“Is there a particular reason you don’t want to meet our dear cousin?” Kaldar gathered the documents. “He’s a bit grim and smells like dead people, but he is family ...”
“William killed his eel.” Cerise ducked lower, crouching by the seat.
The four Mars stared at him. William shrugged. “It tried to eat me.”
“Emel will want money,” Cerise murmured. “I can’t handle that right this second.”
Kaldar jerked his head toward the door. “Go. We’ll stall him.”
Cerise slunk from her seat, melting into the crowd. William tensed, but there was no way to follow unless he threw her cousins aside.
Kaldar turned and stepped forward with a big smile. “Emel!”
Emel looked a bit perplexed. “Cousin.”
They embraced.
Kaldar winked at William over Emel’s shoulder. Grandmother Az watched them with an affable smile.
“Congratulations on the battle fought and won.” Emel’s voice was surprisingly pleasant.
“Thank you,” Kaldar said.
Emel braided the fingers of his hands, in the manner of a pious priest. “Lagar won’t leave peacefully. Kaitlin won’t let him. Let me know if you need assistance. Officially I can’t do anything—the Sect doesn’t wish to be involved—but I can still pull some strings. And,
hrhm
, I myself am not without some modest skill.”
Kaldar nodded. “Thank you, Emel.”
Emel’s face took on a mournful cast. “Speaking of needs. I’ve come to see Cerise. There is a certain delicate matter that I would like to discuss with her.”
Yeah, a delicate matter of the fish with legs who attacked random peaceful travelers in the swamp. William opened his mouth. Grandmother Az put her hand on his elbow and shook her head. He clamped his mouth shut.
Kaldar nodded gravely. “I’m sorry, she left. But I’ll do my best to give her a message.”
“I need to speak to her concerning a certain animal belonging to the Sect . . . Normally I wouldn’t bring this up, but the Sect believes some restitution is in order.”
“Lost your pet, did you?” Grandmother Az snapped out of her reverie.
Emel paled. “Why, Meemaw Azan, I didn’t see you there ...”
“Serves you right.” Grandmother’s eyes blazed with fierce fire. The flow of the crowd around them slowed, as the audience sensed a new attraction. “When she was a little girl, you stole her dolls, stuffed dead things into them, and made them dance! What kind of a person expects a little girl to be happy with a stinky dolly that’s full of maggots? What were you thinking?”
Emel winced.
“I say it’s right that she killed your eel. What kind of a pet is that for a respected man anyway? Couldn’t get a dog or a cat. No, this knucklehead gets himself a bald fish with legs!”
Light giggling pulsed through the crowd.
“Meemaw Azan—” Emel started but she cut him off.
“I don’t care if you’re a necromancer! Coming over here, all important, doesn’t say hello to his granny. Too good for your family, are you, Emel? I know I brought my grandchildren up better than that. I think I’ll have me a talk with your mother!”
A spark of fear flared in Emel’s somber eyes. “I should go,” he said softly.
“It’s for the best,” Kaldar murmured. “I’ll give Cerise your message.”
Emel bowed to his grandmother and took off toward the door amid the cackling audience.
Grandmother Az put her tiny fists on her hips. “And don’t you walk away from me, Emel Mar! I am not finished with you! Emel!”
The necromancer grabbed his robe, broke into a run, and escaped through the door. Grandmother Az waved her arm around and poked William in the shoulder. “Can you believe that child? Well, doesn’t that just sink my boat! And he was such a sweet baby, too.”
LAGAR pulled the boat to the shore, threw the reins on a cypress knee, and stepped on the wet grass. A lake of ferns rustled before him.
“Peva?”
No answer came. He took a step into the ferns and saw a trail of broken stems leading away from a pine. A small bag of tracker’s mix lay on the roots, the nuts and raisins scattered on the ground. Above it, a circular black mark, the kind a flare arrow made, glared at him from the pine’s trunk.
Peva had no flare bolts. The hair on the back of Lagar’s neck stood on its end.
He unsheathed his sword in a single fluid motion and searched the ground.
Twin puncture marks, two wounds in the dirt, marked the spot by the pine root. Someone had shot at his brother and lived to retrieve the missiles. Unless Peva took them for his own.
Lagar jogged to the edge of the fern field. Several stems lay broken on the ground. His gaze snagged on a bolt protruding from a cypress trunk. A green glyph marked the shaft. One of Peva’s. Too low for a target. Besides when Peva aimed, he always hit. He’d shot to distract someone’s attention from himself. Lagar crouched, pointing the tip of his sword in the direction of the bolt, and turned the other way.
A large cypress blocked his view twenty feet away. He ran to the cypress, circled the bloated stem . . .
Peva lay on his back on the ground. The blue tint of the bloodless skin, the rigid features, the brown stain of blood on the chest, it all rushed at Lagar at the same time and punched him deep into the gut, where the nerves met. He dropped to his knees.
Rain came, drizzling the swamp with cold water. It plastered Peva’s hair to his head, filling the dead eyes with false tears. A phantom hand squeezed Lagar’s throat until it hurt.
Lagar pulled his brother close and held him.
FOURTEEN
CERISE rode quietly, letting the horse pick the pace. The swamp rolled by on both sides of the road: pale husks of the dead trees rising from the bog water that was black like liquid tar.
They won the first round. Peva was dead. The court had ruled in favor of the family. They had the right to retrieve Grandfather’s house. Now they just had to do it.
She should’ve been happy. Instead, she felt empty and worn-out to the core, as if her body had become a threadbare rag hanging off her bones. She was so weary. She wanted off her horse. She wanted to curl up somewhere dark and quiet. And most of all, she wanted her mother.
