“There’s a plan. They have a plan. It’ll work. It will.”
Maybe repeating the names would help calm my nerves? Again, I listed off all the long names and titles of my fake family. Clinging to anything I could concentrate on, allowing the wilderness and the strange men surrounding me to fade into the distance.
At least, in my mind. That’s all the refuge I will ever have.
Wrapped in my fingers, I clung to the faded ribbon and simple green polished stone that had been my mother’s, once upon a time. The coolness of its surface anchored me in a way no other thing ever had. The last connection between us…
I focused on that one stone, the only true thing I owned.
The prince led them all into the jaws of a monster.
Chapter Five
Bounced
Bowing low, the Stormsman apologized profusely.
“The Lady Theresa De Mayo de Silvia de Regena is not known here,” he said, beads of sweat dotting his powdered forehead. His voice trembled as excuses rushed out. “We were not expecting either the Viscount or his lady for another three days. I’m afraid...”
Quite coolly, the weary noblewoman interrupted him.
I pitched my voice to be light and filled with whispers of feathers and delicate strands of pearls and silk. “I cannot go on,” I complained in the most exact manner, “There is too much danger in the Stormage See. You have brigands in the forests and pirates waiting just offshore. Stealing from the rich, kidnapping my husband—it’s all a clever plot. I won’t stand for it. We both know that once the knaves get him to a rowboat, I will have lost him forever.”
“You, sir,” I dropped the airy bit of lace that was my kerchief on the ground as the back of my hand rested on my forehead. “I am overcome. There is no help for the Viscount but your kindness. And you alone must answer before the Stormlords for your actions here today. I demand that you rescue my husband, or face the consequences.”
Byt the time I finished speaking, the servant’s eyeballs had grown so wide, they might as well have been salad plates.
The entire situation with the tired, recently-robbed Viscountess and her missing husband had clearly escalated far beyond the man’s authority. Tugging at the edge of his buttoned collar, the servant looked about uncomfortably. He choked, exactly like his life hung by a thread, which indeed it probably was.
“I remind you of the peril involved. He is the heir. There is no time,” I followed up. “We must save him now or lose him forever. What say your masters, sirrah?”
Hawk nose bowed over and over as the servant practically hopped backward, gesturing the Lady to follow his lead. Admittance for an emergency? Yes, that would be enough cause for her to shelter at Stormhaven. “I will call the Stormwarden and set out a search party at once.”
His keen eyes watched every detail of the strange lady’s appearance.
Once he reached the second wall, he leaned over to the nearest stormguard and asked like a petulant child, “Is this right? She says her husband, the Viscount of GildingMountains has been kidnapped just outside our See. Have you ever heard of her or this Viscount?” He whispered so badly that I didn’t have to imagine what the bobbing man said. I overheard every word.
Two of the storm guards looked at me, evaluating my story and design and fabric of my clothes. Each bit confirmed the other. Was she a lady?
Clearly, I was.
“And if her husband kidnapped by robbers? Hell, he well might be. And here is the key, son,” the guard spoke to the uncertain servant like there was something childish about the man’s hesitation, “She is here. Right now. Demanding entrance to the Stormlords. If she is a fake, that little fact will come out when she passes the portals of the main hall. No lie can do that. Not our problem. On the other hand… not helping a member of the nobles of the Gilded Seat?” Answering his own question, the stormguard shook his head at the sheer idiocy, “There will be war. Those bastards will always defend their own, in death and rights.” The storms man servant looked around nervously as the guard advised, “Protect your own skin. No tears will be shed for the likes of us.”
“I’ll do that,” the nervous man replied, looking at the rumpled lady who had appeared out of nowhere, demanding assistance.
My presence had to be a trap. I knew what he thought. I saw his suspicions. Remembering everything that Marcus had drilled into my head, I drawled, “I will need some haertstung tea, one cube, and a plate of sweet Xhan rolls at once. Oh, and a room fitting my stature.”
An eye for an eye, the motto of Gilding was certain, even if they were suspicious that the woman was not.
“Let her through. Solve what you can. The stormlords will not be easily fooled. And frankly, there is too much to lose if we—erm I mean—you are wrong.”
Shifting the blame to the expendable peasant, of course the servant set in place protections before he risked. I had seen just that kind of evasion over the last five years at the inn. I was no stranger to the kind of madness that demanded people manipulate idiots to bring down noble houses. Sow the seeds of lies and distrust. Start a bitter feud that can kill even the most powerful and wealthy of houses.
Surrounded by strangers, I could do nothing to stop the hands of time and the guiles of men from ripping my life to pieces. It had happened first when my father killed my mother. It had happened again when the house I had known as a child became nothing more than a series of unadorned walls, filled with cold-hearted distrust and a blind hatred of an innocent baby.
Home became an empty building when my stepmother had pushed aside Corinne and refused to listen to the tiniest amount of kindness.
There is only so much time under the sun to regret. The past has robbed us both. I had spent too many days wondering what my life would be like if Mother hadn’t died.
Escorted inside the thick, towering, imposing walls, I realized exactly how alone I really was. I could never escape this place without help. Would Marcus come? How would the Prince get the mission completed if I don’t lower the drawbridge? And how the hell am I going to do that when every eye is on me? My thoughts spun wildly. I showed no sign of my fear though. Calmly, I walked behind the household servant and into the maw of the forbidding fortress.
Watching the shadows, I gathered my courage in a cloak around my shoulders. Just like Momma always did. Courage in front of wolves.
I held my head high as I followed the coward of a servant.
He shoved great wooden doors wide and allow the stranger lady inside the defenses of the Stormrage See. I shivered.
A lot more than my mother died that night—my faith in others had shattered as well.
Heavy wooden doors closed behind our passage. Final. It all felt so dangerous. Anxiously, I watched the servant, the storm guards, the empty road that led to the drawbridge. I saw the lay of the land.
Doors locked behind me. Doors unlocked ahead of my steps. And that was when I realized the truth…
There was no escape.
The prince had never planned on completing this mission. This was not in fact what the prince was about, not at all. How would armed men reach me?
They wouldn’t.
I had risked my life and freedom to impersonate a noblewoman. And not only was I on my own—there was never going to be back up. Just the distraction of an unannounced guest at the gates. Enough of a break from the dull repetition of the guards, enough to lull them away from something else: the axe of Stormjen, hidden in the castle.
I am expendable. No one but a seven year old child would even miss me. Trapped.
On my own…
The thought of the deception moving around me all this time, the idea that Marcus had taught me all these details for nothing… only to send me into the pit of vipers and cut the only rope by which I could escape. I felt sick.