Page 38 of The Warrior Priest (After the Rift #1)

I walked off to visibly separate myself from him. I didn’t want my presence to dilute their support.

“First, we have no proof the governor hired Giselle,” he continued. “Nor is he likely to confess. I don’t yet know how we’ll bring him to justice, but we will. I won’t let him hunt Jac any longer.”

I slipped past the sheriff, who was listening to Rhys’s speech with two constables at his side. He gave no inclination of his thoughts, but at least he didn’t demand Rhys stop his pursuit of my uncle. I doubted Rhys would stop for anyone, anyway. Even me.

“Secondly,” Rhys went on. “You need to know that I’m resigning.”

The warrior priests murmured amongst themselves. More than one asked the same question. “Then who’ll be master?”

“Whoever you vote for. If it matters, I endorse Rufus.”

“Me?” Rufus said.

“You’re everything the order needs in a leader. Devout, dedicated, honorable, steady.”

“You make me sound dull.”

Vizah clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Sometimes dull is good.”

Andreas clapped his other shoulder. “You’re serious, not dull.”

“I never had the right temperament,” Rhys went on. “But you do, Rufus. You’ll make an excellent leader.”

I tried to listen in to the conversations within the group of warrior priests, but they overlapped and blended together, making it difficult to pick out the individual threads. They distracted me, however, and I didn’t notice Rhys approach until he touched my elbow.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I’m just walking around.” I shrugged but that made the pain in my shoulder flare. “Ow.”

He rubbed my arm just below my shoulder. He had an odd look in his eye as he watched me. For once, I couldn’t decipher it. “Is there something you want to say to me?”

I nodded. “I want to come with you when you confront my uncle.”

The sheriff had overheard me and joined us. “I think that’s fair, but we should leave immediately. I don’t want him getting wind of this and leaving the city.”

“You believe us?” I asked. “You’ll arrest him?”

“Not without evidence, but I want to hear what he has to say.”

“I thought you and he were friends.”

“Acquaintances.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve, uh, suspected he was corrupt for some time but there’s been no proof. If he took public money for himself, he covered his tracks well.”

Rhys crossed his arms and arched his brows. “That’s convenient for those complicit in his schemes.”

The sheriff stiffened. “Show me evidence that he committed a crime, and I will arrest him.”

Rhys indicated the horses. “After you, Sheriff.” As I went to follow, he took my hand. “Jac? Is something wrong?”

“I’m not looking forward to this.”

“I won’t leave your side.”

I gave him a flat smile. “Thank you, Rhys.”

Uncle Roderic’s power had diminished while I was in Upway.

His dwindling authority meant he couldn’t siphon off funds intended for the city, and it was clear in the lack of staff he now kept.

The sheriff had instructed them to join us in the same salon where I’d listened to my uncle speaking to Giselle in the adjoining study.

They now lined up according to rank, with the lowest maid at the very end.

I didn’t recognize her or some of the others, but I did recognize the older ones, including the housekeeper who’d been my jailor when I first arrived at the house years ago.

My uncle’s power wasn’t the only thing that had diminished. He looked frail in the vast room without his guards surrounding him. The shock of seeing me alive drained his face of color and he leaned heavily on a walking stick.

“Dearest niece,” he said, smiling that slick smile of his. “I am so glad you’ve returned home. Your room is just?—”

“Enough,” I growled. “No one here believes you care for anyone other than yourself.”

He folded both hands on the head of the walking stick. “See how she is, Sheriff? Disobedient to her menfolk, disrespectful of her elders.”

“She claims you hired an assassin to kill her and frame Master Rhys for it,” the sheriff said.

“Absurd.” Uncle Roderic’s hand fluttered near his doublet pocket. “Why would I want to kill my own niece? She’s my only family.”

I strode up to him. He swatted my hand away as I reached into his pocket, so I swatted back, harder. I withdrew the pendant and stepped back before he could snatch it off me. “When I moved in here after my mother died, you imprisoned me with the help of your staff and stole this from me.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the housekeeper tilt her chin, defiant. Others in the staff lineup shifted their weight from foot to foot.

“That’s a family heirloom,” Uncle Roderic said. “It’s rightfully mine. Everything you own is mine.”

“My mother gifted it to me. By law, personal gifts are mine to keep. But you took it. I stole it back and escaped. You thought I’d died, but that didn’t stop you searching for this pendant.”

The sheriff asked to look at it. I handed it to him, and he held it up to the light. “It matches your eyes, Miss Trenchant, but it’s just a stone, not a precious gem. I doubt it’s worth much. Certainly not worth all this trouble.”

