Shattered (22 page)

Now he really did laugh, and he didn’t care that she didn’t find it funny. 
“That’s not really a secret Adara.  I don’t really think they care much for me either.”

“You don’t
trust
your brothers.”

Nathan felt his eyes narrow a little, but her expression remained perfectly unwavering.  It was dangerous to speak of his King like that.  It could be construed as treason.  And he thought for a moment longer before answering.  “No, I don’t.”

“Because of what happened to you,” she added.

Nathan paused again.  It must be plainly apparent to most of the castle that his relationship with his brothers had soured some since his return, it wasn’t so much of a leap, and he coul
d give her that too.  He nodded.  He felt himself captivated by the determination in her face.

“You suspect one of them was involved.”

“I
know
one of them was involved,” Nathan corrected, and shut his mouth too late to halt the words.

“How can you
know that?” Adara asked, and her chin came off her hands just a little.

Nathan shook
his head.  “I shouldn't have told you that.  Come on, enough of this,” he said, but he didn't move to stand, and she didn't back away from his desk.

Adara
chewed on her lip and her eyes darted back and forth like she could read the answer in his face.  She wasn't going to leave this alone.  “Someone told you.”

“Yes.”

“The woman that tortured you, she told you.”

Nathan straig
htened up a little at that.  She was suddenly hitting too close to territory he didn’t want to discuss.  “I don’t like where you’re taking this,” he warned.

“Y
ou want to protect her,” Adara said.  Then her eyes grew wide.  It wasn’t part of their game anymore.  She simply spoke the revelation aloud.  “That’s why you’ve told everyone you’ve forgotten what happened to you, because you know who she is.”

“Enough Adara,
” Nathan snapped, and she straightened up in alarm.

Nathan sighed and ran h
is hand through his hair.  He didn’t mean to raise his voice at her.  In fact, he hadn’t meant to do a lot of things, lately.  He was out of balance.  He was tired of apologizing to her.  And his guilt dug a little deeper, for there was no one else to punish him for it but himself.

“Yes,” he said, exasperated.  At himself, but he realized as he said it that it
must sound like he was irritated with her again.  He softened his tone and it fell hushed, to little more than a whisper.  “To all of it, yes.  If I could forget, I would.  She left me with some vague warning and no closure.  I can’t move on.  I’m stuck here, loving her and wishing I never left.”

The last part surprised him
.  He’d never given freedom to those thoughts before, not long enough for them to truly form.  He’d always managed to kill them first, but now he couldn’t unsay it, he couldn’t pretend any longer that it wasn’t true.

“Protect my sisters,” he went on,
and he was agitated again.  At Robin and at himself.  “She didn’t even tell me what I’m protecting them from.”  He lifted a sealed letter from atop his desk and waved it about between them.  “It’s the best I can do to send them away.  Off to..."

“Don’t
,” Adara said quickly. Her higher voice cut through his and silenced him.  “Don’t tell me.  The fewer people that know the better. Please Nathan.”

He looked at
the plea in her eyes.  In his rant he’d forgotten she was here all together.  Nathan shook his head and came around to the side of the desk where she stood rigid.  Bless her, if she could disappear from here she would, he could see it in her stillness.

Nathan
pushed her bangs away from her forehead.  “Alright,” he said, and chuckled.  “I suppose it’s not fair of me to ask you to be the keeper of all of my secrets.”

“It’s not that
.  It’s just…” Her voice trailed off, her lower lip trembled, and she bit down on it to still it before looking up again.  “You can’t tell anyone.  It’s not safe.”

Her concern was endearing and it
soothed him a little.  He hugged her and pulled her in until she was his center again.

And then he realized she
was crying.  He felt the tiny tremors in her shoulders and her tears on his shirt and he didn’t understand it.  Only that he was jealous of that too.  But she didn’t say a word, and he wasn’t able.

He closed his eyes and buried his face in her hair,
but even then, surrounded by her smell, his mind wandered back to Robin.  He wished she was here, he felt lost.  He had since he returned.

***

Nathan awoke to a hand on his shoulder, shaking him, but it
still felt too early. 

“Go back to sleep Adara,” he mumbled
, and thought nothing more of it.

This had become a
routine in the last few days; she would wake him at some unearthly hour and he would bargain for an extra hour or two of sleep.  And she’d let him, but he was at her mercy the rest of the day and that usually meant leaving the castle.

But
Nathan was getting used to her.  And she’d been finding her way into his bed so consistently he simply started her here last night.  It seemed silly to tell her to sleep on the couch when they both knew he’d come out and get her at some point in the night.  His nightmares seemed consistent too, and so were his star-lit walks about the castle.

Adara wa
s a pleasant distraction.

She shook him again.

“Nathan, you have to wake up,” she said.  Her voice was burdened with anxiety, with urgency.

Nathan groaned and opened his eyes.  It was barely morning.  He had to stop staying out so late.  “What
is it?”

“
Trent’s dead.  They found him out in the courtyard this morning.  He fell from atop the wall.”

Nathan
sat up and stared at her, and for a moment he was still.  Cold rolled over him and left him numb.  Her words pushed him to action without energy or direction.  He only knew he had to stand, to move, or he might not be able to later.

He was half way to dressed when Adara’s hand went around his arm and it all sunk in
at once.  Dead.  He stopped and turned towards her, but he didn’t see her, he saw only a field of blue in her eyes and he felt small, as though he stood beneath the sky.

