Page 35 of The Duke and the Disciple

“No. No, I’m only being...” Her throat caught on the wordridiculous.Shewasbeing ridiculous, sneaking out of Fanghelm and into Hoarfrost in the middle of the worst tensions the village had ever experienced—thinking she could... could somehow learn something and salvage the situation, as if reason had anything at all to do with why the Barynovs were readying to march on their steward.

In a rush, Aesylt spun and faced the bed. She managed not to gasp, but only because she forgot how to breathe.Oh, Val.His face was scratched but relatively unharmed, but though the blanket fell right under his breastbone, no inch of skin was exposed. It was all wrapped under layers and layers of bandages. She didn’t need to pull the blanket back any farther to know they continued all the way down.Monsters, all of them, leaving you like this. Leaving you to suffer.

“I’m here, V,” she whispered. Her hands patted along the edge of the bed, but she couldn’t sit. Her body wouldn’t obey the command. “I’m going to fix this. I know it’s what you would want.” She breathed deep and rested one knee on the bed. “I haven’t done this in years. I told you I never wanted to ever again. Think you might have mentioned you’d one day get dragged out of the forest by a damn wulf, so I could prepare myself?” She reached for the only place she could see exposed flesh, his face. Her palm cupped his cheek. “Tell me how it happened. Tell me how to help you.”

Behind her was a creak and then a sharp, startled intake of breath. Aesylt stiffened, her body catching up to what her mind had already registered.

“Iknewyou were up to something. You let this koldyna into ourhome?” A door slammed. Boots smashed against stone, rattling the candelabras.

“Marek, wait. Wait.” Niklaus’s hurried steps blended with the furious ones of Valerian’s older brother. “Listen. Please. You’ve known Aesylt her whole life. Just listen to what she has to say. Marek!”

Aesylt steadily turned, knowing there was only one chance to say the right words, but a fist around her throat stopped them cold. She gasped for air, kicking her feet as she was lifted off the bed.

“Marek!” Niklaus cried.

“You fucking witch,” Marek hissed. He spat in her face, hitting her right between the eyes. It slid down the side of her nose.

Aesylt squeezed hers closed and tried to twist out of his grasp, trying to remember what her brothers had taught her.

“Ota will never believe you just handed yourself over.” His chokehold tightened. Rough heat patched her cheeks, her vision hazing. She swatted at his hands, but they may as well have been stone. Distantly, she heard Niklaus’s panic, felt Marek’s solid form shifting slightly in intermittent recoil.

Aesylt had been visiting the celestial realm for so long, it was almost second nature, but when she attempted to shift, to escape, nothing happened. She tried again, focusing harder and imagining herself sliding from one world to another, but still nothing.

Marek slammed her to the stone wall, squeezing the last of the breath from her. Her legs slowed their kicks and then stopped altogether. Darkness eclipsed the edge of her vision, closing... closing until she could only just make out the jade irises in Marek’s crazed glare. Her hands fell away, limp at her sides.

The floor rose to greet her with suddenness. Her head hit the stones, bouncing, and she barely made a sound before she was falling again.

“You’d draw steel on me inmyhome?”

“You lay hands on a woman, Marek, I’ll draw steel on you anywhere.”

Aesylt gulped inward when something connected with her gut. The pain was immediate, blinding. It stole any air she’d regained in the few merciful seconds since Marek had released her.

In her boot she had a dagger. She always had a dagger. But a hard swoon took hold when she reached for it, and she went sprawling across the stones, wheezing.

Marek started to scream, but he was abruptly cut off.

“If you call your family in here, you may as well say good-bye to half of them. Drazhan will strike before he thinks. He’ll raze this entire village before he pauses to consider an alternative. Do you want to be responsible for that?”

“Me? She’s the one?—”

“Lower your fucking voice.”

“Nik...” Aesylt croaked. She lost track of the discussion echoing around her. The next words she heard seemed to be a continuation of a different conversation.

“Tak. That’s what I said. And you know it’s the right thing to do—the only thing to do, if we don’t want blood on our hands.” Niklaus.

“You’re mad. If my father found out she was here? And I let her go?”

“Your father needs to think rationally. He needs to contemplate his next move. Until Val wakes, we can’t know what happened.”

“I know what happened. The bitch took him where only the dark witches go.”

Niklaus didn’t respond for several long seconds. Aesylt had almost enough breath to interject, but he spoke first. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. And throwing around an accusation like that, without proof? It’s dangerous, Marek. For you.”

“The placeeatsyour soul. It marks you. Only the dark ones survive. She marked him, and the wulves rejected him.”

“Aye? Then let a tribunal decide so. You remember what the punishment is for falsely accusing someone of being a koldyna? Your father is already guilty of that crime.” Niklaus’s boots screeched on the stones. “If something happens to her, I’ll tell the whole bloody village how the Barynovs treat unarmed women.”

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