Iron and Magic

7

Elara leaned against the table. They were upstairs in the room designated as her “study,” which she never used. She preferred the small room off her bedroom. The study held a large wooden table, flanked by five chairs on each side, which nobody was using, except her and Johanna, who sat cross-legged on the table, mixing reagents in small glass beakers.

Past the table, an open area offered four plush chairs set around a small coffee table, with smaller chairs scattered here and there along the walls. Hugh had taken one of the soft chairs. Stoyan, Lamar, and Felix picked seats along the wall. The crazy one, Bale, wasn’t invited to the meeting because he was standing watch. Just as well.

On her side of the room Savannah sat in a plush chair, while Dugas leaned against the wall.

Hugh was in a foul mood. They’d had three of these weekly meetings so far, with cooler heads on both sides present, because when they tried to work things out on their own, their discussions ended in a barrage of mutual insults. She’d seen him irritated before, even enraged, but this was new. His gaze was focused, his eyes dark. He sat in a large Lazyboy chair, flipping a knife in his hand, tip, handle, tip, handle. At first, she watched, waiting for him to cut himself, but after the first ten minutes she gave up. Some people paced, Hugh juggled a razor-sharp knife with his right hand. Aw, the man she married.

Ugh.

Elara tried to sink some sarcasm into that inner ‘ugh’ but couldn’t even fool herself. Hugh was worried. She never seen him worried before. Hugh always had things in hand and the grim look in his eyes was setting her on edge. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, but he looked like a king whose kingdom was on the brink of an invasion. And she was his queen.

Ugh.

What was even going on in his head? She had a feeling that if she cracked his skull open and somehow let his thoughts free, they would be echoes of her own. What is that creature? Why did the warrior kill? What did he do with the bodies? How do we guard against him? And the loudest thought of all, playing over and over. What did I miss? What else can I do? It was driving her crazy.

“Next item on the agenda,” Dugas said. “Rufus--“

She pushed away from the table. “We should send people to the nearest settlements.”

Savannah reached out, touched Johanna’s shoulder, and signed.

Hugh gave her a dark look. “Why?”

“To warn them. And to set perimeter wards.”

“What makes you think the wards would hold him?” Hugh asked.

Johanna put the beaker down. “They would not. He would make noise breaking them. An early warning system.” She picked up the beaker, raised it, shook the dark green liquid in it, and put it down again. “We have soil from the palisade where he stood. We can key the spell to him. It would not be expensive.”

Hugh stared at her for a long moment.

“Not very.” Johanna gave him an apologetic shrug.

“I need your approval, Hugh,” Elara said. “It’s a safety measure.”

“Your people will need escorts,” he said.

“Yes.”

“How many settlements do you want to warn?”

She glanced at Savannah.

“Seven,” she said.

“Okay,” Hugh said. “We’ll do them one at a time.”

“That will take a week.”

“Congratulations, you can count.”

She crossed her arms. “Hugh, this is important. Every day we delay, people may die.”

“I will have to send at least twenty people with each party. Any less is inviting an assault.”

“So what’s the problem? Seven by twenty is one hundred and forty.”

“Exactly. You want me to send almost half of my force out into the woods at the same time. That risks the lives of my soldiers and leaves us vulnerable, and I won’t do it. One at a time.”

She unclenched her teeth.

He beat her to the punch. “What makes you think that sending a party of twenty armed soldiers and some witches would predispose these settlements to trust us? A lot of these people are paranoid separatists. They’ll see us as a threat.”

“We have to try,” she said. “They killed the children, Hugh.”

“Fine,” he said, his face still dark. “But one at a time.”

That was all she would get. She could argue more, but he was putting the welfare of their people first. Elara couldn’t really blame him for being cautious. “Thank you,” she made herself say.

“You’re welcome.”

Silence fell. She relaxed a little. The rest of the items on the agenda were routine.

Dugas cleared his throat. “As I started to say, Rufus Fortner is coming here this Friday.”

“The head of the Lexington Red Guard,” Elara said.

“I remember,” Hugh said. “He was at our wedding.”

“He’s looking for a supplier of RMD. The remedy,” Savannah said.

The remedy was an all-purpose anti-magic contamination salve the same way Neosporin was an all-purpose antibiotic ointment. It was particularly useful in sterilizing wounds inflicted by vampires. The Vampirus Immortuus pathogen was weak at the start of infection and could be killed with rubbing alcohol, if it came to it, but the remedy was the established and proven sterilizing agent.

