Trusted (18 page)

“I’m not certain. There was some kind of disturbance in the city that required the Order to be called up. I’m going to get the report from Hannibol now.”

“All right. I suppose I will see you in the morning,” she said.

He nodded then with one last kiss on her knuckles he walked out of the room. Sarea turned and realized an entire room of people were watching her. Feeling uncomfortable, but knowing she needed to get used to this, she said, “The king thanks you again. Stay in good health until we meet again soon.”

Applause broke out, though not nearly as strong as it had been for the king. But that was to be expected, Sarea thought. Indeed, she hadn’t expected the applause in the first place, so what did she care how strong it was?

The crowd began to leave the ballroom.

Sarea was exhausted as Isobol came up to her and took her hand.

“Come, Sarea,” she said with a tired smile, “Let us to bed.”

“You were quite popular tonight,” Sarea noted, touching her forehead to her friend’s as she took her hand and tucked it within the crook of her elbow.  “I think you danced every dance.”

“It pays to be the best friend of the future queen. Everyone is under the impression that I can sway your opinion on this matter or that and that you in turn could sway the king.”

“You should tell them you have no influence on the king.”

“Oh but where would the fun be in that? It is so nice to have so many extremely highborn people begging for my company.”

Sarea laughed. “Perhaps you will find a husband among them.”

Isobol shuddered a little as they walked down the dark hallway towards the rooms the king had put aside for Sarea’s family, including Isobol. Dakon had separate rooms nearer to the Trusted’s living quarters, in with the other potentials. There were only three now. Dakon, an older man nearly twice Dakon’s age, and a man somewhere in between the two in age. It was not unheard of for the king to have Trusted older than he was, but it was rare. However, it was rare for there to be an opening for Trusted in a period of peace also.

“I think I would sooner wed a hare than any of these grasping, fake people. I never realized how many people like Gersa there were in the world.”

“They cannot be all bad,” Sarea insisted.

“No. Not all. But—look out!”

Before Sarea knew what was happening, she felt Isobol shoving her out of the way as a large figure leaped out of the darkness. There was a brief flashing gleam and Sarea realized she was seeing metal. A dagger. Sarea watched, as if time had ground down to infinitesimal seconds, as Isobol thrust her body between Sarea and the descent of the blade.

“No!” Sarea cried.

Isobol screamed as the blade sank into her flesh three times in rapid succession. How could time move so slowly and yet so fast? Sarea’s mind wondered frantically.

The attacker grabbed Isobol and threw her away from Sarea and suddenly there was nothing between Sarea and that blade. Sarea screamed…or she thought she did. She couldn’t hear over the wild racing of her heart. She could see blood on the blade…Isobol’s blood. She held up her hands in defense as the blade swung down hard. She felt the metal slicing through the meat of her palm, but oddly enough it did not hurt. She felt the attacker grab her by her throat and he stabbed downward again. This time the blade sank into her breast.

The blade came up for a third strike, and as it did a figure came flying out of the darkness and tackled into the attacker. Sarea crumpled to the floor as the two figures wrestled hard in the darkness. Shock settled over her, making her feel cold…except for where the warmth of her blood was spreading over her skin and into the material of her dress.

She must have passed out, because the next thing she was aware of was a pair of arms lifting her from the cold castle floor and holding her close to a warm, solid chest.

Garrick, she thought. It must be Garrick. He had rescued her. But it wasn’t Garrick’s face that swam into view.

It was her brother’s.

Dakon carried her, shouting unintelligible things to others and she was aware of being jostled about. Her dress was unlaced and pulled over her head. Then she felt the softness of a bed at her back.

“Dakon?” she murmured.

“He’s gone to get the king,” her mother’s voice said from a distance. “My poor, innocent lamb. Is she dying?”

Sarea didn’t know whom she was asking, nor did she hear the response. Garrick was coming. She would be able to see him before she died. That was all that mattered.

Garrick was standing over a map of the city, his Trusted all around him, when a sharp pain lanced through his hand.

Startled by it, he shook his hand out and looked at it, trying to figure where the pain was coming from. The pain was immediately followed up by a severe sensation of being stabbed in his chest. He cried out, startling his Trusted.

“Garrick? What is it?” Jesso asked as Garrick staggered back. An unassailable panic washed over Garrick. Fear he could taste. And then…nothing. It was as if it had never happened at all. Perplexed, he looked at the concerned faces of his Trusted one by one.

“That was the oddest thing,” he said, rubbing his chest on the left side where he could still feel a ghost of the painful sensation.

“What was it?” Jesso asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve never felt anything like it. Pain. A sense of fear. As if it was my own but…not my own. I don’t know how else to describe it.”

“That is strange. Perhaps it is just the stress of this situation. No king likes to hear that a small riot has broken out in his city. Riots mean discontented people. You do not like the idea of so many of your people feeling that discontented.”

“It does not make sense to me,” Garrick said with a frown, his attention being drawn back to the matter at hand. “A small crowd of people going about seemingly unprovoked, destroying property and assaulting others…it does not sound right.”

“Such matters never do. And yet…here we are.”

“There is more to this than meets the eyes,” Garrick said. “I guarantee you that much.”

The men discussed it some more, and then discussed methods of righting the damage that had been done. Mostly there had been fires set, a dangerous thing in the middle of a city. But the fires had been controlled very quickly…which spoke of people keeping their heads. How could a crowd be going wild, and yet keeping sense to put out the fires they themselves had started? No. That wasn’t right. Nothing about this was right.

Garrick took action.

