A Kingdom of Lies (Realm of Fey #2)

CHAPTER 15

Duncan was control, his face void of emotion as though two knives were not pressed into his skin. He regarded me from the door, forest-green stare intense and unblinking. I wished to share his calmness. My heart thundered in my chest, each beat threatening to snap my ribs in half.

“Is the cutlery truly necessary?” Duncan asked, peering down his sharp nose at the blade.

“You tell me, Hunter. Are you going to behave whilst I complete my hit?”

I almost expected Duncan to refuse her, to fight on my behalf. But it never came. Instead, he retreated into silence as he studied my entire body. “Ah, so you’ve come for the fey. How exciting.”

It was far from exciting, if Duncan actually knew what Briar was and what she’d done.

“How did you find me?” I asked her, watching for any slight movement, my anxiety screaming a symphony within me. I was powerless and clumsy compared to Briar, who was a trained assassin initiated into the guild known as the Children of the Asp. I’d hoped that I had seen the last of her, since her benefactor was dead. Turns out I wasn’t that lucky.

“I have always been watching you, Robin,” Briar replied, veil fluttering with each breathy word she spoke. “It’s what I do. Wait and watch until the time is right. I had a hunch I would be called to this task again. Call it… intuition.”

“Doran sent you, didn’t he?”

Duncan laughed, breaking the tension with his misplaced chortle. “The king sends a single person after you, Robin? Clearly, he doesn’t see you as the same threat you see him as.”

I scowled, stomach churning as I finally realised I was alone in this room. It was my own form of intuition, but I trusted that Duncan would do little to help me if – when – Briar was ready to strike.

“You laugh freely as though I do not hold a blade at your back and throat,” Briar hissed at Duncan. “I would happily break my code and kill someone separate to my hit, payment or not. Someone would want your head, General Rackley. There would be coin to collect for your life, in fact, I have been hearing some rather disgruntled whispers about you today, Duncan.”

“You don’t scare me,” Duncan said, leaning into the blade.

You should be scared. When Erix once asked me what my greatest fear was, I told him it was the dark, as if I were a child holding onto a pathetic horror. Now my answer was different. I feared the assassin who stood before me. Briar was horror in the flesh, a real-life monster with unlimited potential to kill.

Duncan was a fool to ignore that.

I blinked and saw a vision of Duncan’s naked body and the scars scattered across his skin. It was no wonder he didn’t flinch at the presence of her blades; he had clearly experienced many before.

“I don’t care for fear, Hunter. I care for coin. And this time” – her head turned back in my direction; face still covered by the veil – “I will finish the task.”

I stepped forward, bravery burning in my heart. The feeling was sudden, perhaps conjured by the feeling of having my back pressed up against a wall with no possibility to get away. If Duncan was not prepared to aid me, then I would have to do it myself.

“What have I ever done to you, Briar?”

The question hung in the air between us.

Briar slowly lifted the knife from Duncan’s back and used the sharp tip to remove the veil from her face. That opened up the opportunity for Duncan to make his move, but he didn’t. He kept still and comfortable, as though he enjoyed witnessing what was occurring, even with a blade to his throat.

Finally, I could see her. Dark, jade eyes brimming with arrogance. Her hair, still short and cut close to her head, had been slicked back from the veil she had worn. Her soft pixie-like features had not changed, still the same trusting face that had fooled us all, Althea more so than anyone.

“Nothing,” Briar answered, grin lifting her pretty lips at both sides. “Don’t let your ego run away with you. This is purely business.”

She returned the second blade to Duncan’s back without glancing away from me. “Except, between the three of us, I made a rather large discount this time round. King Doran believed the death of his son was fair trade for a discounted price. Of course, I was happy to oblige, just for the chance to personally watch the life drain from your face. It is frowned upon for an Asp to let a hit slip from the net, so to speak, and you certainly are one slippery fucker, Robin.”

“And what would Althea say if she heard you speaking in such a way?” I questioned, hoping to see some sort of reaction. And there it was. The slight flinch of her stare and faltering smile. “I trust you already know she’s here,” I said, taking the moment of her distraction to look for something, anything , to use as a weapon against her. “It must’ve taken true restraint to come for me before visiting her… although I can confirm she doesn’t share the same eagerness to see you.”

Duncan’s eyes widened as he filed that piece of information away, silently connecting the dots.

“When I am finished with you, I will visit her. Consider it my reward,” Briar replied, gaze unseeing as she slipped into a daydream. It only lasted a moment before she shook herself out of her thoughts and regarded me with a snarl once again.

“Your quarrel is with him, and I see no need for spilling unrequired blood. I just had the floor cleaned.” Duncan murmured.

I expected Briar to refuse him, but she didn’t. “You can go then.”

She lowered the blades, one by one, and Duncan stepped aside. “Not worried I’ll come back with a league of Hunters?”

“Even if you did, I will not be long.”

Duncan tipped his head in a strange bow. “If there is room for requests, I ask that you try to keep his death as… tidy as possible. Not that it matters, but it would save the clean-up.”

“Go,” Briar growled. “Now.”

He didn’t wait around.

“Duncan,” I spluttered as his hand reached for the doorknob. I had become invaluable to him so quickly. When he looked up at me as though he had completely forgotten my existence. Until he winked, mouthing good luc k before slipping out the door and closing it behind him.

Then it was the two of us, just like it had been in my room before she drugged me, and in the dark pit that I had become prisoner in. Briar and I were alone, but this time felt different.

I was confident it would be the last time.

My lack of hope dropped in my stomach like a rock. If this was the end, I would drag it out for all its worth.

“Since we last saw each other it has become painfully obvious that you have a way with losing the men you spend time with. Tarron, well, we both know how that turned out. That Hunter left the room without much effort. And Erix, oh yes, I heard all about him. What a terrible thing to lose your last living relative to the same hands which had been all over you. There is something both tragic and poetic about it.”

