Destroy the Day, page 32
Everyone seems to hate Oren, and maybe he really is vicious.
But Rian took his daughter—and now she’s dead. Corrick and Lochlan and Kilbourne are dead, too.
Oren will tear him apart.
“Do you think Rian deserves it?” I say, and my voice sounds hollow.
As soon as I say the words, I remember a conversation with Wes, not long before I learned the truth about him.
Do you think they deserve it? I said. I was talking about the prisoners sentenced to die.
I think that very few people truly deserve what they get, he said. For good or for bad.
You only deserve good things, I told him—before I knew he was the prince I hated.
Before I knew he was only doing those things because he had a kingdom to protect.
I swallow.
Olive straightens her back and cracks the reins. “I can never decide.”
Then we crest another hill, and we face another line of people who need our help.
The sun is beginning to set again when the crowd finally begins to dwindle. My dress clings to me, and tendrils of hair have escaped to stick to my face. After the first day, I cut the sleeves off my dresses, and my hours in the sun have brought up an even deeper tan to my skin than what I had on the ship, and I’ve discovered some blond streaks in my hair. In Kandala, Karri used to talk about how much she missed the warmth of Sunkeep, but I’m missing the cooler temperatures of the Royal Sector and the Wilds. A sheen of sweat gleams on my arms. I’m grateful when a middle-aged woman brings us both a bottle of some sugared tea. I’ve hardly had a chance to eat all day.
“Was it like this in Kandala?” Olive asks me. “Did you see so many people?”
“No,” I say, thinking of my days working for Mistress Solomon. But then I reconsider, remembering my secret rounds with Wes. “Well, yes, but it was different. Not all at once. I had to treat them in secret.”
“Secret!” she says in surprise.
I flush. “It’s hard to explain.”
Hoofbeats pound in the distance, and we snap our heads up. So do many of the people who still remain. There’s an air of alarm, and I see hands grip tight to tools, a few mothers shooing their children back into houses. Even Olive takes a sharp breath and a quick look for Ellmo before remembering he’s safe at the house with Erik.
Yes, the scars of war are still here, hidden behind the healing and rebuilding efforts.
A dozen horses crest the hill, and I’m shocked to discover that it’s Rian and his people. The remaining crowd settles.
My pounding heart does not.
I recognize Gwyn and Sablo, but the other men with Rian seem to be guards. Rian’s eyes find me at once, but he still has a hundred feet of ground to cover, and his entrance has generated a lot of attention. As they draw closer, people don’t hesitate to approach him, offering greetings, patting his gleaming horse, smiling up at him. Someone laughs and hands him a giggling child, and Rian sets the little boy on the animal’s withers in front of him.
“There now,” I hear him say as they walk. “You hold the reins. Be gentle.”
The people of Kandala would never be like this with the king. The guards would never allow it anyway. I try to imagine King Harristan walking among the people, and I can’t even picture it.
But here, it’s obvious that they really do love Rian—and the worst part is that it’s obvious that he loves them back. He’s just as genial in response, just as kind, listening to their stories and greetings and genuinely returning their affection.
I hate that he makes it so hard to . . . to simply hate him. I have to turn away and busy myself with putting away my things.
At my side, I realize Olive is doing the same thing.
We both look at each other in surprise.
“I can’t watch the fawning,” she whispers, and for the first time, I think I hear her voice crack. “It makes me remember Wyatt. Maybe that makes me weak.”
I reach out and squeeze her hand. “I can’t watch it either. Maybe we can both throw up on him today.”
That startles a giggle out of her, and we share a more devious glance this time.
Eventually, the hoofbeats stop behind us, and a man clears his throat, and we have to turn around.
On horseback, Rian seems ten feet tall, especially backed by guards. They all block the sun and throw shadows over us both. He must have given the boy back to his parents because he’s alone on the horse now.
“Oh, hello,” I say. “I couldn’t see you past your admirers.”
