Page 41 of Her Cruel Redemption (The Dark Reflection #3)

Chapter Forty-One

B y dawn, I’d almost convinced myself the previous night had been a dream. Except when I sat up in the grey morning while Mae still slept, I found a crinkled bundle of black next to my bed. Snatching it up quickly, I hid it beneath my covers, heart racing. But there were no sirens, no accusations from people pouring into my tent. Mae slept on. Slowly, I drew the discarded shirt to my face, inhaled a shaky breath, the timber-and-smoke smell of Draven making me relive it all, imagining him slipping back through the camp without even a shirt on his back. I didn’t know if the molten heat I felt at the thought was more shame or desire or anxiety, but whatever it was scorched through me and left me aching and desolate. I would burn the shirt, I decided. And then there would be no evidence that it had ever happened. Perhaps I’d burn the bedroll, too. Say it had lice in it. Banish the smell of him.

But I lingered, there in the quiet morning, with my eyes closed and my nose still buried in that shirt, taking just a few more moments to be weak and stupid. To want things I shouldn’t, things that weren’t good for me, that weren’t possible. Then I scolded myself for it. Why had I let it happen? Why had I wanted it to happen? I had faltered in guarding myself against him, and he had slipped right on in. He must be feeling pretty fucking pleased with himself this morning. He’d proven he could get to me, that there were flaws in my armour, and now he would exploit that knowledge. All I could do was double down and fight harder to keep him out.

I steeled myself and got out of bed, dressing with stealthy efficiency and emerging from the tent into the cold without waking Mae. I found the coals of one of the fires from the previous evening, and with a quick glance around to make sure no one was watching, I thrust the shirt onto it, lingering to watch it smoulder and smoke, finally catching fire in a burst of revived flame. I stood with my arms wrapped tightly around myself, thoughts circling round and round in a wash of memory and bitterness and longing and misery. And self-loathing. So much self-loathing. If I could have crawled out of my skin and taken up residence in someone else’s, I would have done so in an instant.

‘Well, if it isn’t the scariest woman in all of Oceatold.’

Victus Gedelli’s voice prompted me to snatch my thoughts away from brooding on how I’d snuck the nation’s most notorious villain into my bed, though I felt like it was written all over my face. And all over my body.

‘Good morning,’ I muttered, trying to arrange my expression into something benign. I didn’t realise how tightly I was clenching my teeth. I took a deep breath, unwound my arms and rubbed at my aching jaw as Vic popped into my line of sight, wearing another of his feathered hats and flashing those perfect white teeth in a smile too wide for so early.

‘I’m pleased to see you up and about,’ Gedelli continued pleasantly. ‘We kept being told you were in no state for any kind of consultation yesterday. His Majesty is very eager to talk with you.’

‘I’ll go and speak with him,’ I said wearily, though I didn’t make any move to do so. I didn’t much feel like trying to explain what had happened the previous day to Esario.

‘Excellent. Because after that absolute fiasco of a battle yesterday, I think we’re due some strategy conversations. And you’ve proven yourself to be an important element to consider in any battle strategy.’

Usually, I might have pointed out that no one had wanted me to have any part in the battle only the day before, but not in the state I was in that morning. I was brittle and jittery and I just wanted him to go away, so I said nothing, just stared at the coals of the fire, trying to pick out slithers of surviving fabric. The silence thickened, growing awkward.

‘Well, alright then,’ Vic said with a half laugh. ‘I see you’re not feeling very chatty this morning.’ Still, he lingered, finally drawing my gaze back up because he obviously had something else to say. He flashed me a charming smile. ‘You’re looking lovely, by the way.’

