The Soulstoy Inheritance (3 page)

“Let me try again,” he said, holding out his hand to Harbringer.

The smile had melted away as soon as I brought out the dagger, but now there was annoyance in his expression as well. I wasn’t sure if it was our mental bond, forged by Nareon’s hold over my mind, or if I had just gotten better at reading him, but I felt that he was growing frustrated with his ghostly state. Perhaps he expected to have achieved something by now. Harbringer stared at his hand, clearly not willing to hand the knife over, but I nudged him gently with my elbow. He glanced down at me, and for a moment, I thought that he would still refuse. Harbringer wasn’t on a ledge about Nareon. Harbringer didn’t like Nareon; he hadn’t liked my involvement with Nareon right from the start, and I suspected this new arrangement had his dislike sliding into something more resembling hatred.

“If he knows something about it, I want to find out,” I said as my eyes met Harbringer’s. 

I was still holding my grief at bay, but Harbringer’s mind ability was matched only by Hazen’s, and I was sure that he could see how much I needed Nareon’s input at this moment. As if spurred on by the thought, he nodded and tossed the knife to Nareon, who caught it successfully this time.

I watched Nareon turn the blade over between his fingers, raising an eyebrow at the blood before reading the inscription. His face was unreadable, but he only looked at it long enough to read what it said before he placed it aside.

“Who did they kill?” His voice had lowered, and while I wouldn’t have said that he sounded hesitant, I could tell that he was bracing himself for something bad.

“My father.”

Something passed across his expression, and I looked away, trying not to read anything into it.

“I’m so sorry, Spitfire.”

“Me too.”

He looked as if he wanted to wrap me in his arms, cradle me while I wept, as he had done before. But I didn’t want to be reminded of that, so I sat back down and locked eyes with Gretal across the table. A year ago, I would have completely broken down at that moment. Even a month ago, I might have reacted differently. But I had cried enough over the last day that I no longer felt the grief that should have been tearing through me. It hovered at the edges of my mind, but it didn’t swallow me whole. Not yet.

“Who was it?” I asked Nareon, still not looking away from Gretal, who was the only one here who might really understand how terrible it was to lose a man like John Harrow. 

“Nobody important, a foot soldier, a lackey, an assassin. Someone doing the dirty work of the person behind the attack here yesterday.”

“Do you think they killed the King as well?”

“The King was killed?”

“Yes. Harbringer turned up, and then when we left, the King was still breathing.”

“That’s why you’re here?”

“They think I did it. Or we.” I gestured to Harbringer, and Nareon looked at him too, grey eyes glinting.

“You’re going to need to send out an ambassador to the renegades. Something big is happening, and if it isn’t contained just within this kingdom, then the renegades will most likely have information. Send someone to their base camp. It’s a few days journey to the northwest, our scouts know the path well.”

Grenlow—who had been silent until now—stood. “The renegades are unreliable, if their allegiance has already been acquired, they could feed us misinformation which could be dangerous. We are already in a precarious position.”

“Yes,” answered Nareon. “Which is why Beatrice must take the throne test as soon as possible.”

I frowned, but Nareon held up a hand before I could object.

“You need to present a strong face. The weaker you appear, the weaker the entire kingdom appears, and it will incite attack or disobedience. For now, the people will be afraid of you, because they are afraid of the unknown. But very soon, your true nature will become a thing of gossip—if not ridicule—and if you are not secure in your seat by then, you will be looking at an uprising.”

“If it will cause an uprising now, what’s to stop one later, even if I
do
take the throne test?”

“The throne test is a public event. You are many things that a synfee ruler traditionally is not, but you are very powerful, Spitfire. They need to see that.”

I nodded hesitantly. Since Nareon’s death, I had been transferred a good portion of his power, which had far surpassed my own. While I might have always been considered powerful by human standards, it was now possible that I would also be considered powerful by synfee standards.

“Alright, I’ll do the throne test.”

“And I think you should get rid of the Power Thief,” Nareon added.

