24. The Remnants of His Tyranny

Chapter 24

The Remnants of His Tyranny

N either Erran nor Mariel had slept overnight. She’d finally crashed at dawn, and though she’d made him promise not to let her sleep for long, it was clear she needed it, so he was going to have to break that promise.

The first things he’d noticed, when the chaos of the terrible evening disintegrated into a thoughtful quiet, were the sunken dark crescents under her eyes. Her languid movements lacked precision. Even her words were heavy and cloying, like she had no access to the right ones and stumbled instead through whatever her mind allowed. She slurred through her thoughts, only half finishing sentences.

She’d said enough for him to know what mattered. Where they stood. Their reunion was muted by their worry for Sessaly, but that was where his crazy idea had taken root. When he’d suggested it to Mariel, she’d nodded like it was obvious, like it wasn’t merely the right answer but the only one.

The problem was there was no way to get her out of the carriage house to see it through. His father’s guards circled its small perimeter, forming a tight, armed wall. He wondered how many knew why they were guarding Mariel and Destin—and if they’d even care.

Mariel wouldn’t approve of his choice to go without her, but there wasn’t another way around the problem of her restrictions. Obsidian Sky wouldn’t hurt Sessaly, but they weren’t the ones behind her kidnapping. Not all bandits had the same objectives or ethical limitations. There was nothing about the situation to be taken for granted.

Erran kissed Mariel on both temples. He tucked the coverlet around her shoulders, careful not to wake her. He wondered if he should leave a note, but decided not to. His absence would speak for him. His results would speak louder.

He found his father in the kitchen, hovering his spoon above a half-crusted bowl of porridge, which smelled much better than it looked.

“I’ll be out for a bit,” Erran said from the door. “I’m asking the guards to stand down and let me pass.”

Rylahn didn’t react.

Erran scoffed and turned to leave.

“Where?” His father dropped the spoon and looked up. “Going where?”

“To do what I can to fix this.”

“Leave that to me.”

“Do you have a plan?”

Rylahn pushed the bowl away. “My men are ready when I give the order.”

Erran couldn’t help laughing. “Ready for what ? For whom? We don’t even know who is behind this.”

“Don’t we?”

“You’re the wisest man I know, Father, but you are being deliberately and unlawfully thickheaded about this because you’re embarrassed.” Erran stood tall in the face of his impertinence. He hadn’t spoken so out of turn with anyone in authority before, and definitely not to his own father, whom he feared and respected in equal measure.

But Rylahn just shook his head with a tired look at the hanging candelabra. “Your judgment is a mirror, son. You slept beside this woman for months. You were intimate with her. You say you... you love her. From that, a man can draw but two conclusions: either you are blind and lacking the faculties to discern danger, or you were in on it with her. I’ve spent hours trying to decide which would be worse, and it might surprise you to learn I’d rather my son be a criminal than an imbecile.”

Erran would have made himself small at such admonishment before, but the accusation landed with only the softest thud. “Then it may surprise you further to learn I am neither. I’m not blind to what Mariel has done; I suspected something was off from the start and had just about confirmed it, just before the Banner mess. Then the island happened, and there was nothing to be done but listen to what she had to say about it all and try to make sense of it. The more she talked...” He shrugged. “Aye, the more I saw myself as she must have. If you truly believe you’ve done nothing wrong, then you’ll see no reason not to listen yourself.”

Rylahn’s mouth formed the faintest sneer. “To a criminal? Who lies?”

“To my wife .”

“Not for much longer.” Rylahn inched back from the bench. “I’ve asked my solicitor to file for an annulment.”

Erran snorted. Months of reflection had hardened him. “Then I’ll marry her again. I may do it anyway, for the first time was cheapened by your hastiness.”

Rylahn gaped at him. “What happened to my son?” An animated hand followed his words through the air. “What has she done to you?”

“Opened my eyes.” Erran’s sadness returned. What could be worse than a man who had ordered or allowed the atrocities done in his father’s name? A man who stood by every one. “Just give the land back, Father! What does it really mean to you and the barons? How does it compare to what it means to the families who are now homeless? Whose children will starve and die? The lineages that will end just so you and your friends can be only slightly richer?”

“This isn’t about gold. You know it isn’t, even as you stand there and indict me. Laws are laws, Erran. When men cannot pay taxes, there must be consequence, or all men will see there is none, and there will be mayhem.”

“Laws you created! Laws that benefit only you and your cronies. Is it not your duty to protect all citizens, not just the ones who share a table with you?” Erran snapped. His blood was on the rise, and he should have stopped, before he went too far. But everything had already gone too far. “This greed and ignorance will get Sessaly killed, and I...” He ran a hand over his mouth and glanced down the hall, toward the entrance. “I will not let it happen. Forgive me or don’t. My eyes are already too far open to ever close again.”

They’d gone rounds for weeks about the Mariel-and-Destin dilemma.