Bile crept up my throat, burning with every inch. “If you are here to point out my terrible taste in men then I fear you are not getting paid enough.”

“Oh, believe me, the price offered for you is handsome. Doran is keen to see you dead.”

“A sentiment we share,” I said. Then I ran. Not to Briar, but away from her, towards a side door around the edge of the bed. She sprung after me, leaping over furniture, fingers grappling air to get a hold of my shirt.

I made it to the door, barrelled through it, then wedged my body against the other side. A few times Briar tried to knock through, but I held firm, legs straining against the force.

“I expected a little fight from you, Robin. But not for you to run away,” Briar sang, her voice slightly muffled by the wood between us.

I scanned what was a closet. There was no other way in or out. Which meant I’d literally run myself into a corner.

All I could think to do was stall, in hopes Duncan did return with Hunters. “Go on, tell me how much I am worth to him.” I shouted as the tell-tale scratch of a blade worked grooves into the door. “I admit I’m flattered to know it is enough for you to give this your best go again. Did you know I am a king myself now? I could rustle up some coin, perhaps even best his price, and turn the hit back on Doran.”

Briar laughed, her cackle raising the hairs on the back of my sweat-damp neck.

“No one in Wychwood doubts your status, but you are a king of barren lands and empty homes. Imeria castle sits vacant even after all this time since your claiming the Icethorn power. You are wealthy in loneliness, that is all. You turned your back on your destiny and wandered into the hands of Hunters. There is nothing you could offer me to stop the inevitable from happening.”

She barged into the door again. I pushed my hands on either side of the wall, trying to add more pressure to stop her.

But guilt tried to rear its ugly head within the storm of emotions riling through me. However, it was the easiest of my feelings to handle. How could I feel guilty for turning my back on a place that I had no personal ties to? No family or connections beside the whisper of my mother and her rule.

“Briar the snake, queen of giving up on all who love her,” I called back. “What is it you rule over beside the hunger for coin?”

I couldn’t see her smile, but heard it in the lightening of her tone. “Pity, you have such a way with words. Shame you will not be speaking them much longer. In fact, any last words whilst the opportunity presents itself?”

“Fuck you,” I screamed.

A sudden, grounding calm rushed over me, dousing the flames of my anxiety with a blanket of cold ice. If this was the end, I was that much closer to seeing my father again. Would he be waiting for me in the realm of peace I longed for him to be in? Standing beside my mother as though they had never parted sides.

“It is almost a shame that I will not get the credit for killing you. An army races towards this place, and when they come, they will blame the Hunters for your death. But I suppose I can live with that, knowing my pockets are full and you are no longer a thorn in my side. Then they will kill everyone here and return Althea and her guard back to their home. And in time you will be forgotten. Doran may fill my pockets, but I owe him nothing. I’m simply saving him time, and resources.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. Briar’s mouth must’ve been so close to the door as she spoke her next words. “Erix is on his way to see you, I wonder how he’ll react when he finds you dead. Will he be pleased I saved him a job, or angry that he didn’t get the chance to destroy you himself.”

“Erix.” The blood rushed down from my head to my feet, making my body feel like it was sinking into the stone floor. “He is coming here?”

“He is. Followed me from Doran’s door all the way to this one. Clearly, I was not trusted for the task entirely. I even contemplated letting Erix reach you first, letting him finish the deed but still taking the credit for it. Yet I could not give him such pleasure. He has a strong will even against the pressing force of his sire. Even I would not get in the way of a berserker, especially one like him. Sad you are going to miss him?”

I shook my head, fighting the urge to release the tears that clung to my lashes. Erix had been the one to murder my father. I should’ve hated him for it. But he was a puppet at the end of gold strings held by his father, warped and controlled. His will was not his own no matter how I longed for it to be different.

“When he finds your body, drained and empty, he will likely destroy this entire fortress before the Cedarfall soldiers arrive. I may even stay and watch. Nothing like some entertainment after a kill–”

I threw open the door, silencing Briar, whose wide eyes proved she didn’t expect it. I reared my fist back, and sent it careening into her face. Once the crack sang, beautiful between us, knocking her back a step.

“Get on with it,” I screamed, hands flexing at my sides, wondering if Erix was close enough to hear. Close enough to save me when no one else would. I may not have had magic to call upon, but my desperation crackled colder than any storm I could control.

Briar licked at her cracked lips, smearing blood across them.

A shiver raced up my spine and down my arms. I stayed looking at the door, gaze unflinching, ready to do anything to escape. That was when I felt it. The strange heat of the air, as if it had thickened in the time I’d been inside the closet.

It could only mean one thing.

“Briar,” I said, a faint smile creasing my face. “I hope it hurts.”

“Killing you?” she said, preparing her blades, her legs bending at the knees like a cat to pounce.

“No. I hope it hurts when you burn.”

The door exploded inwards in a cloud of splintering wood, stone and fire .

In a single moment the world rocked beneath my feet. I felt the slice of a blade but had no time to worry if it was fatal as I tumbled to the ground, covering my head with my hands. Shards of rubble rained down upon me; it was all I could feel. That and the tongues of vicious flames that lapped at the room, coming from the fey who controlled them.

My ears were ringing, screaming, as I tried to shield my head from the debris of the explosion. I risked a glance upwards. Standing in the torn hole that had once been the door, amongst rubble and stone that burned with red-hot fire, was Althea. Her face was contorted by the shadows cast upon her by the flames, a goddess of destruction and hell, eyes pinned to the cowering body of the girl on the floor between us.

“And burn you shall,” Althea Cedarfall spat, fire dancing around her feet like loyal serpents of ruby and gold. “ Bitch .”