Page 4 of The Warrior Priest (After the Rift #1)

He was right, although I’d never given it much thought.

The ruler of our neighboring kingdom was a distant cousin of King Alain’s.

Glancia would be swallowed up by Vytill unless we went to war with them and chose a new king from one of Glancia’s dukes instead.

The problem was, which duke? If they both wanted the crown, it could result in a civil war between their factions.

I knew nothing about the dukes, but I did know that Glancia couldn’t afford to go to war, either with its richer neighbor, or with itself.

“I’ll go tonight,” I assured him.

He put up a hand. “Slow down, Jac. There’s a lot of security at the governor’s office. It requires preparation to learn the guards’ movements?—”

“The cleaners arrive as dawn breaks, just before the guards change shifts. The guards will be at their sleepiest and won’t notice an extra cleaner, and if they do, they’ll simply see a youth blackened by chimney soot.”

He rose without taking his gaze off me. He never studied me with such intensity. It was unnerving. Yet it warmed my insides, too. “How do you know when they change shifts? Or when the cleaners arrive? I’ve never asked you to break into the governor’s office before, so this should all be new.”

I shrugged.

“And why the hesitation when I mentioned the governor?”

“I didn’t hesitate.”

“You did. You also showed an uncommon interest in the existence of such a document. You’ve never shown an interest in knowing the implications of any job I’ve tasked you with before.”

“That’s because they’ve always been petty or dull or both.” It was mostly true. I never took an interest because the jobs didn’t directly affect me. The machinations of noblemen and rich merchants mattered nothing to my day-to-day existence.

This was different.

I might as well not have spoken. “Why, Jac? Why the interest this time?”

I crossed my arms, but when I realized that made me seem defensive, I lowered them to my sides. “You’re mistaken. I’m not interested."

“Merdu, Jac, are we not friends?”

I flinched at the vehemence in his tone. “We are.”

“Then why don’t you trust me? I trust you.”

“It’s easy to trust me because you know I owe you. I’d be in prison if it weren’t for you, or dead.”

It was his turn to flinch. “I had no idea I was just the source of your next meal. But then, I have no idea about anything when it comes to you. You tell me nothing, no matter how many times I ask.”

“You haven’t asked in a long time.”

“Because you wouldn’t tell me anything!” He stormed off toward the door, snatching up his cloak and gloves, only to stop before opening it. He lowered his head, and his shoulders slumped. “I thought we were friends, Jac,” he said again, without turning to face me.

“We are. We are , Rhys.” I surged toward him, only to stop myself before I pressed my palm to his back. “I do trust you. I was annoyed just now because sometimes I hate that you can read me so easily.”

He half turned and watched me through his thick dark lashes.

I could trust him. I knew that in my bones. It was time to tell him. “You’re right. There is something about this particular task that affects me, more than any other you’ve assigned.”

He faced me fully. He didn’t speak. He hardly seemed to be breathing. His intensity, so unlike his usually carefree self, was unnerving.

It was why I blurted out my confession in a rush. “The governor is my uncle.”

Rhys slumped back against the door. He stared at me. “ You’re the governor’s niece!”

“Great niece,” I said. “He’s my mother’s uncle.”

His brow furrowed. “I remember when you were abducted. The entire city was looking for you, including me and all of the other brothers. Merdu and Hailia…you weren’t abducted, were you? Otherwise you’d reveal yourself and return home. You ran away. You didn’t want to be found.”

“I hid in the sewers while the city searched for me. None of the other homeless vagrants and orphans realized I was a girl after I cut my hair and changed my clothes.” I fingered the short strands at the nape of my neck.

Sometimes, even now, my reflection startled me when I caught a glimpse of it.

I looked nothing like that long-haired innocent sixteen-year-old who’d believed her uncle had her best interests at heart.

“If they had, they would have turned me in for the reward.”

“The search was called off when your burned body was found after a fire in a warehouse at the docks. The sheriff claimed the investigation revealed the building was used by child abductors who hid them there until they had an opportunity to transport the children out of the city by riverboat. Everyone assumed you’d been one of their victims.”

“That fire was a stroke of luck for me, although sadly not for the real victim.”

“Or the so-called child abductors. The governor was so upset he tortured them when they were caught.”

“They were indeed child abductors, according to some of the children in the sewers. If there’s one good thing to come out of this, it was their capture.”

“The governor was brutal, so I heard.”

“Not because he was upset over losing me. He wanted something of mine. He must have tortured them to find out why it hadn’t been on the body, and what they’d done with it.” I removed the blue-green cabochon pendant on the end of the silver chain I kept around my neck.

Rhys barely even looked at it. He couldn’t stop staring at me. “Is it a family heirloom?”

I nodded. “It’s been handed down through the female line over many generations, so my mother said. It’s the one thing that was truly mine, and the only thing I had of hers. Yet my uncle wanted it.”

“You ran away from a comfortable home because he wanted your necklace?” He shifted his feet and finally his gaze slid away. “Or was there another reason?” He suddenly and violently shook his head. “No, you don’t have to answer that. You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to.”

“It’s not what you’re thinking. He never touched me.

To the outside world, it looked as though he took me in because he was my only relative.

But in truth, he only gave me a home to get his hands on this.

