Page 27 of Dare

With the knight’s lips mashed between the wall and my palm, he couldn’t answer. Therefore, Solstice took her cue. “Defamation,” she supplied.

My first-in-command glowered at her comrade, and the retinue mirrored her expression, grimaces distorting their features. They regarded Indigo with offense not for the slight—it took more than a petulant tantrum to motivate me—but its content. In The Dark Seasons, to call anyone’s sanity into question bordered on blasphemy. Addressing a Royal as such amounted to slander and prosecution.

Squashing his skull harder into the facade, I inquired, “Now when you say insanity, could it be that you’re referring to me and not the prisoner?”

Pebbles dislodged from the sediment as he managed to grit out, “Of course not, Your Highness.”

“Because for a moment, it sounded like you were questioning my judgment. But that couldn’t be,” I insisted. “No knight would make that error to my face.”

These soldiers and I had built a formidable alliance. So long as they guarded Winter, its people, and the Crown, I treated them as equals. Break that pledge however, and I would respond differently.

The troops knew of my capabilities. Evidently, Indigo had forgotten.

I stared. The man cleared his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

Much better. I released him and moved on, asking about tracks, to which a Summer knight confirmed the floors were forged of stone throughout. To the matter of fool witnesses, the ones who’d given sound answers claimed not to have seen anything.

Prongs would change their responses. As would saws and spikes.

I glided a finger along my blade hilt. “Ask them again,” I instructed Indigo. “Make sure they answer.”

Knowing which instruments I preferred, the man pressed a cloth to his bloody ear and bowed. “Sire.”

“And Indigo?” I said, delaying the knight.

As he waited, I clarified, “Not the children.”

Often, I found myself lenient toward the small ones, drawing the line and exempting them. They were necessary for growth studies, but those procedures were harmless. I had structured it that way, not condoning anything harsher.

This had been my motivation in trading for children with Rhys. Unlike every other born fool, youths endured better treatment in my court than here.

After Indigo left, a Summer knight broached, “The alarm drum would illustrate the king and queen’s will, Your Highness.”

“It would advertise their idiocy,” I revoked. “Giselle has done nothing to earn that affront. And the last thing her deficient husband wants is another stain on his reputation.”

“The mute is famished,” Solstice advised the troops. “She’ll be scared, sluggish, and disoriented. Her options in these passages are limited.”

Disoriented, yes. Sluggish, perhaps.

Scared, debatable.

Nonetheless, I inclined my head for them to go. Summer swapped glances, deliberating amongst themselves before agreeing. They would alert Rhys if they couldn’t find the captive within thirty minutes.

They disbanded. Solstice remained for my protection, which I refused with a click of my head toward the tunnel. “Just get her.”

The First Knight nodded, then sprinted to join the party, her armor clanging down the west tunnel. My troops did not need to be spoon-fed instructions. Although I had given orders that no one should handle the prisoner but myself, present circumstances required me to retract that command. Technically, at least. It would appear uncharacteristic to do otherwise.

I had made certain to sound unruffled. Yet they would not find the beast. It had taken me a year, plus Summer’s intervention, to corner her.

Regardless, I would not let them get to her first. So help me, they would not lay a finger on the little beast. For I intended to snatch her myself. When I’d said no one would touch that woman except me, I had not been exaggerating.

Alone, I inspected the corridors. Thinking. Assessing. My first-in-command had admitted to a mishap, that the mad female had succeeded in diverting Solstice with a chipped whelk and skulked away.

A born fool equipped to know her way around a knot. A defensive one. A protective one. Memories from the quad resurfaced. While chained like a specimen, the beast had threatened me regarding her fellow inmates.

I won’t let you take them.

Seething, I spun and backtracked. The fool would not depart toward the tunnels’ exit. No, she would make for the entrance. Like Poet and Briar, she would attempt to be a hero.

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