Page 104 of Fortune's Blade

“Don’t yell at my patient!” Claire snapped. “Or I’ll have you removed.”

Louis-Cesare looked slightly taken aback by that, as people did not have first-level masters removed. First-level masters went wherever the hell they wanted and stayed for as long as they chose. But this wasn’t Kansas anymore, and I wasn’t sure that she couldn’t do it.

I also wasn’t sure that it was such a bad idea. Louis-Cesare and Claire were like oil and water at the best of times, which these weren’t. Anything to lower the tension in here would probably be a good thing.

“Can you check next door; see how it’s going?” I asked him, despite the fact that we could all hear quite well how it was going.

An auburn eyebrow raised. “Could I search the village?” he murmured sarcastically. But he went.

He was a good man.

And he knew we weren’t going to get anything, anyway.

“Why don’t you . . . go with him?” Antem panted at me. “Or do you want . . . to witness your revenge?”

“I’m not here for revenge.” Seeing him stabbed by his own mother had been . . . illuminating. I wondered what kind of life he’d lived, trying to prove himself to a bitch like that. Only to have her demonstrate exactly how much he meant to her, at the end.

His face changed suddenly, almost as if he’d heard me, the defiance melting into something else.

“I did hear you,” he rasped. “I have . . . the gift. Better . . . than most. It’s what made me . . . a good spy.”

“I’m sorry.” I turned to follow my husband out, not wanting to make this any worse for a dying man, but he caught my hand.

“No. Stay . . . for a while. I don’t want . . . to be alone.”

I looked at Claire, but she only grimaced and didn’t point out that she was there, too. He hadn’t so much as glanced at her while she’d tended to him. She seemed to make him uncomfortable.

I sat back down on the three-legged stool by his cot, a little gingerly. He was strapped down, the huge body half dead, and Claire was here. But he was still dangerous.

And we all knew it.

There had been two guards outside earlier and maybe more now; I hadn’t been out to check since we came in here, with Regin carrying the prisoner who could no longer stand. But Antem’s lack of mobility had reassured exactly nobody, so guards had been posted and would have been inside the tent only Claire wasn’t having it. She’d shooed them out and staunched the terrible blood loss, but as she’d said, the knife had pierced the heart.

And even dragon healing abilities only went so far.

It was only a matter of time, but I wondered if the guards would be fast enough if Antem intended his last moments to include an attack on me. But he didn’t seem to. His face, so angry and belligerent a moment ago, had shifted now that Louis-Cesare was gone, and there was only me and his strange attendant to hear.

Perhaps because we were both women, and he didn’t have to keep up the macho pretense anymore? Or maybe he’d just realized how little time he had left. I didn’t know, but he seemed to want something from me, and not just my presence.

His grip on my hand became more urgent. “Is she . . . really dead? What Lord Rathen said . . . was it true?”

“Is who dead?” I asked, a little distracted because the hand holding mine was slippery with blood and yet so incredibly strong that he could have snapped my wrist like a twig, if he’d wanted to. But then I saw her in my mind, as clearly as if she was standing there: Tamris, in her starry dress, laughing and looking like she had at the feast, and understood what he wanted.

It was the way he’d last seen her, I realized, because he didn’t seem to know what had happened during the fight. Perhaps he’d already fled by then, back to Vitharr. Perhaps he had never returned from the initial trip, when he’d sold us out.

But he didn’t know until he saw the truth in my mind, and his expression changed again. Yet he seemed to need to hear the words. “Tell me!”

“She died in the battle,” I confirmed quietly. “I’m very sorry.”

He let go of my hand and lay back against the cot, as if the rest of the fight had just gone out of him. I didn’t have to ask if they’d been close. No one seeing his face would have.

“She should have stayed out of it,” he whispered, after a moment. “But her father told her . . . to marry the lord’s son . . . whatever it took. I suppose she thought that meant . . . fighting at his side.” He looked at me, the brown eyes huge and lost and tragic. “Did you see it?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t see much of anything. I was . . . busy.”

“Yes, I suppose so.” We were quiet for a moment. “She was beautiful,” he finally said. “But many are. She was also . . . good and kind and gentle. Her father was the . . . usual scheming courtier. So, of course . . . he used her. She didn’t deserve that.” He winced in pain.

“You don’t need to talk,” I said, but he seemed to want to, suddenly. To tell somebody about her. “We were to be married . . . before her father . . . decided to make his play. Times are . . . fraught. If Lord Rathen dies . . . Tanet will rule, but he is young . . . and would need . . . advisors . . ..”

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