He was defenseless.
But he was not afraid. No, I could tell by the look on his face that he was pissed. That armor had been given to him by the King, commissioned when he’d been promoted to Knight Commander. It had been an honor and a physical representation of his oath to the King of Verania.
Yeah. Ryan Foxheart was angry, all right.
Which in turn made me angrier.
I was going to kick so much ass.
But first.
“It’s him, isn’t it?”
Ruv lowered his hands, panting a little at the exertion of his magic. It told me everything I needed to know. “Him?”
“You know who I mean.”
He wiped the sweat from his brow. “I want to hear you say it, Sam.”
“Tell me.”
“Why?”
“You’re a gypsy. The magic you’re using is strong, but it’s wild. Unpracticed. Like it was taught to you in a short amount of time. You shouldn’t be able to do what you’re doing.”
He nodded slowly. “That’s fair. My mentor hasn’t had… the time to give me what I needed. I was nothing. Did you know that? I was nothing, but he recognized my potential. He saw in me what I was capable of. What I could mean. To him.” His lips twitched. “To you. He knew you, Sam, even before you knew about him. He wasn’t corporeal, but the cracks in the seal were large enough for him to seep through, for the shadows to cross, and I heard him whispering to me. At first I thought I was going crazy, that I was losing my mind. But I wasn’t. He was real. And he wanted me. He showed me how, Sam. He showed me how to make them all think I was something I wasn’t, that I’d always been the Bari Lavuta to the phuro of Mashallaha.”
He sighed. “It was so easy. Vadoma’s mind is… well. She wants to believe, and all it took was the simplest of suggestions and she folded, Sam. She just collapsed until I was in all her memories, until I was in all their memories as the second to the phuro. He taught me that. And I am indebted to him.”
“And he used you,” I said through gritted teeth. “To try and get to me. As my cornerstone.”
“Twice he has underestimated you, Sam,” he said. “That much is clear. It won’t happen again, but mistakes were made, yes. The second time was when he came for you in Mashallaha. I tried to tell him, tried to make him understand that you were more than he thought, but… in the end, he realized his mistake. But do you know the first time he underestimated you, Sam?”
“Fuck you.”
“It was your devotion to the knight.” He glanced over to where Ryan was trapped against the wall, still struggling against the wood around his hands and feet. “He thought you could be swayed from him. That no mere grunt could ever take the heart of Sam of Wilds. He thought you would respond to someone of your own kind, someone who understood what it meant to have magic, to be a gypsy. But your love for this—this nothing proved to be rather remarkable. You were not seduced by me. He wasn’t happy. After you left. Partly because of his own failings, but because I too had failed him.”
“Your mentor?” I spat at him. “Are you out of your fucking mind? Wait, don’t answer that. I already know you are.”
Ruv chuckled. “That mouth of yours is going to get you in trouble one of these days, Sam. You have to know that by now.”
“Excuse me? Excuse me!”
“What?” Ruv said, whirling on Lady Tina.
“Yes,” she said, looking rather defiant, Caleb next to her, his dark eyes on me. “Hello. Thank you for finally acknowledging that I am still in the room. Which, if you must know, I will not stand for such rudeness. I am a noblewoman, and I demand to be treated as such.”
“Of course, my lady,” Ruv said, bowing low. He was mocking her, but I didn’t think she knew. “How may I be of service to you?”
“This is all really quite fascinating, I’m sure, what with your plots for revenge and whatever else you’re blathering on about. But in case you hadn’t noticed, I am a white woman stuck in a house with—with half-breeds, and I would like to return to where I belong. I don’t even like spending time in this house for meetings of the We-Hate-Sam-A-Lots, much less standing here listening to you air whatever your issues are with Sam. I get it. Trust me when I say I do. But don’t you think it’d be easier on all of us if you removed whatever enchantment is on Ryan Foxheart as you promised? I would like to return him to the castle to witness the reunion with his beloved that I have already plotted out in my head to make the most delicious of real-person fan fictions that I’ve ever created. I already have it titled. Would you like to hear it?”
He stared at her.
She brought her hands up, wiggling her fingers. “It’s called Rystin: Homecoming; A Story of Love and Triumphant Return of Two Lovers Who Love Each Other Like They’ve Loved No Other Lover Before. My thighs are absolutely tingling at the thought of it.”
“Right,” Ruv said, voice flat. “There is the matter of Ryan Foxheart.”
It was like ice down my spine.
“Yes,” Lady Tina said with a nod. “And if you will just release him from the enchantment… and the wall, we’ll leave you to it with whatever you have planned with Sam of Wilds.”
“Do your worst,” Ryan snarled at him as Ruv took a step toward him.
I groaned. “Don’t tell him to do that, you idiot. Now he’ll do it.”
“It’s okay, Ryan,” Lady Tina said, hands clutched between her breasts. “Soon you will be free from all of this. I promise you.”
“You will be,” Ruv agreed. “Free, that is. From all of this. Do you remember, Knight Commander? In Mashallaha. How many times you threatened to stab me. It’s ironic, really.”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “How is that ironic? I didn’t actually do it. Although now I wish I had.”
“No,” I whispered. “No, no, don’t—”
“That’s not the irony, Ryan Foxheart. The irony here is that I’m going to be the one to stab you.”
I screamed at him.
But it didn’t matter.
Ryan looked confused as Ruv moved quicker than I’d ever seen him move. One moment he was standing near Tina, a small smile on his face. And the next he was scooping up Ryan’s discarded sword by the hilt and charging my knight.
Ryan Foxheart didn’t cry out as the sword pierced his skin just below his rib cage. He exhaled explosively, but the only other sound was the harsh thunk as the sword ran him through completely and hit the wall behind him. His eyes bulged as he looked down slowly at Ruv, who stood in front of him, hand still holding the sword, crimson starting to bleed along the cold steel.
“What?” Ryan whispered. “What?”
And still I screamed.
My hands were bleeding, and I thought two of the fingers on my right hand were broken with how hard I was hitting the barrier that surrounded me, trying to do something, anything, to get to Ryan, to tear Ruv to pieces and to make it all okay again.
But it was the price of magic.
I could bring the lightning out from my heart.
I could hold a bird in my hand and give it life once again.