” I held the pendant higher, wanting Rhys to take a closer look, to marvel at the stone that I’d marveled at for many years.

“All my parents’ worldly goods, including me, were given to my nearest male relative, Uncle Roderic.

My mother had gifted me this stone on my sixteenth birthday, shortly before she died.

She called it a talisman, and claimed it held power put there by the sorcerer himself.

That power could be drawn upon by the one who possessed it.

Family legend says it must be passed down the female line.

My mother didn’t know how to extract the power or even what it does—the details were lost long ago—but she made me promise to always keep it on my person.

It was that power my uncle wanted for himself.

Within minutes of me moving into his house, he asked to see it.

When I refused to hand it over, he spent the next few weeks alternately trying to trick me into giving it to him or attempting to take it from me.

When he realized I wouldn’t give it up and couldn’t be tricked, he ripped it right off me. Then he locked me up.”

“Clearly you stole it back.”

“My first theft. My mother may have given me this pendant, but my father gave me a few skills that he thought might prove useful one day.”

I smiled, remembering those lessons. My father had died when I was ten.

It was just my mother and me for another six years, until she caught a fever.

It had happened so suddenly she’d never been able to make alternative arrangements for my upbringing.

Either that, or she hadn’t known how cruel her uncle could be and thought he’d make a fine guardian.

He’d hidden his true nature from us. From everyone. He still did.

Rhys continued to stare at me, not the stone.

Nor did he seem to have taken in what I’d said about the pendant’s power.

He probably thought it was nothing more than an old family tale, passed down from mother to daughter with a wink as they bonded over something that all wished was true but couldn’t possibly be.

After all, women held no power in Glancia.

Indeed, none of the kingdoms on the Fist Peninsula recognized women as having legal rights when they had a male relative to control them.

I wasn’t sure about Freedland, that republic full of rebels at the very southern end of the peninsula, but I doubted it was different.

My uncle’s desperation to get his hands on the pendant was the first clue the story about its power might be true.

Since then, I’d wondered how it would work, if it were.

If it held power, I had no idea how to unleash it.

With access to the old archives at his order’s library, Rhys might be in a position to find out. Even if he couldn’t, I didn’t regret telling him. I did trust him, and I wanted him to know that.

I held the pendant higher and finally he took notice. He picked it up by its chain. “It’s pretty.”

“Hold it to the light and you’ll see a star in the center.”

He angled it toward the fireplace. “So there is. It’s as if it shines from within.” He went to pass it back to me but stopped. He held it near my face. “The stone is the same color as your eyes.”

I was thankful for the poor light when a blush infused my cheeks.

I took the pendant and lowered my head as I put it back on.

“My mother had the same color eyes, as did her mother and hers, and so on, according to family lore. I liked to think that an admirer of one of my ancestors found the stone while out walking one day and noticed it matched his beloved’s eyes, so he had it polished and gave it to her as a gift. ”

“It’s a nice story, and more realistic than the one about a sorcerer putting power into it for some unknown reason then giving it to your ancestor, also for some unknown reason.”

His response was hardly surprising. I didn’t really believe it myself. “You don’t think it could even be remotely true? Not a shred?”

“No, Jac, I don’t. I believe in Merdu, Hailia and the minor gods and goddesses. To admit the existence of a sorcerer is blasphemous. Not that I would admit it, because I don’t believe sorcery exists.”

I tucked the gemstone back under my shirt. It was warm against my skin from Rhys’s touch. “The Zemayans believe in a sorcerer.”

“Some do. Most don’t. They tell their children stories about the sorcerer to scare them into behaving.

Nowadays, most believe in the gods and goddesses that we do here on the Fist, led by Merdu and Hailia.

” A gust of wind rattled the windowpanes, catching his attention.

“I should go. I’ve changed my mind about breaking into the governor’s office.

I don’t want you to do it. It’s not worth the risk.

All will be officially revealed sooner or later anyway. ”

That may be true, but it would help Rhys to know in advance.

Or, rather, his order’s master. I presumed that’s who ultimately employed me, since Rhys had no money of his own to pay me.

Merdu’s Guards might not be responsible for catching criminals who broke the law—that was the job of the sheriff and his constables—but they could be called upon to quell unrest that threatened the city’s peace, since Glancia’s high priest lived here in Tilting.

It made sense to be aware of potential conflicts before they arose.

Rhys made to leave only to stop again. “I’m sorry you had no one after your mother died, not even the man who was supposed to protect you. I can’t imagine what it felt like being all alone.”

“You were younger than me when your father died, and you had no other family.”

“I had the order. Master Tomaj was my father’s good friend and took me in without question. The brothers became like real brothers to me. We’re a family. Thanks to them, I’ve never felt alone.”

I wondered if that was why he’d joined their ranks when he turned eighteen, because he wanted to stay close to the men who’d become his family. But that wasn’t a question I felt comfortable asking, even if he was my best friend.

He rested his hand on the door handle. “I’m glad I found you, Jac. Now you have brothers, too.” He slipped out and closed the door softly.

My vision blurred as tears welled. He was right.

His friends had become my friends over the last three years, and I was extremely grateful for them.

But mostly the tears welled because an ache had settled into my chest. I didn’t want Rhys to feel like he was my brother.

I wanted him in an entirely different way. One that his religious order forbade.