As soon as we’re inside, there’s an obvious turmoil in the energy of the castle. Servants are whispering in groups, quickly skittering away when they see us coming.
When we get outside, the garden is lit up more than usual, extra torches stuck into the ground, and dozens of guards are filling the area.
“Where is she?” Osrik snarls at the first guard he comes to.
“Over here, Os!” His head snaps to Warken’s voice, and the three of us make our way past the rows of bushes and shrubs, following the stomped over flowers and grass until we get to the center of the garden where the fountain churns.
Warken, Isalee, and Barley are here, and even Keg is with them, standing beside the fountain, their faces grim. We have to pass by a gathered group as they stand over the body of a fellow guard.
I kneel down at his side. One of the castle menders is hovering over him, inspecting the slash across the young man’s throat. The mender checking the wound has blood on his hands, and there’s more of it stained against the grass. I hear Ryatt curse beneath his breath.
“Where’s—” Osrik’s question cuts off when some of the people shift, and his eyes latch onto a figure on the ground just behind the fountain.
All I can see are the edges of a white skirt and one bare foot, a shoe kicked off lying uselessly a foot away.
Os rushes over to her, falling to his knees on the ground. “Fuck!”
After rounding the fountain, I can see Hojat leaning over Rissa’s body. There’s a stain of blood seeped through her chest, a silver dagger still embedded there.
I’ve seen Osrik lose his shit many times.
I’ve seen him snarl and yell, punish and kill. I’ve seen him slaughter without remorse, insult without batting an eye, make threats with indifference.
But I have never seen him like this.
It’s like his eyes are trying to adjust seeing the blade sticking out of her, like he can’t quite correlate the blood soaked through her dress.
His eyes snap to her colorless face and closed eyes, and he reaches out to grab her shoulders. “Rissa.” His voice is strained. Chapped. As if her name was torn from his throat and whipped raw in the wind.
Unmoving, he shakes her gently. “Rissa!”
“Sir Osrik,” Hojat gently chides, reaching out to tug away his hand. I see Osrik’s hands tighten for a split second before he lets Hojat pull him away.
“No. Fucking no!” Os snarls right in her face, denial and fury battling it out. “You will wake up, you stubborn woman. You can’t be fucking dead. Hear me, Yellow Bell? You can’t be fucking dead because we have mistakes to make.”
He chokes off, and I stand in shock as he suddenly folds his huge body over her slight frame, tipping his forehead down to hers, squeezing shut agonized eyes.
Ryatt and I are both frozen at his display, while Isalee’s eyes glitter with moisture, and a thread of a tear stitches its way down Barley’s cheek.
How am I going to tell Auren?
“Sir Osrik?” Hojat says gently. “Lady Rissa is not dead.”
Shock plummets through me, and Osrik’s head whips up so fast he almost headbutts our mender. Disbelief crosses his expression as he looks back down to her.
“The dagger just missed her heart, and because it was left inside her, she didn’t bleed out,” Hojat explains. “But I will need to get her into the castle’s infirmary to perform surgery immediately. I’m just waiting on a carrying board.” Just then, a couple of mender’s aids with their red bands around their biceps come rushing through the garden, carrying the board.
“I’ll carry her,” Osrik grunts out as he gets to his feet.
Hojat winces. “I’m not sure if—”
“I said, I’ll carry her.”
“Os...” I step forward, but Hojat waves me away.
“It’s alright, Your Majesty,” he says before looking back at Osrik. “Carry her very carefully. Slow movements, support her neck, and try not to jostle her chest. She’s alive, but just barely. I’m not sure if she’ll make it once I remove the dagger. You need to prepare yourself, just in case.”
Giving a stiff nod and grinding his teeth so hard he nearly cracks his jaw, Osrik leans down and collects her in his arms. It’s the gentlest thing I’ve ever seen him do. As if he’s picking up the thinnest pane of glass, and one wrong move will make it shatter.
With Hojat leading the way, he carries Rissa out of the garden and into the castle, disappearing from view.
“What the fuck happened?” I ask as soon as he’s gone. There’s a blood spot and the impression of Rissa’s body still left on the grass. My eye catches on a glint of something else further in the distance, but a worker walks over it before setting a bucket down beside the blood and starts to wash it away. When I squint in the dark, whatever I’d seen before is gone.
Warken watches as the menders lift the dead guard’s body and carry it inside before he answers. “The patrol that came through the garden alerted me. When we came out, we found the guard and the woman. I sent for you immediately.”
“The working theory is that the guard followed her out here. Perhaps he was jealous or possessive of her, and so he killed her before slitting his own throat,” Isalee says.
“It wouldn’t be the first time something like this happened to a woman. Especially a beautiful one,” Barley says.
“Yeah, but here?” Keg says with a shake of his head. I know he’s been spending time with his family since he returned with the rest of the soldiers, and I bet he didn’t expect to see violence like this outside of the army.
“Do you know the guard personally?” I ask my Premiers.
Isalee shakes her head. “Just the basics. We’ll look through his file, but as you know, no one is allowed to serve who’s had a history of violent attacks or aggressive behavior.”
“The lady hasn’t been here that long,” Ryatt points out. “How could the guard get infatuated with her so quickly?”
“It happens,” Keg says. “My brother and I have had to beat off more than a few men who couldn’t take no for an answer from Barley.”
A nearby guard pushes his way forward. “Holman wouldn’t have done that!” he says, face blotchy with emotion. He’s young, probably only twenty or so, and the way he sniffs and rubs his nose on his sleeve tells me that he knew the guard personally.
“How did you know Holman?” Isalee asks.
“He was my best friend,” he says with another sniff. “I’m tellin’ you, I know how this looks, but it wasn’t him. He wouldn’t have done that. He fancied a few of the women here, sure, but he never said anything about the lady. He would’ve told me.”
I nod, and my eyes drift behind him to where Marcoul, my head guard, comes walking over and tugs the man away.
“What do you think?” I ask Isalee and Warken with a lowered voice. “Do you want help looking into it?”
“No, we’ll handle it,” Isalee replies.
With a nod, I say, “I need to go tell Auren. I left her sleeping earlier. She’ll want to be in the mender’s wing while Hojat works on Rissa.”
Ryatt comes with me back inside the castle, my brow furrowed as we head upstairs. “You don’t think the guard did it, do you?” he asks quietly so that none of the staff hears.
“No, I don’t.”
I’m not sure why, but I have a bad feeling in my gut.
“I don’t either. Something just isn’t sitting right.” We’re quiet until we reach Ryatt’s floor. “I’m going to dip in my room so I can change out of Fake Rip,” he says as we split off. “I’ll meet you down in the mender’s wing.”
With a nod, I turn and go up another flight of stairs, and then cut down the hall to my rooms where I let myself in. Yet when I make it into the bedroom, I find the bed empty. With a churning feeling of unease, I scoop up her cut ribbon from the bedside table and put it in my pocket. In the closet, I see the rumpled remains of the ruby dress she was wearing earlier. I see my black and brown clothes now shiny gold.
And I know.
Right then. That churning feeling in my gut pushes at me, nauseates me. The glint of my clothes makes me immediately think of that glint I thought I saw on the grass outside in the gardens. A thought I dismissed too quickly.