Cerise sighed. It was a ridiculous urge. She was twenty-four years old. Not a child by any means. If things had gone differently, she would’ve been married and had children of her own by now. But no matter how she tried to rationalize herself away from it, she wanted her mother with the desperation of a child left alone in the dark. The need was so basic and strong, she almost cried.
She couldn’t remember the last time she had cried. It had to be years.
The logical part of her knew that winning the hearing was only the first step on a long road. For the past ten days she’d had a clear purpose: find Uncle Hugh, get the documents, and return in time for the hearing. She lived and breathed it, and now it was done. She had accomplished her goal, and inside, in the same place she wanted her mother, she felt deeply cheated because her parents failed to magically appear.
Hoofbeats came from behind her. Cerise turned in her saddle.
Two riders came down the path at a brisk canter. William and Kaldar. William carried Peva’s crossbow. Some women waited for a knight in shining armor. She, apparently, had ended up with a knight in black jeans and leather, who wanted to chase her down and have his evil way with her.
When she was a teenager, she used to imagine meeting a stranger. He would be from the Weird or the Broken, not from the Mire. He would be lethal and tough, so tough, he wouldn’t be afraid of her. He would be funny. And he would be handsome. She’d gotten so good at imagining this mysterious man, she could almost picture his face.
William would kick his ass.
Maybe that was why she couldn’t get him out of her head, Cerise reflected. Wishful thinking, hoping for things that would never be.
The two men reached her and halted their horses.
“See?” Kaldar grimaced. “She’s in one piece.”
William ignored him. “You rode out alone. Don’t make a habit of it.”
He was worried about her safety. Charming Lord Bill. And phrased it so delicately, too. Why, he was the very picture of gallantry. “Worried about your bait?”
“You’re no good to anyone dead.”
Kaldar had a peculiar look on his face.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing. I think I’ll ride ahead a bit.” He rode on.
Cerise sighed. “Did you get under his skin?”
William shrugged. “He makes bad jokes. I told him they weren’t funny. Riding out alone was sloppy. If you keep making small mistakes, they will become habits and then you’ll die.”
Just what she needed. “Thank you for the lecture, Lord Bill. How I survived without your help to the ripe age of twenty-four, I will never know.”
“You’re welcome.”
When sarcasm flies over a blueblood’s head, does it make a sound? No, I guess not.
“Don’t tell me what to do.” She nudged her horse and the mare followed Kaldar. William rode next to her. He was looking intently at her face. Cerise looked back.
The problem with Lord Bill was that not only was he hotter than July in hell, but he existed blissfully unaware of his hotness, which, of course, made him even more attractive. Looking at him for too long was bad for her. He was a challenge, and she had so many other things to worry about: her parents, the feud, the rest of the family . . .
“Are you upset?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“With me?”
“No.”
The rigid line of his jaw eased a little. “Then with what?”
Cerise glanced at the sky, gathering her thoughts. “I realized that I’m a child.”
William looked point-blank at her chest. “No.”
Laughter bubbled up and she couldn’t hold it in. “Up here, Lord Bill.” She pointed to her face. “It’s not polite to stare at a woman’s breasts, unless of course, she is naked in bed with you. Then you can look all you want.”
Amber flashed in William’s eyes, betraying intense, unfiltered lust. And then it was gone.
Oh, Lord Bill, you devious thing you.
Everything he thought registered on his face. His wife would have no guesswork. If he was sad, she’d know. If he wanted sex, she’d know. If he wanted another woman, she’d know, too. He wasn’t capable of lying, even if he wanted to.
“Why do you think you’re a child?” he asked.
“Because I want my mother,” Cerise told him. She was probably foolish for letting him see that deep inside herself, but then she couldn’t exactly share any of it with the family. “I never knew until now that I was spoiled. My parents shielded me from the really important decisions. They made things easy. As long as I did as instructed, and even if I didn’t always, things would be okay, because they would always be there to fix it or at least to tell me how to fix it. I complained and thought I had it rough. Now they’re gone. All of the decisions are mine now, and all of the responsibility is mine, too. Tomorrow I’ll be sending my family into slaughter to take back my grandfather’s house. Some of them won’t come back. And all I want is for my parents to tell me I’m doing the right thing, except they can’t. It’s up to me to know what the right thing is. I feel like I’m taking a test and somebody just stole my cheat sheet. I have to pack a few years of growing up between tonight and tomorrow morning, and I better do it fast.”
There. More than he’d bargained for, she had no doubt.
“It’s like being a sergeant,” William said. “At first you’re an enlisted man, a rank-and-file Legionnaire. As long as you’re where you’re told to be when you’re told to be there, you can do no wrong. And then you make a sergeant. Now you have to figure out where everyone has to be and when. Everybody is waiting for you to screw up: the people above you, the people below you, and the people who knew you before and think they should be where you are. Nobody holds your hand.”
“I suppose it is like being a sergeant.” she murmured.
“The rule is: often wrong but never in doubt. That’s what makes you different. You show doubt, and nobody will follow you.”
“But what if you
are
in doubt?”
“Don’t let it show or you’re fucked.”
She sighed. “I’ll keep it in mind. You liked the military, Lord Bill. You keep mentioning it.”
“It was easy,” he told her.
“Why did you leave?”
“They sentenced me to death.”
What? “I’m sorry?”
William looked ahead. “I was court-martialed.”
What did he do? “Why?”
“A terrorist group had taken over a dam in the Weird. They took hostages and threatened to flood the town if their demands weren’t met.”
“What did they want?”