“How big is the order?” Hugh asked.

“We stand to make over a hundred grand in the first year,” Dugas said. “Likely two, three times more, if they like the product and place additional orders.”

“What do we know about this guy?” Hugh asked.

“He’s a good old boy,” Lamar said. “Neo-Viking. ‘Work hard, play hard, beer me wench, if it breathes I can kill it’ type.”

“He’s coming to hang out with you,” Elara told him. “He was terribly impressed with the fight at the reception and he’s starstruck, because you have a reputation. He wants to get drunk with the Preceptor of the Iron Dogs and swap war stories.”

Hugh shrugged. “Okay, we’ll ham it up for him. We’ll need a feast and a barrel of beer.”

She blinked. “A barrel? We don’t really brew beer in barrels. We do it in big drums.”

“That’s fine, we’ll pour it in a big wooden barrel. I saw it in an old movie once,” Hugh said. “Trust me, it never fails.”

She waved at him. “However you want to do it. We need this guy. We’ve been wooing him and the Mercenary Guild in Lexington and Louisville for over a year and they wouldn’t give us the time of day until you showed up. It’s not just his order.”

Hugh nodded. “He’s a foot in the door. If we can get him, we’ll get the rest.”

She smiled. That was one thing she never had to worry about. Hugh was a massive pain, but when he saw an opportunity, he grabbed it.

Dugas checked his notes. “Last thing. The first escort from the Pack arrives tomorrow to pick up the two shapeshifter families. We don’t anticipate any problems, but just in case…”

The knife stopped in Hugh’s hand. “What pack?”

“The Pack,” she said. “Atlanta’s Pack. The Free People of the Code.”

His people sat up straighter. Stoyan’s face turned unreadable like a wall.

“Run that by me again,” Hugh said, his voice deceptively calm.

What the hell was wrong with him? “Kentucky passed a law banning the formation of packs in its municipalities,” Elara said. “We have a standing agreement with the Atlanta Pack. Any shapeshifter who wants to relocate to Pack territory can come here. We house them and feed them, until the Pack sends an escort to pick them up. They reimburse us for expenses and pay a nice fee on top of it.”

“No,” he said.

“Why not? It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. Is it because they are shapeshifters? Because you have shapeshifters in your ranks.”

“I don’t have a problem with shapeshifters. I have a problem with that particular Pack. I know Lennart. I know how he operates. We’re not doing this.”

“Curran Lennart is no longer in charge of the Atlanta Pack,” Savannah said.

Hugh looked at her, then turned to Lamar. “You didn’t think to mention it?”

“It didn’t come up,” Lamar said apologetically. “He retired to start a family.”

Hugh stared at him for a second longer, then laughed, a bitter cold sound. “The moron left it all for her. You can’t make this shit up. Who’s in charge now?”

“James Shrapshire,” Lamar said.

Elara had to grab this opening. “See? It’s no longer Lennart’s pack.”

“Is Lennart dead?” Hugh asked.

“No,” Dugas said.

“Then it’s still his Pack.” Hugh leaned forward. “Lennart is a First. His ancestors made a deal for their power with animal gods that roamed the planet when humans ran around in animal skins and hid from lightning in caves. It doesn’t matter who’s in charge of the Pack. When he roars, every shapeshifter will follow him, and we won’t be doing business with him. This matter is closed.”

That was just about enough. “No, it’s not. The Pack is one of our biggest clients. They are churning panacea out, which—“

“I know what the damn panacea does,” he snarled.

“—significantly reduces occurrences of spontaneous loupism in shapeshifter newborns and teenagers,” she kept going. “It doesn’t stay potent for long and they need large quantities of herbs, some of which only grow in the woods here. They pay excellent rates.”

“I don’t care.”

“You should care, because Pack money is feeding and housing your Dogs.”

“Do you not understand me? I won’t work with Lennart. Elara, are you stupid or hard of hearing?”

“I must be stupid, because I married an idiot who stomps around and throws tantrums like a spoiled child! What the hell did this Curran do to you? Killed your master, stole your girl, burned down your castle? What?”

Hugh leaned back, his eyes blazing. Oooh, she touched a nerve. Direct hit.

She turned to Stoyan. “Let me guess, it was the girl.”

“And the castle,” Felix said quietly.

