Shattered (18 page)

Her memory of this garden path was inconsistent with what she saw now.  Gone were the exotic flowers and the small crystalline pond.  Now there were only tangled vines and murky water
s.  The garden bled into the fallen stone of the outer walls and the city beyond, and it was no longer theirs alone.

She
cut through the shadows of that decrepit place to one of the castle’s inner towers without realizing how briskly she was walking, how quickly she wanted to get out of and above that ruined garden.  When she turned she found herself alone atop the castle wall.

She hadn’t meant to flee, and she thought she should go back down and find Denrick, but the thought of looking for him within the garden felt somehow like facing a nightmare.  Surely he sa
w her come up here and it was excuse enough not to move.

A few minutes passed before the guard tower door opened outward again and he emerged.  He came beside her and Robin could hear the strain in his breath, and for a long time he didn’t say anything.  He looked out at the city beyond the wall.

“How much does Nathan Dorthorial know?”

Robin shut her eyes for the duration of one long breath. 
“I told him that you’re planning to usurp the kingdom, but not how.  That the corruption in Surnat goes high, and that his own brother was involved in his abduction.”

“Gods sparrow, you really do want to see me ruined.”

“No m’lord.”

Denrick waved his hand to dismiss her words, like they were lies and hung foul between them.  “I received a raven from the castle and the contents confuse me.  I need you to tell me what it means.”

He dug the small rolled parchment out of his chest pocket and handed it to her.  Robin rolled it out and scanned it quickly.

“He doesn’t remember what happened? None of it?”

“That’s what it says.  Doesn’t seem too likely to me, but I’ve seen what you can do.  No mention of madness though, so why would he pretend to forget?  He could gather up the King’s army and march down here and we’d be in chains before the month was out.”

“I don’t know…  Maybe he is mad, maybe that information couldn’t be sent by raven.”

“Did he seem particularly mad to you, when you let him walk out of there?”

“No m’lord.”

“Well then, he has some other reason for not coming after us.  I think that reason is you.”

Robin felt the hairs on her arms stand on end.  “Why did you take me in?  All those years ago, why did you
save me?”

“Because you were
more wretched than I.  You were brought to me when I was at my lowest,” he said.  He brought his hand up to the side of her head, ran his fingers down the length of her hair, followed it across her shoulder and down her arm.  Robin held still and the effort made her rigid.  He removed his hand from her arm with a sigh.

“I was your age when the war broke out.  I was young and stupid and ambitious.  I fancied myself a little lord in the making.  Someone important. 
Did you know I used to mingle with the nobles of Surnat?” Denrick asked.

Robin shook her head and he looked back out at the city.  “I was
completely oblivious to their disdain for me.  For all of us really.  And when they tightened their hold on our land until we starved I urged my father to give them more.  I was blinded by their glamour, their decadence, so much so that I didn’t even see that it was built upon slavery and the broken backs of their people.  When my father rebelled I sided with the north.  They made me a figurehead they could point to and say, ‘See, we’ve put one of your own in charge here, we’re not looking to conquer you,’ but they already had and by then I knew it too.”

“And then you were dragged in.  Just some dirty, crippled peasant kid, but I could see the hate in your eyes.  You’d lost as much as I had but you fought, and I knew then that I could too.  I’d have my revenge as well.”

Robin turned from him and stared out over the artificial horizon made by the tops of so many buildings.  Her home was gone, lost to war and time both.  And for all these years she’d been stuck in the past with it.

“I think that’s why I let him go,” she answered quietly.  “Except instead of hate I saw something kinder.  Forgiveness maybe, acceptance, I don’t know.  But he didn’t blame me for the things I did to him.  And I wondered then if maybe I could
move beyond all that anger too.”

“You’re as blinded by them as I was,” Denrick said and shook his head.  “What do you see when you look out at the city?”

Robin looked again at the spider’s web of streets carved through the mismatch of buildings.  Crumbled roves covered by blankets stretched out, a colorful patchwork over the otherwise grey landscape.  The city expanded out all around them and in all directions it was the same.

“Buildings, streets.  I don’t know m’lord.  What am I suppose to see?”

“I see too many people.  Every day more come in from the outlaying countryside, looking for food, bloating the slums of the city.  I’m responsible for them, but what can I do? Surnat raised their tariffs again this year, to fund another war, and I’ve had to raise taxes to match.  You see, a lord keeps some, the people keep less, and the crown swells on our poverty.  I know you’re not so young that you’ve forgotten.  There was a time we could call all this our own.”

“I haven’t forgotten… But there must be another way.  Maybe Trent Dorthorial can be reasoned with.  Maybe Nathan can talk to him.”

“My plans for you haven’t changed.  I can’t withdraw my decree without raising suspicion, without losing face, but at least I no longer have to lose sleep over it.  I did, you know.  I hated the thought of what Jeremy was going to do to you, but now I think you deserve him.  He’ll make a fine husband.”

Denrick grabbed her beneath the chin and pulled her face close.

“And my wedding gift to you, dear sparrow: No one will know of your part in Nathan’s escape except us.  Jeremy will not.  I want you to know that no matter how he hurts you it isn’t because of that.  It’s because he’s as twisted and disgusting as you are.”

Robin held still within his hand
and met the hate in his eyes.

Denrick let her go and turned from her
.  “Return to Surnat.  It’s time you did your part.”

***

“What happened to your hand, brother?  Did she bite you?”  Jeremy laughed.  He cut into the chunk of meat on his plate like it still needed to be killed, stabbed it one more time with his fork and waved his bite size trophy up between them.  “Send her back, I’ll have her flogged.”

