Page 118 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

GARIN

T he sky was awash in blood by the time he entered the Paimpont farmlands from the north.

He emerged from the trees, storming to his destination, blinded by rage.

A warm breeze struck him the moment his view was clear of leaves and branches.

It carried with it a most peculiar bouquet of scents: The refined, perfumed rosewood and walnut woodcraft from the castle. Polished hawthorn.

Lilac’s little friend, Rupert.

Garin was delirious from his hunger, and the pained throbbing of his limbs only thickened the fog settling in his mind.

He had considered—several times—stopping to bleed the unconscious man into his mouth.

It would have been a convenient snack. Revitalizing .

And it wasn’t as though the man would’ve noticed; he wasn’t waking anytime soon.

If ever. Why waste the blood? What was left of it, anyway. But Garin had pushed on.

For some deeply vexing reason, his desire to get the man some sort of help won out over his thirst. The man would bleed out without the proper care—which Garin had reluctantly concluded did not involve further exsanguination for the purposes of slaking vampiric thirst—and if he’d belonged to Lilac’s handmaiden, it was just as well, if rather bothersome, that ?seeing to this soldier’s recovery should fall to him.

There was nothing for it but to carry that responsibility out now.

At the very least, he could finally get the man off his damned shoulders.

Maybe then he could see about getting back to the castle. He was eager to return.

Frowning, he looked down on his parents’ sloping land.

Through the red-orange haze of dusk, he wasn’t quite sure what he was viewing.

Garin’s feet carried him down the hill, through barren wheat fields.

Many, many summers ago, they had been lush berry patches tended by an old neighbor, Mrs. Botrel.

She’d pick from them to make fruit baskets and had gifted several to his mother through the years.

But for a few more enduring features nearby—an oddly shaped rock formation, the gentle, familiar hill it sat upon—the fields were just as he’d left it.

The rear windows of his home were aglow.

Normally, the bales of hay and loose stacks yet to be bundled would have obscured the light coming from inside.

Not tonight; they’d been moved to the right of the house, sitting to his left.

It looked like dirt had been loosened. Garin frowned.

The scene resembled preparations for a harvest. Behind the house, though?

Rearranging the farm was common enough practice. But if that was what they were doing, they were doing it months too early.

And… celebrating it?

Laughter and jeers carried through the open window, accompanied by the clinking of glasses.

Two large rugs of some sort swung on a beam in the wind, just beyond the garden. Garin slowed and rubbed his eyes, squinting. Large sacks? Something to dry? Or ferment, maybe? Animals? Pelt?

Garin stumbled, nearly toppling over as the ache in his thigh flared.

He groaned and caught himself as he fell to his knees, narrowly avoiding landing flat on his face.

His arm burned under the weight of the guard.

Dragging himself to his feet, he made his way down the hill, slowly, lest the silhouette he was casting draw unwanted attention.

As the pang of realization hit him, disbelief was the only thing that kept him going.

A pair of horse drawn carriages were parked on the opposite side of the house, one appearing to be a storage cart, and the other, a commoner’s carriage.

He approached the makeshift gallows just to the right of the front windows and placed the man down between the nearest hay stacks before removing his baldric—then his coat. Fingers trembling, Garin laid it upon him, covering the man from the breastplate down.

Wordlessly, he slipped Sable out of her noose, hoisting her gently. Her body was slightly warm, but her heart was still.

Memories of returning from the apothecary assaulted him, making him shiver uncontrollably. Garin’s mother had asked him to meet her there. She hadn’t shown.

Unlike Sable’s, Aimee’s body had been deathly cold by the time Garin discovered her.

He blinked the memories away and placed the old woman on the swaying grass, laying the back of his hand against her neck to confirm what his other senses had already told him. Then, he removed Jeanare, laying him alongside his wife.

There were several farms here; his was the smallest and most cramped, flanked closely to the south and to the west by larger properties. Yet, none of the residents had come to Sable or Jeanare’s aid. They hadn’t noticed—hadn’t heard the fight they must’ve put up.

Humans were selfish creatures by default. But—but how could no one have heard them? How could no one have noticed them? Bodies, swinging in the wind.

Haunted, Garin stroked Sable’s cheek once more, squeezed Jeanare’s limp hand, and staggered to his feet.

