Page 146 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

Lilac could still feel herself—bite her lip, grip her dagger—and sensed the room and Garin and the Bugul Noz near. But everything was entirely dark… until a scene began to play before their very eyes.

There was a man before them, sitting across the way beside a stone mantel and oakwood floors illuminated by a dim hearth, which cast menacing shadows upon his sharp profile.

He was tall, Lilac could tell even as he sat rigidly in a chair she recognized—faded green leather, though it was a touch more vibrant here.

He scrawled in a book, cross-checking the parchment splayed out onto a small table next to him.

The floor was covered in bits of soil and freshly potted plants, some of them glowing—some moving about in their pots.

A sharp rap came at the door. He sighed laboriously, folded the page, placed his book and quill down, and went to the door down the familiar hallway. The scene moved to follow him, like the perspective of a lone spectre in the night.

He opened the door to a hazel-eyed woman with black hair that fell in waves around her plump face. She stuck a finger in his face, and he moved out of the way, merely turned back down the hall as she began to speak, low and harsh, not bothering to shut the door to the snow outside.

“You didn’t do it,” she said, trailing him. “Tell me you didn’t do it.”

The man sighed and turned. “Calm down, Aimee.”

An echoing slap sounded throughout the room. He put a hand to his cheek.

“Tell me you didn’t write that letter to Madame Toranaga.”

Toranaga.

Next to the hearth, Aimee’s face was the picture of horror.

She clutched her round belly. “You told her I’d been laboring overnight, didn’t you?

I’ve said to you no such thing. I walked into the room today with a tub and laboring tools ready.

He can’t come early. It’d be weeks early—and—” She shook, eyes brimmed with angry, knowing tears.

“Shame,” he said dryly. “I promised to pay her handsomely to take him out of you. Told her it was urgent.”

“What is wrong with you?” she breathed. “That is my friend . She would never—never do that to me.” Tears streamed down Aimee’s face. “Tell me this isn’t about those faeries, Pascal?—”

He lunged, knocking a vase over and pinning her wrists to her side as she cried against the wall. “You’re fucking selfish,” he spat. “Do you know what this could do for us? We haven’t been able to grow anything for months now. ”

“Because all you do is obsess, and obsess over those plants.” She shoved him off, strode to the pots, picked one up and flung it across the room?—

Before it shattered against the wall, seafoam mist filled the air once more. The memory was gone.

Garin was silent, but Lilac could feel the rage emanating from him.

The Bugul Noz hummed loudly in awkward disapproval. “That wasn’t the one I wanted. Let’s try this again.”

The mist thinned to reveal a desk covered in organized stacks of parchment, quill boxes, and a stack of dried pastries on a plate pushed to the side.

Henri’s desk. Except his was usually askew and littered with tankards.

An arm rummaged through the drawer before them before sliding it carefully shut.

“Shit.” Garin’s voice, low and barely audible.

There were footsteps and voices outside the study. The scene shifted up to the rest of her father’s study. Again, much too neat.

“She’s with child,” chimed one—male. There was the sound of metal, something like clinking armor. “Surely he will let them off easy.”

“I don’t know.” A second voice, female. “Francis is a kind king, but Francois’s men are here.”

“This is true. His kindness tonight would look too easily like pandering weakness.”

The footsteps passed the study; Garin moved out from behind the desk, slipped out the door, and into the dark western tower. Distant, echoing voices floated throughout the keep. The clanking of dishes and hushed whispers of gossip.

He passed the rooms on the left Lilac recognized as spare rooms for her parents’ court, leaving the king and queen’s chamber behind as he rapidly descended the steps, barely a sound to his footfall.

Garin broke into the empty second-floor keep and peered down into the foyer. No one was there save the guards flanking the front doors; one was dawdling, loosening the straps at his shoulders. The other had his head back against the wall.

The scene shifted, as if he’d descend the foyer steps—when there was another sound. One beyond the castle chatter.

The sound of a strange wheezing. Then, a cough, high-pitched and wet.

It was an infant.

