The Shadow of Theron, page 33
“Trust her,” Fabien said in Lysandro’s ear as he passed.
It wasn’t Sera that Lysandro didn’t trust. He came just within earshot of where she and the king stood. They spoke in Mirênese, which left Lysandro flustered, but Sera’s cold response was obvious. She dismissed the king and moved to rejoin the celebration, but he grabbed her by the wrist and spun her around to face him again.
A shiver of rage ran down Lysandro’s spine. He strode up to them with rapid steps and put himself between Sera and the king.
“I’ll thank you to leave my fiancée alone.”
The king raised an eyebrow; he slid effortlessly into Andran. “Ah, yes, Don de Castel. I’ve heard of you.”
Sera bristled, which seemed to bring him pleasure. “I have my spies too.”
Lysandro fixed the king with a hard stare.
Fane looked amused rather than threatened. Lysandro felt it high time the king’s face received another adjustment, to put it in Pirró’s terms.
“An Andran don in a pretty, out-of-the-way little village on the coast. What do you intend to give her that I can’t?”
“My unwavering loyalty and affection, all the days of my life.”
The intensity of Lysandro’s words shook the air. He cast an earnest glance at Sera over his shoulder. Her expression was unreadable.
The king seemed suddenly ill at ease. Rolling his shoulders, he turned his gaze to Sera.
“Well? Will you spend the rest of your days in this village? With him?”
Lysandro curled his fingers into a fist. He was going to pummel him, and to six hells with the consequences. But before he could strike, Sera stepped closer into Lysandro’s shadow, and slipped her hand into his.
“You’re a good king, Fane. But Lysandro’s a thousand times the man you are.”
Fane blinked and stepped back. The blow hit him harder than any swing of Lysandro’s arm could. Lysandro felt his chest puff up like a ship’s sails, buoyed by Sera’s high praise.
“I believe the lady made herself clear.”
The king straightened his back and strode off without another word.
Lysandro felt Sera squeeze his hand. When he turned to face her, the room suddenly became too warm, the air too thick. He raised a single eyebrow in an attempt to relieve the tension.
“A thousand? Seems a bit much.”
“Did it? I was afraid it wasn’t enough.”
By Faelia—she was serious.
He drew courage from her as he reached into his coat and pressed the jewel he’d purchased into her hands like a secret.
“This is for you.”
She opened her palms like a flower in bloom. Her eyes grew round at the sight of their contents, reflecting the gem’s rosy brilliance. His name was a sigh on her lips. The sound raced across his skin as he lifted the pendant and moved to adorn her with it.
“May I?”
“Please. Thank you, Lysandro. It’s incredible.”
“No more so than you,” he answered. He ran his fingers through her hair and swept it over her shoulder in a caress before fastening the necklace. His fingertips lingered at the nape of her neck.
“Lysandro?”
“Hmm?”
He didn’t recognize the sound of his own voice. It was an odd sound, subdued, and yet…primal.
“This is not the sort of gift one gives to a bride of convenience.”
His hand drifted down to the place where her neck met her shoulder. His other arm encircled her waist as she stood with her back to him. She fell easily into the embrace, and set his heart pumping like a madman’s. It took all he had to stop his voice from cracking, and to whisper in her ear as smooth as velvet.
“Is that what you are to me, Sera?”
She shivered in his arms, but he only held her tighter. Her voice came softly on the night’s breeze.
“No.”
She inclined her head toward him, giving Lysandro a splendid view of her profile etched in starlight. She was a vision—sheer perfection. The slight parting of her lips seemed an invitation.
They came together on swift impulse. The little sound that escaped her set his blood on fire. He could feel her heart fluttering against him as he drew her closer.
Everything felt right in the world. Kissing her was like coming home. They knew each other here, here there was no pretense. Only desire. The thrill of their embrace sizzled through him from his fingertips to his toes. When she ran her fingers though his hair, it sent its heart spinning in its cage. His breathing hitched as their tongues met and their kiss deepened. It had been so long since he had tasted her. Gods, how he had missed her.
He could have worshipped at her sumptuous mouth forever. But his paradise was shattered when she clutched his forearm and her fingers pressed unwittingly into his stitches. He tore himself away from her in agony. The speedy retreat of pleasure for pain was dizzying, and he swallowed against a wave of nausea that threatened to overtake him.
“Lysandro, your arm!” Her fingers reached for the spot where moisture was seeping through the stitches and turning his shirtsleeve sticky.
He shook it off quickly. Too quickly.
“It’s nothing, I—I knocked into a corner.”
Silence fell like an anvil between them. Sera stepped back. He wanted to rush to her, to wash away what he’d said in a moment of pure idiocy. But he froze, and didn’t dare look her in the face.
“How did you hurt your arm?”
The cold fury in her voice spooked him. He couldn’t tell her the truth. Not now. Now like this. But he would not utter the lie again. So he stood rooted in place, as silent as stone.
The raging storm in her eyes broke, giving way to hurt as she turned and fled.
No.
“Sera. Sera wait!”
But she was already gone. Panic flooded him as she melted into the crowd. He couldn’t chase after her here. It would only serve to embarrass her. She shielded herself with all the patrons who wished to congratulate her and cut herself off from him entirely.
