Page 67 of A Deception of Courts

The journey to Berrow was swift. I was so completely consumed by my thoughts it was like I blinked, and the ruins of Imeria were far behind us. One moment I was stood overlooking the destruction, and the next I stood before the ramshackle ruins of a house. Snow drifted across the bowed roof. The wind screamed around the exposed, rotten beams. I kept my gaze pinned on the open door and the darkness that lurked within. And I waited. Waited to be let down or told this had all been one sick game. A way to play with my mind and break it into as many pieces as the heart in my chest.

What made this reality so terrible was I’d been here – to this house – before. I had stood before this building many weeks ago. And it had hardly changed since. The house was exhausted, leaning to the side as though it’d given up completely. It was a feeling I shared. The glassless windows looked like gaping mouths, the shadowed doorway a mouth ready to devour me whole.

Did it laugh at me or show surprise at my presence? If it was the latter, we shared in the emotion. I never wished to see this place again, and yet here I was, the same broken man, but under far different circumstances.

Erix had been the one to bring me here. Bruised and exhausted in a time when I’d not yet accepted my fate. We’d been real, in a place of ghosts, invading the home of someone who had been forced to leave it behind when the Icethorn power ravaged across the land.

I feared to blink in case the image of our bodies entwined with one another filled my mind. How we’d lost ourselves in a bed, using our skin and touch to fend off the cold night that invaded the forgotten place.

“If you need me, I will be waiting here,” Althea said, waiting just outside the broken gate that hung determinedly to the rotted post at the end of the garden’s path. Beside her stood Rafaela, a silent guard. The wound at her side had still not been dealt with besides being wrapped in a makeshift bandage of material she’d torn from her clothing. That was yet another issue she’d refused the offered aid for. Alongside her rebelliousness against healing, she had also refused to allow me to enter without her.

It took a little persuading for her to finally understand I wouldn’t allow her to chaperone me into the home before me.

This was my problem to deal with – alone. A problem I’d believed would never dare show itself again to me. If it wasn’t for the promise that Duncan was alive and well, lingering in the cottage’s darkness, I would’ve already drawn a blade, stormed inside and faced the horror.

Facedhim.

Each step forward was as though I was wading through knee-high mud. I persisted, focusing on the chipped wood of the front door and the suggestive flakes of old blue paint that’d nearly all worn away. The front door was open as if it knew I was coming.

I sensed a gaze scratching across me from someone unseen within the building. I searched the dark, empty windows and found them empty. But that didn’t suggest the being inside was not watching me – waiting for me.

There was only one reason I didn’t unleash the final dregs of power I’d recuperated after the attack with the Draeic.

Because Duncan was supposedly inside. And yet he wasn’t alone.

Althea had assured me he was, and I fought hard to believe her. She told me over and over, never faltering, as I asked her to repeat herself. My heart told me I couldn’t trust what she told me, at least not until I saw him myself. My mind raced with questions. I drowned in them. It was not only the promise of Duncan I couldn’t trust, but the company Althea said he had inside.

One wrong move and I could truly lose Duncan forever. It was a concept I struggled to convince myself of. Not hours before, I’d believed Duncan was dead beneath a mountain of rubble and destruction. Except he wasn’t.

Without a word, I left Althea, my focus on what was waiting for me inside the house. I sensed Duncan as I strode toward the door. His scent of fresh pine and scorched earth. I followed it. However, I couldn’t ignore the other presence that coated him like a blanket of darkness. Something cold and evil.

Of course,hehad chosen this place to hide within for a reason. He knew what effect it would have on me – to weaken me, soften me, attempt to make me forget all the pain that came after our last stay here.

And yet, besides my disdain, if what Althea said was true, the person I wished to never see again was the very reason Duncan was still alive. The more rational side of my mind reminded me that Duncan would have been lost beneath Imeria’s castle if not for him.

Somewhere, deep within my chest, there was a spark of gratitude. It was faint and could be smothered completely at any moment. But I couldn’t allow myself to ignore it.

I was greeted by darkness as I entered. The floorboards creaked agonisingly, exposing my presence. A damp scent hung in the air from years of snow melting into the walls and floor of the house. I didn’t remember it being such an unpleasant place before. Daylight sliced in behind me, exposing walls speckled with stains of dark mould. Before me, the staircase was a death trap. The corridor to its side, covered in drifts of snow, squeaked beneath my footfall.

“Duncan?” I called out in question, voice breaking. His name died in the stale air the moment it slipped past my lips. I almost gagged as the air took its chance to assault my throat with its clawing. Taking a deep breath in, I expelled as much of the hideous smell out of my nose as I could.

Then I heard him. His voice was as real as the memories that haunted this place.

“I’m here, my darling.”

I stopped dead in my tracks, my heart almost bursting from my chest, threatening to suffocate me as it lumped in the pits of my throat.

Itwashim. Duncan. The deep, rumbling tone of his voice caused shivers to pass over my arms. I waited patiently, holding my breath to keep as quiet as possible for him to speak again. This could’ve been a trick of the mind. A way of my memories conjuring a response and luring me to danger.

My knees buckled when Duncan called out for me again. “Come to me, darling.”

I walked faster, following the same steps I had once before. Duncan’s words had led me to a room that sparked discomfort in my mind. My skin itched at the memory, but I couldn’t dwell on it. Then I heard it, the shuffling of someone else, the reminder that Duncan was not alone.

Fury twisted in a blizzard within me.

My foot kicked at the door, wood buckling beneath the force, throwing it open with a crack. I hardly flinched as it slammed into the wall. Light followed behind me, slipping into the room, exposing every untouched detail.

It was the man who sat on the bed before me who demanded my attention first. Duncan. His back was straight, his hands gripped onto each side of the worn mattress as he looked upon me.

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