There was a man watching from the doorway, his face illuminated by two oil lamps, one on each side of the railing.

“Come to join our festivities?” asked Artus.

Garin strode up the porch steps and braced himself against the pillar.

Artus stood there, unarmed. No weapons, no stakes.

Behind him, the house was crowded with people, men and women alike.

Twenty at least, most of them recognizable from his hunting troupe at The Jaunty Hog.

They were in his parlor, slipping in and out of the west wing.

In his pantry and kitchen, spilling into the entry hall behind him.

They’d even broken into the buttery, several of them passing bottles and stoneware around.

Garin’s voice was barely audible. “What have you done?”

Unconcerned, Artus squinted past him at the bodies in the grass. “They were marked for investigation weeks ago when the head of Henri’s guard went missing. This was the last house Renald reportedly checked. ”

“You murderer . You don’t have the grounds to investigate.”

Just then, a pair of familiar faces emerged from the west hall, snickering until they laid eyes on Garin. Brient doubled back at the sight of him and nudged Hamon in the ribs, but Artus held a finger up. They quieted, but remained to watch.

“Oh, the irony. With my son gone and grandson wracked with hysteria, you’d be surprised by what grounds I do hold.”

“They were innocent!” Garin snarled. “They had the right to due process under Trécesson law.”

“Not if we found evidence of past doubt. On the same night Renald disappeared, there were reports of a brush fire on the hill out back.” Artus reached into his back pocket and held out three blackened pieces of jewelry.

A brooch and two heavy rings, one on a chain.

“My men found this on a partially burned corpse in a nearby shallow grave. His family identified him that way.”

“That doesn’t mean they were guilty.”

“And how would you know? You didn’t know them, did you, vampire?”

At this, everyone within earshot went quiet. “Vampire, sir?” stammered Brient. “But t-that’s the emissary.”

Artus leaned against the doorway, cocking his head back at the town butcher. “Emissary?”

“The emissary that’s come to proposition Lilac for the emperor,” said Hamon. “The one that caused the commotion last night, remember?”

Artus’s eyes narrowed, darkening with recognition.

“The vampire is a creature of eternal pretense, my friends. A thinly veiled shroud, masquerading as many things. A good man. A faithful citizen, loyal friend. A devoted and capable lover, even.” He pointed a trembling finger at Garin.

“He is none of those things, but a cursed mockery of life. Certainly no one important. Not man, nor emissary.”

Garin marched into his house—or, tried to. His face cracked off of thin air.

Artus watched gleefully as Garin growled, using his palm to straighten his nose. Brient and Hamon laughed, stunned. Several others began to murmur nervously behind them, but Artus shushed them. “We’re safe. See?”

Garin retreated several steps and hurled himself at the open door.

His shoulder slammed against the solid, invisible force.

Heaving, he grabbed the frame of the door, and a fistful of wood came away easily, but his fingernails scraped against the invisible barrier when they reached the perimeter of the house.

He pulled his hands away; some of his nails cracked to the bed.

Garin roared and stuck them in his mouth.

Calmly, Artus returned the jewelry to his trousers and reached into his coat pocket. He pulled out a faded piece of parchment, folded at the middle.

Even if he’d never laid eyes on it, Garin knew what it was before Artus even began reading.

“ On this day 1338, under the Chief Lord of the Fee, His Majesty John IV of Brittany and Duke Geoffrey de Penthièvre, this property at the northwesternmost corner of the Paimpont Farmlands falls under the ownership of Pascal Trevelyan of Cornwall .” Artus looked up, his eyes twinkling.

“Funny little parcel I found just outside the Jaunty Hog. Picked it up off the street after witnessing a couple ruffians get thrown out into the square.”

The crowd behind him gathered. Garin’s stomach knotted, dread poisoning him. He’d forgotten all about the envelope Sable had slipped him when they’d first left the inn, and had been too distracted with suppressing his fury after watching Lilac nearly get mauled to death by that revenant.

But this didn’t make any sense; he didn’t understand—he’d had access to the property all these years, hadn’t he? He’d had it when he and Lilac had taken shelter there. “Physical possession of the deed doesn’t mean anything.”

“Ah, but it does when there is no heir named. All this time, the deed remained on the premises, likely within your father’s belongings.”

Pascal’s box beneath the floorboards.