“Is this why you want the moat, Hugh? So Curran won’t burn this castle down?” She knew the moment she said it that she’d pushed him too far.

Hugh leaned back in the chair, a long-suffering look on his face. “You know what your problem is?” he asked, his voice bored.

“Please tell me.”

“You should get laid.”

Elara stared at him.

“It will keep you docile and reasonable. For the sake of all of us, find someone to fuck you, so you can resolve things like an adult, because I’m sick and tired of your hysterics.”

Oh. Oh, wow.

Nobody moved. Nobody even breathed.

“Cute. This agreement predates our marriage,” Elara said into the sudden silence, pronouncing each word clearly. “According to the contract you signed, it is exempt from your input. I don’t need your permission. This exchange will go forward. And you will remember that you are a married adult responsible for the welfare of four thousand people. You’ll reach deep down, find a pair of big-boy pants, and put them on. If I can pretend not to cringe every time you touch me in public, you can pretend to be civil. Bury that hatchet, and if you can’t, hide in your room while they’re here.”

The rage in his eyes was almost too much.

“You signed on the dotted line,” Elara told him. “Are you a man of your word or are you not, Preceptor?”

Hugh rose from his chair, turned, and left. His people filed out behind him.

She slumped against the table. “Well, that went well.”

“We should poison him,” Savannah said.

“Why do you always want to poison people?” Dugas asked her.

“I don’t want to poison people. I want to poison d’Ambray.”

“He’ll come around,” Elara said. “He’s under a lot of pressure, because of that palisade. He’s trying to figure out how to keep us safe from an enemy he doesn’t understand and it’s eating at him.”

All three of them looked at her.

“It’s eating at me too,” she said. “Let’s reinforce our wards.”

“We already did.”

“Let’s do it again.”

Savannah nodded, and she and Dugas left.

Elara turned to Johanna. “Any luck?”

“The warrior is human,” the blond-headed witch signed.

“Are you sure?”

“Ninety percent. I have done everything I can, but the imprint was very weak. But human is the only thing that makes sense.”

It would be so much easier if the armored man was a creature. One could key a ward to bar a creature. One could research and exploit its weaknesses. But a human… That was so much worse. The castle and the town were full of magically powerful humans. She couldn’t ward everyone in.

Elara sighed. The irony of Hugh’s lovely insult was that he was right. She needed to get laid. She could’ve used the release and the comfort.

“Give me some dirt,” she signed.

Johanna put a small test tube into her hand.

“I will go play with it. Maybe I can see something.”

When it came to research, Savannah was better educated than her, and Johanna was more talented. But Elara had to try.

Elara took her test tube and left the room.

Hugh was a stubborn asshole. The problem with stubborn assholes is that once they made up their mind, they followed through, logic and rational thinking be damned. She couldn’t leave it as it was. She had to talk to him about it. If she didn’t, he could snap and attack the Pack delegation tomorrow and ruin a carefully constructed deal that she spent months working on.

Elara conquered the first flight of stairs, when she heard light steps running down. A moment later Stoyan rounded the landing.

He saw her and halted. “Ma’am.”

“Is he upstairs?” she asked.

“No.”

“Where is he?”

Stoyan opened his mouth.

“Stoyan,” she warned. “Where is he?”

“He stepped out.”

“In which direction?”

“He needs… space,” Stoyan said.

What he needed was a solid wallop on his head and a personality transplant.

Johanna emerged from the hallway and waved at them. “Hello.”

Stoyan’s gaze snagged on her for half a second too long. Well. That was interesting.

“Stoyan, where is he going? I’m going to find out anyway. Your Preceptor won’t escape, but you would save me a couple of minutes.”

“He’s going to Radion’s smithy,” Stoyan said.

“Thank you.”

She put the tube into the pocket of her dress and ran down the stairs.

Elara strode out of the gates. The town sat behind Baile castle, hugging the lake shore in a ragged crescent. Radion’s smithy was on the eastern edge of it. A path stretched before her. Hugh had two choices. He could turn right at the fork of the path, circle the castle, and take Sage Street down and east, which would put his course past the shops and houses. Or he could stay straight and walk through the Herbals, a carefully managed stretch of woods hugging the north side of the town and used for the cultivation of herbs.

Where would a violent man in a foul mood go? It was a no-brainer.

