A spark of fear flared in Emel’s somber eyes. “I should go,” he said softly.
“It’s for the best,” Kaldar murmured. “I’ll give Cerise your message.”
Emel bowed to his grandmother and took off toward the door amid the cackling audience.
Grandmother Az put her tiny fists on her hips. “And don’t you walk away from me, Emel Mar! I am not finished with you! Emel!”
The necromancer grabbed his robe, broke into a run, and escaped through the door. Grandmother Az waved her arm around and poked William in the shoulder. “Can you believe that child? Well, doesn’t that just sink my boat! And he was such a sweet baby, too.”
LAGAR pulled the boat to the shore, threw the reins on a cypress knee, and stepped on the wet grass. A lake of ferns rustled before him.
“Peva?”
No answer came. He took a step into the ferns and saw a trail of broken stems leading away from a pine. A small bag of tracker’s mix lay on the roots, the nuts and raisins scattered on the ground. Above it, a circular black mark, the kind a flare arrow made, glared at him from the pine’s trunk.
Peva had no flare bolts. The hair on the back of Lagar’s neck stood on its end.
He unsheathed his sword in a single fluid motion and searched the ground.
Twin puncture marks, two wounds in the dirt, marked the spot by the pine root. Someone had shot at his brother and lived to retrieve the missiles. Unless Peva took them for his own.
Lagar jogged to the edge of the fern field. Several stems lay broken on the ground. His gaze snagged on a bolt protruding from a cypress trunk. A green glyph marked the shaft. One of Peva’s. Too low for a target. Besides when Peva aimed, he always hit. He’d shot to distract someone’s attention from himself. Lagar crouched, pointing the tip of his sword in the direction of the bolt, and turned the other way.
A large cypress blocked his view twenty feet away. He ran to the cypress, circled the bloated stem . . .
Peva lay on his back on the ground. The blue tint of the bloodless skin, the rigid features, the brown stain of blood on the chest, it all rushed at Lagar at the same time and punched him deep into the gut, where the nerves met. He dropped to his knees.
Rain came, drizzling the swamp with cold water. It plastered Peva’s hair to his head, filling the dead eyes with false tears. A phantom hand squeezed Lagar’s throat until it hurt.
Lagar pulled his brother close and held him.
FOURTEEN
CERISE rode quietly, letting the horse pick the pace. The swamp rolled by on both sides of the road: pale husks of the dead trees rising from the bog water that was black like liquid tar.
They won the first round. Peva was dead. The court had ruled in favor of the family. They had the right to retrieve Grandfather’s house. Now they just had to do it.
She should’ve been happy. Instead, she felt empty and worn-out to the core, as if her body had become a threadbare rag hanging off her bones. She was so weary. She wanted off her horse. She wanted to curl up somewhere dark and quiet. And most of all, she wanted her mother.
Cerise sighed. It was a ridiculous urge. She was twenty-four years old. Not a child by any means. If things had gone differently, she would’ve been married and had children of her own by now. But no matter how she tried to rationalize herself away from it, she wanted her mother with the desperation of a child left alone in the dark. The need was so basic and strong, she almost cried.
She couldn’t remember the last time she had cried. It had to be years.
The logical part of her knew that winning the hearing was only the first step on a long road. For the past ten days she’d had a clear purpose: find Uncle Hugh, get the documents, and return in time for the hearing. She lived and breathed it, and now it was done. She had accomplished her goal, and inside, in the same place she wanted her mother, she felt deeply cheated because her parents failed to magically appear.
Hoofbeats came from behind her. Cerise turned in her saddle.
Two riders came down the path at a brisk canter. William and Kaldar. William carried Peva’s crossbow. Some women waited for a knight in shining armor. She, apparently, had ended up with a knight in black jeans and leather, who wanted to chase her down and have his evil way with her.
When she was a teenager, she used to imagine meeting a stranger. He would be from the Weird or the Broken, not from the Mire. He would be lethal and tough, so tough, he wouldn’t be afraid of her. He would be funny. And he would be handsome. She’d gotten so good at imagining this mysterious man, she could almost picture his face.
William would kick his ass.
Maybe that was why she couldn’t get him out of her head, Cerise reflected. Wishful thinking, hoping for things that would never be.
The two men reached her and halted their horses.
“See?” Kaldar grimaced. “She’s in one piece.”
William ignored him. “You rode out alone. Don’t make a habit of it.”
He was worried about her safety. Charming Lord Bill. And phrased it so delicately, too. Why, he was the very picture of gallantry. “Worried about your bait?”
“You’re no good to anyone dead.”
Kaldar had a peculiar look on his face.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing. I think I’ll ride ahead a bit.” He rode on.
Cerise sighed. “Did you get under his skin?”
William shrugged. “He makes bad jokes. I told him they weren’t funny. Riding out alone was sloppy. If you keep making small mistakes, they will become habits and then you’ll die.”
Just what she needed. “Thank you for the lecture, Lord Bill. How I survived without your help to the ripe age of twenty-four, I will never know.”
“You’re welcome.”
When sarcasm flies over a blueblood’s head, does it make a sound? No, I guess not.