Page 99 of Fortune's Blade

I stared at him for a moment, my eyes flooding with tears that, this time, I didn’t even try to stop. I hugged him, clinging on harder than was smart in my current state, but I couldn’t seem to let go. I didn’t know what god I had pleased to bring him into my life, but I knew one thing.

I didn’t deserve him.

The thought rang strangely in my mind for a second, almost an echo. But when I went to grasp it, it slipped through my fingers like wind. Leaving me holding nothing.

“What is it?” Louis-Cesare asked, his body tensing as that sharp gaze went around the room, following mine.

But there was nothing to see, not with the eyes, anyway.

“I don’t know. Just . . .” Dorina? I reached out mentally. Are you there?

There was no answer, not even an echo this time. But something had brushed my mind, if only for an instant. I knew it had!

And, suddenly, I felt lighter. Suddenly, absurdly, I felt like laughing. “I think she’s alive,” I whispered. “I think she is!”

“Sands doute.”

I didn’t know how he could be so sure, or if he was only saying that to comfort me. But right now, I’d take it. Right now—

The tent flap was jerked back before I could finish the thought, and a familiar head stuck in. It was Tanet, invading our privacy without even attempting at warning. But for once, he wasn’t sneering at me.

“What is it?” Louis-Cesare asked, drawing the fur closer around me.

“Get dressed,” Claire’s brother said simply. “The traitor has been found and you’re wanted.”

Chapter Thirty-One

A powerfully built brunet man was on his knees in a small clearing, naked and bleeding and surrounded by members of Lord Rathen’s court. We were a good distance from camp, out of what should have been hearing range, but somebody had put up a silence spell anyway. I could feel it close about us as we passed through, like stepping into a pool of cold water when not expecting it.

It rang in my teeth like biting an icicle, something less than pleasant on a night that already felt like the air was half frozen and crunching in my lungs like our footsteps on the forest floor. But we’d bundled up in the clothes we’d arrived in, which some of Lord Rathen’s people had been kind enough to launder and bring out to us, as everything else had gone up in the fireworks display. The feel of denim, leather, and a fur lined parka was weirdly reassuring in a world where nothing else was familiar.

Louis-Cesare was dressed similarly, in blues to my blacks, although he didn’t need protection from the cold. But the clothes made us a set and caused us to stand apart from everyone else. And I was fine with that.

Mircea could handle the pretty speeches and dress to fit in. Today had taught me one thing, at least: I wasn’t a diplomat and I never would be. I was a warrior and was ready to get back to killing things.

Specifically, things that had ratted me out almost before I arrived.

There were a lot of people in the glade clustered about the bleeding man. I didn’t recognize them all, but Regin was there, with the salt and pepper hair and closely trimmed beard shining in the moonlight. As well as Lord Rathen himself, his red hair somewhat dimmed by the night, but his eyes extra green in the reflected aurora.

No one spoke as we joined them except for the prisoner, who snarled as soon as he saw us. And despite the fact that everyone here was in human form, the sound was so bestial that it almost caused me to break stride. I managed to avoid stumbling, but it was a close thing.

Louis-Cesare, who’d also had enough of pretending to be a diplomat, drew his weapon, causing an even bigger reaction from the captive man.

And suddenly, I knew who I was looking at.

“Antem,” I said, remembering the name that Claire had given me, which belonged to the black and yellow bastard who’d touched me on the balcony shortly after we arrived. It had been seeing the sword that had caused him to have a fit then, too, and he didn’t look any happier this time.

He lunged at Louis-Cesare, who stood his ground with a small smile on his face, as if his calm and collected act in the tent had been just that. He looked like a man who would welcome a fight, but I wanted to hear what was going on first. And I guessed that Lord Rathen did, too, because he made a small gesture and the furious man was dragged back by two large guards.

“Perceptive,” Rathen said to me. He was in dark green tonight, the material rich but unadorned, and blending in so well with the forest that it was hard to see until he moved. “Yes, it seems that our Antem has been spying for Vitharr. He was the one who told Lord Steen about your arrival. He’s been using trips to visit his mother to relay information without us suspecting anything.”

“And they sent him back to try for more,” Regin added. “We caught him spying on the war council not half an hour ago.”

I guessed they’d already gotten past the proclamations of innocence phase, because Antem didn’t even try to deny it. He did, however, lunge for me and Louis-Cesare again, which I thought a bit excessive. I also thought it was suspicious.

“He wants you to kill him,” I said to Louis-Cesare, putting an arm in front of my impulsive husband. “He doesn’t want us to learn anything from him.”

“He’ll not get that wish,” Regin said, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Not yet.”

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