Tonight.
He forced himself to steel his nerves against her well-deserved wrath and the way she pointedly avoided looking in his direction. Tonight, he would go to her, and everything would be right again.
* * *
He’d smooth things over first, soothe her ire, and then, tell her. That was the plan. If he could bring a smile to her face with the mask on, then perhaps he could keep it there once he removed it.
The curtains to her room were swaying in the breeze. That was good. Or so he thought. It left him completely unprepared for her quarrel with him to pick up exactly where it left off.
“Signorina,” he called out in a low tone. He was met with a sharp stare.
“Now you come.” she scoffed and turned away from him.
“Signorina,” he pleaded, taken aback, “have I done something to offend you?”
That cruel snort again that turned his blood to ice. “Did you?”
“Darling, I—”
“Don’t.”
Lysandro bit his tongue. His words only seemed to stoke the fury in her eyes. She turned the full heat of her stare on him, and he felt his skin prickle.
She was so far away. He stretched out his hand to her. He wanted to swallow her up in his arms and soften her sharp tongue with a sweet caress, but she took a step back. Lysandro’s heart sunk from his chest and settled somewhere in the vicinity of his knees. His hand dropped to his side.
“Take off your mask,” she said.
Lysandro swallowed. How could he, now? It would only make things worse, though he wasn’t sure how much worse things could be. He wasn’t keen to find out.
“Take off the mask!”
He shuddered.
Sera pressed her eyes shut to control her anger. When she opened them again, Lysandro saw them glisten in the moonlight.
“You…you promised…”
Lysandro’s heart broke into a thousand pieces.
She turned away from him.
“…Signorina…”
Look at me. Please.
Her breath hitched. “Please. Please just go.” She disappeared behind the curtains and out of sight without casting a backward glance. The sound of her sobbing assailed Lysandro’s ears.
He held his crumpled mask tightly in his hands.
He ripped it off again upon reaching his chambers. He didn’t make it to the bed; he slid to the floor with his back against the door. He’d almost had it. He’d almost had her heart in his hands. Her kiss had felt like heaven. That was ruined. All ruined. He tried to rend the mask in two as he sat on the cold floor, the room dark as pitch. But the fabric wouldn’t yield. He succumbed to the hollow sensation of his heart eating itself from the inside, and wept bitterly.
24
Aleksander had expected the courthouse to be full. What he hadn’t expected was the witness box itself to be crammed with people.
When that many villagers had cause enough to accuse someone of a crime, that someone was guilty. Of what, Aleksander had to figure out.
He had slept poorly—naturally, as he’d slept in the judge’s chambers with his feet propped up at the desk, stretching and contorting his back at a hideous angle. There was nothing to speak of for breakfast, and his coat crinkled in all the wrong places as he walked the few feet from the office door to take his place at the raised dais.
Caterina spoiled him. She’d have had a warm, invigorating meal waiting for him, his clothes pressed and ready to make the impression a chief magistrate should. But he wanted her and the girls as far away from here as possible and had packed in haste on his own. She’d be mortified to see the figure he cut now.
Gareth brought Marek into the room and sat him down in the box designated for the accused. He was clapped in irons. Marek did as he was bidden, and looked out calmly over the courthouse. Aleks expected Marek to be outraged, or defeated, or something—anything. Instead, Lothan sat as docile as a lamb and looked on with a detached air, as if this were all perfectly normal.
Aleksander perused the gaggle of Lighurans jostling each other for a seat in the witness box. There were so many of them that they couldn’t figure out how they were all going to fit. One gentleman looked about to lose his temper, but the woman behind him pulled on the cuff of his sleeve, and the provoked bluster deflated into grumbling.
Aleksander thanked the Goddess that Elias was not among them. He sat by himself in the back row on the magistrate’s right. It would have been awkward to accept testimony from him, given that their friendship was not a secret. If they even were still friends.
Aleksander tired of waiting for the witnesses to sort themselves. He pounded the desk with the flat of his hand. The sound echoed off the wood, and the attendants stiffened at attention. The witnesses stopped squirming and squeezed shoulder to shoulder. Aleksander never got tired of the effect such a simple gesture could have.
He turned his eyes to Marek, who looked back with a patient stare that grated on his nerves.
“Lothan Marek, you stand accused of dereliction of your duty as magistrate of the village of Lighura—among other things.”
Aleksander snapped his head in the direction of a shout. It was the wizened witness, of course, the one who’d been kicking up a fuss.
“I’ll get to you, in my own good time,” Aleks said.
The grumbler was sufficiently chastened.
“What about you?” Aleksander asked, turning back to Marek. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
Marek seemed to consider the question, but ultimately, he decided to remain quiet.
“Fine.”
It was enough to push Aleks over the edge of grouchy into downright irritated.
He looked again to the witness bench. He didn’t know these people. Trying to organize them by the severity of their accusations or their credibility would be an impossible task without a lengthy delay. Aleksander didn’t bother.
“Who’s to be first?” he called.
Let them figure it out.