“Hello, Miss Cade. I’ve been all over the island looking for you.” He doesn’t smile. His eyes flick to Olive. “Livvy. You’ve finally decided to leave your house?”
“I finally had a reason to,” she says. Her voice is as cool as mine—and his.
“I was surprised to find my nephew with the guardsman from Kandala.”
“Oh, he’s your nephew now?” she says. She presses a finger to her lips. “I’m not sure Ellmo even remembers who you are.”
“That’s not my fault,” he says.
I realize this is going to dissolve into family drama, and he didn’t tell me why he was looking for me. “Why have you been all over the island?” I say.
That snaps his attention back. “Because you weren’t at home.”
“I told you what I was going to do with the supplies you gave me.”
He hesitates, and a little frown line appears between his eyebrows. In that flicker of time, I realize he didn’t really expect me to help anyone at all.
Before he says anything, I fold my arms. “You like to think you’re better than Corrick,” I hiss, “but deep down, you’re so much worse.”
That hits him like a dagger, because thunderclouds roll through his eyes. “Do you really think so?”
“Calculating? Cynical? Manipulative?” I look at Olive. “Have I forgotten anything?”
She snorts. “Hypocritical?”
His eyes narrow. “Maybe I shouldn’t have bothered coming to find you at all.” He glances past us at the supplies we’ve obviously been using, at the people who are still dispersing. Some of the tension slips out of his expression. “But I am grateful for what you’re doing. I don’t mean to be cynical. You surprised me, that’s all. I know how much you hate me.” He hesitates, his eyes flicking to Olive. “Both of you.”
Olive sighs and turns back to what she was doing. “What I think about you doesn’t affect how I feel about the people of Ostriary.”
“I know,” he says, and he sounds genuine. “Which is why I’m grateful.”
Those words hang in the air for a little while, until she finally turns and looks at him.
There is nothing friendly in her expression.
I want to reach out and squeeze her hand again, but it might be too much. I peer up at Rian. “You still haven’t said why you were looking for me.”
“I’ve received an interesting series of letters from the harbor-master in Silvesse.” He hesitates. “It indicates that my uncle still believes his daughter is alive and I’m holding her prisoner. He’s planning a rescue. If we could trick him into thinking we’re holding her away from the palace, it could be an opportunity to trap him for good.”
His uncle.
Oren Crane.
My heart pounds again. “Why are you telling me this?” I say. “What does it have to do with me?”
He looks back at me steadily, and he pulls a folded piece of parchment from his saddlebag. His hand grips it tight.
But then he says nothing.
Olive takes a step closer to him. “If you need her house, Rian, just say so.”
I whip my head around. “What?”
“It’s obvious that’s why he’s here. We’re on the outcropping, and it’s easily defensible. It keeps most of the island out of the line of cannon fire, too. If he stages this ‘prison’ at your house, they could surround Oren’s ship in the cove and trap him without a problem.”
Behind Rian, Sablo taps his chest, then nods. Gwyn says, “Plenty of trees for hiding, too.”
Rian looks between all of them, then lets out a breath. He looks down at the parchment he was holding, then carefully folds it up and slips it back into his saddlebag.
“Yes,” he says slowly, letting out a breath. “I want your house.” He looks at Olive, and his voice drips with sarcasm. “And I’ll need a decoy. Interested, Livvy?”
“Why don’t you get one of your sycophants.” She raises her eyebrows at the people behind him. “Are you busy, Gwyn?”
“I’ll be busy taking care of Oren.”
My heart trips and stumbles in my chest. “I’ll do it,” I say.
“Tessa!” says Olive.
Rian startles, too. “What? No.”
“Why not?” I demand. “I’m the right age. I can’t fight, but I can sit and look like a prisoner.”
“Absolutely not.”
Olive grabs my hand. Her eyes are piercing. “Tessa. You don’t know what he’s like. What he’s done.”