Though Obsidian Sky was ostensibly defunct, Remy, as second in command, had called an emergency meeting the night Augustine had returned with the news the Ashdowns had been made prisoners at the Spires.

Remy hadn’t wanted his sister returning to her duties at all. There was far too much risk anymore. The steward might not know their names, but his son did, and unlike Mariel, Remy had no trust for the princeling. The man would fold when the right threat was dangled before him. If not him, then he had two other friends who knew just as much, and who had even less incentive to protect their secret.

But Augustine couldn’t have been swayed. Mariel needed an ally inside, and there was nothing else he could say. Any influence he’d had over his sister had inevitably faded, and if it had been him with a coveted job at the Spires, he would have continued going back as well.

None of the group could agree on a way forward. Magnur wanted to assemble a line of trebuchets and fling a slew of boulders at the walls until they released her. Alessia suggested hiring assassins to sneak in under the cover of night, which was more feasible in the short term, but murder would raise the bounty on their heads to amounts no man could resist—and Remy wasn’t sure he wanted that on his conscience. Augustine’s plan was simply to listen and wait for the right piece of information or opportunity. With patience, it would reveal itself, she insisted.

Remy, the Tactician, had no better suggestion. So wait they did.

For two long months, they waited.

Until the princeling himself showed up at his door.

Magnur answered, greeting the craven bastard with a sword to the neck. Alessia flung the door wider, brandishing her own steel with a flick of her wrist. Remy could have stopped them, but he wanted to see how it played out first.

Erran hoisted both of his hands in cool submission. He didn’t look the slightest bit afraid. Remy wondered if that might change, if he learned just how much the two wanted him dead—and that Remy himself was probably the only thing standing between Erran and his final meeting with the Guardians.

“Please hear me out. I’m here on Mariel’s behalf,” the man said. He craned his neck back for relief, but Magnur’s sword tip followed him. The princeling flinched when blood ran down his neck and into the opening of his shirt, but he didn’t try again to withdraw.

“Or your daddy’s,” Alessia retorted. “Donnae ken I’d like to take the chance of being right. How about you, Mag?”

“Nay, best to be safe.”

“Mhm, Mariel taught us that.”

“Aye, we’d be a fool to forsake her wisdom now.”

“’Specially not for this squint who got her and her brother locked up.”

“Listen. Please .” Erran’s arms flagged. His elbows lowered to his sides. “Remy. Could you call them off?”

“Me?” Remy chortled. In truth, he hadn’t decided what to do about the princeling’s sudden arrival. He hadn’t calculated it into the possibilities, because the man was a true wild card. Mariel loved him—trusted him—but the rest of them had no reason to. For all they knew, the Rutland guards could be lying in wait in the alleyways for an ambush.

But in his years as an apprentice to one of the greatest tacticians in Oldcastle, he’d absorbed the importance of not overlooking a variable for risk alone. The safest way forward seldom led to the most desirable outcomes. “Mag, check the street. Alessia, watch the door.”

“Not taking my eye off this one for a moment,” Alessia grumbled. Her eyes narrowed to slits, like a feral cat’s. “He’s wily. Kens he’s too smart for his own good.”

“Whatever I am, I’m also a man who loves his wife and respects...” Erran scrunched his face as he brazenly reached upward to shove the sword aside. He grunted and massaged his neck, daring to look maddened by the whole thing. “The work you were all forced to do because of men like my father.”

“And you, squint.” Alessia spat on his boot. “Ye benefit just as much as the others.”

“Aye.” Erran didn’t break her wild gaze. “I have. I do. And it needs to change.”

“Is he armed?” Remy asked.

Alessia slapped her hands all over Erran’s body. Remy could almost respect how the man was taking the small assaults in stride. “Nay. Which makes him a fool as well.”

“Go on, both of you,” Remy said, shooing them with his hand. “I’ll hear what he has to say.”

Magnur and Alessia circled Erran on their way out. Alessia charged at him, but all he did was regard her behavior with indifference.

The man is exhausted, Remy realized. Augustine had been at the Spires when the fire had broken out, and she had come home just long enough to tell the others what had happened. She’d returned to the keep, not for the Rutlands but for the women she’d come to see as her friends, other workers still dealing with the shock of the night’s horrors.

“Sit,” Remy ordered. “I’d offer you a drink, but I’m rationing.”

“I’m not looking for hospitality.” Erran slipped warily onto the rickety chair across from Remy. He glanced back at the door, probably expecting the other two to launch a surprise attack. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities, no matter what he’d asked them to do. “The fire last night. Was it you?”

Remy laughed. “I thought you were here about Mariel.”

“I am.”

“My sister said she wasn’t hurt. Nor Des.”

“They weren’t,” Erran said, “but whoever was responsible has also taken my sister as ransom. Mariel says it wasn’t you, and if you say the same, I’ll believe you. But my father will not. He’s convinced it was Obsidian Sky, and if I can’t find who was actually responsible, you’ll all be hunted to the end of your days.”

“Worried for us, are you?” Remy smirked.

