Page 24 of The Duke and the Disciple

And Drazhan.

He knelt and scooped her up with one arm, pointing his ancestral sword, Stormbringer, with the other. “No one else has to get hurt today, but the next man who touches my sister meets the Ancestors.”

Aesylt buried her face in his chest and breathed in the comfort of his strength.

“None of us know what happened out there, but we are not solving it like this.” He backed them slowly toward the gates. Most held their distance, but a half dozen or so followed, bloodlust imprinted in their hungered gazes. Aesylt recognized all of them. They were good people, friends of theirs. None of it made sense.

She remembered the dagger in her boot and swung her leg up to catch it, drew it, and wielded it out to the other side.

“You wouldn’t be protecting her if she weren’t your sister,” Esker Barynov said, pushing through the crowd. He’d drawn his sword as well, circling them from the side. “She was his final witness, Drazhan.”

“Steward Wynter.” Drazhan threaded the correction through his teeth. “If you want to act like a savage, Barynov, disrespect my house and blood, then you’ll address me as your steward.”

“She was his final witness! And we all know she’s just like her mother! I know all about how she can travel?—”

Drazhan pressed the tip of his sword against the hollow of Esker’s neck. Gasps ripped around them, the only sound other than the heavy, labored breaths of a cooling mob. “One. More. Word.”

Esker’s nose flared, his eyes trembling as they narrowed into catlike slits. “My son is neither alive nor dead. He’s an abomination. A failure. Someone must answer.”

Drazhan twisted his sword, and a stream of thick blood poured from the superficial wound. “If you want to speak like men, then we’ll speak like men. But I can just as easily remove your venomous head from your shoulders.”

“I didn’t do anything to Val,” Aesylt croaked. She reached for her throat but recoiled at the budding bruise. “I swear to you. I don’t even know what’s going on right now.”

“You were his final witness, girl, the one who sent him into the forest filled with foul magic. And now the wulf has brought him back to us. Dishonored before the entire village!”

Aesylt’s jaw trembled. Tears blinded her. “What?”

Esker’s smile was dark and dangerous as he leveled it on her. “You’re a koldyna, Aesylt. Just like your mother was.” As soon as the word spewed from Esker’s mouth, everything around her returned to chaos. Clangs of clashing steel rang in her ears, drowning out any sense of coherence. She clung to her brother, her eyes closed, and prayed for a reprieve.

She was jolted when the gates swung open, but she hardly had time to register that before she was transferred from her brother’s arms to the embrace of another.

“Take her to your apartments. Lock the doors. Quickly!” Drazhan barked.

“I have her.” Rahn. He leaned down and gathered her legs under his opposite arm, then swept her against himself like she weighed no more than a feather. “Hold on, Aesylt.”

“Go!” Drazhan screamed. It escalated to a grunt as Stormbringer crashed against another sword.

The shrill clangs and screams faded with every jostling step. Aesylt buried her face in the scholar’s neck and blocked out the world.

Rahn kepthis eyes on the window as he poured some tea. Drazhan and his men had subdued the rabble, but the trouble was just beginning. He replayed the word in his head,koldyna, a terrible slur for witches who communed with the demon realm. In Vjestik culture, there were few things more dangerous or reviled. And now Aesylt had been branded with it, and Rahn had a dark, sickening feeling such an accusation wouldn’t be so easily forgotten or set aside.

Aesylt lay curled on his settee, under the thick blanket he’d lain over her when she’d started shaking. She hadn’t said a single word from the moment he’d swept her from Drazhan’s arms. Little color had returned to her cheeks.

“Here.” He put the mug on the table and lowered himself onto the armchair across from her.

“Not thirsty,” she muttered. She stared at the fire with a vacant gaze, her breathing slow but unsteady.

“Maia brought it by. Said it would help your nerves.”

Her eyes fluttered closed as she pulled herself up with what seemed to be great effort. He started forward, but she tucked her chin and shook her head. She cupped the mug with both hands, apparently unbothered by the steaming heat, and after a slow, drawn swallow, she said, “You’re going to tell me what you know, Scholar.”

Her face was smeared with fading abrasions, her clothes torn. He’d cleaned and dressed her wounds, and her vedhma had healed them. The memory of that morning, however, would leave none of them soon. “Unfortunately, I don’t know very much, Aesylt.”

“Then tell me what little you do.”

Drazhan might have been trying to protect her by not explaining things, but Aesylt was not someone who would be satisfied by half-truths. He breathed deep and began. “From what I understand, just before dawn, a wulf came from the forest dragging... dragging Valerian by the ankle. He was unconscious and badly injured but alive. I heard Fezzan talking to your brother, and they said nothing like that has ever happened before. Either the wulf lives or the boy lives, but never... this. There are whispers that either Val or the wulf was spelled. Most seem to believe there’s some sort of dark magic involved. No one can explain it, and so they fear it.” He inhaled deep and breathed out. “That’s all I know. I’m sorry.”

“Was spelled by me. That’s what you’re not saying.”

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