“Nathan,” she whispered, and he blinked a few times
, until he could focus on all of her face.  “You didn’t…”  She swallowed and took a deep breath.  “The guards saw you wandering the halls again last night.  There is talk, already, that…”

He scooped up her face in his hands and pressed his forehead to her
s.  She felt so warm against him.  “I didn’t.  I need you to believe me in this.”

She nodded without breaking eye contact.  “I believe you.”

He kissed her forehead before retreating from her.  He grabbed his shirt and had it on as he crossed his living room, and out into the hall he couldn’t help but notice the eyes of servants on him as he passed.

It didn’t escape him that this all seemed to convenient, that Trent’s death should cast such a shadow of suspicion over him.  His night walks had been occurring for days now, near a week
, likely most of the castle knew about it.

He wondered if it was a coincidence
that this happened today, when Clara and Elizabeth were to parade through the city in their official homecoming.  They arrived late last night and camped just beyond the city walls so that today might be a sort of holiday.  But Nathan had sent out his letters three days ago and he knew one made it into Clara’s hands.  He only hoped that neither of them were actually with the procession, but on the road to Perena instead.

Nathan pushed open the door to the King’s meeting room, where Trent hosted them at dinner, where he knew Jeremy would be.  And it wasn’t just Jeremy there now, seated in Trent’s spot, but his generals as well.  Trent’s too.  He’d walked in on his brother consolidating power.

“Good morning Nathan.  Did you just wake up?” Jeremy asked, and Nathan could feel the stares of two dozen eyes on him now.  Jeremy was smirking, though no one else was turned towards him but Nathan.  Every other face betrayed suspicion, except his brother’s.

In that moment he knew.
  Jeremy was the one he couldn’t trust.  The one that sold him to Robin.  The one he had to protect his sisters from.  Jeremy had murdered Trent.

Nathan
’s eyes again swept the room.  Jeremy’s men stared at him with suspicion only, but it was Trent’s men that looked on with rage.  He felt their accusations wrap around his chest and squeeze at his lungs.  He was in over his head, he shouldn’t have come here.  He felt like he was drowning.

“Nathan,” Jeremy said, and it broke the hold fear had, for a moment.  “I won’t give credence to the rumors I’ve been hearing until I have proof, but not everyone has my control.  For your sake I think it best if you return to your quarters.  I’ll have my men
guard you and, if you do need to go somewhere, they’ll accompany you.”

Nathan knew he was being made a prisoner,
that it was only his position that prevented Jeremy from arresting him outright.  He felt anger sweep through him and to everyone else his expression must be an admission of guilt.  He knew he scowled, that his fists were clenched at his side and it was only the long length of the table that prevented him from pummeling his brother.

“Your concern is touching,
brother
,” Nathan growled.  Guards took hold of both his arms and turned him from the room, led him back to his quarters.  And all the castle, the slaves, commoners, nobles, they all saw him go.

***

The funeral was held two days later.  The main hall was draped in black and Trent’s body laid out upon a stone slab at the base of the throne.  Huge bouquets of white chrysanthemums sat near the entrance, ready to be laid at his feet, one at a time, by townsfolk that came to pay their respects.

And for the first half of the morning they did
just that, but it trickled off steadily after the first hour, and Nathan was bored by lunch.  The show Jeremy was putting into grief was so pathetically fake Nathan didn’t know who he hoped to fool.  The whole proceeding was a travesty and somehow he was the only one that saw it.

His sisters were
partitioned from onlookers by a sheer black screen, backlit by candles, as though their own grief should be a spectacle for the public as well, and Nathan knew then they were imposters.

Clara wouldn’t be content with that. 
She wouldn’t be satisfied with rumors either, no matter what Jeremy may have told her, she would have come to Nathan herself.  And she’d believe him innocent too, as Adara had.  No, Clara wasn’t here.  The silhouettes behind the screen were as much a farce as the rest of this.  They were missing and Jeremy couldn’t let it be known.

Nathan knew he should act out his part too, that he should appear wrought
by grief, as his brother and his fake sisters did, but he was too numb inside.  Jeremy had killed him too.

And he realized then
that he was playing a part, only it was the one Jeremy had prescribed him.  The role of a kin slayer, a murderer of the worst kind.  His apparent indifference was damning him and he couldn’t muster up the strength to care.

It was a mercy then when Jeremy’s men escorted him back to his quarters.  They
took up their place at the far end of his hall and continued their vigil over his imprisonment from there, and Nathan walked those last twenty five feet to his door alone.

**

“
Hello Nathan,” Robin said.  Adara sat in front of her, a hand towel shoved in her mouth, a long strand of rope looped around her chest.  More rope coiled about her arms, tethered them to the armrest of the chair. The excess hung off and pooled on the ground.

Na
than froze in the doorway. 

Adara tugged her arms and shook her head.  Tears streaked her face and left dark spots on her gown.
  She didn’t look afraid though, in her eyes Nathan saw grief and it was honest.  It was what he felt and couldn’t show, what everyone else faked, and it made this, here and now, real.

Nathan felt a scowl cross over his face
and, for the first time in days, he felt something other than numb.  “What have you done? I swear if you’ve hurt her, I’ll…”

“You’ll what,
prince
?” Robin interrupted.  Her gloved arm was draped over Adara’s shoulder, the point of her knife pressed just beneath the girl’s collarbone.  Grey eyes bore into him.

Nathan
clenched his fists and buried them against his sides.  He couldn’t move.  This wasn’t how he imagined meeting her again would go, and maybe Robin realized it too.  She let out a sigh.

“I haven’t even done anything to her yet. 
I asked her a few questions, that’s it, and she just started
crying
. Usually people get defiant when they’re caught, but she just started wailing.”