She blurred, stepping fast down the path through the woods. One, two, three, four…

Hugh walked on the cobbled path. He was out of uniform. His jeans were scuffed and worn, just like his black boots. His broad shoulders stretched the fabric of a white T-shirt, which hung loose around his waist. Cedric, the big dog he’d healed, ran along his side, tongue lolling. From this angle, Hugh almost looked like a normal guy out for a stroll with his adoring pooch.

It was so strange, Elara thought. By all rights, Hugh d’Ambray was a despicable human being, but for some reason dogs instantly liked him. Horses too. Bucky was practically overcome with joy every morning when Hugh came to brush him and pick his hooves.

She supposed some women liked him too.

Cedric looked at her over his shoulder. She hurried to catch up, making no effort to move quietly. Cedric trotted over to her. She petted him.

“You’re insane if you think he will make good war dogs. His puppies will be just like him, goofballs.”

Hugh ignored her.

Elara walked next to him. Tall trees spread their canopy above them, just far enough apart to let some isolated rays of sun through. The brush at their roots was gone. Instead carefully planted patches of herbs colored the ground on both sides of the path. The plants were both native and introduced: sage, mugwort, plantain, ginseng, goldenseal, black cohosh, and more. Being here soothed raw nerves, and she often walked this path. More often since Hugh arrived. She needed a lot of soothing these days.

“How can I get rid of you?” Hugh asked.

“Divorce me.”

“As soon as I can,” he swore.

Elara let him have a minute of silence. “Tell me.”

He gave her a brooding look.

“Tell me about Lennart and why you hate him.”

Exasperation stretched his face. He looked up, as if searching for the heavens.

“Our marriage is a sham. Our alliance isn’t,” she said. “We need each other. When people look at you, they see a murdering butcher who betrayed his allies. When they look at me, they see an abomination who leads a cult and feeds on human sacrifice. But now we’re married and suddenly they see us as newlyweds. They assume that there must be something I see in you, some redeeming quality that made me love you and marry you. When they look at me, they see a wife. Surely, I couldn’t be that abominable.”

“Or I wouldn’t have married you,” he finished.

“Yes. Doors that were previously closed are beginning to open. The Red Guard guy is coming after ignoring us for months. The county sheriffs think that we are a lovely couple. Explain the problem with the Pack, so I’ll understand.”

“No.”

“I’m not asking for your thoughts and secrets. Just for facts. I’ll learn them anyway. Normally I’d pounce on a chance to explore your weaknesses, but right now I just want the Pack thing to go smoothly. I worked too damn hard for it. A three month-long bidding war, four trips to the Pack to woo them, almost ten thousand in extra herbs planted.”

“Did you go yourself to woo the Pack?”

She laughed. “Because I am so sweet and charming?”

He gave her a dark look. “Your people are eating out of your hand.”

“They are my people and I love them. They’ve proved their loyalty beyond anything I had a right to ask. There is no limit to how low I will sink to keep them safe.”

“Interesting choice of words.”

She faced him. “Accurate. I will do anything for them.”

“Good.” His smile was like the flash of a knife. “I’ll use it against you later.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m so scared. I’ll have to go and find someone to sex me up right away just to keep my composure. Tell me, how did all this start?”

He didn’t answer. She strolled next to him.

“Roland found out he had a daughter,” Hugh said.

“I know the story,” she said. “The immortal wizard woke up after hibernating through the centuries of technology just before the Shift. He set about rebuilding his empire from the ruins of our modern world. He gathered necromancers and made them into the People. He hired an army and set a warlord to lead them. And he swore off having children, not sure why.”

“They always turn on him,” Hugh said.

Just like you? Maybe he had turned on Roland. Maybe not. There was something wistful in the way he said Roland’s name.

“He fell in love in spite of himself,” Elara continued. “And he had a daughter, but his wife ran away.”

“He tried to kill the child in the womb,” Hugh said.

She stopped and glanced at him. “What?”

“It didn’t work. Daniels is hard to kill.”

Elara recovered. “And then her mother took her and ran away with Roland’s Warlord.”

“He raised me,” Hugh said.

“The Warlord?”

“Yes. His name was Voron. He’d trained me since they found me in France. Then Kalina, Daniels’s mother, decided she needed his help, and it was all over. One day he was simply gone. That was her power. If she wanted to, she could make you love her.”

So his surrogate father had abandoned him to be with his boss’s wife and their child. That had to hurt.

