Rebel's Cage (Book 4) (63 page)

Lady Valena Cerianne. The woman who had, for many years, been Nash’s closest companion, his … whore. Until she’d gone to share Selar’s bed, and helped Nash control him with the secrets of her body.

But he could see none of that history in her eyes now. Instead, he saw her as DeMassey had drawn her: gentle, kind, loving – and in danger.

‘Can I help you, sir?’

A voice like sweet wine made him shudder with his purpose. ‘I’m sorry, my lady,’ he swallowed. ‘I’m … I’m Godfrey.’

It took a second for his words to register. Then her eyes widened. ‘By the blood, no! Luc, no!’ Another second flashed by as those eyes filled with tears, as a hand came up to her mouth, as the shock of sudden and terrible loss filtered through her. Then she looked up at Godfrey again, forcing her attention, blinking hard, nodded, moving back. ‘Come in. We don’t have much time. I …’

She stumbled slightly as she led him inside, but he didn’t dare reach out to steady her. He had no idea what to expect. DeMassey had said they’d agreed this, between the two of them, both acknowledging there was no other answer … But how could two people make that kind of decision? How could they, in the cold light of day …

‘This way.’

Lady Valena took him past a staircase and into a short corridor. On the left was a door and she paused at this, steadying herself, pushing grief back to a place where it wouldn’t interfere with her purpose.

Godfrey’s hand was on her arm before he knew it, squeezing
gently. She looked up at him, eyes red, face damp from where she’d brushed hopeless tears away. ‘He loved you.’

‘I know,’ she whispered, nodding desperately. ‘As I loved him.’ Her hand moved to grasp his. ‘Please forgive us and what we ask of you. Luc was right, I can’t do this myself. Not after … not now he’s … gone. But please, Father, I beg you … do it quickly?’ She paused again, swallowed hard and whispered, ‘Do it now.’

Compassion flowed out of Godfrey, through his heart and his hands. He couldn’t deny this love, the love DeMassey had had not only for this woman, but his people as well.

But his hands shook. His heart shook. His soul trembled as he turned to the door. Lady Valena opened it for him, preceded him in as though to soften the blow of his first sight.

The room was furnished simply, a cupboard by one wall, a window on another, a fine bright rug on the floor by the bed. A small bed, built out of honey cedar by hands skilled and artful.

On the bed lay the child. A girl, DeMassey had said. Thea. Eight years old.

‘She won’t wake for a while yet,’ Valena murmured, looking tenderly down on her daughter. ‘She’s been getting worse over the last few months. She doesn’t sleep at night and so must nap during the day. I give her a draught in the mornings sometimes, when she’s had a bad night. She’ll …’ Valena caught herself, nodded. ‘I’ll hold her.’

Carefully, the mother slipped an arm behind the child, lifting her shoulders. Valena then settled on the bed behind Thea, drawing the girl into her arms, letting her head rest back against the shoulder. She pressed a kiss to a pale temple.

Godfrey could hardly breathe. His heart pounded frantically in his chest, threatening to kill him. His hands were steady, though – they had to be.

He looked once more at Valena. ‘If you would say no, then do so now.’

‘No!’ Valena shook her head, more tears spilling down her cheeks, unheeded now. ‘No, Father, please don’t ask that of me. I can only do this because I made a vow to Luc. He has died to protect me, so that you could do this. I care not what
happens to me after this – but you must not falter.
You
must not doubt. Or would you rather Nash be allowed to get his hands on her? Would you rather he used his own daughter’s blood to regenerate? He
needs
this prophecy to unfold! Thea would be enough for him, don’t you see? Would you bring eternal destruction down on your own people?’

Godfrey came closer, kneeling down beside the bed in a gesture much like prayer. His voice emerged thick but steady. ‘I will not falter. I gave my word to Luc. But I must know, for my own conscience – are you certain she is Nash’s child?’

Valena blinked back more tears. ‘You can see it in her face, in her eyes. I’d hoped she’d be Luc’s. I thought she was … until she was born. Until I saw what she could do and how … the power burns through her like a disease. She does things she doesn’t even understand, hurts people without thinking about it, and when she does think about it, she does it anyway, so she can see what happens. I can barely control her now, and only with the help of these draughts. Luc was always better at dealing with her. He wanted to get her out of Lusara, but moving her is so difficult. And now that Luc is … Luc is …’ Valena frowned and looked up, her hands smoothing the dark hair back from Thea’s forehead, raw courage shining in her eyes. ‘Please, Father. Don’t wait.’