Which finally pushed me into leaving myself instead of waiting for him to do the honours. When I slipped through the door to the war tent, I exposed a long table dimly lit with the flickering glow of oil lamps and a group clustered around it speaking in low, tense voices as they bent over a spread of maps. Gwinellyn’s eyes flicked to mine as I approached and tuned into the conversation, listening to the murmurs about numbers and the terrain and the different points of the wall that could be targeted, accompanied by hands gesturing at the maps on the table. There were two main threads to the conversation that I could pick up: one discussion on leveraging whatever advantage they thought they might have in local knowledge of the city and its terrain, the other bouncing around the possibility of a negotiation, as though the previous day’s point-blank refusal hadn’t already ruled that out.

‘Why does Draven want Port Howl?’ My voice was louder than the murmurs, and it quelled them all. A dozen sets of eyes turned on me. And I realised I’d made a mistake, referring to him by his first name. I should have called him the Usurper or the Blood King instead, in front of all these people who were already suspicious of my connection with him. Was I imagining their scrutiny crawling all over me?

Dovegni was the one who answered me from his position in the shadowy depths of the tent, his red robes the colour of dried blood in the gloom. ‘Why does that matter?’

I cleared my throat and tried to shake off the desire to make myself small and curl up somewhere no one would look at me for a while. ‘Because we’re waging war against a foe we don’t understand. If we don’t know his motive, how do we ever hope to gain the upper hand? So, what does he want, Dovegni?’

‘Rhiandra…’ Gwinellyn warned, but I ignored her.

‘How should I know?’ Dovegni shot back. ‘How should any of us?’

‘He knew about the smuggler caves,’ I said firmly. ‘That’s why he caught the stealth attack before they ever reached the city.’ And not only that, he used them to get into the city in the first place, but I wasn’t going to tell them where I’d learned that information. ‘How did he know about them?’

Esario and Dovegni exchanged a look. I didn’t let it pass uncalled out.

‘What have you not told us?’

Now it was Oceatold’s king Gwinellyn was frowning at. ‘Esario?’

Esario pursed his lips, his cheeks turning ruddy as he seemed to consider his options. Finally, he sighed. ‘Gwinellyn, Dovegni, stay. Everybody else, please make yourselves scarce.’

The rest of the occupants of the tent immediately began to move, streaming towards the opening.

‘I’d like Rhiandra to stay,’ Gwinellyn said quietly.

Esario frowned at me, before finally waving a hand to beckon me closer. ‘Fine. Stay.’

My throat choked up with emotion. Gwinellyn was still trying to trust me. And I… I’d betrayed that trust again the night before. Guilt sat heavily in my stomach as I moved closer to the table, and we held silent until there were only the four of us left.

‘Where’s Lidello? He should be here for this,’ Dovegni began. Even the sound of the man’s name made my skin crawl, and I was immediately shaking my head.

‘Just come out with it. Let’s not waste more time,’ I said, exasperated now.

‘But it was Lidello’s program. He’ll be the one who can best answer your question. We collaborated, but mostly from afar. I only visited a few times.’

I narrowed my eyes, flicking them between Dovegni and Esario. ‘Oh, don’t tell me what I think you’re about to tell me. Because that would have been something you should have shared the moment Port Howl fell.’

‘What do you mean?’ Gwinellyn asked, switching her gaze from one person to the next as she tried to grasp our meaning.

‘Lidello’s program .’ I snarled the last word with a hearty dose of spite. ‘It was based here, wasn’t it?’

‘It’s the most well-resourced Guild stronghold in the kingdom,’ Esario replied.

‘And he escaped it.’ I stared at him, incredulous. ‘Why did you think the plan with the caves would work?’

‘Even Port Howl’s soldiers didn’t know of them,’ he protested, volume rising. ‘I asked the returned prisoners. No one knew—’

‘Draven did.’ I inhaled sharply, trying to leash my frustration. ‘You need to stop underestimating him. He’s smart. Far smarter than I think you realise. If I knew he’d ever even visited Port Howl before I would have counted those caves out, and he was imprisoned here. And not only that, he escaped that imprisonment and got out of the city. How could you have not thought that relevant information to reveal? I’d be willing to bet he knows the landscape and this city far better than you do.’

