Last Stand (The Black Mage #4)(12)

“I trust that you don’t need your guards to partake?”

She sought to limit potential witnesses.

Darren was quick to agree, but I was not. I did not trust the crown prince of the realm alone with the leader of the rebels. I’d never been privy to the secrets of the keep—who knew if there was a secret collection of mages and knights that she had already readied, waiting just beyond the commander’s walls to accost a threat before it became more?

“I will join you both.”

Darren gave me a raised brow, no doubt recalling his brother’s orders and thinking himself capable of meeting the commander alone, but he didn’t question my decision aloud.

Nyx looked anything but pleased.

“Very well. If you both would follow me.”

Paige let out an angry huff as we passed. She wasn’t pleased about being left behind; Henry at least trusted me to see to the prince. Paige did not trust anyone but herself.

She was the wisest of all.

The rest of our unit resigned to wait.

Commander Nyx turned the key and led the two of us into a large barren chamber. The draft wasn’t much better here than the hall beyond. Its furnishings were bare, save for a thick rug and the seating area on the left that included a long, rectangular slab of a table and twenty chairs.

One for each head knight in her squads, I assumed, to meet in private and discuss strategy before addressing the whole of her regiment in the open.

My eyes immediately studied the chamber for any hint of rebel activity, but it was far too plain to be incriminating.

I wondered if Nyx had one of her men do a quick sweep while we were in the hall. How many documents were being burned while the crown prince and princess were occupied? By the time Darren took up his investigation, there wouldn’t be a scrap of paper indicating their cause.

Darren didn’t miss a beat. “King Blayne has sent me to check on our northern post. The Crown recently discovered a rebel who was a former soldier of your regiment. I would like the keep’s full cooperation while I lead this investigation. I trust you can keep your own men in line.” He had used a similar train of speech for the lord overseeing Demsh’aa during our visit. The only difference was that man was a fool and had almost fallen over his round belly thanking a prince of the realm—he had seemed to forget his prince was also the Black Mage—for overseeing his town for that “rebel rubbish.”

“Of course.” The commander pressed her lips into a tight smile. “I will assist in any way that I can. May I ask who the rebel was?”

She was going to make him say it.

I swallowed back a mouth full of bile as I answered instead. “Derrick.” Darren didn’t know about Jacob and the other rebels who had been involved in my brother’s escape. They had never been identified, even the ones who died. All had been too careful to bear incriminating insignia or paperwork on their person.

The commander feigned a sharp intake of breath. “Your brother, Your Highness?”

“My little brother.” That you recruited and brainwashed into service to further your cause. I stared her down, letting the woman silently ponder how much I knew. I wanted her to sweat. I may have taken up her cause, but that didn’t make her blameless. Commander Nyx had used Derrick to use me, and I couldn’t help but think how even the so-called heroes had blood on their hands.

Every hero was a villain in the end. War was corrupting us all.

“We have already investigated his parents’ village.” Darren’s voice seemed to echo across the room.

My eyes flitted back to my husband.

“Ferren’s Keep was the next logical choice. Even if the rebels reside elsewhere, there is a good chance someone here knows how they were able to recruit. Her brother never served south, so it is highly probable that at least some of the rebels or their contacts reside north.”

“A very apt conclusion.” Nyx was nodding along, her shoulders relaxed, not one tense muscle in her stance. No wonder she had managed to keep her role so long without suspicion.

Then again, she was a highborn like her brother, the young advisor who’d overheard King Lucius’s plans so many years ago. And if there was one thing the Pythian duke had taught me, it was that every highborn could lie.

Ironic, really, that the leader of the rebels was a highborn that only recruited lowborns.

A short break of silence followed.

“I need a list of each unit’s men,” Darren said, “with their years of service. I need the names of the cities they transferred from, as well as any personal notes you or your guard find peculiar to their service. My team and I will start interrogating the first squad at dawn. Bring us the one Derrick was a part of first.”

“He received a promotion to Sir Maxon’s squad before he resigned from our keep. Maxon is returning from a patrol along the border. His men should be back in a week and a half.”

The prince shifted from one foot to the next. “Then bring us Derrick’s first. Perhaps someone there will have noticed a change before his promotion.”

“Certainly. We have a dungeon in the back of the keep, do you require such methods in your interrogation?”

Darren’s eyes went dark, and a bit of ice burrowed into my lungs. “I would prefer to question them before it comes to other… methods.”

But he would, if necessary. Darren had confessed that to me during our trip. He would do anything to protect his country, and if he had to hurt a man, or many, he would.