“It didn’t last,” Hugh said. “Roland tracked them down eventually and killed Kalina. Voron escaped with the child. I thought Voron would come back, after her magic wore off, but he never did.”

“After Voron left, what happened to you?”

“I became the Warlord. Later Roland found out that his daughter survived.”

“How?”

Hugh shrugged. “She started using her magic. Daniels isn’t a subtle type. I could’ve brought her to him, but he wanted her to come to him, voluntarily, which was a lot more complicated. By that point, she had decided that Curran Lennart was her one and only. As long as they were together, inside the Pack’s Keep, I wouldn’t have made any progress. I had to get them to turn on each other.”

He was describing it matter-of-fact, in a detached voice.

“You lured them out of the Keep?” she guessed.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Panacea. I wanted a lot of distance, so I went to Europe, to the Black Sea. I had a castle there, a quiet base for Middle Eastern operations. There are a lot of potent old powers in Arabia. Best to stay out of their way, on the outskirts.”

“Did Lennart and Daniels come?”

Hugh nodded.

“What was it like meeting her?” Elara asked. “What was Daniels like?”

“You wanted just the facts, remember?”

“Did she like your proposal?”

“No. We danced around for a while. Sparred once.”

“Is she good?”

“Yes.”

“Better than you?”

“Faster. Voron taught us both. It was like fighting myself. She’s a killer. If you take away her sword, she’ll pick up a rock. If you take away the rock, she’ll kill you with her hands. She zeroes in and doesn’t let go.”

Suppressed admiration slipped into his words. Elara felt an uncomfortable pinch.

“Aside from fighting Voron, it was probably my best fight,” he said.

“You fought Voron?”

“I killed him.”

She stared at him. “Why?”

“Roland wanted him dead.”

So his second surrogate father ordered him to kill his first surrogate father. And he obeyed. Either he was truly a monster or…

“Did it hurt when you killed him?”

“He wasn’t exactly in his prime.” Hugh smiled, but his eyes didn’t. It hurt, she realized. It hurt, and it haunted him still.

“Voron was bound to Roland the same way I was bound,” he said.

“How?”

“Roland pulled the blood out of my body, mixed it with his, and put it back.”

She stared at him. “How is that possible?”

“Roland’s magic is ancient. He is capable of wonders. The blood brings with it certain powers. Blood weapons. Blood wards. Long lifespan. Healing is mine alone. I was born with it. Some things I learned like any other mage can learn. But blood powers come from Roland. When Roland killed his wife, he expected Voron to come back. We all did. When he didn’t Roland purged him the way he purged me.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“When I found Voron, he was an old man. He had aged. He could no longer make a blood sword. He couldn’t use magic. He still had his skills, but his body betrayed him. I had waited a long time to meet him. There was a conversation I wanted to have. But he wouldn’t talk to me, and I killed him quickly, because it hurt to look at him.”

Is that what would happen to Hugh? “You haven’t aged.”

He grinned at her. “Give it time.”

They walked some more.

“I knew how that damn trip to the Black Sea would end from the start,” Hugh said. “Violence, magic, and fire. An old power got involved and broke open the mountain under the castle to release the magic of a dormant volcano. It melted the castle from the inside out. Solid stone ran like a glowing river. Beautiful, in a way.”

“What happened?”

“I knew I had to kill Lennart, or Daniels would never leave him. We fought. I broke his legs. He broke my back and threw me into the fire. The whole thing was idiotic.”

Volcanic fire powered by magic that melted stone. He should’ve been instantly burned to a crisp. “How did you survive?”

“I teleported out. Had a water anchor in a vial around my neck. There wasn’t much of me left. Roland put me inside a phoenix egg for three months. Took me another two to get my strength back.”

He’d spent three months in excruciating pain. He’d said it so casually, as if it didn’t matter.

“If it wasn’t for Lennart, I might have convinced her. She wavered.”

“I don’t think she did.”

Hugh turned to her. He didn’t want to speak about it in the first place, but somehow Elara was pulling it out of him and once he started, he couldn’t stop. The void was ripping him apart, and still he talked.

“You said she was a killer,” Elara said. “An orphan. Her real father was a mystery. Her adoptive father made her hide.”

“Your point?” he asked.

Elara tilted her head to glance at his face. “Roland took care of your needs. He probably taught you, right? Provided you with money? You were his right hand.”