I look right back at her. “I do know what he’s done.” I turn my head and look at Sablo, who’s missing a tongue. My eyes flick to Gwyn, whose little Anya was tortured. “I’ve heard a lot of stories about what he’s done.”
“This isn’t why I came,” Rian snaps.
“We don’t need a decoy for Oren,” says Gwyn. “We just need a location so we can lay a trap.”
“You don’t?” I demand. “You think he won’t send a scout to make sure you really have a prisoner? You have one chance to get him, and you’re not going to lay the most perfect trap you can?”
Rian is glaring at me, but that gets him. A muscle twitches in his jaw. “I don’t need you. I have my own people.”
“Why risk one of your own people?” I demand. “If I die, you lose nothing.”
“And if I succeed?” he says. “You clearly want something.”
“Yes,” I say. “I want passage back to Kandala. If Oren is out of the way, there’s nothing stopping you.”
He considers this for a minute. Then he nods. “Done. I’ll arrange it. Miss Cade, we’ll see you in two days at dawn. Be ready.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Harristan
It’s nightfall again, and I have more questions than I started the day with. I should be focusing on all the lies about colluding with Ostriary, but instead I’m fixated on the fact that consuls watched me send my brother off on a ship to fetch more medicine—and then they sent warships after him.
“You need to eat,” Quint says quietly. He’s sitting at the table with me, just like last night, and once again, loss and worry and heady emotion are filling the air.
Alice delivered stew half an hour ago, but I haven’t touched it.
I stare into the bowl, at the congealing mass of beef and vegetables that have long since stopped steaming. I don’t want to touch any of it. I push the bowl away.
Quint pushes it right back. “You haven’t eaten since this morning,” he presses.
Every muscle in my body is taut, and every breath I inhale feels like a battle. Forget eating. Forget everything. They tried to kill my brother. I long to find a horse and a crossbow and ride into the Royal Sector and shoot every consul I can find.
I’d be dead—or captured—before I made it through the gates.
“Sommer said the brigantines didn’t return,” Quint says. “Our sailors have never been able to navigate the rough seas southwest of Sunkeep, so there’s no reason to assume they would suddenly be able to now. Captain Blakemore surely would have spotted brigantines long before they were a threat. Prince Corrick would know that you wouldn’t send warships after him. I have to believe Captain Blakemore would be able to use his nautical skills to evade them in unfamiliar waters—and those ships were destroyed in the rough seas just like so many others.”
I’ve had these thoughts, too. They feed me a few crumbs of hope.
But I want more than crumbs. I want more than the hope that warships simply sank.
“Is this more of your perpetual optimism?” I ask, and as soon as I say it, I see the tiniest flinch in his eyes.
I frown. “That’s not condemnation. I envy it.”
He’s quiet for a minute. “If the consuls believed those warships were successful, they would have been bragging about their victory right along with the claims they’ve already made. There’s a reason this hasn’t been made public. They don’t want to advertise failure.”
Also true.
It still does little to ease the burn of anger and worry in my heart.
Is this my fate? To have everyone I love taken away from me?
“You said yesterday that you must be serving some kind of penance.” I draw a heavy breath so my voice doesn’t break. “Is this mine?”
“For what?”
“For everything.” My fingers press into the table. “For everything I’ve done wrong.”
He shifts closer, and his hand brushes over mine. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”
I sent Corrick away. I swallow, and my throat is tight.
“Do you think he’s dead?” I say.
It’s the first time I’ve spoken these words, and they fall like a stone into a pond. The silence that follows is deafening, accented by the crack of the fire in the hearth.
The fact that he doesn’t answer immediately makes me assume the worst. I look up and find Quint studying me in the candlelight.
My chest clenches. “You do,” I whisper.
“No. I was debating whether to share a story. I thought it may provide some . . . hope.”
I frown. “Then why were you debating?”
“Because it doesn’t have a happy ending. It might not offer any hope at all.”