Erran bowed his head into his tented hands. He kept himself like that, letting the time pass. “If I have to run away with my wife to protect her, it’s what I’ll do. But do you ken she’d even go, if the rest of you were in my father’s crosshairs? She’d put herself on the gallows first. Tighten the noose with her own hands. You know she would. There’s no end to this until it all ends. I need a name, Remy. I need to know who has my sister, and Mariel believes you can find that out. I need my father to see it was you who gave it to me. I’ll guarantee your immunity if this happens. In writing.”

Remy couldn’t decide where he landed on the man’s sincerity. He hadn’t wanted to believe Mariel had actually fallen for her mark, but he found it even harder to believe the man could love her back after learning her secrets. A woman who had married into his family to rob them blind? Nay, his “love” didn’t add up.

Yet he could see nothing but distress in the highborn sitting across from him. Whether his words were true, he seemed to believe them. “You mean your father will grant us immunity, aye? He’s the only one with the authority.”

“Aye. That’s what I mean.”

“And how do you ken you’ll pull it off? He’ll agree?”

“He will when I tell him it’s the only way to get Sessaly back.”

“A man like him cannot even conceive of the value of what he’s stolen. Why should I believe he sees the value of his own blood?”

“Because he loves his daughter. And he’ll get nothing until he signs.” Erran spread his hands over the table. “You’ve already disbanded. Your work is over either way. Tell me your price. If immunity isn’t enough, tell me what will be.”

“I almost feel bad telling you this, but you’re severely overestimating your father.” Remy crossed his arms and leaned back. “This started with his ill-considered public announcement about the auction.”

“Aye.” Erran nodded wearily. “He wanted to get your attention. Instead, he got someone else’s. I need to know who.”

“He did get our attention. We saw right through the trap.” Remy chewed the inside of his lip, thinking. He no more believed in Erran’s lofty hopes than he did the steward’s magnanimity, and he didn’t particularly care what happened to the spoiled debutante daughter of a tyrant, but he loved Mariel and Destin. Whatever else was true in the web of deceptions and offers, as long as Rylahn Rutland believed his daughter-in-law was involved in his downfall, he would never relent in his mission to destroy her. Even if Erran got her to run, they’d never find peace. Never stop looking over their shoulders. The same fate awaited the rest of them too. “Where are Mariel and Des now?”

“Safe.”

Remy scoffed. “How specific. You want me to put trust in you, yet offer none in return.”

“Nay, for if you send those two rabid lapdogs after her, they’ll both be killed. And it would break my wife’s heart. She’s suffered enough.”

“How do you know your sister didn’t perish in the fire?”

“We were given a note.”

“What did they ask for?”

Erran held out his hands. “The return of all lands taken.”

Remy laughed. “Your answer, then, seems simple enough to me.”

“I’ve said the same to my father, but he’s...” Erran pursed his mouth tight. “A man possessed. He’s been humiliated. He believes this requires answer.”

“Then how does giving him a name help anyone but him?”

Erran flopped back in exasperation. “Remy, he will find Sessaly. He’s called his banners. Do you ken what that means?”

“You think me stupid?”

“He will find those responsible, root them out, and make examples of them. Then he’ll continue until he finds you... your sister... those foul creatures who answered your door. Mariel will live because she’s carrying his grandchild, but Destin? He’ll have no use for him.”

“What did you say about Mariel?” Remy sat back.

“She’s with child.” Erran glanced away. “Are you a father?”

Remy shook his head, as much in response to the simple question as to make sense of the far less simple emotion Erran’s words had prompted. He hadn’t even accepted Mariel’s fondness for the princeling, and she was already having his child?

“My mate, Hamish, he told me all the colors of the world change when you become a parent. Nothing has been the same in my head since Mariel told me last night. Nothing. Not a single feckin’ thing. Before, I loved her enough to come here and risk my neck, but now I come to you as a man hoping not only to protect his wife but also his child.” Erran leaned in, stretching across the table. “You and me, we can end this. Tell me your price, Remy, and I’ll see it done.”

The man in Remy wanted to send the princeling soaring through his window and into the road. The tactician in him appreciated the opportunity the offer presented. A way out. A way to save them all. A way to help others beyond anything they could accomplish as vigilantes.

He could track down whoever was responsible for the attack on the Spires. Secrets were rarely so for long, and for the right price, they didn’t exist at all.

“My price...” Remy rubbed his chin. “You already named one. The ransom letter named the other.”

“The land returned. Immunity.” Erran nodded. “Anything else?”

Remy would have laughed at how simple Erran’s words made the whole thing sound if there’d been any humor left in his heart. “Aye, there’s one more.”

Erran nodded for him to continue.

“It’s not enough for him to reverse what he’s done. He needs to see it. With his own eyes. Not send his men, so he can hide behind ignorance. He needs to face what he’s done. I want Rylahn Rutland himself to ride through the remnants of his tyranny, and if he refuses, then you’re on your own.”