Page 145 of The Courting of Bristol Keats
Her heart went still.
Her mother. Tyghan tried to kill her mother.
But the world her mother had unleashed had nearly killed Bristol. And it had killed countless others. She remembered the lord breaking down in the throne room, his son taken by the restless dead. Bristol’s head pounded. Who was the most deeply wronged? Tyghan? Her father? Her mother? She couldn’t sort it out. Not now. Maybe not ever.
“I’m leaving now, to somehow fix this mess. However you got here, find the same way home. Go back, Father. Cat and Harper need you.”
She tried to walk past him toward the door, but he grabbed her by the shoulders. “Brije, I know this world! It’s dangerous and unforgiving. I navigated it for years as a powerful knight. You haven’t. I don’t want to have to worry about you, too. I need you to go home—”
She pulled free and backed away, staring at him.A powerful knight.She’d been hit with so much so fast, it was all sinking in out of order.
“Youwere going to kill Mother.”
Now he looked like he was the one who had been punched. “It was my intention,” he admitted, “but I told you already, I changed my mind.”
“Have you killed other people?”
“It’s not who I am anymore. You know that.”
“Answer my question. Have you?”
His handsome face clouded with an answer he didn’t want to give. He nodded. “Yes, I’ve killed many. I was a knight in the king’s service. I did as I was told.”
Many.She didn’t ask how many. She didn’t want to know.
A huge part of the father she loved was a stranger to her.
Every inch of her felt battered, limp, like she was rag doll pulled in different directions, torn beyond repair. Some of her pain was for her father, caught up in something beyond his control, but he wasn’t an innocent in this either. He had made his choices, including placing a tick on the back of a baby. She shook her head. “I’m not leaving this to you. Not this time. I’ll make my own choices and do what I need to do. Go home.”
But she knew he wouldn’t go. How could you save someone who didn’t want to be saved? Someone who faked his own death to be there? But as she walked out, he said her name one more time, a plea, and she heard the desperate love woven through each syllable. It plundered what was left of her strength, and she could barely see as she stumbled out the door.
CHAPTER 100
The door of the barn swung open, and she stepped out—alone. Tyghan exhaled a relieved breath. But now he wondered,What is she thinking?He studied her face, searching for clues, but her expression was blank, like she was in a trance. Even her steps were listless.
What had Kierus done to her? She went straight to August and reached up, grabbing hold of the saddle, but instead of getting into it, she slumped against its skirt, her face buried in her arms. Still. Quiet.
Tyghan’s stomach went hollow. He had never seen her like this. Breaking down. Not even in training when she was injured. Instead, she always pushed forward, staying ahead of whatever pain she masked. She turned a phrase. She talked fast. She talked back. She got angry. She was a smart-ass. Sheer stubbornness twisted something inside her into iron. But she wasn’t doing any of those things now.
He knew the others were watching too. Wondering.
What did Kierus tell her?
Everything? At least his version of it.
She finally pushed away, wiping her cheeks, and gently tugged August’s mane so he would bow, and she climbed onto his enormous back. Once she was settled in the saddle, she faced the barn door a moment longer, like she was wrestling with one last thought—or waiting for someone—but when she turned August around to head out of the valley, Tyghan saw her eyes, no longer dazed but hot and bright. She nudged August, and they tore across the valley.
As soon as she was out of sight, his focus went back to the barn, cold and sharp, and with every step he took toward the door, he shed the veil that hid him. When he met with Kierus, it would be face-to-face. He didn’t bother to be mindful of his footsteps or the sticks that snapped beneath his boots. He didn’t care if Kierus heard him coming. There was nowhere for him to go.
When Tyghan pushed open the door, Kierus was alone, waiting and ready. He’d heard Tyghan coming and had already drawn his sword.
Tyghan didn’t draw his in return. He could lift a hand and send Kierus flying backward through the barn wall. Maybe. He noted the wide embossed wrist cuffs on Kierus’s arms, no doubt inscribed with wards to deflect magic. He also had three combat belts circling his hips and shoulder, all embedded with metal discs, all finely wrought, and expensive—the sort of amulets and wards formidable sorcerers might create. Kierus had rich and powerful allies, but even if it came down to sword against sword, he had little chance. Though Tyghan didn’t want him dead. He didn’t even want him unconscious. This time there would be words.
Their eyes met, and that part was hard, that momentary recognition of things past, the history between them, followed by the swift painful stab of the present and the immeasurable things that had been lost. It was a jarring equilibrium that shook them both, even if they wouldn’t show it, their gazes locked as they both stared quietly.
“Hello, Kierus,” Tyghan finally said. He noted the fine lines around Kierus’s eyes, the hint of gray sprinkled in his thick black hair, the furrow between his brows.Twenty-three years.Of course he had aged, but it still took Tyghan by surprise. In his mind, except for a handful of months, they were both still the same age and no time had passed. But it wasn’t just Kierus’s appearance that had changed. There was a different manner about him too.A husband. A father.Things Tyghan hadn’t yet experienced. It was hard to pinpoint how it showed, but he saw it, a different kind of weight in Kierus’s shoulders, his eyes. But the intensity, the confidence, the magnetism that had always surrounded Kierus, that was all still there. In some ways, he hadn’t changed at all.
“Tyghan,” he answered. “I see you’re well.”
