“This kind of reminds me,” he noted, “of the night on the Rise in Masadonia. Except you’re not wearing slippers and a rather indecent nightgown. I don’t know if I should be relieved or disappointed.”
My heart slowed, and my breaths were no longer shallow. My spine straightened, and my chin lifted. “You should be grateful. You won’t be distracted tonight.”
He laughed softly. “Still a little disappointed.”
I smiled as my grip tightened on the bow.
There were no more words then as we watched the soldiers of Solis draw closer, shoving torches into the road and embankments. Their front lines were mortal soldiers, carrying heavy broadswords and wearing plates of leather. Horses pulled three catapults, and beyond them were the archers and mounted soldiers in metal armor, wearing black mantles. Knights. They were maybe two dozen or so of them. Not many, but enough to be a problem.
The knights parted as a windowless, crimson carriage rolled forward between two of the wooden catapults. There was something in them. I squinted. Sacks? It wasn’t gunpowder or other projectiles. Instead of relief, unease blossomed.
Soldiers parted, making way for the carriage that bore the Royal Crest. Several of the knights rode forward, surrounding the conveyance as the wheels stopped, protecting whoever was inside.
It had to be a Royal.
The door opened, and someone stepped out—someone so heavily cloaked that when they moved around the door, I could not tell if it was a man or a woman who walked forward, flanked by knights. Whoever it was, took their sweet old time, stopping once they stood in front of the soldiers. Gloved hands rose, shoving back the hood.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered under my breath.
Duchess Teerman stood before the Rise, her face as pale and pretty as I remembered, but she wore no finery in her brown hair tonight. It was pulled back from her face in a simple twist as she stared up at the Rise.
And it was then when I truly feared what I would discover when I saw Ian with my own eyes. Duchess Teerman had been kind—well, she had never been particularly cruel to me. She’d been as cold and unreachable as most Ascended were, but when I killed Lord Mazeen, she had told me not to waste a moment more thinking of him. I believed that perhaps she too had been a victim of the Duke’s perversities. Maybe she had been, but the fact that she was here could only mean one thing.
She was the enemy.
Would that make Ian one, too?
Her berry-red lips curved into a tight, humorless smile. “Hawke Flynn,” she said, her voice too familiar as I quietly nocked an arrow. “Or is there another name you prefer?”
“It doesn’t matter what name you call me,” he answered, sounding about as bored as Kieran did during, well, everything.
“It would be rude if I called you by a false name,” she replied, clasping her hands together. The soldiers and knights remained silent and still behind her. “I don’t want to be rude.”
“I go by several names. The Dark One. Bastard. Cas. Prince Casteel Da’Neer,” he said, and there was no mistaking the slight widening of her eyes. She hadn’t known that—who he truly was. “Call me whatever you like as long as you know it will be my voice that will be the last sound you hear.”
“Prince Casteel,” she spoke the words as if she’d been presented with an entire chocolate cake…or with an elemental Atlantian. She laughed. “Oh, I’ve heard all about you from our Queen and King. They always wondered where you disappeared to. What happened to you. Now I can tell them that their favorite pet is well and alive.”
Pet? The grip of the bow dug into my palm.
“You know, I might just let you live, Duchess. Just so you can return to your King and Queen to let them know their favorite pet cannot wait to see them again.”
Teerman smiled even broader. “I’ll be sure to do so. That is if you allow me to live.” There was a coyness to her tone that skated across my nerves. Was she flirting with him? “But before you get to the killing, I’m here to prevent death.”
“Is that so?” Casteel asked.
She nodded. “You have to know that there are more than those who stand behind me.” A hand extended with all the elegance of a ballroom dancer. “One of your dogs made it back to you, did he not? The other, well, our horses have been well fed.”
Nausea seized me. She couldn’t be serious. I wanted to vomit.
“You know that we outnumber whatever you have behind those walls. There can’t be many living in ruins,” she said, giving away the knowledge that she knew very little of Spessa’s End. That eased some of the horror churning within me. “Even if it were hundreds of Descenters with a few—albeit one less—overgrown mutts, you will not walk away from this. So, I am here to prevent that.”