Chapter 53

Chapter 53

The Villain

Trystan used to like being in charge.

Ordering people about and having them bend to his control was his duty, his destiny; the one thing he could strive to be good at was evil-doing, committing crimes against the kingdom. But if he were being truthful, he thought as he and Sage raced through the manor, if he allowed himself to acknowledge that long-held hope he’d pushed off to the corner of his mind so long ago, he could acknowledge that fulfilling the prophecy, that saving Rennedawn…doing something to save instead of destroy…might make him deserving.

Of peace, of friendship, of family, and maybe even of—

“Fire!” The word left his mouth rather without warning as he and Sage ran into the back courtyard to find the trees ablaze.

Sage startled, clutching her side, out of breath, panting, skin dampened from the exertion— His mind went to a horrid place, and it involved his bed…and a few of his pillows. “I think it knows, sir,” she gasped out. “You don’t have to scream at it.”

Trystan gripped the sides of his head. “Just get out the hose. So I can find—and severely punish—whoever is responsible for this.”

She tried to lift a cement slab in the floor of the courtyard. It didn’t budge, and so she frowned at it. “Huh. I was sure that was the one I put it under.”

He gaped at her. “You don’t know where it is? You, the rubber hose enthusiast?”

She pointed a finger in his face. “Planning for safety in case of an emergency does not make me an enthusiast, Evil Overlord.”

Trystan lifted a brow and crossed his arms, contemplating her. “Did you buy a book about it?”

She looked away guiltily. “…Yes.”

“Ha!”

She threw her hands in the air. “I did a little reading on safety! It’s a palate cleanser after my last bodice-ripper book.”

He didn’t need to be a genius to surmise what those books entailed.

“Wh-What was the title?” he asked.

She looked up, her nonsense wheels clearly moving. “I think Fire Hoses for the Workplace or something to that effect.”

Yes, he had most definitely been referring to the hose book. Trystan pinched the bridge of his nose, turning away from her in an effort to regain his footing.

The movement caused a slab to loosen under his boot, catching him by such surprise that he lost his footing completely. Which was unfathomable enough, but then…he flailed. He didn’t think he’d ever flailed once in the span of his entire life. His ass hit the ground hard enough to rattle his skull in his head. But the slab had lifted, revealing the end of a long rubber tube.

Sage squealed, “You found it!” and clapped her hands. Then she pulled it out, holding it expertly, and her efficiency at her task, the focus on her face was…oddly arousing.

The woman could sharpen a pencil and he’d go into an apoplectic fit.

He frowned down at his position on the ground. “Sage, I fear your lack of equilibrium is catching.”

She ignored him, pulling a nozzle at the top of the hose, and water came out in a rush. As he jumped up, the force of it knocked her backward and right into his chest. His hands went up instinctively to grip her elbows, and though he couldn’t see her face, he felt her stiffen, planting her feet firmly to keep from moving. “I do not lack equilibrium,” she argued. “The ground merely lacks the courtesy of letting me know when it is coming closer.”

It was with patent disbelief that he said, “Do you think you could argue your way through anything?”

The flames were dissipating under the onslaught of water, though a few flickered still. But it wasn’t the fire that was causing all the warmth in the air. It wasn’t the sun beating down on them or the flowers coming up through the cracks in the stones that were layered throughout the back courtyard. It was Sage, looking at him with her mischievous smile and her kind eyes.

“I argued my way into this job, didn’t I?”

She said this, of course, not knowing that the job was hers the moment she’d said she needed one.

That he would’ve found a way, any way, to ease the burdens she clearly carried in her slender shoulders, in the gaunt hunch of her frame, like she had been undereating when they first met. How he’d stayed up late that first night wondering why.

There was a standing order for vanilla candies at the manor, the start date of which had been—coincidentally—the day after her first shift, after he’d seen how much she enjoyed the ones hidden in a tin atop his desk. He could use one right about now, in fact, to calm the fury that rose within him when he saw the charred wood of the back gate.

“Finish putting out the fire, Sage. I need to find who is responsible for this.”

Sage put the hose down. “No need.”

A wash of confusion swept over him, dampening his ardor for revenge—nearly ruining it, in fact. “You may do as you please, but I haven’t killed anyone in nearly a week, and I believe I am due. The incident board misses me dearly.”

She squeezed her eyes shut tight. “You cannot injure the person responsible.”

He leaned forward menacingly, trying to take on his air of forbidding evilness. “Sage, I will do whatever I please.”

The look she gave him could only be described as a challenge, a dare. “Lyssa!” she called. “Get out here now!”

The authority Sage commanded in that one parental order made his back straighten. Like he, too, would come running should she tell him to do so.

“It wasn’t a Valiant Guard,” Sage said with silent disappointment in her face and posture. “It was my sister.”