Page 116 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

GARIN

G arin ran west as fast as his feet would carry him in the dying light.

He paid no mind to staying hidden—not so much as a single tree shrouded his path.

The summer evening air ghosted his palate as he panted through his strides.

With each sharp breath, he tried to catch the scents of the butcher or fromagerie, any aroma pointing him toward Paimpont.

The bloodied rapier he’d snatched from one of the bodies and the baldric it hung from jostled at his back.

It was nothing like the mildly irritating rattle that came with riding horseback; on foot, each step bounced the blade high enough to deliver bruising smacks against his shoulder.

It was an awkward, cumbersome affair, especially with the unconscious armored man he carried on the other.

He’d fled the castle grounds after hastily shoving Agnes’s corpse head-first into one of the rain-filled troughs at the rear of the bailey.

No one seemed to patrol the northern gate; it was surrounded too closely by Brocéliande.

They’d find the baroness, eventually. Hopefully before she began to decompose.

It hadn’t taken much to subdue or entrance her, just a few compliments on her skin-tight bodice and the way her deep auburn curls framed her face in his crooning tone, and she was out like a light.

Garin had intended to go into it with pleasant conversation about the weather, but her being unconscious worked well, too.

He’d also intended on letting Agnes live, but without the distraction of small talk, thoughts quickly arose of the most hateful way the woman spoke to Lilac.

And so, he just kept drinking. There was a certain thrill that came with doing it in public, tucked away just out of sight while basking in sunlight. He’d even tilted his head back and imagined being at the shore.

He’d then rinsed out the tankard he’d repeatedly bled her into and placed it into her hand. An unfortunate case of too much cider—and, ironically, too little water—in the blazing sun would do that to anyone.

At the front of the bailey, he’d asked one of the passing guards to bring Giles some food; they hadn’t had one of their late night sit downs in a couple weeks, but one effect of the prolonged entrancement, Garin had noticed, was that the old priest often forgot to feed himself.

This morning, though, Giles looked surprisingly well.

His cheeks were plump, eyes filled with vigor in a way Garin had never seen as the priest lounged in his seat with Bisousig curled his lap.

The cat had stretched and pushed herself against Garin’s outstretched hand before leaping down and scenting his calves with her little rotund body.

What an insufferably cute creature of misfortune , he’d thought, just as Lilac’s anxious scribe burst out of the keep, scroll in-hand.

When Garin approached, John muttered about being on his way to the lofts, after which he lamented his critical doubt in the queen’s insistence on sending an urgent letter to the King of England by bird.

Garin had held out his hand, pointedly nodding at the parchment John was holding. John passed it to him without question.

His throat had tightened as he’d read the letter, his widening eyes and the fury behind them the only meaningful response he could muster as words failed him.

How had he not known Lilac would attempt to fight the battle on her own?

He’d briefly considered intercepting the note himself, but that consideration was cut short by the clomping of hooves in the distance.

Frustrated, Garin had instructed John to carry on with what Lilac had had the nerve to request, then climbed the only manned lookout at the gate, took one look at the rider trotting down the path on an unmarked Arabian horse, and then entranced the alarmed guard next to him to fire three clean arrows into the newcomer.

After unseating the rider from his mount, Garin had leaped down and snatched the nondescript horseman’s satchel. It hadn’t been the Trécessions’ usual courier; he could at least tell that much.

Garin had stopped Ivon nearly every day since Lilac had ascended the throne.

Some days, there were no letters for her at all, but he’d made it a consistent point to check.

On the occasions there were messages for her, few, if any, were ever of any importance.

Congratulations on her ascension, a sympathy note or two wishing for Sinclair’s swift recovery, all manner of the innocuous drivel favored by the upper echelons.

With those, he’d unentranced the messenger, then sent him on his merry way.

In the week after her ceremony, Garin had fielded several offers for Lilac’s hand, and one non-marital business alliance that did not please him.

None of them did, in hindsight. At all. They displeased him so greatly, in fact, that he’d shoved them into his pocket and burned them at his hearth over a bottle of scotch and blood when he got home.

