Page 19 of House of Embers (Royal Houses #5)

Chapter Sixteen

The Leash

“Well, hello there, handsome,” Wynter said with a feral smile. “Mind if I cut in?”

Barron’s expression changed when it lit on Wynter. He’d been stoic the entire dance, but as soon as the Ollivier princess appeared, the suave, smooth talker appeared. As if all his ill intentions had evaporated at the sight of his next conquest. He was going to have to take that up with Dozan Rook.

“Of course,” Barron said, offering his hand to Wynter.

“My brother looks like he could use an intervention,” Wynter told Kerrigan. “I’ve got this.”

Barron swept her into his arms. “No, I have this.”

Then they disappeared into the crowd of dancers, leaving Kerrigan standing alone on the dance floor.

She had a lot of thoughts about Barron’s change when it came to Wynter.

Was that his real play? Get rid of Fordham and marry the other Ollivier instead of Viviana?

He was going to quickly learn that Wynter was no longer a puppet with strings to pull. But it was an interesting thought.

Her eyes landed on Fordham, who was trapped with Viviana nearly pressing her half-exposed breasts to his chest. She didn’t even seem to care that he looked uncomfortable.

Kerrigan tapped Viviana on the shoulder. “This dance is mine.”

“We weren’t done!” she snapped.

Fordham smiled down at Kerrigan with relief. “I do whatever the lady wants.”

Then he took up Kerrigan’s hand and twirled her away from the disappointed former queen. They took half a pass around the room before Fordham finally melted against her.

“Her claws are deep,” he grumbled.

“Barron is interesting.”

“That’s a diplomatic word.”

“We thought he wanted me dead, but I don’t think he cares about me.”

Fordham arched an eyebrow, gesturing to the display around them—all their enemies and the contingencies they’d put in place to counter them if he came after Kerrigan. “Explain.”

“He told me that he was going to challenge you.”

“We knew he would.”

“Yes,” she said as he swooped her around another couple, “but he said that once you were out of the way, I’d be his servant or dead.”

Fordham’s expression hardened. “I see.”

“I think he’s after Wynter, and this was a way to draw her out.” Kerrigan’s gaze shifted to Wynter, who was playing a good role with Barron, smiling and laughing and looking not at all like a deranged princess but a besotted one. “We can trust her, right?”

Fordham followed her look. “If we start questioning our own, we’ll never trust anyone. Dozan trusts her.”

Kerrigan laughed. “Well, do we trust Dozan’s judgment?”

“He trusted you before anyone else even listened to a word from your lips. He saw the real you first.”

“He did,” Kerrigan said quietly. Where would she have been without the confidence of the king of the Wastes?

Dead in a gutter, likely. Yes, she trusted him, and he trusted Wynter, who had proven herself time and time again.

But sometimes Wynter driving a knife through Fordham’s side and nearly killing him niggled at the back of Kerrigan’s mind. “She’s playing Barron.”

Fordham nodded. “She’s good at that. We’ll get her assessment tomorrow. Tonight, we have to survive this party.”

Kerrigan leaned her head against Fordham’s chest as he twirled her around the room.

She could hear the soft thrum of his heart, the beat that connected her to him.

All she wanted to do was leave this stupid party with its stupid politics behind.

They had more important work to do tonight, but here they were instead. Waste of time.

They were still spinning around the room hours later when a hand clamped onto Fordham’s shoulder. “Might I cut in?”

Kerrigan glanced up to find Prescott drunkenly careening toward them.

Her stomach twisted at the sight of him.

He wasn’t doing all right, no matter what he said.

But he had volunteered for this, and they had gotten the invitation early because of his involvement with Barron.

She hoped that whatever Fordham was about to do wouldn’t push Prescott further down this dark road.

“I thought I told you to go home,” Fordham snapped.

Prescott laughed. “You were joking.”

“I was not.”

But Prescott seemed to not hear him as he chuckled and leaned forward. The red wine of his drink cascaded down the front of her dress. Kerrigan swore and jerked back, watching the red liquid seep into the beautiful silver of her gown—an irreplaceable silk that would never be clean again.