“Everything I got, I earned,” Hugh told her. “I worked and bled for it. Everything he asked, I did. No matter what it cost.”

Daniels was Hugh’s only major failure. He never knew he was only allowed one.

“But you got whatever you wanted, right?”

“Your point?”

“She was an orphan, living on the run, probably hungry, poor, always looking over her shoulder. You were exactly like her, but you had everything, and she had nothing. Hugh, you’re an astute, experienced man. Put yourself into her shoes. You were both trained by Voron. You both lived your lives in Roland’s shadow. You worshipped him, and she feared him. Of all the people on this planet, you are the ones who truly know what it’s like to be Roland’s child.”

“Except I wasn’t his child.”

Daniels hated her father. She fought Roland on every turn, while he’d spent decades serving him. But Daniels was blood and that mattered more to Roland than anything Hugh had done. Like the prodigal child, when Daniels was found, she eclipsed the decades of his service without trying simply because she was Roland’s daughter and he would never be his son.

“Try to think like her for a moment,” Elara said. “You knew her father in a way she never did. You knew Voron and you likely had him longer than she did. You have so much in common. Then you killed Voron, whom she must’ve loved; tried to kill Lennart, whom she loves; and then tried to force her to go back to the father she hated, even though you, of all people, knew exactly what waited for her there. The betrayal was catastrophic.”

Hugh felt a vague unease. The void spun around him, making it harder to think. He pushed it aside and focused. A memory came to him, he and Daniels fighting in the castle at the Black Sea. She’d won that fight and trapped him with her sword. He’d had to submit. He’d said, “Uncle.” But there was a hint of something there, when they fought. Rage poured out of her, powerful and seductive. That red-hot boiling rage. It turned him on. He wanted to keep fighting her. He wouldn’t have stopped until one of them was dead, and she knew it.

Her face flashed before him. Daniels had looked horrified. And then she almost fled.

The recollection disturbed him. He groped for the connection to Roland, for the clean feeling of surety that clarified all his doubts, but it wasn’t there. He was on his own.

Hugh locked his teeth, sorting through his memories, going through Daniels’s facial expressions. He remembered the last one best, the time he had starved her, trying to force her to submit to her father. She had this look of resignation on her face as if she had given up on him ever getting it.

She never saw him as a man. He was never in the running; he had known that from the start. He was either an extension of Roland or…

It hit him like a ton of bricks. Daniels saw him as a sibling. She probably didn’t even realize it.

On some level he had always understood it. It wasn’t the woman he had wanted. It was what she represented. He wanted her acceptance. He wanted her to admit how good he was. He would’ve seduced her to get it and then rubbed Roland’s face in it. One way or the other, the bastard would acknowledge him then.

Validation. So simple.

At the Black Sea, Lennart had played a ruse, pretending to be interested in another woman. It was a moronic tactic, one that always backfired, and it took a lot of work to cut off all possible escape routes until Hugh forced Lennart into that path. Hugh had quite enjoyed watching it play out at the time. It seemed odd, when Hugh thought about it now, as if it had happened to someone else. It had made Daniels desperate. It had made her vulnerable.

How the hell did he miscalculate so badly? It was painfully obvious now.

“I should’ve played the brother angle.” He didn’t realize he had spoken out loud until he heard his own voice.

“Come back to your true family?” Elara asked.

He nodded. “It would’ve been so easy too. ‘Look at everything you sacrificed for Lennart, and here he is, sniffing after the first attractive shapeshifter girl that fluttered her eyelashes at him. You’ll never belong with them, but you belong with us. We are your true family. He’ll never understand you, but we will. I will. I know exactly what it’s like. Come with me, and you will have a father and a brother who love you above all others.’ Damn it! I could’ve had her.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Why the hell didn’t I see it?”

“Because you wanted something from her, Hugh,” Elara said, her voice gentle. “And it made you blind. What did you want?”

“Doesn’t matter now.”

He wanted acceptance. If not from Roland, then from her. He would never have it now, and when he thought about it, the ball of conflicting crap those thoughts dragged in their wake was too complicated to deal with.

“Should I worry about this Daniels coming here to kill you?” Elara asked. “If I were her, I’d hunt you to the ends of the Earth.”

Hugh struggled for a moment with the paradox of someone worrying about him. “No. Her hands are tied. She claimed Atlanta as her domain the night Roland exiled me. If she leaves, he will attack.”

