Page 66 of A Deception of Courts

Now and then, she would find signs of what she searched for. A hand reaching out beneath a blood-covered stone. A face covered by a layer of dust, skin ripped and skull shattered. Seraphine’s body wasn’t found. There was a man Rafaela uncovered, his torso had been severed, spilling the tangled knot of innards out in a puddle of red and black gore where his legs should have been – legs that were never found.

What Rafaela did find was death in abundance. But never life – hours had passed and not a single person had been found alive. My hope, what little remained of it, abandoned me soon enough.

I was thankful Rafaela had run her fingers down the Asp’s grit-coated face to close his eyes. They had still gleamed with the fear he beheld in the moments before he’d died.

In another life, I may have grieved the Asp’s death, the one my presence had brought to his new home. But I had no room for him, Seraphine or the other broken lives the castle had stolen.

There was only room for Duncan. He occupied every part of me.

Each time Rafaela found another body beneath the rubble, she would look up at me and shake her head.

As frozen tears melted down my cheeks, I wondered if she looked for Duncan to ease her own guilt. The emotion was the clearest in her eyes. Unspoken but bitter. I recognised it well the moment she’d returned us to the ground as we watched and waited for the fall of my castle to calm.

It took hours to settle enough for it to be safe for us to begin our search.

Rafaela hadn’t said it with words, but she carried the weight of death on her shoulders.

At some point, I noticed the thundering of hooves in the distance. Weakly, I looked over my shoulder to see a hoard of stags rushing toward us, a wall of them blocking the horizon. Althea rode ahead, her poppy-red hair billowing behind her as she cantered toward us. Toward me. Following her was a formation of Cedarfall soldiers, fanned out like wings behind her.

You’re too late.

Rafaela was airborne again, ready to fight, until she realised who was joining us.

Althea threw herself from the stag’s side, almost tripping at first, before running toward us. She navigated over the rubble, wide eyes not leaving mine as she did so. Shadows hung beneath them, telling a story of the worry she held inside.

“We saw it, all of it!” Althea shouted. “I thought… I thought… I thought you’d died, Robin.”

There was a part of me that felt like I had perished, alongside those beneath the rubble of my castle.

“They’re dead,” I interrupted her, unable to bear the weight of her sorrow atop my own. “All of them. Duncan is…” I couldn’t say it. Didn’t dare speak it aloud in case it made it real.

“Robin.” Althea clutched my shoulder, her touch rooting me to the panic glistening behind her eyes. “Duncan is–”

“Dead!” I screamed, ice bursting from beneath my bloodied, scratched bare feet. It devoured the stone I stood upon, coating it entirely and cracking beneath my weight. “Duncan is dead, joining the number of those who died for simply being near me. Why don’t you turn back to Berrow and run before I bring your end? Go on… GO!”

Althea stood firm, unmoving, although flinching slightly as she studied my magic. Part of me wished to throw myself into her arms, but then I blinked and saw her body crushed beneath stone or her chest pierced with a blade.

If my curse was that anyone who loved me died, I would make her hate me, just to save herself.

“Robin, listen to me,” Althea said softly, as though my name alone was enough to break me entirely. “Duncan isnotdead.”

A wave of rage flooded through my body. Overwhelmed by the feeling, I threw my head back and roared. I shouted to the sky until my throat stung and my fingernails were embedded in my palms. I didn’t stop until every breath lodged in my lungs had been expelled, and the world trembled from the suffocating lack of air.

I fell forward onto my hands and knees. The ice and stone cut into my hands and tore through my dust-coated trousers.

Every passing second that followed, I waited for Althea to tell me she was joking, that this was all some fucked-up hateful punishment. But she didn’t. The two words she managed were as broken as I felt inside. “Robin, please.”

I took a moment to gather enough strength to lift my head and look back at Althea. My sobs were heavy and all-consuming. It was strange to hear my heartbeat thundering in my ears when I was certain I no longer had one.

“Duncan is alive. I do not know how to explain this, but he is in Berrow… someone saved him. It is best I take you to him.”

CHAPTER 19

Althea lied to me. It was the only explanation I believed. No matter how many times I forced her to repeat herself during the journey to Berrow, she never seemed to make sense.

Duncan is alive. He is alive.

As she spoke, it was like a puzzle with missing pieces. The final piece couldn’t fit together perfectly to form the picture she attempted to paint for me. My mind refused to believe her, protecting myself from the inevitable truth I’d soon uncover.

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