Nathan tucked his hand beneath the table and lifted his fork with the other.  “How much did you pay for her?”

“Not so much that I’m worried about ruining my investment.”  He looked like he might say more, but Trent set his cup down louder than necessary.  The woody thud echoed through the empty dining hall.

“I’m glad you’re finally joining us for dinner Nathan.”  Both brothers fell silent, for Trent was not only the eldest, but their King as well.

It wasn
’t a question and didn’t need a response, though out of courtesy one might have been proper.  But Nathan couldn’t look at either brother without wondering which one wanted him dead.  He dropped his attention back to the meal in front of him, to the swirled mound of food at the center of his plate, for he’d done more prodding than eating.  He had no idea what possessed him to partake in this, until he thought about Adara still in his room and realized that this was the preferable alternative.  He didn’t want to face what he’d just done to her.

Trent took the silence as an invitation to continue on.  “Your holdings at the Twin Rivers and Perena both sent paltry contributions this month.  I wonder if they think you’re still missing and the slight might go unnoticed.”

“To whom would those lands have gone if I hadn’t returned?”  Nathan asked, shoving his mashed mound a little higher.

“To the crown, of course.”

“To you, you mean.”

“Yes, to me.”  Trent set down his silverware and looked across the table at Nathan.  “Did I do something to upset you brother?  You seem on edge.”

There was no answer he could give, so he gave none at all.  Instead he turned back to Jeremy.  “I want to buy her from you.  How much did you pay?”

Jeremy looked up, first to Nathan, then to Trent, as though seeking the latter’s permission to further interrupt the conversation Nathan had so abruptly ended.  Trent
went back to eating and said nothing, like he could forget his brother’s rudeness in the remainder of his dinner.

“You can have her,” Jeremy said, a little less animated than before.  Dinner was setting up to be a somber affair.  “Consider it a welcome home present, albeit a poor one, but since you won’t let me take you out to celebrate properly it’ll have to do.”

Nathan caught himself in time to stop the accusation he wanted to level at Jeremy.  The last time they had gone out together was the same night he’d been abducted.  He didn’t know if Jeremy was involved in that, or if Trent had been, or either of them at all.  It was no secret which places the two princes like to frequent.  It could have been anyone.

He clenched his fist beneath the table and felt the bandage constrict tighter around his knuckles.  Robin had been too vague in her warning.  He shouldn’t have left when he had.  She could have told him what he was supposed to do.  She could have told him a lot of things.  He shouldn’t have left
…

“I’m not as hungry as I thought,” Nathan said.  His chair scrapped along the floor and he stood abruptly.  “Excuse me brothers.”

**

Adara wasn’t in the main room of Nathan’s residence when he returned.  Nor was she in the adjacent bedroom or his adjoining study.  Not that he was checking, he told himself, he had business here.  But as he looked around the room he couldn’t remember what it was.

He sat down at his desk with a sigh and dragged his sleeve through
a thin layer of dust.  It’d been accumulating since he dismissed his servants.  The wood was shiny beneath but he found no more energy than to pivot his arm at his elbow, leaving a cleaned arch in his wake.  The ledger at the near corner stopped the full semicircle he had aimed to clear and became his purpose for coming in here.  It seemed more legitimate than cleaning.

The entries dated back eight years, to his father’s death and
Nathan’s acquisition of the territories now paying him a contribution price.  Each row recorded their payment, in a hand not his own, for he had never kept his own records.  That had always been someone else’s job.

He found Perena and ran his finger down the column.  Three pages on and the number remained consistent.  Only when he reached the last two years did it begin to climb.  Climb, and climb, until it was nearly threefold what it’d been before.

A loud knock jolted him from the records.  He closed the book and rose, and the prospect of Adara’s return lightened his step more than he’d like to admit.

She was already there in the main room, standing still and staring at the door, but before he could give it any thought at all another set of knocks echoed
again, louder than the first.

Nathan could see her indecision in her stillness and it amused him.  He imagined she was torn between answering it and overstepping her position, on the one hand, to leaving it and somehow
overcoming her curiosity on the other.  He took the decision from her and considered it a mercy.

Trent stood on the other side and the moment the door came open he pushed past Nathan and let himself in.

“Your Highness,” Adara said, a soft gasp and little more than a breath.  She dropped down to one knee and stayed there.

Nathan could tell by Trent’s sudden pause that he hadn’t expected to see anyone other than his brother here, but as soon as his eyes settled on Adara his purpose for coming shifted. 
He crossed the room and his shadow grew ever larger over the small space she took up on the floor.  He lifted her chin up and turned her face to the side, then the other, and back straight again.

“So this is the girl you disrespected me at dinner for
Nathan? I expected more.”

Adara snorted and glanced off to the side, at Nathan, only to snap back forward when she realized what she was doing.  Her eyes grew wide and alarm spread over her face, and she delayed too long to play it off as anything other than what it was.  She
had just rolled her eyes at a king.

Nathan came beside her so quickly he managed to halt whatever apology or insult she thought to add to it.  Her mouth sat half open, the words momentarily stalled on her lips.

“Come here,” he said, grabbing her by the upper arm and hauling her up before she could dig herself further.  She grimaced and Nathan knew his fingers pressed a little too hard into the soft spots on her arm, but he had to force silent whatever else she might say.  And in that moment he realized Robin had done the same for him.

“Go light the night candles,” Nathan said, giving her a little shove out from between them.  “There are extra in the closet in my bedroom.  Replace any t
hat won’t burn through till morning.”

Adara mumbled some incoherent affirmative as she slinked away and out of the room.  Nathan and Trent both watched her go, until she disappeared through the doorway and they were forced to face one another again.