Last Stand (The Black Mage #4)(9)
“I already sent out five units to our north.” Blayne sounded irritable. “That’s over sixty of your men patrolling the countryside, Audric. We are hardly sitting and waiting.”
Darren’s response was to laugh. “They aren’t me, brother. You can hardly expect the same level of competence.”
I saw my opening. “And how can you trust their reports?” A king whose legacy was steeped with lies would have trouble trusting anyone, especially with rebels abroad. “What is their strategy for scouting the villages? What sorts of tests must they run?”
Tell me your plans, I added silently, so I can stop them.
“I don’t trust the others’ reports,” Darren added. “Someone has not been doing their job, brother. I find it highly suspicious that we haven’t received one bit of information in all these years. Wherever the rebels are hiding, they have the townsfolk protecting them. Until I question the keep’s men myself, you cannot rule out the northern base. Their soldiers come from all over the north. One of them has to know something. You should send Ryiah and me now, never mind the celebrations.”
What? No! My nails dug into the table’s edge. This wasn’t where this conversation needed to go. I needed more information, not to leave sooner.
“You can keep the celebrations going, if you’d like,” Darren continued. “And Audric can continue sending his scouts, but you can’t afford to waste this opportunity.”
Karina cleared her throat. “I agree.”
“As do I.” Yves was nodding right along. “The Council is in favor of the Black Mage’s proposal. We cannot afford to wait.”
Commander Audric was in favor as well.
“If it is in everyone’s interest,” Blayne scowled, “then we will go ahead with this new plan. Ryiah, it appears you got your wish.”
I gave a weak smile, cursing my luck. The meeting had the worst outcome I could have planned.
“I’ll have Mira see to it that your guard is ready by sunup.” Blayne was first to withdraw from his chair, the others rising as well. The king gripped Darren’s shoulder in passing. “Don’t be a hero, brother. I want you to return in one piece.”
Darren gripped his brother in similar fashion, neither comfortable with an embrace. His expression was dark. “You know I will never leave you to rule this kingdom alone.”
Blayne’s voice lowered as we entered the hall. “I don’t care if you risk the others, but don’t risk yourself. This isn’t that blasted apprenticeship—”
“Gods, you sound like our father.” Darren ground his teeth. “I know what I’m doing, brother.”
The king growled in frustration and lowered his gaze to me. “You will keep him safe, Ryiah. The two of you are the only ones I trust.”
Besides the ones keeping your nefarious secrets, I thought, like Mira.
“I don’t care what he tells you. Do not leave his side.” Blayne snatched my arm. “Those rebels would jump at the chance to destroy this kingdom, and they would sooner slit a prince’s throat than listen to reason. I need someone on guard when my brother is not—”
“Blayne.” Darren tried to interrupt. “I can—”
“Promise me!” Blayne’s nails dug into my wrist. For a moment, I saw that boy he used to be, the boy that cared for his brother and no one else.
It was the only thing that saved him from a blade across his throat, that dark, twisted love between brothers that I couldn’t break.
At least we could agree about Darren. I had no intention of leaving the prince alone with the rebels, even less now that I had so little to offer.
What had Darren said to me that first year at the Academy? “You are possibly the one good thing about this place.” Gods, how the tables had turned. The dark prince had turned into a thing of innocence, and I was the corrupting shade. But I would protect him, and I told the king as much, fervently, my eyes glowing in the flickering hall.
“What a touching moment.” Darren raised a brow. “Out of concern for me, the most powerful mage in the whole kingdom.”
“Don’t think anything of it.” The king gave his brother a look. “I just don’t want to go through the trouble of replacing you.”
“I wouldn’t want to replace me, either.”
Blayne just shook his head and walked away.
Something tugged at my chest; I could still see the grin on the corner of Darren’s mouth. It was the same one touching the king’s.
“It doesn’t have to make sense. They fight and they yell, but in the end, they are brothers.” It was clear as day how much Blayne would break Darren’s heart in the end; we both would.
As soon as the king had disappeared from the premises with Mira alongside, the crown prince pulled me into a darkened alcove and tilted my chin. “You can try to protect me all you’d like,” he teased, “but I will protect you until the day I die.”
I knew I was doing the right thing, but just then, I felt like the villain. I sucked in a sharp breath to keep the hysteria at bay, and then I walked away.
I told myself I was the hero. Even if he would never understand.
3
We set forth at dawn.
Mira assigned us ten of the King’s Regiment for each member of the Crown, twenty in all. Five Combat mages each, two healers, two alchemists, and a total of six knights—our personal guard, Henry and Paige included.