“Prescott!” she gasped. An attendant rushed forward to hand her something to try to clean herself up with, but it wasn’t going to work.

“You insufferable idiot!” Fordham raged. “All you’ve ever been good for is getting in the way. You hide behind your cheeky little smile, but we all know the brains came from Arbor, who you let die.”

Prescott jerked back at the insinuation. A hush fell over the crowd at those words.

“And because you never had an original thought in your head, no one even questioned whether they should kill you too,” Fordham said.

His shadows licked at his hands, and Prescott’s eyes widened in alarm.

Fordham’s voice was low and dangerous as he said, “You might be family, but you bring the Ollivier name shame.”

The shock on Prescott’s face was enough to send a knife through Kerrigan’s heart.

It was all true. He’d sat back and let Arbor do the scheming, and he’d survived her death because no one had cared much about him.

She hated for him to have to hear it—hated more that Fordham had been forced to say it, even if it was all to plan.

“Ford,” she whispered, putting her hand to his sleeve. “I don’t know…”

“Leave,” Fordham told Prescott. “And don’t show your face again until you learn decorum.”

Prescott practically fled from the room.

The rows of sycophants feeding on his humiliation, reveling in his pain and their ruler’s wickedness, didn’t see the pain in Fordham’s eyes.

Not just because of what he had said to Prescott but because of how easy it was to revert to the spoiled prince he had once been.

She tightened her grip on his arm, trying to bring him back to the present. “We too should go,” she said, gesturing to her dress. “We need a change of clothing.”

Fordham whisked her from the room without a second thought.

Her shoulders relaxed as she left the cesspool.

Fordham blew out a heavy breath. They still had a few hours before daylight.

They needed to get changed and up to the aerie as soon as possible if they wanted to train and reach their allies yet tonight.

“I hate myself,” he whispered.

“You did exactly what we planned.”

“It was easy.”

“I know,” she whispered, threading their fingers together.

“I hope we both can regain our souls by the end of this.” He brought her hand up to his lips, placing a kiss on her knuckles. “My queen.”

They turned down the next long corridor.

The lamps burned low as they traipsed in.

Fordham opened his mouth to say something else when a dagger flew through the air.

The rasp of the blade being drawn alerted them, and at the last second, he threw up a shield to block the movement.

It hit the magic an inch away from his heart before falling harmlessly to the ground.

Kerrigan reached for her own shield, unsure where the knife had come from or how many assailants there were. Another blade flew at her back, and she whipped around as it sliced into her shield. She yelped at the spark of pain as the blade nearly cut through her magic.

The House of Shadows had used oleander-tipped arrows in the Battle of Lethbridge, taking out more than one dragon with the poison. It seemed they were back to their old tricks. If that touched her, she didn’t think any healing could save her.

“Position,” Fordham said, his voice going low and rough.

She put her back to his. A dagger was handed over his shoulder to her. She felt better with it in her hand. She hadn’t been able to wear even a single blade under the dress she was in, but Fordham had no such restrictions in his suit. Steel was always her preference.

“Come out and face us,” Fordham yelled into the darkened corridor.

But no one answered.

The assassins, whoever they were, melted into the shadows as if they too had the Ollivier family gift. But of course they did not. She’d known assassins like this and knew how to defeat them.

Kerrigan breathed in her fire magic. It was her strongest element by far but one that she had always kept a lid on.

She always played with air and earth and sometimes even water.

Fire felt like the chaos of her hair. Like it would burn down the world if she took the lid off her rage.

She only tapped into it when she had nothing else.

If she was going to burn down the world and start fresh, she needed to start with an ember.

Her fire magic responded like a fount, blossoming down the hall and lighting the way.

One assassin, dressed in all black with their face covered, cried out as they caught fire and dropped down to roll the magic away.

Another assassin sprang out from the other direction.

Smoke flooded the hall in either direction, and if they weren’t careful, it would be as deadly as the flames Kerrigan had at her fingertips.