“I want all of the men involved in the riot who have been caught brought before me right now. I am going to get to the bottom of—“

“My king!”

The shout was accompanied by Dakon bursting into the council chamber. Garrick frowned at the wild entrance, and at being cut off.

“Dakon! What is the meaning of coming before the king in such a manner?” Jesso snapped.

“Sarea! Sarea has been attacked!”

That was when Garrick registered the blood on Dakon’s costume. Dakon had attended the ball dressed as snow. His costume all white from head to toe. Smeared across the front of it, blossoming in stains of red, was blood.

Sarea’s blood.

Garrick felt his world swing away from beneath him. The pain he had felt! Of course! It must have been the trumate bond! How could he not have known?

But without ever having experienced it before, how could he have known? It had never once occurred to him that Sarea could be in danger.

Garrick ran from the room, his heart thundering, his throat clogging with fear. She had been so afraid! He remembered the feeling of her fear as it had choked him earlier. So afraid and so alone!

Garrick followed Dakon, who led them at a run back to his family’s quarters. The king burst into the room pushing Dakon aside as he hurried up to the bed. His wife was lying naked on the bed, bloody rags pressed over her heart by a medic who leaned against her breast. In all the ways he had imagined seeing her naked for the first time, this had far been from one of them. But he dismissed her state of undress instantly and worried more about all of the blood he was seeing.

“How is she? What are her injuries? Is she dying?” he demanded of the medic.

“I cannot tell how deep this goes,” the medic said, nodding to her breast. “But I would hazard a guess to say her bodice and breast took the most of the damage. Had it penetrated to her lung or heart she would be dead already. The only other wound is to her hand.”

He nodded to her hand, which was thickly wrapped in bandages already.

Garrick approached the bed from the opposite side the medic was on, climbing onto the mattress and coming to cradle her head. Her lashes, still dusted in gold, fluttered up.

“Isobol?” she asked.

Garrick looked questioningly at Dakon, who shook his head. But Garrick didn’t want to upset her, so he said, “I’ll find out what happened for you soon.” It wasn’t a lie. He would find out. “Where is the man who did this?” he demanded of Dakon.

Dakon grimaced. “He got away from me after he cut me,” he said, indicating the slice down his arm that had not been noticed by the king.

“Jesso, I want the castle turned upside down. Find him for me. He should be covered in a fair amount of blood by the look of things,” the king said.

“Right away, my king. Jun, Killium, stand watch over your king at all times,” Jesso said.

“He will not leave our sight.”

“It’s not me we should be protecting,” Garrick said. “I am not the one with holes in my body.”

He bent to press a gentling kiss on her forehead when she began to fret.

“I’ll have to stitch her hand and her breast once the bleeding subsides,” the medic said.

“This is a lot of blood,” Garrick said worriedly.

“The breast has many sensitive vessels. But it is not the blood we see that is a worry. It is what is bleeding on the inside,” the medic said. “If it is weighing on her lung, she may not be able to breathe.”

“Oh sweet Joyous One, may that not be so,” Garrick said fiercely. He reached for her undamaged hand and squeezed it. “Tell me what I can do to help,” he begged the medic.

“I am sorry, my king, but there is nothing we can do but pray it does not happen…and pray the blade was clean.”

“Clean? Why clean?” Garrick asked sharply.

“A rusted blade can lead to infections of the blood. I have seen such things and it is not something you would ever want to see,” the medic said grimly.

“Do all that you can,” Garrick said, trying hard to keep the rage within him controlled. He had felt her injuries, felt her fear. And had not recognized them. What kind of mate was he that he did not even know when his trumate needed him most?

“It will be all right,” he heard her whisper to him. He looked down into the pain-filled blue of her beautiful eyes.

“I should never have left you,” he said softly, his throat growing tight with his emotions.

“You cannot be with me every moment of the day. He would have found a way,” she said. And Garrick knew she was right. But never again. If she survived this he would see one of the Trusted by her side at all times. He looked to Dakon.

“How did you come upon her?”

“I was coming from these rooms after spending time with my younger brother and sister. I was telling them stories about the masque. About all the grand men and women there. And about how beautiful their sister was, shining like a star on your arm.”

“She
was
beautiful,” the king whispered. “
Is
beautiful. And if she should die because I made a target of her, I could never live with myself.”

“You cannot make yourself responsible for the deplorable actions of others. You are giving my sister a tremendous gift. The promise of a life beyond anything she ever dreamed of. Do you know what she said to me just today? ‘I am glad I am going to be queen. Think of all the people I can help.’ And I asked her if it was worth the trouble that came with it, the difficulties and the attitudes. ‘Garrick makes all of that simply ease away’ said she. She values and respects you and all because you value and respect her. She is easily loved, my sister. She makes friends wherever she goes. It has been difficult for her this past misra because she is not used to so many people disliking her. It took some adjustment. An adjustment my sister should not have had to make. But it is what it is and she did it because she cares about you and this city and these people…whether the feeling is returned or not.”

“Your sister is more than worthy of my respect and my love. I wonder though if I am worthy enough for her.”

“You are just by nature of the question. Your self-doubt reflects a man who is not so full of himself that he never questions himself and his own value in the lives of others. It is the kind of man I want my king to be.”

Garrick regarded him a moment. “You sound like Trusted,” he said.

Dakon shook his head, holding out a staying hand. “I sound as a brother…nothing more. Tonight I strive for nothing more than to see my sister live.”

“Then we share common ground. Not a king and a man of the Order…but simply two men praying for the life of one woman.”