Page 140 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

T he proposal was laced in cruelty and hunger, sounding more a dare than a solemn offer, yet Garin made no attempts to hide his burning curiosity. He didn’t blink. He waited patiently, brows slightly raised. Too calmly.

Lilac gritted her teeth. It was what she wanted, wasn’t it? More than anything. Slowly, she placed her hand in his, lips parting to answer, when Garin’s head suddenly snapped toward the door.

A sharp bang at the door made them jump.

“Of course ,” Garin muttered, releasing her.

“Who is it?” she whispered, knowing he was already listening.

He said nothing, fuming and padding to the door. She licked her lips, watching his rippled back move in irked stealth for a moment before rising.

“Wait,” she hissed, already across the room rummaging in her boxed wardrobe from Herlinde. Lilac fished out another dress—this one cream, sleeved, and most certainly solid. She tugged a leather waist belt out and scrambled for the bundle of burned gown beside the tub, ears burning. Reeling.

Lilac straightened and threw him a towel from the table; Garin hastily wrapped it around his waist as she donned the belt and tucked the book into the pouch at the front .

The moment he undid the latch, Bastion burst in with a bundle of what looked like stationary in his arms. Piper and Adelaide promptly followed, and last—Myrddin, huffing and out of breath as he stumbled in and shut the door behind them.

Piper gasped. Adelaide’s ochre eyes widened at the sight of Garin. “What the fuck happened to you?”

“Well?” demanded Garin, ignoring them as Bastion strode straight to the vanity. “Did you do it? Where is the chest?”

“Delivered.” Bastion swept his hand across the desk, knocking perfume bottles, jewels, and trinkets onto the floor as Myrddin sealed the door with a spell.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Lilac shrieked, stomping over.

Bastion bared his fangs in a vicious growl and slammed a quill box onto the table, unfolding the piece of parchment tucked under his arm. Myrddin and Adelaide lingered by the door, looking shaken as Piper and padded over to the tub to sink to her knees and splash her face.

“Sign this.” Bastion jabbed his finger at the document, where an elaborate gold and red seal was stamped at the top. “I’ll run it to Maximilian myself if I have to.”

Lilac stared at the lengthy document packed with tight scrawl, then back up at him. Bastion looked like he’d walked through a firestorm himself; his cloak was singed at the sleeves, his hair sticking up at odd ends with twigs in them. “What happened?”

“Sign it!” he bellowed, snatching her by the wrist.

Garin was between them, his fist clamped over Bastion’s jaw. “I will dislocate your skull from your body,” he breathed, slamming Bastion back against the vanity. “Do not talk to her that way. She’s not signing anything unless she chooses to.”

“She will if she wants her kingdom and Brocéliande to have a chance at survival.”

“The French have laid siege to Rennes, starting with their chapel,” said Adelaide urgently.

“There’s been report from the magic folk.

Lorietta and I were about to be on our way here to inform you, when those two showed up for some blood.

” She pointed a black and silver talon at Bastion and Piper.

“Lori’s downstairs helping your chef with preparations. ”

“And? Have they retaliated?” Lilac asked, her stomach crawling .

“They’re protecting their own. Using charms and wards where warranted, mostly over the businesses and the orphanage. Many don’t want to expose themselves.”

“They’ll only intervene if it seems their militia is overwhelmed,” added Bastion. “For now, they’re watching from the shadows.”

“Already.” Garin swore furiously under his breath and shoved Bastion aside. “How many?”

“Two dozen. Maybe more.”

“It’s likely they thought it was where you might hold your ceremony, Your Majesty.” Piper toweled her face off.

Lilac gripped the edge of her vanity bruisingly, her vision swimming as she stared at the crest at the top of the scroll. She couldn’t even bring herself to read it. She didn’t need to. The sigil alone, Maximilian’s black eagle over a golden shield, was declaration enough.

A symbol of union, of domination. Of inevitability.

“The contract is preliminary,” Garin advised behind her, as if he heard her pulse racketing in her chest. “It is the ceremony that officiates it, for the public and church records’ sake.”

“What do you think they’re doing downstairs?” Bastion glared accusingly at them.

Garin’s eyes flashed dangerously. “They’re setting up for her wedding?”

“Everyone is scrambling. They’re going to marry her, then crown her immediately after. Ceremonies have been postponed, the ball canceled, and arriving visitors are being turned away far down the road.”

