Bonesmith (House of the Dead, #1)(94)

Leo smiled. “As far as I understand it, the Breachsiders are a loyal people. Devoted. I’ve met quite a few of them on my, uh, journey. And to none have they been more devoted than to the Knights. How do you think they’ll respond when they learn you ordered their beloved heir murdered in order to advance your own ambitions and take what is rightfully his?”

The man’s face went abruptly, almost comically blank.

“He was your nephew, I believe?” Leo prompted. It had taken some time, but he had placed the name the other kidnappers mentioned. Lord-Smith Francis was the only son of an old ironsmith family that had ascended in the wake of the Breach, thanks to his sister’s marriage. She had borne a daughter to Jonathan Knight, the heir of the House of Iron, before he died and had become stepmother to his son, Julian.

“That won’t look good, will it? Weaseled your way into power through your sister, then robbed the poor boy of his birthright after his father was brutally murdered fighting for your people during the Uprising. No, you won’t come off well, my lord, if you don’t mind my saying so. Not well at all.”

For the first time, he thought he truly had the regent’s attention. The man’s expression was dark, a thundercloud, but Leo had managed to surprise him, too. That was information he was not meant to be privy to.

At this point, Leo figured he had nothing to lose.

“You see, your captain failed to mention that I love to talk. I figured out your assassination plan days ago, and I’ve been telling every barmaid, servant, and stableboy who was within earshot ever since. We did do a rather thorough tour of the coastal towns, didn’t we? They make up, what, ninety percent of the Breachside population? Already that gossip is spreading like the undead across your lands. You may have sought to solidify your rule of this house, but I think you’ve likely lost it instead.”

The regent tilted his head, considering. He stood, taking several lazy steps forward—then cracked Leo across the face with the back of his hand. He wore iron gauntlets, and the blow was enough to knock Leo off his feet. Or it would have been if one of the Red Guard hadn’t caught him.

Staggering upright, his ears ringing, Leo wiped a hand across his split lip, his mouth filled with blood. That was going to leave a scar, the bastard.

“You’re smarter than you look,” the regent said. “I’ll give you that.”

Leo waited, unsure if he should be offended or not. Unsure if his life was in danger or not.

“As the son of a king, you know the influence of words,” the regent continued, moving to stand before the fire, staring into the flames. “Of stories and reputation. But there’s something people respond to beyond all that, something that cannot be faked or misconstrued, and it’s power. Strength. That is how I will solidify my rule, boy, and the House of Iron is only the beginning.” He turned to retake his seat but paused. “As for your rumors… well, that’s all they are, aren’t they? I will deny everything, of course, and mourn my nephew deeply—just as I did his father before him.”





THIRTY-THREE


Wren had long since stopped trying to see through the gap in the wood. Instead, her attention was fixed wholly and completely on Julian. He sat there, still as a statue, his face illuminated by a single stripe of golden firelight from the room beyond.

There was a lot spinning through her mind, including the idea of multiple targets—hadn’t the captain said one of them went down with the other, like Wren had gone down with Julian?—but the regent’s most recent words had caused all the air to leave the cramped closet space.

He made it sound like Julian’s father was killed not with his fellow ironsmiths during the Uprising, at the hand of Locke Graven and the Dominion army, but by assassination. That the regent had done the same thing to him as he had done to Julian. Sending him off to fight in order to mask a murder. Only, in the case of Julian, he had failed.

This regent, Julian’s own uncle—the man who had raised him in the wake of his father’s death—was now trying to usurp him. Trying to take away what little he had left. In fact, the man had already taken from him, if Wren was understanding things correctly.

The conversation continued on the other side of the wall, but Julian had started to shake, his entire body trembling with barely checked rage. She had never seen him like this. Never seen him lose control.

It was his face, though, that Wren couldn’t look away from.

His eyes were wild, his mouth working, his jaw clenched.

She reached out to him, laying a gentle hand on his arm. She meant to calm him, to remind him that they couldn’t be overheard—that he couldn’t explode here and now, unless he wanted to give his uncle the chance to finish what he’d started.

But she was too late.

Her fingers had barely brushed the fabric of his coat when a resounding crack echoed inside the darkened closet. There was a wooden shelf behind Julian, which he had apparently been clutching in an attempt to get himself under control.

And which he had snapped clean off, reducing the shelf into shards of wood and dust in his hand.

Wren gaped at the surprising show of strength, but there was no time for a proper reaction. The voices on the other side of the wall had gone abruptly silent, then—

“What was that?”

“That wall, over there.”

“Next door—”