Page 69 of The Courting of Bristol Keats
Kasta’s expression was blank, not grasping his point.
“Ahostage,” he whispered. The word jolted him. Spoken aloud, it sounded far more sinister than it had when it was only a distant thought in his head on Bristol’s first night there.
Kasta’s lips parted. “Oh.” A crease formed between her brows as she weighed this new possibility. “Not a bad strategy, but it won’t work. Maire’s a heartless monster drunk on power. She’d sooner eat her young. She won’t care.”
“She was a mother, too. For over twenty years in their world. That has to mean something, even for her.”
“Or it could backfire and unleash her full fury. Right now, she might just be doing Kormick’s bidding. Give her a reason to fling wide the gates of hell, and who knows—”
“I said it was a last resort. If we—” Tyghan’s frustration mounted. “Danu is never going to bend a knee to Kormick. I can’t let the rest of Elphame be put at his mercy, either—and I won’t let my brother die to do it.”
“C’mon, Tygh, you don’t even like Cael.”
“He’s still my brother.”
Kasta cringed.
“You might not like it, but he’s the familiar one,” Tyghan said. “And when the world is upside down, even powerful queens and kings search out what they know. That’s what they want right now—not more change. We’ve been negotiating for weeks with Gildawey for more long swords, and they still haven’t agreed to send them. The queen said that if even Danu could fall victim to Fomoria, what was the point of more swords? And we need more swords.Gildanswords. Even if we manage to shut the portal, we still have the Fomorian army to contend with. We need a commitment of troops from all the kingdoms. We aren’t going to get that without Cael. Besides, I made an oath.”
“You were mostly unconscious when they crowned you.”
“I remember enough, and it’s an oath just the same.”
A dubioushmmrolled from Kasta’s throat. “Are you sure that’s the only reason you want to keep Keats here?” She hesitated, then cleared her throat. “I wasn’t spying, Tygh. Just doing my duty and checking up on you, but . . . I’ve seen you dancing with her.”
Tyghan’s pace slowed. He thought he’d been careful, but Kasta knew him too well. She could detect the telltale signs of his invisibility, the stir of dust near his feet, the blur of his breath in the air. Still, he answered, “That’s impossible. I never danced with her.”
“Seriously, Tygh? You’re going to pull that with me? Remember who you’re talking to—the toddler you turned into a frog.”
“I changed you back.”
A puff of air escaped her lips. “It was Eris and four sorcerers who finally changed me back because you couldn’t remember how. I had to eat flies for a week! But I never held it against you becauseI know you. You were only curious. Tell me . . . is that all this is now? Curiosity?”
Tyghan twisted his head to the side like he was cracking a bone in his neck. He put his hand up in lieu of an answer. Everything she said was true. Kasta, Glennis, Quin, and Kierus had been with him almost since the cradle. Nurseries, school, tutoring by Eris, advanced training tournaments from Danu’s greatest warrior gods—and everything else—for their whole lives. They finished each other’s sentences and completed each other’s magic spells. They were scolded and punished as a unit, for whatever one did, the others were always complicit.
That all changed six months ago. Tyghan had changed. He could never go back to who he was.
“It’s not what you think,” he said, trying to sound indifferent. He explained that a few nights after she arrived, he left Bristol at the hazel grove, but when he looked back, he saw her dancing near the cliff with her eyes closed. “I was curious, watching her getting close to the edge but never going over. I wondered if Eris was right and she did have special instincts, and then I worried that she’d go over the edge and break her fool neck. I glamoured myself invisible and stepped between her and the ledge as a safeguard. When she stepped toward me with raised hands, I raised mine and then—”
“You were suddenly dancing.”
Tyghan nodded.
“For how many nights now?”
“All right. A lot. What do you want me to say, Kasta? It’s only dancing. You’ve seen me do it hundreds of times.”
“Not in six months. And not like this.” She paused, then added, “The other officers are noticing, Tygh.”
He knew. Quin had spotted him watching Bristol from afar and said,Be careful with that one. And Dalagorn and Madame Chastain had made vague jabs about his late arrivals to festivities.
“It’s only the season. You know what Beltane does to everyone. You could throw me down right here on this path and have your way with me, and I’d let you.”
She snorted at the blatant lie. There had never been anything between them and never would be. They were only friends and fellow knights together—though some knights were more than friends. Kasta and Kierus had been occasional lovers, but Kasta was devoted to her knighthood in a singular way, while Kierus navigated a wider path. Tyghan had always thought something lasting might develop between them. He’d been wrong about that, too. When it came to Kierus, he’d been wrong about everything.
Kasta dragged her palm over her forehead like Tyghan was giving her a headache. “Have you thought about telling her the truth about her parents? Who they really were?”
“Are. They stillarethe enemy. Kierus is still a traitor facing a death sentence. Tell her that if we do find him, he faces the worst punishment Danu reserves for traitors like him? That we have a thousand archers waiting for a chance to put an arrow through Maire’s heart? That it’s not fucking trows she spent her whole life running from, but us? You think she’d help us then? We can’t afford truth.”