Harbringer didn’t bat an eyelid, and I cringed, because he had probably sensed the flash of rage that had spearheaded through me at the suggestion. I took a deep breath and met Nareon’s gaze head-on, which was easier now than it had been before.

“Harbringer isn’t going anywhere.”

Nareon frowned, and I felt another tinge of anger, though I had a suspicion that this one was not my own.

“You don’t need a human watch dog anymore, Bea. You’re queen now, you have an entire synfee army at your disposal.”

“It’s not all about power, Nareon.”

He seemed shocked at my answer, and I didn’t realise until his winged brows lowered over his eyes and his fists clenched at his sides, that what I had said might have been misconstrued. Or
was
it a misconstrual? I had kissed Harbringer after all; my first kiss devoid of synfee hunger or compulsion, my first
real
kiss. But that wasn’t the reason I wanted him to stay. He was in danger just as much as I was, and I trusted him.

Sighing, I let my head fall into my hands, and a silence stretched out that nobody seemed inclined to break, until Grenlow cleared his throat.

“There is no real harm in the Power Thief staying. His kind of strength could be a real asset to us.”

“It will help once everyone knows he’s fucking the Queen.”

I shot out of my chair. “Nareon, that’s
enough!
”

Harbringer’s eyebrows shot up, and I could tell that he was surprised at the direction Nareon’s thoughts had taken, which meant that Nareon must have been guarding his mind carefully. Or perhaps it wasn’t even possible to read the mind of a dead man. Those grey eyes were blazing down at me now, his jaw set, and a savageness to his expression that I had begun to associate with the tales of the old synfee King; the dangerous, insane and cruel one.

“That’s enough,” I said again, a little softer now. Soothing him.

For a moment, I was terribly afraid that my hold over Nareon might have slipped, but after a moment, the brutal edge seemed to fade away, and I no longer felt that I held a live grenade in my hand. I reached out, brushing my fingers across where his arm hung beside his torso, feeling the air drop in temperature where I should have scraped skin. There it was again, our bond. He smiled slightly, and then touched his head, looking behind him at something that I couldn’t see.

“I need to do something,” he muttered.

“Thank you for your help, Nareon.”

He turned back to me, nodded, and with the faintest of smiles, disappeared.

Grenlow let out a loud breath, and I slumped back into my seat, rubbing at my temples.

“I think I need to get some sleep. We all probably do.”

“I’ll get a servant to show you to your chambers, they should be ready by now. Wait here,” Grenlow said, already moving for the door, seemingly glad to leave the room. 

We sat in silence until he returned, and on the walk to our rooms, I only paused to ensure that we had been given connecting chambers. I didn’t want to be separated from either of them, Gretal especially. We went into our rooms and I barely spared a glance for the richly decorated bedchamber, the brocaded window seats, and the heavy, woven carpets. I stumbled straight for the bed, struggled out of my destroyed clothes, and as soon as I slid beneath the sheets, I fell into a deep sleep filled with gut-wrenching sorrow and blurred faces.

When I awoke, it was late afternoon, and someone had already been in my room to clear away my dirty clothes and lay out new ones. There was an assortment of court dresses that I immediately overlooked, along with a few tunic dresses in my usual style, which I assumed some astute person had noticed in the few times that I had visited Nareon.

I bypassed all of them and chose a shirt and tights combination that made me feel less fragile. The tights were black, and the shirt was white, both without adornment, which I immediately liked. I slipped on a pair of riding boots next, and re-attached the dagger that had killed my father before leaving the room. I knocked on Gretal’s door first. When there was no answer, I cracked the door open an inch, and found her fast asleep, buried beneath a pile of blankets, on a large four-poster bed similar to my own.

I closed the door softly and moved to Harbringer’s room. The door opened just as my hand was raised to knock, and Harbringer ushered me in. He had bathed and changed, and looked as fresh and alert as I wished I looked.

“How are you feeling?” he asked as I moved to a chaise against the wall and sank onto it, not waiting for him to offer me a seat.

“Terrible. I don’t think any of it has sunk in yet.”