With tears of his own now filling his eyes, Godfrey reached inside his cloak and drew out the dagger he had brought for this purpose. The blade, long and sharp, glinted in the daylight coming through the window.

He would rather have done almost anything than this – but he would not falter now, would not fail them.

But his hands still shook as he raised the blade, as he pressed the tip against the child’s breast, over her heart. And his voice shook as he fumbled for a prayer for the girl’s soul, cursed without her say, and for the child’s mother, who needed her dead, and for himself, a priest who had agreed to commit murder.

His muscles tensed, gathering the force required. He held his breath, pausing between moments. With a cry of his own, he thrust down, the blade biting into flesh, slicing, bleeding,
grinding against bone, cutting through resistance as the child rose up against such violence, but sank back again as the hilt stopped against her chest. And a silent wail from the child’s mother as she pulled the girl to her, rocking, letting the blood flow over her, letting it soak into the sheets and blankets rather than have it feed Nash and give him the eternal life he’d always wanted.

And then all sound stopped when the door behind them crashed open.

Andrew felt no relief as they finally reached the foothills of the Goleth, and began to climb into the frosty mountain morning, where it didn’t so much rain as fill the air with a permanent damp mist that soaked into everything and made even the horses cold.

They didn’t go via a route he knew; instead, Robert led them up to a steep pass and then onto something of a plateau. He said it was a much harder journey, but it would cut hours off their trip from this direction.

So Andrew had followed along, staying as close to his mother as he was allowed to get – which sometimes became quite difficult. She made an effort to ride on her own, but lasted little more than two hours before the pain became too much. They would stop then and she would sit in front of Finnlay. He would hold her so she could relax back against him, then Robert would work his powers and again dim the pain that etched lines around her mouth and eyes.

But there were no kind words between his mother and Robert. Instead, they had settled into a kind of punctuated silence, where comments were exchanged for travel purposes only, and yet still seemed to have some other meaning behind them. Of course, nobody had ever told him his mother and his hero were enemies, had they? It made his head ache.

And Finnlay’s too, by the look in his eyes.

Andrew longed for the gate to appear on the trail before
them, for the safety of the Enclave, where nothing could get in and nobody could ever find them. Where he could find a space of his own and do some thinking.

Outside of that odd silence, all else appeared as normal as he could expect, considering his aunt and uncle had just been murdered, along with the gods knew how many others. Considering Nash was now after him for reasons he still didn’t really understand. Considering he was now almost as much a prisoner of the Enclave as any other Salti.

It was almost dark by the time Robert paused on the trail and turned to look at Finnlay, who still held the sleeping Jenn. Andrew rode beside him, his eyes darting from the gate up ahead, to Finnlay, and then to Robert.

‘So,’ Finnlay began playing with his reins before looking up, ‘are you coming in this time? Or are you going to ride off as usual?’

To Andrew’s surprise, Robert smiled. ‘After all these leagues, you can still ask me that?’

Finnlay didn’t smile back. ‘Yes, I can.’

Robert peered up at the mountain above, or what he could see of it. ‘Then let’s go in before I change my mind.’

Finnlay rolled his eyes, but he was smiling when he turned back to the path and took them through the gate.

There was a huge fuss on the other side. Enclave scouts had been on the lookout, boys came to take the horses, Councillors and Healers came to help Jenn, installing her on a stretcher they insisted on using. Andrew followed along behind her, finally relieved that they were safe now, but more unsettled than he’d been the entire trip.

Everyone moved inside, a mess of voices all talking at once, men taller than him and children smaller, and everybody was trying to get around him, or get to Jenn – but almost everybody wanted to get close to Robert and followed him, calling questions out to him, the air of excitement completely unmistakable and totally out of place.

But when Lady Margaret came around the corner, cried out for Robert, tears of joy in her eyes, and when Robert left everyone else and swept her up in a hug that didn’t end,
Andrew couldn’t stand watching any more. He ducked into the nearest corridor and ran until he was hopelessly and thankfully lost.

