Page 43
Story: A Tongue so Sweet and Deadly (Compelling Fates Saga #1)
Chapter
Forty-Two
“ W here did you disappear yesterday?” Lessia took the hand Merrick offered to get up from the training floor.
She’d done better today.
Perhaps gobbling down several plates of food after returning from the library had given her more strength.
Or she was learning something.
Merrick released his grip as soon as she was upright and turned his back to her. “I had some business to attend to.”
With a scoff, she followed him up the stairs, grateful for the two lanterns he carried, as evening was already falling and not a sliver of the moon shone through the thick cloud bank surrounding the castle.
Merrick had been nowhere to be found when she woke, and as a snowstorm had raged since last evening, Lessia had spent the day holed up in her room. Mostly to avoid Loche and the other nominees, but also because she’d woken to dreams that hadn’t plagued her sleep in many years.
Not nightmares .
No, she would have preferred to dream of King Rioner’s dungeons instead of her family, her sister, and the warm home she’d grown up in. The devastation of waking up had nearly paralyzed her with guilt, so spending a day in bed trying to lock it down had been a relief.
When Merrick barged in, she’d been sitting with the balcony doors open, listening to the roaring storm and relishing the biting cold that kept her mind from wandering.
Lessia was grateful he hadn’t questioned what she was doing. The Fae had only waved for her to follow him.
Trailing her eyes over his thick winter leathers, she wondered what other missions the king had him undertake in Ellow. She sighed as she nearly lost sight of him around a spiraling bend of the staircase and made her tired legs take two stairs at a time.
Perhaps she needed to figure out not only Loche’s and the rest of the nominees’ intentions.
But also Merrick’s.
Lessia tapped his shoulder, or as close as she could come from the step below him. “Would you like to join me for dinner?”
Stiffening, he made to turn around but appeared to catch himself at the last minute and instead took the final step into the castle’s entrance hall. “I have more business in town I need to see to.”
“Is it for our friend?” she dared ask.
“It relates to him, yes.” Merrick started toward the door but tensed again, halting his steps. “Stay in your room tonight. The storm is bad.”
Frowning, she watched him stalk out of the castle while throwing on a thick dark cloak that had been hung to dry right inside the double doors.
When the door slammed shut behind him, she glanced toward the dining room, where Craven’s voice carried across the rest.
With a scowl, Lessia started walking over, trying to convince herself she could stand being around him for the few minutes it would take her to fill up on food.
But when a server passed with a tray of something that smelled delicious, she stopped him, asking if he would bring her food into the library.
Offering her a shy smile, he promised to bring something from everything they served tonight, especially the desserts. When he winked at her, her face heated, and Lessia quickly thanked him and made her way to the library.
The server didn’t disappoint.
Lessia had to move the books she’d spread out across the table to the chairs surrounding it when he put down more dishes than she could eat in two days.
Intoxicating smells filled the rounded tower, and she paused her reading—on how the islands in Ellow had rebuilt the crop fields that had been destroyed in the war—to eat as much as she could of the vegetable soup and bread, finishing with pieces of both chocolate and vanilla cake.
As she picked up the book again, her stomach nearly bursting, the words on the pages blurred. Not even finding out how they had managed to transport cattle across different islands to help fertilize the crops could keep her focused.
Yawning, Lessia put all the books back into their places and gathered the food, carefully placing the plates on the trays to bring them down.
“The servers will take care of that.”
She whipped her head up to find Zaddock leaning with crossed arms against the railing of the staircase.
Blowing out a breath of relief to calm her racing heart, she offered him a weak smile. “I don’t mind. The poor man carried it all the way up here; the least I could do is bring it down again.”
Shaking his head, Zaddock said quietly, “I can see why he’s intrigued by you.”
“Who?”
A loaded silence followed, and Lessia rolled her eyes. “He’s intrigued because I am not the cold, heartless Fae he expected?”
“No. Because you’re up here reading about crops.”
Her eyes widened. “How long have you—”
The smirk Zaddock offered her made her squash a snarl.
That smug grin must be a prerequisite to join Loche’s terrifying group of men.
That and showing up without her noticing.
“Why are you here?” She bit her cheek not to growl at him.
A scowl replaced Zaddock’s smirk. “To walk you to your room, since your guard was seen leaving the castle hours ago and it appears he hasn’t returned yet.”
Brows pulling, she picked up the trays. “Thank you, but I don’t need you to walk me to my room. I am sure you have more important things to do.”
His shoulders tensed. “Lessia, put those down. I’ve already asked a new server to pick them up, and Loche pays them handsomely for their work. It’s not like the old days. They earn more here than in your taverns.”
As if conjured, a server popped up behind him, wearing the customary stark white uniform and a wide smile on his face as he took the trays from her and whispered, “He is right, miss. Although I’ve heard good things about your taverns, as well.”
They watched the server carry the trays down the stairs, and when his soft steps were silenced, her eyes shifted to Zaddock again. “As I said, I am perfectly capable of getting to my room by myself.”
He glared at her. “It was an order, Lessia. Now, if you don’t want to get me in trouble, please come with me.”
Grinding her teeth, she followed his rushed gait down the stairs.