“Family legend said it held magic that would make the wielder powerful.”

The sheriff scoffed. “Preposterous.”

“Not to him. He believed it.”

The sheriff laughed. Uncle Roderic bristled, indignant.

“For some time after I escaped, he thought I was dead,” I went on.

“Then he saw me. He came for me and stole the pendant again. He was at the height of his powers, and I couldn’t stop him.

Not then. I bided my time. His influence waned, and it became clear this pendant held no power.

He thought I could unlock it, that my mother had passed on the secret to releasing the sorcerer’s magic.

He hired Giselle to find me and bring me to him.

She declined. He hadn’t offered her enough money to give up the apprentice she was investing her time and energy into training.

You see, she’d read about the talisman being a person , and realized it was me, not that pendant. ”

The sheriff turned to face me fully, his gaze raking over me.

“It’s not as interesting as it sounds,” I said. “I have heightened senses—sight, sound, touch, smell and taste.”

The sheriff looked disappointed. “I thought the high priest hired Giselle to kill you.”

“He did. He offered her a lot more than the governor did to merely find me, and by then she’d become worried about being supplanted by her apprentice.

She accepted his contract. But she got greedy.

She saw a way to have two clients for the same job.

She convinced my uncle that I was a threat to him while alive, and that she could get rid of me and blame Rhys for it.

My uncle despises Rhys. He once vowed to expose Rhys as a liar and oath breaker to the brothers of Merdu’s Guards.

By going along with Giselle’s plan, he’d fulfill his vow after his earlier attempt to discredit Rhys failed to oust him from the leadership role.

My uncle and Giselle came to an agreement in this room. ”

Uncle Roderic scoffed. “A nice story, but you can’t prove any of it.”

“No. But by declaring it and exposing you in front of witnesses, I have neutralized the threat you posed. If anything happens to me, everyone will blame you.”

“And I will come for you,” Rhys added. “And I will be very, very angry.”

“Guards!” Uncle Roderic’s shout was as thin and weak as his physical appearance. “Guards!”

“They can’t help you,” Rhys said. “Three of Merdu’s finest warriors are keeping them occupied.”

Uncle Roderic swallowed. “Unless you’re going to arrest me, Sheriff, I’d like you all to leave my house.”

The sheriff gave me an apologetic look. “He has every right to throw us out of his own home.”

“I’ll go,” I said. “But I want you to know that I’m not afraid of you anymore, Uncle. I pity you. You’re at a time of your life when a man needs his family. I would have cared for you in your dotage if you’d just loved me as an uncle should. But now you have no one.”

“I have the servants.”

I glanced at them. The younger ones blinked wide-eyed at me.

They would never have witnessed anyone speak to their employer that way.

Perhaps they’d even feared him. Some of the older servants wouldn’t meet my gaze.

They clearly remembered me. Only the housekeeper who’d locked me in my room and taken away the key glared at me, defiant. Challenging.

I turned back to my uncle. “If you believe they’re taking good care of you then I really do pity you. Your clothes are wrinkled, your hair needs a trim, and you don’t look like you’re eating properly. That’s not loving care. That’s doing the bare minimum.”

The mention of the servants gave the sheriff an idea. “Did any of you see the woman known as Giselle meet him here at the house?”

Most lowered their heads. One of the young maids looked at her colleagues, but none would meet her gaze.

“If you remember anything, it could be important,” he went on. “I only need one witness to place her here. Alongside her confession, that’s enough to convict them both.”

Still no one came forward.

The sheriff sighed and dismissed them, then he directed Rhys and me to leave the room ahead of him. I walked out, not bothering to look back at my uncle. He wasn’t worthy of a second glance.

We rejoined Rufus, Andreas and Vizah in the next room, standing with the guards, ensuring they didn’t try to save my uncle. Going by their sheathed swords, the guards were no threat.

“Do you want me to put it on you?” Rhys asked.

“Hmmm?” I looked at the pendant in my hand. “Oh. Please.” I handed it to him and turned, lifting my hair to expose my neck.

“Are you all right?” he murmured.

“I am. Better than I thought I’d be without an arrest. He’s weak now. I truly do pity him.”

“So do I.” He finished fastening the necklace and let the pendant fall into place. His fingers skimmed the skin at my neck, leaving little tingles in their wake. “Jac?—”

“Shhhh.” I put up a hand to silence him and listened. Voices came from the service stairs behind the wall. The servants had been exchanging words ever since dispersing, but I’d blocked out their chatter. This conversation caught my attention, however.

I was about to open the hidden service door in the wall paneling when someone on the other side screamed.