Song of Blood & Stone (Earthsinger Chronicles #1)(41)

But her expression as she’d stood in the dining hall, the devastation marring her beautiful face, made him feel like a villain. It gutted him. The guilt and shame weighed more than the crown.

Somehow, he could not keep the women in his life from hating him.

“Has word been sent to my mother?”

“Yes, sir. But it may be some time before she receives the message.”

The last he’d heard, his mother was cloistered in a jungle sanctuary, hours from the nearest Fremian city. “She finally has her wish—her son is the Prince Regent. Too late to do her any good.”

The little he’d heard of the news report earlier had confirmed his fears that his coronation was being met with more than a few misgivings. His mother’s defection to Fremia, Elsira’s southern neighbor, twelve years earlier had cast a long shadow, especially on her only son.

“I only hope she’s found peace,” Usher said.

Jack hoped so, as well. He stared at the crackling fire until the flames burned themselves into his vision. His fingers picked at the fringe on his jacket, unraveling one of the threads, and he tapped an impatient rhythm on his knee.

“Say what you must,” he said, after the silence had grown more oppressive than companionable.

Usher’s bushy gray eyebrows rose. “What makes you think I have something to say?”

“Twenty-two years of knowing you, old man. And I suspect I won’t like whatever it is, so spit it out.”

“I believe I said everything I had to say before you left on your foolhardy mission.”

Jack raked a hand through his hair. “Protecting Elsira is my only mission, and I would do anything, even sacrifice myself, to see that happen. The opportunity was once in a lifetime, too great to miss.”

“The opportunity for the army’s High Commander to go undercover in enemy territory? It is unheard of.”

“I was the only one for it. The only Elsiran to speak their blasted language well enough to blend in with them. If I hadn’t gone and verified what they were planning, we would have had no chance. At least now we’re ready for the fight.”

“You paid a heavy cost for that information, young sir.”

Jack absently rubbed the place on his chest where the bullet had pierced his flesh. The pain had been gone for days but now there was a phantom ache. He must have been imagining it. “I don’t regret accepting the mission.”

“And being captured?” Usher’s voice was soft, without a hint of censure, but a pinprick of guilt stabbed at Jack.

The fire crackled and jumped, flames leaping upward. The vibrancy of the fire reminded him of her, on the porch with her shotgun, of the blade she kept strapped to her leg. Fearsome beauty. The pain in his chest shifted and grew. It lay mere inches from his heart.

“Being captured nearly killed me. But it also brought me a wonderful gift.”

He slumped down in his chair. When had he come to care so much for her? She had been a bright light at the end of a tunnel of pain and desperation, but what Jack felt was not merely due to the debt he owed her for saving him, not just for her kindness toward him. She was strong, with a sharp mind, passionate, and brave. So unlike the giggling, gossiping society girls who had vied for his affection for so many years. Jasminda slit a man’s throat and kept her wits about her, for Sovereign’s sake; she had a warrior’s heart.

Usher steepled his fingers below his chin. “This gift you speak of, is it the kind worth keeping?”

Jack looked up sharply.

“Is it the kind that you would regret allowing to slip through your fingers?” the old man said.

“She is angry and hurt. I was, if not dishonest, at least not forthcoming. She has every right—”

“You do not balk at walking across enemy lines and pretending to be one of them, at great peril, I might add, yet you quiver with fear at one young woman.”

“I’m not quivering in fear,” Jack scoffed.

“I believe I see a quiver, young sir. Just there.” Usher extended his finger, waggling it about, pointing at most of Jack’s body.

A smile edged its way across Jack’s face. “The Queen Who Sleeps must have a sense of humor to send you to look after me.”

“That She must,” Usher said.

Jack regarded the fire for another moment before jumping from his seat, what he must do now suddenly clear. “And I thank Her every day for that,” he said, kissing Usher on the forehead.

He raced out of the room and down the corridor, flying up the stairs to the great alarm of several passing servants. Jasminda’s rooms in the guest wing were on the other side of the palace. He wished she were closer, though visiting her rooms, wherever they were and especially at this hour, was unseemly and could put her reputation in jeopardy. Based on the chilly reception she’d received from the gathered aristocracy at dinner, however, her current reputation was no great asset.

Jack had been caught in the dining hall after dinner by Minister Stevenot, who had profusely dispatched his condolences. Over his shoulder, through the cracked door to the adjoining parlor, he'd watched, heartsick, as Jasminda stood alone, an island in an unfriendly sea. He'd been on his way to her when Lizvette approached Jasminda, and her kindness filled him with gratitude.

As if conjured by his thoughts, Lizvette now appeared on the staircase above him in the grand hall.