Zaddock’s speed prevented her from admiring the beautiful carvings on the railings; she had to hurry more than she liked with a full stomach to keep up with him.
Was Loche using Zaddock to keep an eye on her?
Or was this a new tactic to get her to spill all her secrets?
Her lips lifted into a smile.
Two could play that game.
“So, Zaddock. How long have you known Loche?” Lessia tilted her head when Zaddock’s eyes moved to hers.
“Since we both enlisted.” A smile softened Zaddock’s sapphire eyes. “I was never a great soldier, but Loche refused to leave me behind when he rose in the ranks.”
“So, more than a decade, then? You must be very close.”
Zaddock’s smile widened. “We are. I owe him everything.”
Nodding, Lessia made sure her smile remained. “So, what’s your role? I mean, I know you collect taxes and ensure we proprietors follow the law. But you don’t wear a mask like the rest of the men.”
A frown formed between Zaddock’s brows, but he still responded. “Everyone knows me already.”
“What do you—”
A clang of metal interrupted her, and her eyes flew wide when Zaddock unsheathed the sword at his side, his eyes snapping ahead.
Following his gaze, she froze.
Three men approached them, each of the three bearing Stellia’s symbol on his chest and holding a sword in his hands, his eyes fixed on her and Zaddock.
They hadn’t yet reached the lower levels of the castle, where the sleeping quarters lay and where guards were stationed every few feet, and Lessia realized the thick stone walls would not carry either screams or the sounds of fighting.
Apprehension whispered over her skin, and as she grasped for the daggers she should have tucked into her waistband, she swore quietly.
She’d left them in her room when she joined Merrick in the training chamber.
Taking a step back, she hissed, “Do you have another one of those?”
Zaddock’s eyes sliced to hers, his face grim. “No. Get behind me.”
When a man lashed out, she followed his advice, her heart hammering against her ribs as Zaddock parried his blows.
She took another stumbling step backward when a man rounded them, his eyes locked on hers.
Shooting a glance at Zaddock, she realized he was too close for her to use her magic, so she backed up farther until cold stone pressed against her back.
The man slowly approached her, his sword glinting in the firelight from the lanterns lining the white stone walls around them.
Holding her breath, she waited for him to come into range so she could sweetly ask him to leave.
But a few steps away, he hesitated, his eyes sweeping across her features and snagging on her ears.
The man took a step back.
Chest heaving and forehead creasing, Lessia watched him turn toward Zaddock instead, sneaking up on his unguarded back as he fought the other two men.
Her heart skipped a beat.
“Watch your back!” she screamed.
Zaddock had a second to spin around, but he caught the man who’d backed away from her by surprise, and with one blow to the chest, the man crumpled to the ground, the sound of his body hitting the hard stone echoing around them.
Zaddock didn’t waste any time.
As quickly as he’d turned around, he was back fighting the other two, but they were skilled at wielding their swords, and soon they’d driven him into a corner.
Clenching and unclenching her fists, Lessia watched a strike hit true, and blood from Zaddock’s arm began to pool on the floor beneath him.
When one of the men grinned and lifted his sword again, she didn’t think; she just sprinted toward him and threw herself into him.
Lessia went down with the soldier, her head slamming into the ground with a crack, sending excruciating waves of pain through her body.
Shaking it to drive away the dizziness that fought to take over, she forced her eyes to fix on the man’s and urgently pulled on her magic.
“You don’t want to hurt me. Give me your sword, but make it look like I won it,” she whispered when the familiar warmth of her magic sparked in her veins.
The man’s eyes glazed over, and with a scuffle that almost had her vomit from the pain that shot through her head, his sword was in her right hand.
Making her way to her feet and pushing her magic back down, she pointed it to his heart.
Lessia didn’t dare turn around as the scuffling behind them went quiet, and she nearly flew into the air when a hand landed on her shoulder.
“Thank you, Lessia.”
Zaddock’s voice was low, and there was a hint of surprise in it. “You saved my life.”
Arm shaking from holding on so tightly to the hilt, she turned to him. “Surprised yet again that I am not as coldhearted as you believed?”
Zaddock offered her a sheepish grin. “I guess I deserved that one.”
As she returned his smile, steps thudded in the stairway ahead, and they stiffened again, but it was the two guards who were usually stationed outside her room that came into view.
A gurgling sound had her shift her gaze back to the man at the same time as Zaddock yelled, “No!”
White foam formed around the attacker’s mouth, his face paling so fast Lessia thought her eyes might be fooling her.
With a final wheezing rise of his chest, his eyes closed.
The sword in her hand clattered to the ground as she backed away, guilt and anger swirling inside her: she hadn’t thought to ask him what Stellia was after.
Swearing loudly, Zaddock followed her, his arm wrapping around her back as he barked at the guards to take care of the bodies, then quickly guided her to her room.
Inside, she sank down on the chair she’d been sitting in all day and once again opened the doors to the chill night. Her head still pounded, stars flickering before her eyes, but her mind wouldn’t let her rest.
These men hadn’t just come after nominees today.
And why had the man let her be when he realized she was part-Fae?
Table of Contents
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- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43 (Reading here)
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