He winced and looked away, giving me space to think.
I’d found her surprise about the Solstice attack convincing—it felt true. If I could compare the patch to the one we’d taken from the dead prisoner, it might help me prove her people really weren’t behind the attack. Giving her no warning meant she couldn’t doctor one to ensure they wouldn’t match.
“If that’s what you really want.” She cocked her head at me as though hoping for an explanation. When I remained quiet, she shrugged. “Anything else?”
“You have yourself a deal.”
We sealed it with the words of power and a gloved handshake.
Then she sent the tattooed man away and sat me down. “Only three people know what I’m about to tell you…”
69
Bastian
When Kat returned from her meeting with the princess, she looked as pale as I did when I wore the iron manacles and muttered something about a headache. She dropped into bed and slept the rest of the day, waking only when I had the guards bring willowbark tablets. She took them, ate a few mouthfuls of dinner, and went back to sleep.
I, on the other hand, lay in the dark that night, listening to her steady breaths, barely dozing. There was only one outcome of all this: execution. I’d observed the patrol patterns of the guards outside. I knew when ours were due to change. Not tonight, Kat had barely managed to stagger to the bed—she was in no fit state to flee. Tomorrow night.
If I suggested to the princess that there was more I could tell her, she would keep us alive at least that long.
She’d promised her archers would aim for Kat, but they’d have to find her first. My shadows would hide her, and I would shield her.
I’d probably have to leave my Shadowblade, but I could get another, albeit with difficulty. I couldn’t get another life, and I couldn’t get another Kat.
I wouldn’t lose perspective on how much she mattered again. I would not be that fool.
When the silver-haired guard brought breakfast, Kat barely ate but insisted she was fine. My lovely liar.
I passed her the small tin of tablets. “You don’t need to—”
A pounding knock broke our peace. The guard entered, and as soon as I saw two sets of manacles, my blood turned to ice.
If they were collecting both of us, that had to mean execution.
I swallowed and gave Kat a reassuring smile as I bent my fork’s tines and slid it up one sleeve and my knife up the other. Our bargain was not to hurt Sura’s people, but I could break the manacles all I liked.
Once they were off and my shadows free… well, they and I were two different things, weren’t they?
The cold shock of iron never grew familiar, and it dragged on me as soon as the manacles closed around my wrists. I hunched over and kept one foot going in front of the other while I focused on getting the fork’s tines into the keyhole.
I jostled into Kat like I could barely walk, using the sound to disguise what I was doing.
But iron dragged on my mind and fingers as much as my strength, and by the time we reached the grand double doors we’d visited on that first day, I only had one manacle unlocked. I’d have to do the other one in there and hope Sura didn’t realise.
My pulse grew heavier as we entered. She stood before the long table together with the tattooed man who’d been present at some of our meetings. She’d never introduced him and etiquette meant I couldn’t ask.
Sura’s daughter sat behind the table, hands gripped—maybe she’d never seen an execution before.
Stars above, did she look like her mother, though. And there was something else familiar to her—the golden tone of her hair, a cocky thrust to her chin. It made me think of Dawn, but my mind was too sluggish to pick out an exact person. Sura must’ve had a lover in Dawn—unusual in itself—but to get pregnant by him…
As I eyed her, the guards brought us to a halt and retreated. Clutching my stomach allowed me to hide the fork and the loose manacle, but if she came too close, she’d spot what I was up to.
“I have made a decision about what to do with you two.”
I bowed my head and twisted the fork, searching for the place I needed to catch the mechanism. Thank the gods iron items like this were simply made, since they couldn’t be worked with our usual spells and charms to make their locks intricate and impossible to pick. Even at full strength, I’d have been royally screwed, then.
“I’ve decided to let you go.”
I jolted, almost dropping the fork from my iron-clumsy fingers. “What?”
She smiled slowly. “With two conditions, of course.”
Eyes narrowing, I stamped down my hope. We had no bargaining chips on our side—not when she held our lives in her hands. “Of course.” At my side, Kat was very still.
“You cannot tell the queen that I’m alive, and you allow us to remove your memories of this place.” She indicated the tattooed man, who straightened.
The nausea knotting in my stomach doubled. Not telling Braea, I could understand, but forget all this? Forget me and Kat? The feel of her in my arms, coming on me again and again, and most of all, the fullness—the wholeness I’d experienced making love to her.
I’d fucked a lot of people, a lot of times. But this? This had been something else entirely.
Dimly I became aware of Kat stepping forward. “No. That wasn’t what we agreed.”
I shot her a look. “What you—？”
Her tight jaw and frown silenced me. She’d done some deal. I didn’t know whether to shrink with dread or grow with pride.
She lifted her chin, looking taller. “Just the location. That’s all you can have.”
The tattooed man leant forward and whispered in Sura’s ear, and she nodded. “Very well. I’ll let you keep the rest. Do you both agree?”
Without iron, I might’ve done a better job at hiding my relief, but exhausted by its embrace, I sagged. I didn’t want to forget a single moment with Kat—not from that night and not from any instant before. Even the worst times—they had led us to this point.
I slid the fork back up my sleeve and nodded.
The guards removed our manacles, and the silver-haired one arched an eyebrow at me when she found one side already unlocked. I shrugged and gave her a half smile, the nausea already fading now the iron had been removed.
The tattooed man started on Kat. Thankfully, they let her sit before he set to work, because she slumped over the table as he did.
“Kat?” I started forward, but she raised a hand, face screwing up.
It was a torturous lifetime watching her endure that. I should’ve realised he was like my father when Sura brought him in to one of our meetings. She’d given up after that first time and I hadn’t seen him again until today. You didn’t grow up with a mind-reading parent without learning to shield your thoughts while in hostile territory.
When it was my turn, I understood the look on Kat’s face. The tattooed man’s magic was nothing like Athair’s. A wire brush scoured my mind, erasing the path we’d taken to get here as well as the Lady of the Lake’s description of where to go to find our answers… and my salvation.
I clung to that word as he took away the rest. Sura hadn’t brought me salvation but Kat… maybe she had. Maybe my love for her would be enough when weighed against all my wrongs.