‘Then what would you have us do? Relinquish the city simply because he knows his way around?’

‘I’d have you consider what his motive for being here is. What he wants.’ I wasn’t looking at Esario anymore. I was staring at one of the wooden beams supporting the tent, mind ticking over. Draven was in Port Howl, the city that had imprisoned him. What if it had nothing to do with Port Howl being a strategic location? Was it about dismantling the research program? Freeing the fall spawn trapped there? But he’d surely already achieved that now. What was keeping him here? ‘If he’s here for revenge, then there’s no negotiating with him. He wants to fight. There’s nothing you can offer to avoid one.’

‘Nothing?’ Dovegni sneered, giving me a slimy, unpleasant look. ‘I’m not convinced that’s true.’

‘We aren’t negotiating with him,’ Gwin cut in before I could reply with the venom I wanted to spew. ‘We’ll offer him nothing. And no one. ’ At this, she shot Dovegni a pointed look. ‘We lost too many lives yesterday for that.’

‘If his reason for being here is personal, then I’m not convinced his forces will continue to support holding the city. Not if their means for returning home is threatened,’ I said, an idea spawning, churning, feeding on that shadowy half-conversation in the trees, when I’d suggested his forces were divided.

‘What do you mean? Threatened how?’ Gwin asked.

‘They’re deep in enemy territory. They have no reinforcements that can reach them quickly and no territory to retreat into. Their only way out of Port Howl is floating in that harbor.’

Esario stroked his chin as he considered me. ‘You suggest we attack their ships.’

‘And attack the gate at the same time. If it looks like they’re about to lose their only way home, their forces will be forced to split between defending the gate and the harbor. If we made a big enough problem on the water, I’d be willing to bet a number might even abandon orders to defend those ships.’ And if Draven did anything other than let them, he might lose his tenuous hold on his army.

‘It doesn’t solve the problem of the wall,’ Dovegni drawled. ‘Even with fewer soldiers, Port Howl’s gate will never fall. There’s too much magic embedded in its foundations.’

No, it didn’t. But I had an idea that was a damn sight better than infiltration using smuggler’s tunnels. Though, I wasn’t ready to voice it yet. Not until I’d spoken to Gwinellyn. ‘We’ll need some sort of stealth operation as well, but setting fire to those ships will give any strategy a higher likelihood of succeeding.’

Dovegni sneered, his lip curling. ‘Oh, so neatly wrapped up. You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you? And I suppose you’ll want to be involved somehow? It’s a pity that any strategy including you has an inherent likelihood of failure, since you’ll start throwing magic about like you’re the only one on the field and rendering any plan null and void.’

‘We were losing!’ I snarled. ‘Soldiers were turning tail and running into the night. At least I preserved some of our dignity.’

‘And what price did we pay? The entire region gripped by wild lightning storms and soldiers more scared of a woman within their own ranks than the enemy,’ he spat.

‘I’m surprised you know that, Dovegni. I didn’t see you down—’

‘Enough!’ Esario boomed, his robust voice filling the tent and effectively silencing us. ‘We have enough enemies to fight outside of this tent! We will not begin to fight each other as well.’

‘But, Your Majesty,’ Dovegni simpered, all oozing deference, the violence gone from his attitude. ‘This woman is a danger—’

‘Exactly,’ Esario cut in again. ‘She is a danger that we’d be fools not to wield. And if our aim is to attack a fleet of ships, then a lightning storm would work in our favour.’

‘It won’t matter if the forces are split if Soveraux looms over that gate and wields the men’s own fear against them again. The number of defenders at the gate wouldn’t have made a difference when our entire front line turned and ran for their lives.’

‘But he won’t be at the gate. He’ll be at the docks,’ I said bluntly.

‘So you’re a seer now too, are you?’ Dovegni scoffed. ‘Why would he be at the docks?’

‘He’ll be there—,’ Gwin interrupted, her voice quiet but firm, her gaze fixed squarely on me, ‘—because that’s where Rhiandra will be.’