*

Robert tried not to hear the voices around him, the darkness, the shadows, the memories and the guilt. He just wanted to hold on for a few minutes, that was all, but it wouldn’t work. He couldn’t keep track of the feeling long enough to identify it – and he needed to, or he would lose ground.

His mother was crying. Her tears were damp against his cheek, her soft skin cool to the touch. And her tears touched him deeply, her relief, her gratitude, her hope, all emerging in those gentle sounds made close to him, within the protection of his embrace.

Panic reared up in him and he let her go as quickly as he dared. It was simply too dangerous to hold on for too long, too dangerous to even be here.

He watched his brother hug and kiss his daughters, all three of them, embrace his wife, and saw the smile in Fiona’s eyes at her husband’s return. Helen gave him a heartfelt hug, full of so much pride it made his gut ache.

Though he was included in the warmth and the welcome, though he received kisses and hugs from all his nieces, and Fiona, he still couldn’t entirely suppress a sharp pang of pure demon-loving envy, that Finnlay had all this, all that Robert had ever wanted. And that envy drove him away more quickly than anything else.

He found his room after asking a few directions. Everything inside the Enclave seemed to have changed around. Now Finnlay and Fiona had larger caves, with enough space for their daughters and for Margaret. His mother had moved her things in with the girls, giving him her room. He escaped into it with a sigh of relief, closing the door softly against the turmoil.

He needed rest. He needed to know he could close his eyes and nothing would happen. He needed to know that those around him were not depending on him Sensing any danger approaching.

He needed to know how to sleep.

He pulled off his cloak, draped it over a chair and slowly undid the laces of his thick winter jacket. He pulled out the Calyx and laid it under his pillow. Only then did he gingerly take the jacket off, favouring his wounded side, trying not to hiss at the pain.

In the morning, he would ask Arlie to stop by. A real Enclave Healer would surely be able to help where other doctors had failed.

In the morning. After he’d slept.

He sat carefully on the bed, leaning back a little so he could rest his head against the wall. He closed his eyes.

He’d failed. He’d completely underestimated both Nash and the Malachi. People had died. Andrew had almost been taken and Jenn had …

His eyes snapped open and he gasped in breaths that made his side hurt.

Andrew was right; it was all his fault. The worst part about it was, he’d do the same again.

*

‘How does that feel now?’

‘Much better. Thank you.’ Jenn closed her eyes and breathed in the familiar smells of her rooms inside the Enclave. She could hear Martha pick up the bowls of washing water and the travel-stained clothes. She did her best not to urge Martha to leave everything.

Leave her in peace. Leave her alone.

Martha returned to sit on the bed beside her. Jenn opened her eyes. Her wounds had been freshly dressed before Martha had helped bathe her. Now, wearing clean clothes, her injuries healing, and close enough to the Key to feel its support, she could no longer ignore the reality that even now walked the corridors of the Enclave, leaving more questions in his wake than answers, as always.

‘I take it you want me to call a council meeting for the morning?’

‘Please. There is news I need to tell them and then, perhaps, Robert will want to … I don’t know. You could ask him. I really don’t have any idea what his plans are, so …’

‘So I should ask him?’ Martha asked. She leaned forward and took Jenn’s hand. ‘I’m very sorry about Bella and Lawrence.’

‘Thank you,’ Jenn squeezed the hand, not wanting to talk about this right now. Nor did she know what she did want to talk about. Or perhaps it was that she was trying to talk to the wrong person.

Martha let the quiet grow, leaving the peace before them, light on the air.

‘I don’t understand,’ Jenn whispered, feeling the words drawn out of her by the silence. ‘I don’t see how he can just … formulate these plans, order people’s lives, without a thought to what they want, what they’re afraid of, what they’re capable of. And nobody …
nobody
denies him. Nobody ever says no. They need his … confidence, his certainty. They want the kind of leadership that brooks no discussion, so they crowd around him every time he comes here, their eyes shining, laughing with him, anxious and eager for whatever challenge he has for them. That’s what they want in a leader. Exactly the talents I
don’t
have.’ Jenn stared at nothing for a few seconds more, then blinked and looked up at Martha. ‘I wish I knew what was going to happen. I wish I knew what to do. I wish I could trust him the way you do.’