“So she sacrificed revenge for her people.”

“That’s the way she’s wired.”

“Do you still want her?”

She’d asked the question so casually, so perfectly flat. Hugh glanced at her. She looked at the road ahead, her face relaxed, but it was too late. He’d caught that one tiny note of female jealousy in her voice.

The untouchable goddess of the castle. Would wonders never cease?

Elara turned to him. “Hugh? I need to know if you will take off looking for her if you get a chance.”

Sure, you do. You shouldn’t have shown your hand, love.

“It doesn’t matter now. It’s in the past.”

“Is it? Is Roland in the past?”

The void opened its mouth and swallowed him whole. For a moment he couldn’t even speak, then the thing that drove him into battle reared its head and he tore free.

She was waiting for an answer.

Perceptive and smart, his dangerous harpy. His lovely wife. Elara had thought about it, about him. There was a spark there. All he had to do was blow on it and feed it, and he would get her. If their fights were anything to go by, he was in for a hell of a time.

“Roland no longer matters,” he lied.

“If Roland and Daniels don’t matter, neither does the Pack.”

The woods ended. They turned down the street to the smithy.

“So much effort to keep me from blowing up your deal. I have to give it to you, you really tried. Good show.”

She bared her teeth at him. “If you pick a fight with the Pack tomorrow, I’ll kill you and bury you in those herb beds back there.”

“That’s my sweet harpy. Come on, let me see those claws.”

“I mean it, Hugh.”

“Is it Hugh now? Not Preceptor?”

She eyed him. “I’ll call you Preceptor when you’re done with your immature tantrums.”

He laughed.

Elara looked into his eyes, her gaze searching. “What is it you stand for, Hugh d’Ambray?” she asked.

He reached for the answer. It eluded him for the moment. “Good times and loose women.”

Elara rolled her eyes and peered at the smithy. “What are we doing here anyway?”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the sketch of the warrior. “We’re going to ask your best smith how hard it is to make this scale mail.”

He already knew the answer, but he wanted confirmation anyway.

She sighed.

“Come on, then, wife. Put on a happy face.”

“Ugh.” She reached over and slid her fingers into the crook of his elbow.

“Good God, control yourself, woman. We’re in public. At least wait until we’re in the bedroom.”

“Your corpse will grow lovely goldenseal.”

He laughed again and walked her down to the smithy.

Hugh stood in front of his bedroom window, leaning on the windowsill. Night breathed in his face, cool and soothing after the day’s heat. Early October had been surprisingly hot. He’d left the door to his rooms open, and the night breeze swirled past him, sucked out the door, down the hallway and into the depths of the castle.

Things used to be simple. Too simple.

He was a man who killed one father, failed the other, and left a trail of destruction in his wake four continents wide. When he looked back now, he saw bodies. It never bothered him before. He’d felt vague pangs of guilt, but never this.

It wasn’t natural. That was the only explanation. If he felt all this shit now, he would’ve felt it when he was doing it. He should’ve been bothered. That part of him had been suppressed and he wasn’t the one doing that suppressing.

An absurd urge to find Nez gripped him. Did he feel this? Was his leash longer? Was he allowed guilt?

“What is it you stand for, Hugh?”

Fuck if I know.

He wanted the bottle tonight. More than anything. He wanted to get drunk and forget all of it.

He heard footsteps behind him. “You called?” Lamar asked.

“Come in.”

The tall lanky man came over and leaned against the desk.

“Tell me what happened after my exile.”

“I thought you didn’t want to know.”

“I do now.”

Lamar pulled a cloth out of his pocket, took off his glasses, and cleaned the lenses. “The same night Roland exiled you, he went to Atlanta. There was a bargain. Lennart gave up the Pack. In return Roland agreed to a hundred-year peace with Daniels.”

“He separated her from her power base.”

“Yes. Once I was out of the picture, he began the systematic purge of the Iron Dogs. Anyone loyal to you became a target.”

“What about Atlanta?”

“Roland began building on the edge of it.”

“He was baiting her,” Hugh said. “He can’t help himself.”

“For a while he played father of the year, but Daniels never trusted him. Eventually he kidnapped one of her people, a polymorph named Saiman. She came to visit Roland at the fort he was building and demanded Saiman back. He refused. They screamed at each other in the language of power. She called him a usurper. Stoyan was there on the cross. He didn’t understand most of it, but he said the day was bright and sunny, and by the end of it, the sky turned black and lightning struck the ground. When they were done, she got Stoyan and got the hell out of there.”

