. I’d be happy to share.”

Without warning, Sage’s hand slipped around Trystan’s middle, nudging him aside. “Kingsley! Remember what I taught you.”

He watched Sage with horrified amusement as she opened her mouth and then clamped her teeth down. The tiny amphibian blinked in awareness, then opened his mouth and closed it…right around Benedict’s hand.

“Uck!” Benedict bellowed, releasing Kingsley to the floor, the green of the frog’s skin camouflaging him some as he scrambled across the tile toward them. “The little monster bit me!”

While the guards’ attention was focused squarely on the king, Trystan scooped up his friend. They needed to leave—now. As he started slowly nudging Sage toward the back terrace doors, he turned the frog over, inspecting him for injuries. He arched a brow and murmured so only Sage could hear, “You taught him to bite?”

“Frogs have weak jaws. He required practice.”

Satisfied his friend was without injury, he allowed Kingsley to hop onto his shoulder. “How in the deadlands did you determine that?”

“He had difficulty when I was feeding him pie.”

Trystan sighed. “Naturally.”

The guards had noticed their movements by now and drew their swords, advancing on Trystan. He tried to push Sage behind him, but she stubbornly remained by his side.

Trystan waved a stiff hand in Benedict’s direction. “It’s been a painful experience as always, Benedict, but I’m afraid we must take our leave.”

“Go ahead and try,” the king called roughly from behind his guards, still shaking his hand. “But be warned that I will spend the rest of my days ensuring that you never know peace for the way you’ve humiliated me. The entire kingdom will know your name before this night is through—and all of them will want you dead.”

Trystan shrugged. “That isn’t so very different from every other day of my life.”

Benedict raised a cruel brow. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

Trystan’s entire body clenched at the words, relaxing only slightly when Sage gripped one of his tightened fists in her hand and subtly unfurled his fingers.

“Fear not, Ms. Sage. Despite your betrayal, I will take kind care of your mother when my knights bring her into my custody.”

Her hand tightened on Trystan’s, and her light eyes narrowed into slits.

The king didn’t heed the warning in her stare; vitriol continued to spill from his lips. “When a parent abandons a child, it always makes me wonder: Was it the parent’s shortcoming”—the king grinned—“or the child’s?”

Bastard.

But Sage put her chin up. “When a knight is willing to betray his king, it always makes me wonder: Was it the knight’s shortcoming”—now her brows raised in satisfaction—“or the king’s?”

Benedict’s face paled, and Trystan’s heart skipped a beat. The knight who had mouthed to him about hope.

Is she so charming that she could convince even a Valiant Guard to do her bidding?

He looked to the curve of her cheeks, the slyness in her expression, the quiet wheels of her mind working and shifting even now to make a new plan.

Yes. This woman could convince someone to defy the hands of time if it suited her.

She missed the longing in his gaze as she leaned in to whisper, “Be ready to run.”

Before he could react, Sage reached behind her back, gripping something tucked away in the back sash of her gown, hidden from view. He trained his gaze on it, astonishment washing over him when he realized what it was. A stack of papers—letters, all signed and dated by one swooping signature barely visible at the bottom.

Nura Sage.

“You’re wrong about my mother, and you’ll come to find—if you haven’t already—that you are very wrong about me.”

Trystan hauled Sage by the arm, dragging her toward the back terrace doors before she revealed anything more, before Benedict saw the letters, before she pushed any further than she already had, knowing the danger she’d just brought upon herself. And the hungry gleam in Benedict’s eye only confirmed it.

Still, he found it extraordinarily difficult not to grin as she smiled and waved behind her, eyes shining as she called, “Happy hunting, King Benedict.”

And to the sound of their ruler’s outraged screams, they ran for their lives.