The grumbler shot up from his seat, of course. But he wasn’t quick enough for the stern-looking woman to his left. She hissed something Aleksander was grateful not to have heard and shoved a thin young lad, her son by the look of him, ahead. He stumbled toward the magistrate with a bewildered, embarrassed look on his face.
“What’s your name?” Aleksander asked.
“Don Fernando Carras, son of Don Aldo Carras. He was murdered when a thief entered our home.”
“I hung the man who killed your father,” Marek said. “Not sure what more I could have done to punish him.”
He speaks.
Lothan’s dismissive reply shook something loose inside the young don, for the retort that came back was sharp.
“That may be true, but what he isn’t telling you is that we’d been complaining for weeks about break-ins and thievery, and he’d done nothing. He said he was going to do something about it, but he never did. He didn’t come around asking questions, didn’t arrest anyone. More and more houses were robbed, and when my father found one of the thieves in his study and confronted him, he was killed. A few days later, the magistrate hung one of his own men.”
His own man?
“Was it the man your father encountered?” Aleksander cut in.
“I can’t say. I never saw him.”
Fair enough. It spoke well of the lad that he hadn’t embellished.
“He told us the man had confessed, but he put up some fight. Screamed that it was Marek who killed him. Right up until they hanged him.”
Did he now…
Aleksander shifted his gaze to regard Lothan. His eyes narrowed to slits.
“What were the man’s exact words, Don Fernando? Do you remember?”
“Exactly? No. One of the others might remember better. But I do recall that he was really worked up.”
I can imagine. Hard not to be when you’re being hanged for something you didn’t do.
“He called Marek a liar and said that he was the one who murdered my father. If Marek had done his job in the first place,” Fernando continued, “my father would still be alive.”
“These others you mention, the ones whose houses were also stolen into—can you name them?”
“They’re all sitting right there,” he said, pointing his chin back toward the witness box.
It aligned with what Elias had told him, as far as Aleks could remember. He’d only been half paying attention, distracted by the fact that Elias hadn’t looked him in the eye as he’d spoken. His gaze had occasionally landed on his shoulder, above his head, or on his magistrate’s pin. But never in the eye.
Anyway, it was more important to wipe his mind clean of what he’d been told and hear it straight from the source. Elias was one of the few noblemen whose house hadn’t been attacked. The only one, it seemed, except his and Don Lysandro’s.
Carras’s testimony had the gears turning in Aleksander’s head, certainly, but his story alone would not be enough to see Marek on the business end of a rope. There was much that Marek could explain away if he so chose. He could argue that the murdering thief had eluded him, despite his best efforts, but that he’d caught him in the end; the man in question would not be there to dispute it. That the condemned had been ensconced in Marek’s own offices was more problematic, but corruption was not a hanging offense. Marek was already stripped of his title regardless of anything else, but that wouldn’t be enough to keep Lighurans safe from the wrath he expected was simmering just beneath the surface.
Aleksander hoped that the young don’s claim wasn’t the best evidence the village had to offer.
He thanked the boy, who nodded and rejoined his mother.
“I’ll go next, if you don’t mind.”
The man who approached Aleksander was of an age with him, thin, and well-groomed. He sported a ring of purple under his right eye, and his nose had the distinct look of being broken but not properly reset before it began to heal.
“My name is Stefano Morici, and I own the print shop.”
“What have you to say against this man?” Aleksander asked.
The printer gestured toward himself. “My face, and most likely some of my ribs as well, were broken by him.”
Aleksander looked up from his notes. “Eh?”
“He ordered me to print a wanted notice for the Shadow of Theron. But—”
“The what?”
“The Shadow of Theron, Honor.”
“What in six hells is the Shadow of Theron?”
“He’s…our local hero. He is called such for his defense of the honest people of this village, and for standing against the plague sitting over there.” He cast a cold glance at Marek.
The multitude of heads occupying the gallery bobbed in unison. Aleksander furrowed his brow.
“But who is he?” Aleksander asked.
“No one knows, Honor. He wears a mask about his face, and is sly as a fox, as elusive as a phantom.”
“He destroyed my office!” Marek shouted.
“As I was saying…”
Aleksander knew that Marek hadn’t done that himself. Whatever else Lighurans thought of him, that did make the so-called Shadow of Theron a vandal. But he gestured for the printer to continue.
“I was ordered to print the notice, but there was a mistake on the type, regarding the reward. When the notices were distributed with the error, Marek sent his goons to summon me.”
“You deliberately humiliated me,” Lothan growled.
Stefano shook his head. “I take great pride in my work, Honor, but all men make mistakes.”
The smirk creeping at the edge of his mouth, and the barely suppressed snickers of the gallery, told Aleksander the true shape of it. But the printer wasn’t finished.
“Do you mean to argue that a simple misprint merits such a severe beating as I have endured?”
“Certainly not,” Aleksander answered in Marek’s stead. “You’re sure it was him?”
“It was the man himself, Honor. I was called into his office for that express purpose.”
Hard to mistake that.
Aleksander scribbled on the paper in front of him.
“And as to what Don Carras said, I do remember the day Marek hung one of his officers. He said, ‘murderer—you’re just as guilty as me.’”