He frowned and moved to sit next to me, but seemed to change his mind, and stepped back to the bed, propping himself on the edge of it to face me. I wondered if Nareon’s words had changed his mind.

“Hazen is the king now. He knows you haven’t done anything wrong, and I’m sure he is working to clear your name. You just need to wait until he sends word.”

“But him and Rose… It was their father, and I’m just hiding out here like a coward while they do all the work, and face it all on their own.”

“Going back there will only cause more harm to them than good right now. You saved Hazen’s life. You did all that you could. Now you have to do what you can from here.”

“Do you think I should take the throne test?”

“I think the idea has its merits.”

“I’m sorry about what Nareon said.”

He didn’t respond, and for a moment he didn’t even look at me. Then he let out a breath and stood, moving to sit beside me.

“I can’t pretend to understand how you feel about Nareon. In your head, every line connecting to him is muddled, tangled. It’s something I just don’t understand. It seems a farcical thing to ask, but are you in love with him?”

“
What
?” I laughed, the sound foreign and humourless. “No, I don’t love Nareon, at least not in that way. I feel connected to him, and I don’t think I could explain it anymore than you could. But no, I’m not in love with him.”

“I thought as much.”

“I’m sorry that you’re in this with me.”

“I’m not. Your father and Fenrel both trusted me to look after you, and now both of them are gone. The way I see it, my orders remain until the new King declares otherwise.” His voice was flat, not smoothing over the harsh realities of the situation.

I thought about that, and wondered why my gut twisted at his answer. When I had kissed him, he had kissed me back, but that didn’t mean I was anything more than his duty right now. I chased the thought away before he could see it, and leaned back on the chaise to look at him. His hair, a shade darker than burgundy, wasn’t quite tame, and there was something in his expression, a shadow in his eye that didn’t entirely allow him to be beautiful. He was raw, powerful, frightening—though the look he was giving me now had me convinced that the latter was a rare occurrence, though it was in fact the other way around.

“It seems I lead people to trouble, no matter what I do,” I thought aloud, my eyes trailing across his features. “Hazen and Rose have lost their father, my own father was killed just to spite me, and you have tumbled from your solitary tower, straight into the synfee kingdom, which has lost it’s King—also because of me.”

“There are forces at work that you can’t control, Bea.”

I blinked; it was the first time he had called me that instead of
Harrow
.

“I need to do something. I need to find who did this.”

He nodded. “Whatever we can do from here, we will do. I promise.”

Something occurred to me then, and I stood, looking over Harbringer’s clothes. He was dressed similarly to me, in plain, combative clothing, and the thought made me smile faintly.

“I think there is something I can do today. How do you feel about a ride? It might take a while.”

“Sounds better than sitting in here.”

“I’ll wait for Gretal to wake up—I don’t want to leave without telling her—and then I’ll meet you by the stables.”

He nodded and I moved for the door, feeling a little less defeated now that I had a clear purpose in my mind. I knocked again on Gretal’s door and this time she called for me to enter. She was dressed in the same clothes as the day before, staring at the new clothes that had been laid out on the bed for her.

“This isn’t me,” she said, turning to me. “I’m just a servant. I should have insisted you send me to the kitchens.”

I bit my lip, unsure how to respond. I wanted to tell her that she was no longer a servant, but was unwilling to possibly insult her. Besides, I had a feeling that the more out of her depth I put her, the worse-off she would be.

“What would you like to do?” I asked her instead.

“Let me be your handmaiden, I’d rather not serve anyone else.”

I opened my mouth to say that I didn’t need a handmaiden, but then closed it again, seeing the pleading look on her face.

“Sure.” I nodded. “Thanks, Gretal. I would love that.”

She seemed to relax a little then. “Good, now if you just point me in the direction of the housekeeper, I’ll get different chambers set up.”

“Different chambers?”

“These are only temporary, visitors chambers. I suspect they are waiting for you to chose which you want.”

“Oh. Ah, I have no idea.”

She smiled then, and I realised I had made the right choice. She would be much better in her own element, even though she was in an alien land.

“Leave it to me,” she said.

“I need you and Harbringer close.”