He’d told himself it was the right thing to do. And, at the time, it was.

It had only taken him a moment to skim the letter before he was off, bounding through Brocéliande in a northeasterly direction and fighting every firing nerve that told him to turn around, march up those stairs, and stay .

But he had to go. To see for himself that France was making a real play for the Breton crown.

Why else would Maximilian send the letter he did?

Earlier kings had toyed with the idea but never tested it; they might’ve overtaken the duchies earlier if it weren’t for the war that had spanned a century.

Whatever the cause, France had decided the turmoil surrounding Eleanor inheriting her father’s kingdom presented a chance to try again.

Cowards , Garin thought. Little did Francois know, she was a force on her own, fueled by others’ doubt in her and a developing love for her subjects who, in his opinion, did not deserve it.

Necessity sharpened her wits; she wasn’t above using the blade, bribery, or magic to get what she wanted.

Maximilian was so confident in his offer, he’d sent an emissary to proposition her directly.

His decision was brilliant . So unsettlingly so, that the waves of relief that had washed over Garin upon learning of it were tainted with a fetid, foaming worry—albeit one that could at least wait to be addressed.

Not one king or prince had offered for her to keep her sovereignty the way Maximilian did.

Not one of them offered her kingdom their unfaltering protection.

He could at least respect the emperor for that.

But then, the queen had to go and enthrall herself to him. The envy he’d intended to drown with the bottle and bury under the code of chivalry was frothing over, and there was nothing Garin could do to stop it.

Garin ran back west through the moors now, cursing the injuries that slowed him.

The metal bullets in the meat of his bicep and thigh were lodged deeply enough that his body couldn’t heal over them, or so it seemed.

The worst of the bleeding had stopped, but each stab of pain that surged with every step strangled his breath.

He needed help. He needed blood—blood from the vein.

He needed that blasted Madame Kemble. Or Lorietta, or Adelaide.

Maybe not Adelaide—she’d too gleefully attempt amputation.

He was far away from anyone who could help.

Far from Lilac.

Long ago, he’d vowed to never again interfere with the affairs of mortal nobles, refusing to participate in another war that ravaged so many lives for the pithy honor of rulers who spurned the poor and arcane alike. Tonight proved love made fools of even the most hardened hearts.

Garin slowed to catch his breath as he finally approached the border of the Low Forest on his left, the pale gnarled trees making way for the lush canopy that made up the High Forest. The man’s quiet heartbeat was slowing, the rush of his blood struggling to keep up.

He groaned, trying to wipe his hands on his pants.

He would have liked to clean himself before arriving at the farmhouse, but there was nothing he could do without a nearby creek that would wash the blood off his hands.

Going for a dip in the Morgen-infested Argent was not an option.

Blood, innards, and flesh matted his hair and congealed under his nails.

He was drenched in the aftermath of his destruction, and with the guard dying on his shoulder, he had no time to spare.

He hadn’t been travelling long after leaving the castle before he caught sight of a group.

From what Garin could gather from downwind, there were three men: the former king and two heavily armed guards.

He’d trailed them quietly past the moorland and hills, to a forest just north of a small village.

Garin had sensed the enemy even before Henri and his guards had started charging.

He should’ve let the old king die, but doing so would only encourage Francois further. He was too stricken with alarm at the possibility of French troops west of Rennes, and acted without thought. The moment Garin heard the first musket being loaded, he knew he’d break his vow to himself.

The soldiers stopped firing when he’d lunged in front of Henri, upon realizing the person their poorly-aimed shots did hit showed no signs of slowing.

Garin laid waste to the entire encampment in seconds. Most of Lilac’s soldiers there were already dead; it seemed a dozen of them had broken off from their group to scout, and had been ambushed by Francois’s men.

Those who lay on the ground appeared either quite dead or well past the point of no return on the path to it. It came as quite a surprise when a feeble croak burbled from one of them.

“ Yanna. ”