Page 198 of Disillusioned
Garin looked up at the deepening sky and thought of Lilac. Her warmth that he wanted to wrap himself in, her soft hair and skin. Her angelic face and those taunting dimples he yearned to kiss.
Her uneasy, lumbering cadence of footfall and sharp voice, clear as night.
“Get away from him!”
There was anotherwhizover Garin’s head, and the sound of a bow and arrow clattering onto the porch. Bog flew back into the crowd, one arrow sticking out of his face, and the other out of his shoulder.
Screams erupted from the house. There were hands yanking Garin before he knew what was happening, and Myrddin mumbling behind him.
On either side of them, Yanna and Lilac held longbows at the ready, their next arrows already nocked.
34
GARIN
Lilac’s hands shook violently, her expression unreadable. Garin could tell she’d been crying, likely from seeing Sable and Jeanare’s bodies.
A quick glance told him they’d remained untouched, and the soldier he’d carried from Monfort-sur-Meu was still snoring, concealed in the middle of the hay bales. The door to the storage carriage down the hill was open, the horses snorting under their breath.
What was she doing here?Why would Myrddin allow this?
Panting, Garin struggled to steady his breathing, righting himself upon Myrddin. He grabbed the warlock by the arms, causing him to yelp.
“Why are you here?” Garin snarled, an overwhelming surge of want and new hungers flooding through him, unbidden.
Myrddin scoffed. “She slit my throat!”
“This wasn’t supposed to happen! You were meant to protect her!” Garin’s fury boiled over. He snarled, lunging at Myrddin—but a searing flash of violet burst from the warlock’s chest. Agony lanced through Garin’s hands, surging up his arms like fire. He cried out, staggering back as blistered skin bubbled across his palms, only to shimmer and slowly begin to mend before his eyes.
Artus was laughing. “Come to arrest me, little queen? You and your servants?”
Two arrows soared through the air—one from Yanna stuck inches from Artus’s head into the doorframe, while Lilac’s flew into the house, also narrowly missing Artus but actually hitting someone else in the arm.
If it was Lilac’s first time wielding a longbow, she was a natural; impressive, in fact.
There were screams and yelps of pain, but Artus hushed them with a garbled command.
“I’ve come to do what my grandfather and father didn’t have the nerve to,” Lilac said, her hair whipping around her face.
“I would think twice about that.” Artus’s gaze flickered to Garin before boring tauntingly into hers. “Your own guard was ready to kill more Daemons than enemy forces by the look of your armory. Armand convinced Henri to have more made after Lilac went missing, but that section has always existed. And you had no idea, did you?”
“In a kingdom built upon oppressing its most vulnerable communities? I should have guessed.”
“When Rupert walked into The Jaunty Hog, all too proudly discussing his decision to return to Renald’s guard, we knew the perfect opportunity had fallen into our lap.” Artus chortled himself into a coughing fit. “Just before the town crier called us to the square to announce your stupid decree? It was too perfect.”
Lilac made a noise of disgust, glancing down at Rupert’s lifeless corpse. Its glassy eyes reflected the moon above. She scrunched her face full of fury and approached him, reaching for the arrows in his chest.
Garin tutted, smothering the shallow stab of jealousy in his chest. A scrape, really. “The arrows stay in him.”
She froze, straightening once more. “You sent him,” Lilac snarled at Artus.
“And that God awful wine,” Garin was quick to add, imagining the sheer joy of draping the blabbering imbeciles in the fallen duke’s innards.
“We all heardyouenjoyed it,” replied Artus. “Bog’s son proved himself useful after all. While everyone rushed to watch you humiliate yourself, Inwold had his men transport most of the hawthorn weaponry in the Trécesson armory.” Artus looked back down the hall at a tall, hulking fellowskirting the corner of the parlor. The man said nothing, reddening and trying to shrink into the crowd. Artus laughed and turned a scathing eye toward Lilac. “It was meant for her. While I’d hoped it would make her delirious enough to forestall or have Maximilian forfeit their marriage entirely, what it did to you turned out to be as useful.”
Knowing it was all intentional—that he had missed it—made Garin see red. His lip curled over his fangs. “An adverse reaction could have killed her.”
“Oh, one could only hope.”