Lilac’s heart slammed against her ribcage. Preliminary , Garin had said. A word meant to reassure her, but it landed like an iron anchor upon her chest. The ceremony would make it real, rushed or not.

“What of my father?” Lilac asked, mouth dry. “He and his men?”

“They’re downstairs briefing the guard. Arrived just after we did.”

Garin nodded cautiously. “You told them, I assume?”

“I had to.” It must’ve been difficult for Bastion to address Henri alone.

“I had Piper bring me to him, I had no choice. That’s when they began setting up for the ceremony—the entire castle’s been notified.

” His lip curled in disdain toward Lilac.

“Rupert informed your parents you’ve returned and are safe in your tower, but there’s only so much time that will buy you. ”

“Time,” Myrddin commented with a faraway look, “is a strange and fickle thing. There’s never enough of it, is there?”

“Where are the others?” Garin pressed. “The coven?”

“The inn’s been secured. As for the vampires, I’ve sent some of them to monitor Rennes, mostly to keep watch over France’s movement as they’re likely to travel in the evenings,” Bastion said brusquely.

“The others are at the Mine. It would be foolish to expect them to stand in for Lilac’s lack of soldiers.

They don’t have a means of protection for battle in the daylight.

” He glanced at Lilac, exhaling. “But they are ready to stand by her in the night.”

Hope swelled with guilt in her chest. “I won’t have them fight for me. Not with their hawthorn ammunition.” Lilac looked at Garin. “But I don’t understand, why didn’t we hear anything?”

“I placed a temporary two-way sound spell over the room,” Myrddin muttered, eyes flicking toward the door. “It’s safer this way. Especially during a feeding.”

“Safer?” Bastion’s scoff was menacing. “None of us are safe. This is what happens when you invoke a thrall bond. We’re one misstep from full-fledged war, and you set yourself on fire for her.”

“Bastion,” Garin warned.

“No. You let me speak.” Bastion turned on him.

“The leader of the only real defense we have against an enemy we haven’t faced in decades, is tethered to a queen whose marriage is supposed to save us.

You didn’t just enthrall her—you fell in love with her.

” He glanced at Lilac. “Or is it the other way around? Does she pull the strings now?”

The flames in the hearth hissed in the silence that followed. Bastion’s gaze followed the sound and caught onto something. He moved—past Piper, toward the hearth. When he straightened, he was gripping her bloodied stake.

Garin’s face shifted, his barely tethered mask slipping. He lunged.

Bastion caught him, arm twisting viciously around his neck, and forced him to his knees. “Make her sign it,” he growled, pressing the tip of the stake against Garin’s back. “Maximilian’s marriage contract. End this madness, before it guts us all.”

Across the room, the fire continued to crackle like a warning; Lilac heard nothing but the sound of her own blood roaring in her ears. Garin’s hand, offered to her just moments ago, still hung in question. A gesture of noble surrender. Of defiance.

“Lilac,” Bastion barked. “ Now .”

The weight of her crown was heavy enough to break her spine. Her voice was cold as frost. “You would rather see me sold for safety than at your brother’s side,” she said, fully aware of how selfish she sounded. “Signed away like a treaty.”

“I would rather see you alive, for fuck’s sake,” Bastion spat. “I would rather see Brocéliande stand.”

“Do as he says, Lilac,” Garin ordered.

With no time to react, her arm moved of its own accord, snapping the lid off the long box back. She unscrewed the lid to the inkpot.

“The moment it is complete,” Bastion said, “Francois’s men will be encroaching on Maximilian’s betrothed’s territory. The moment you are married, and they are made aware, France then involves itself in a direct altercation with the Holy Roman Empire.”

“I understand how this works,” she seethed.

“Then sign it.”

“If I may,” Myrddin interjected, stepping forward. “Garin and Your Majesty, if I could just have a word?”

“Not now,” warned Garin.

“Do as he says, Lilac,” urged Adelaide, a half-sob.

Piper neared. “She deserves the right to choose.”

Her heartbeat was so loud, it drowned out their voices. Her muscles strained, weakly resisting she picked up the quill. “Wait,” she panted. “I want to read it first.”

“Go ahead.” Garin’s voice was taut. Measured. “Read it. Then sign the contract.”

The parchment kept rolling; she spread it out between her sweaty palms, the words barely legible with the tears that stained it.