Fordham engaged the assassin as they slashed at him and his betrothed with their daggers. The element of surprise was gone, and it was clear that Fordham was by far the better swordsman. The oleander daggers would have hindered them and made them easier targets, but it was too late now.

Kerrigan jumped into the fray as another came into the hall. She used her air magic to blast the smoke into the face of this assailant as she heard another. Perhaps there were more? Or was this a test?

“Don’t kill them,” Kerrigan yelled back to Fordham as she lifted her blade to deflect the assassin’s sword.

“They’re trying to kill me,” he barked.

“I have an idea.”

Kerrigan twirled out of the way, using her superior footwork to get to the other side of the assassin. She kicked them in the backs of their knees, which crunched hard on the ground. Then she laid them out on their stomach and pushed her heel into their spine.

“Don’t move or I’ll personally sever your spine,” she snarled.

The other assassin, who she’d taken down with her flames, recovered enough to return to their feet. Kerrigan used her air to hold the first down as she engaged with the second. She didn’t need anything fancy for this. She had all four elements at the ready. And yet she wanted to prove her point.

She grasped at the shadows in the hallway and let them coat her hands.

The assassin gasped at the sight, falling back in evident fear at her control.

But already she was using the shadows like a whip, lassoing the assassin with darkness and reeling him into her.

She punched him in the face when he got close enough and unwound him on top of his partner.

They both cried out as she mastered her air magic and tightened the grip around them with the closing of a fist.

“Who sent you?” she snarled at her incapacitated assailants.

“We’ll never say!” the first yelled.

She kicked the second. “And you?”

The assassin glared up at her with fire in their dark eyes. “They’ll beat you. We are just the first wave. You’ll never be safe.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard the propaganda before.

” Kerrigan rolled her eyes. “A name?” She glanced up at Fordham.

He had the two he’d been engaging with in a similar position, though held with nothing but his shadows.

He looked like a dark god as the shadows swept over him. “You get anything from them?”

“I recognize them,” Fordham said. “They’re Laurent dogs.”

“As I figured.”

“Your idea?” he asked.

“We need to make an appearance. Can you jump?”

Fordham’s smile was deadly. “Together.”

Then he grasped her arm, and they all disappeared at once.

Kerrigan landed in the center of the ballroom they had just vacated, four assassins cowering under heavy pressure before her and Fordham. Shadows crawled over Fordham, a wave of black smoke announcing their entrance.

Screams went up at their unorthodox entrance.

Attendees ran from the sight of him at full power.

They should have been afraid of Kerrigan in that moment, for she was barely holding on by a thread.

She wanted to kill Barron Laurent for sending assassins to ambush them.

He must have wagered that they’d either complete their mission or Fordham and Kerrigan would run away with their tails between their legs.

He clearly didn’t know her well or that she had a flair for the dramatic.

“Laurent!” Fordham roared.

Barron stood with Viviana. The room cleared a circle around them as if whatever they’d done were infectious.

“Ollivier,” he said irreverently.

A gasp went up at the disrespect. Calling the king by his last name and not his title was treason enough without whatever else he was about to say.

“You let your dogs off their leashes,” Fordham said, throwing the assassins toward Barron.

Kerrigan kicked the other two. They cowered and one broke into sobs at the sight of Barron.

“Unlike you, I won’t kill them for following your orders.

But if I see them again, I assure you I will not be as merciful. ”

Barron arched an eyebrow. For a second, Kerrigan thought that he was going to deny the accusation.

But all he did was lift two fingers into the air.

A crackle sounded all around them, and then with a sharp cut sideways, he slit the throats of all four assassins with a single bolt of lightning.

The power, the control, the destruction—it was utterly terrifying.

His face never changed as the blood ran from the throats of his men.

He lifted a shoulder and said, “I am not merciful.”

Kerrigan looked down at the dying assassins with more empathy than she’d thought she’d have for four people who had just tried to kill her. But Barron was a monster and a sadist. They didn’t deserve his authority.

They deserved better. If this was what the alternative was, the entire world needed empathetic leaders. And Kerrigan was more certain than ever that she would be the one to make that happen.