The scene blurred, jostling and churning her stomach. Garin was suddenly in her tower, his vision bright despite the dying embers in the fireplace. Her four-poster bed was not there; near the hearth, in the center of the room, was a lone crib—and a figure standing above it, a bundle in its arms.

“ No .”

The man’s head snapped up, face twisting in shock beneath his dark blonde brows and slicked mop of hair. His familiar icy eyes narrowed. “Erm, yes? Can I help you?”

The infant’s wheezing continued, but he seemed in no rush to help it.

Garin strode toward him, causing the man to retreat. “What are you doing? Who are you?” The man stumbled back, tripping over a wooden toy.

“Give the child to me,” Garin demanded, his voice laced with panic.

The man shrank away. “N-no, I was?—”

A fist shot out. Bones crunched, and the man screamed. “Guards!” he roared.

Lilac immediately recognized the way he sobbed and demanded justice after doing something vile.

The sound of the infant’s labored breathing was louder now—and the scene shifted down to show the purple face of a child, one not several months old. Its cerulean eyes bulged, lips turning blue.

Garin swore and stuck a trembling finger into its mouth and began to scoop globs of saliva out, along with pieces of something deep purple and leaf-green. He bent on one knee, turned the babe over upon his thigh, and firmly— urgently —began to rub its back.

“No. No, come on,” Garin whispered as Artus moaned and crawled toward him. “If you touch me, I’ll break your other leg,” he snarled. “Touch him or his bloodline ever again and I’ll end your life.”

“Halt!” There was a pair of guards at the door. They froze at the sight of the bundle in Garin’s arms.

The guard’s next cry for help was cut off as Garin raced for the door and shoved his way through, knocking them down the steps and leaping over them, armor and blades clattering down the stairwell behind him.

“Help,” Garin cried, the anguish in his voice piercing the room.

Lilac swallowed and wiped her tear-stained face.

He ran, past the alarmed scullery maids, past the roused entry guards and foyer, and into the west wing hallway. The four guards that flanked the door to the Grand Hall already had their weapons at the ready.

They’d begun screaming at him.

“Is that?—”

“It’s the prince!”

One of them stepped forward. “Put the infant down! Now!”

Garin didn’t stop. He lifted the child in both arms, shielding it from their approach.

The guard who ran the sword through him gasped, staggering back, realizing it hadn’t injured him at all. Garin reached down, yanked the dripping sword from himself. It clattered to the floor. “I need to speak to the king and queen,” he said urgently, patting the babe’s back. “He’s been poisoned!”

The guards scattered away, horrified, as Garin tried to push through with the young prince in his arms.

“Please,” Garin shouted. “Anyone, help!” He kneeled again; the infant’s body lolled across his lap, and he began working again, rubbing and patting furiously.

The Grand Hall doors opened, the sound of frenzied alarm breaking through. “Handle them,” came a stern, clear-cut voice.

“But—” started one of the shaken guards.

“Go. Now.”

The eight of them filed into the Grand Hall, leaving Francis alone with Garin.

The king said nothing, only kneeling and watching, wide-eyed, as Garin massaged and prodded Henri’s back.Finally, Henri coughed, producing two whole berries that plopped onto the floor.

His lips were still pale, but he’d begun to breathe again. Garin lifted him to his chest and patted several times until the babe began wailing again. Hands shaking, Garin then rose to his feet and tenderly placed him in Francis’s arms.

There was another commotion, then—Artus, sobbing in the foyer. Other guards clambered and whispered fervently behind him.

“Vampire,” Artus wailed. “There is a vampire here! In the castle—help! Anarchy is at our door! ”

Reeling, Garin staggered down the southern corridor, toward the chapel.

“Wait!” The king had started after him. “Who are you?”

But Garin turned and snarled warningly. “Belladonna,” he choked, the fading panic thick in his voice. “It was Belladonna. Deadly Nightshade.”

Garin stumbled away, out the door, barrelling through the rows of diplomatic carriages adorned with the red and blue Grand Royal Coat of Arms, over the gate, and toward the treeline.