My heart gives a lurch, and I want to refuse. But he hasn’t left my side all day, and I keep thinking of the way his hand fell on my shoulder when we were questioning Sommer. He misses Corrick, too. I run a damp hand over the back of my neck and say, “Does it give you hope?”
“I won’t know until you hear it.”
I draw a long breath. “Very well. Go ahead.”
“When my grandmother was young, she had a sister who disappeared in the woods when they were picking flowers. She said she was quite distraught, because she and her sister had been very close. Couldn’t be consoled, really. Her mother, too. Her brother and her father had half the town come out to help look for the sister, and everyone kept reassuring them that they would find her. So many people were looking.”
I study him. He already told me the story didn’t have a happy ending. “They didn’t find her?”
“They found her body. She’d been killed by a wild animal.”
“Why on earth would this story give me any shred of hope?” I demand.
“Because my grandmother used to say she knew. She always said she could feel the loss in her heart. That’s why she couldn’t be consoled. She knew they wouldn’t find her sister alive.”
I stare at him, my breathing quick. Quint reaches out and touches the center of my chest, and it’s so new that the warmth of his hand against my shirt takes me by surprise.
“Do you feel it?” he says, and his voice is so quiet, forcing me still. “You’ve known loss. In your heart, do you think he’s gone?”
His eyes flicker with firelight and stare back at me, unflinching now. In this moment, I realize he’s begging for the same kind of hope that I am.
I put a hand over his, holding his palm against my chest. My breath hitches, and I think of my brother. My brave brother, daring and reckless and downright incorrigible.
Cory.
I’d give anything for him to be here right now. I wish I’d never let him get on that ship. The thought feels selfish in so many ways.
As always, he’d be so much better at all of this.
But even though he’s absent, I don’t feel like he’s gone.
As soon as I realize it, a certainty seems to fill my chest, so cool and sure that it chases the waiting tears away and settles my pounding heart. I can breathe for the first time in hours.
“No,” I say steadily. “I don’t.”
Quint nods fiercely in agreement. “I don’t either.”
Maybe it’s ridiculous, because this is the most nebulous hope, but it gives me the greatest relief. I take a deep breath.
“Thank you.” I take his hand off my chest and clasp it between mine. Emotion is swelling in my heart. “Thank you.” I draw his hand to my face and press it to my cheek, then kiss his palm. “Thank you.”
His hand softens against my jaw, his thumb stroking over my skin. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
I go still. “Harristan,” I whisper.
He shakes his head.
“Still a refusal?” I say. “Even now?”
That almost gets him. But then he sighs and draws back. “Well, you see, every time I consider it, I remember yet another moment and determine I simply could not possibly.”
I turn those words around in my head and determine they’re complete nonsense. “What does that mean?”
“I’ll remember you facing down one of the consuls, or standing in front of the rebels in the sector while they threw fire at you, or negotiating with Tessa when you wanted to reclaim the palace. Censure me if you must, but I cannot call a man like that something as simple as his name.”
He really is going to drive me insane. I have to run a hand over my jaw.
“Just this afternoon!” he exclaims. “You squared up to that brutish man with the beard who was refusing to bring food to Sommer. He was twice your size—”
I give him a withering look. “That’s quite impossible.”
“Please don’t ruin my memory. He was possibly three times your size, and you—”
“That’s enough, Palace Master.”
My use of his title draws him up short again. “Ah. Is that how it will be now?” He pushes the bowl toward me again. “Very well. Eat.”
I still don’t want to, but this time, I obey. The food has gone cold, but I consider how Leah Saeth spoke of her daughter begging for scraps while guards tormented them, and I don’t complain. I think of Reed, who was probably hungry, too, and died proving his loyalty. And despite myself, I think of a bound Sommer trying to forage for chicken feed in the cold cellar. I shouldn’t have any empathy for treasonous guards, but I do. I can’t help it.
