“Your own son would.”
A new speaker emerged from the Icori, bringing her horse beside the man.
And I knew her.
I hadn’t picked Tamsin out right away. Her red hair had blended into theirs, and she was dressed like them too, in a knee-length green dress edged in that plaid. Her hair hung in two long, loose braids intertwined with copper pendants. I’d been stunned when I saw her with the Grashond residents. But this . . . this was enough to make me think I was imagining things.
Her entire presence was calm and composed, very different from the wildly emotional demeanor I associated with her. “Your son and other traitors are working with the Lorandians to stir up discord and draw Osfrid’s army out of the central colonies—so that Hadisen and others can rebel against the crown.”
Warren lowered the gun and came to life beside us. “It’s a lie, Father! There’s no telling what these savages have brainwashed this girl into believing. What proof does she have for this absurdity?”
“The proof of being thrown off a boat in the middle of a storm when I discovered your plans,” she replied.
“Lies,” said Warren. He took a few steps back, panic filling his face. “This girl is delusional!”
A man suddenly climbed up the stairs. Warren spun around to face this newcomer. It was Grant Elliott, looking particularly bedraggled today, and he didn’t seem fazed by any of this. He strolled over beside me and looked as though a halted hanging, an Icori army, and potential traitors were part of an ordinary day for him.
“She’s telling the truth,” he said, locking his hard gaze on Governor Doyle and not Warren. The gruff Grant I remembered from the storm was back. “There are stacks of correspondence. Witnesses who’ll testify.”
“Elliott?” Warren gaped. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Grant’s heavy gaze fell on Warren. “I think you know. About Courtemanche. About the ‘heretic couriers.’”
I saw the shift in Warren’s eyes, the moment when he was truly pushed over the edge by whatever those enigmatic words meant. And I knew, before he raised the gun at Grant, what was going to happen. “Look out!” I cried, throwing myself into Grant. I didn’t quite knock him over but pushed him out of the way enough to just barely evade the bullet that fired from Warren’s gun. That put me directly in front of him for the gun’s second bullet. And I could tell from his frantic expression that it didn’t really matter who he shot at this point.
Suddenly, I heard a thwack sound, and something moved in my periphery. The next thing I knew, Warren was lying on the ground, clutching his leg and screaming in agony. Something that looked like an arrow was sticking out of his knee. It was the same leg I’d stabbed him in. Grant knelt down to restrain Warren, but that seemed unnecessary given the wails of pain.
I, like many others, tried to figure out where the shot had come from. The Icori and the feeble militia looked equally baffled. At last, I found what I’d been searching for.
And I couldn’t tell in that moment which was more incredible, that Tamsin was among the Icori warriors . . .
. . . or that Mira was standing on an overturned wagon, wielding a crossbow.
Chapter 31
My second wedding was bigger than my first one. And a lot cleaner.
I would certainly still argue that I didn’t need ceremony or pomp to declare my love for Cedric. A bath and nice clothes didn’t change how I felt. But there was no way I’d turn them down.
In Adoria, weddings occurred in magistrate’s offices more often than they did in Osfrid, so choosing that over a church of Uros wasn’t unusual. Of course, with Cedric revealed as an Alanzan, no one was really surprised. We held our after-wedding party at Wisteria Hollow, inviting everyone we knew and a lot of people we didn’t. Jasper had grudgingly agreed to hosting. He still wasn’t happy about his son’s choices, but he’d given in and accepted the inevitable.
We spent our wedding night in the cottage of an Alanzan acquaintance of Cedric’s, one who was out of town on business and had lent it to us. It held nothing of my old town house’s grandeur—or even that of Blue Spring—but was charming and clean. And it was ours. All ours for the night. No fear of others discovering us. No fear of condemnation.
It felt like we hadn’t really and truly seen each other in ages. Since almost no one knew we were already married, we’d spent the two weeks between the trial and official wedding living chaste and separate lives. When we’d made it back to the cottage after a long day of festivities, the jolt of finally being alone together had been so surreal that we’d hardly known what to do.
But we’d quickly figured that out.
I woke the next morning to sunlight streaming in through the bedroom’s bay window. Cedric lay at my back, his arms encircling my waist. I ran my fingers over the crisp white sheets, inhaling a scent that was a mix of Cedric’s vetiver, the detergent used on the sheets, and the violet perfume Mira and Tamsin had gifted me for my wedding.
“I can tell that you’re thinking,” Cedric said, pressing his cheek to my back. “Thinking much harder than you should be.”
“I’m trying to memorize this. Every detail. The light, the smells, the feel.” I rolled over so that I could look at his face. The morning sun lit up his hair, which was unquestionably disheveled. “Even you. We get to wake up together for the rest of our lives now, but it’s going to be a long time before it resembles anything like this room, this bed.”
He brushed my hair back and then trailed his hand along my neck. “Getting cold feet?”