from arriving for his wedding overly soon. But I’ve no doubt Magnus will turn up outside the walls one of these days to beg entry.”
Griffin. She’d heard that name as well, and his reputation was just as fearsome. “Magnus will take your actions here as an insult of the worst sort.”
“Oh.” He smiled. “I’m counting on that.”
Yes, Magnus would come, and he’d come with strength. By the Three Gods, Torch hoped to hold Blackbriar against the king and all his armies. And then another thought chased through her mind. Her father must be counting on Magnus’s prompt arrival. In fact, that might be why he’d yielded the keep so easily. He was counting on his king to come, get rid of Torch’s threat, and claim Calista after the battle.
And if Torch believed himself relatively safe behind these walls while he recovered, so much the better. In his complacency, he might discount the threat.
Calista bit her lip. She ought to favor her father’s plan. She ought to be obedient to the king’s wishes and go through with their wedding as intended. But lying here in her own bedchamber with this flesh and blood man—one who had treated her father and his household with a great deal of leniency—she was no longer certain of anything.
Chapter 6
Torch was cold, so cold he thought he’d never be warm again. Once as a young boy in the north, he’d been lost in a snowstorm outside the walls of the Pinnacle. He’d fought that swirling wall of white for what seemed like half the day, without even the solidity of a soldier pine or a wall to guide him to shelter. The wind had clawed at his garments, searching with relentless fingers to burn his skin with frost. His feet had grown numb. And when Steelsleet the Stormlord and his men had finally found him, it had taken another day and night for him to thaw—or so it seemed.
He relived that sensation now, shivering endlessly and hugging himself, clutching at the blankets, but nothing kept him warm.
On some level, he knew he was ill—ill where he shouldn’t be. His wound had closed. Not once had he detected the sickly sweet odor of infection on the bandages. Calista had tended him with the best possible care, and yet he’d succumbed, first to a mere flesh wound and then to a fever without infection.
Something was off about that, but his befogged mind couldn’t place what. Weak as a newborn, he was. If his enemies caught him now, they’d laugh before hacking his head from his neck and displaying it on a spike atop Blackbriar’s gate.
He curled himself into a ball, and let himself drift, the way he had during the snowstorm at the last, when the cold had tempted him with the promise of sleep and warmth and he’d given in. His mind wandered the paths of the past, the paths of truth to a place where his name was not
Torch,
his brother was not
Griffin,
and his sister was recognized as such. Where his mother was no longer leman to the lord of an ice palace in the far north.
Where he rightfully donned velvet robes trimmed with fur, walked the length of a marble-lined hall, and ascended a throne. And from there, he sat in judgment of all those who had wronged his family, Magnus Ironfist foremost among them.
In sleep, his mind transported him into a dream, often revisited since he came by his Stone, back to a night when his mother stood tall before him and spoke to him in low, urgent tones.
“We must be very quiet.” She sank to her knees, her hands on his shoulders. In place of her usual silks and velvets, she’d donned the brown cottar-spun linsey of a maid. Her golden hair lay hidden beneath a cowl. A disguise, she had called it, to make it all seem like a game. “Not a single sound. Do you think you can do that?”
He nodded, even though he wondered at the need for silence. From far off came the dim but relentless pounding of a ram at the gate, punctuated at intervals by the cries of the defenders.
“It will be dark where we’re going, but you must be brave.
Griffin. She’d heard that name as well, and his reputation was just as fearsome. “Magnus will take your actions here as an insult of the worst sort.”
“Oh.” He smiled. “I’m counting on that.”
Yes, Magnus would come, and he’d come with strength. By the Three Gods, Torch hoped to hold Blackbriar against the king and all his armies. And then another thought chased through her mind. Her father must be counting on Magnus’s prompt arrival. In fact, that might be why he’d yielded the keep so easily. He was counting on his king to come, get rid of Torch’s threat, and claim Calista after the battle.
And if Torch believed himself relatively safe behind these walls while he recovered, so much the better. In his complacency, he might discount the threat.
Calista bit her lip. She ought to favor her father’s plan. She ought to be obedient to the king’s wishes and go through with their wedding as intended. But lying here in her own bedchamber with this flesh and blood man—one who had treated her father and his household with a great deal of leniency—she was no longer certain of anything.
Chapter 6
Torch was cold, so cold he thought he’d never be warm again. Once as a young boy in the north, he’d been lost in a snowstorm outside the walls of the Pinnacle. He’d fought that swirling wall of white for what seemed like half the day, without even the solidity of a soldier pine or a wall to guide him to shelter. The wind had clawed at his garments, searching with relentless fingers to burn his skin with frost. His feet had grown numb. And when Steelsleet the Stormlord and his men had finally found him, it had taken another day and night for him to thaw—or so it seemed.
He relived that sensation now, shivering endlessly and hugging himself, clutching at the blankets, but nothing kept him warm.
On some level, he knew he was ill—ill where he shouldn’t be. His wound had closed. Not once had he detected the sickly sweet odor of infection on the bandages. Calista had tended him with the best possible care, and yet he’d succumbed, first to a mere flesh wound and then to a fever without infection.
Something was off about that, but his befogged mind couldn’t place what. Weak as a newborn, he was. If his enemies caught him now, they’d laugh before hacking his head from his neck and displaying it on a spike atop Blackbriar’s gate.
He curled himself into a ball, and let himself drift, the way he had during the snowstorm at the last, when the cold had tempted him with the promise of sleep and warmth and he’d given in. His mind wandered the paths of the past, the paths of truth to a place where his name was not
Torch,
his brother was not
Griffin,
and his sister was recognized as such. Where his mother was no longer leman to the lord of an ice palace in the far north.
Where he rightfully donned velvet robes trimmed with fur, walked the length of a marble-lined hall, and ascended a throne. And from there, he sat in judgment of all those who had wronged his family, Magnus Ironfist foremost among them.
In sleep, his mind transported him into a dream, often revisited since he came by his Stone, back to a night when his mother stood tall before him and spoke to him in low, urgent tones.
“We must be very quiet.” She sank to her knees, her hands on his shoulders. In place of her usual silks and velvets, she’d donned the brown cottar-spun linsey of a maid. Her golden hair lay hidden beneath a cowl. A disguise, she had called it, to make it all seem like a game. “Not a single sound. Do you think you can do that?”
He nodded, even though he wondered at the need for silence. From far off came the dim but relentless pounding of a ram at the gate, punctuated at intervals by the cries of the defenders.
“It will be dark where we’re going, but you must be brave.
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