It sounded like something Daniels would do. Subtle like a runaway bulldozer.

“She defended you,” Lamar said.

Hugh turned to him.

“You said you wanted to know. Stoyan memorized that part. He thought you would want to know one day.” Lamar reached inside his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper.

“Read it to me.”

“‘You were everything to him. He committed all those atrocities for you and you stripped him of your love, the thing he cared about most.’ ‘Hugh outlived his usefulness. His life had been a series of uncomplicated tasks and eventually he became his work.’”

A simpleton. That’s how he saw me. And she understood.

“‘He was raised exactly like you wanted him to be.’ ‘He was like a fallen star. I melted it down and forged it into a sword. It’s not truly his fault, but the world is becoming more complicated not less. Some swords are meant to be forged only once.’”

The void turned to fire around him.

I am a sword. A weapon. Okay. But you’ve made me into a really sharp sword and I know how to cut you.

Lamar took a step back and swallowed. “Are you alright?”

“What happened next?”

“Roland brought an army. Not his main force, the secondary divisions he had spaced out through the region. Daniels turned the Atlanta Chapter of the People.”

“Of course she did. Ghastek is her Legatus?”

“Yes. How did you…?”

“Ghastek is terrified of death and Daniels can bestow immortality,” Hugh said. “What happened with the battle?”

“They fought. Roland assaulted the Keep. It was the crudest assault known to mankind.”

“Don’t tell me he formed up his troops and marched them to their fort.”

“He did exactly that.”

Moron.

The word sliced across his nerves like a red-hot blade. He’d just called Roland a moron in his head. The pain echoed through him, but the world kept spinning.

“The combined forces of Atlanta massacred his army,” Lamar said. “Daniels and Lennart tried to kill him. He fled.”

His brain chopped through the words trying to make sense of them. “He fled?”

“He did.” Lamar smiled. “Teleported out.”

A chance. Daniels had a shot at the title.

His mind ached, reeling from the red-hot pain.

“Daniels is pregnant,” Lamar said quietly.

“Is it Lennart’s?” He already knew the answer.

“They’re married, and she doesn’t seem like the cheating type.”

“Roland’s worst fear,” Hugh thought out loud.

“Why?” Lamar asked.

“Roland’s magic is like a science. It’s systematic, it’s logical, and it has laws. It supports all of the cornerstones of the scientific method: the observation, measurement, experimentation, and formation and testing of theory. He views it as a civilizing force. Shapeshifter magic is ancient and wild. It relies on instinct. It predates Roland’s systematic approach. He derides it as primitive, but he fears it and he’s drawn to it because he doesn’t understand it. He’s fascinated by witches. His daughter is half a witch and now she’s conceived a shapeshifter child.”

Understanding shone in Lamar’s eyes. “He’s afraid his grandchild will surpass him.”

Hugh nodded. “He’ll do anything to get his hands on that kid. Except that he’s thinking a generation too late. It’s not the baby he needs to worry about. It’s the mother.”

“What does it mean for us…” Lamar frowned.

“My wife allied us with the Pack. The Pack is allied with Daniels. That moves us from Nez’s Personal Amusement column to Weaken Roland’s Enemy. We have two choices: we can sever all association with the Pack or we can openly declare ourselves their allies.”

Lamar rubbed the back of his head. “Pick your enemy time.”

“Betraying the Pack buys us time.” And will make Elara nearly unmanageable. “Standing against Roland now complicates things. Tomorrow the Pack people are arriving. Nez will force the issue. That’s the way he thinks.”

“What do you want me to do?” Lamar asked.

“Your cohort is standing watch tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

“We’re going to do a repeat of Fort Smith.”

Lamar blinked. “Okay. How many do you want at the castle?”

“Give me twenty-five.”

“Will do.” Lamar grinned. “Bale’s got the graveyard watch. It will kill him.”

“He’ll survive. That’s all,” Hugh said.

Lamar nodded, walked to the door, and turned. “Preceptor?”

“Yes?”

“If he wants you back, what will you do?”

To be back in the light of the magic again. Everything forgiven. All the doubts forgotten. To bask in Roland’s approval was like walking into sunshine after an endless cold night. He craved it like a drug.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Lamar nodded and walked out.