Page 64 of Caroline the Cruel
“Who killed him?” Hollis asked.
The woman’s eyes went wide, then shot to Breicher’s, then to the floor. “The queen did, sir.”
Before the woman said anything else, Hollis grabbed the collar of his jacket and dragged him to another shop a few doors down. This one had a few patrons starting to trickle in and baking bread wafted through the air, reigniting the queasy feeling in his stomach.
When Hollis had shoved him through the door and in front of the line, he put his meaty hands on the counter, leaning across it. “I need to see your son and your husband.”
A delicate woman stuck her head up from a counter she was squatting behind. When she came up, she had two rolls in her hands and promptly dropped them and began shaking her head slowly as tears welled. “They’re gone.”
They left without a thank you, storming off to the next establishment. What was the meaning of this? Caroline had told him what had happened. They’d ambushed her. Why was his brother doing this? Then he understood. Hollis had watched as Breicher let down his guard and fell for the woman—nomonster—who brought so much horror upon all these innocent people. It was clear there had been a skirmish, but the vengeance the queen had enacted upon the innocent people of Veetula was a massacre. He covered his mouth as his stomach heaved. To think he’d been ready to surrender to whatever was building between them made him break out in a cold sweat.
“Come, brother. There’s more.” Hollis waved him to the next stop. Then the next. Finally, after a short walk out of town, he brought him to a little cemetery. Well, it would have been small if it weren’t for the fresh graves that littered the terrain.
A dark-haired woman, wrapped in a black shawl, approached with a bouquet. “I saw it all. She slaughtered them, Your Majesty, without mercy. Her face grew darker and darker with each new kill.” She gripped his sleeve urging him to hear her. “I didn’t think I could become more frightened, but then she made them turn their weapons against themselves and killed them all.”
That’s not how Caroline had said it happened. She said only five or six people had died before her and Angus fled. Breicher turned to the woman, who had tears streaking down her pale cheeks. Tight ringlets were pinned demurely against her head, and soft green eyes blinked up at him as she dabbed away a fresh tear. Did she look familiar? “Do we know each other?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’m sure if we’d met, you’d remember.” She gave him a tender smile, then walked over and knelt beside a new grave. “My brother,” she called back to him, and he thought he sensed an underlying intention to her words.
“You don’t know her,” Hollis said and dragged him down a line of graves. “You haven’t had your needs met in so long you’re seeing things.”
He and Hollis climbed to the top of the hill and turned to stare down upon the cemetery. Hollis allowed him to drop to his knees and joined him on the frozen ground. “There’s so many of them.”
“I thought you’d want to know before you did something you’d regret.” Hollis put a gentle hand on Breicher’s shoulder and gave a sympathetic squeeze.
“How did you know?” he asked, holding back his own tears, which were threatening to fall.
Hollis patted the hard ground. “I came after I’d heard what had happened. I was horrified that our people had done this to her, but they told me their stories. I dug graves with them, and they told me everything.”
“I need a minute,” he said to his brother, patting his comforting hand.
“We’ll be at the wagon when you’re ready,” Hollis said, and got up to walk down the hill. He’d never been more grateful for his brother. Family was everything.
When Hollis was out of earshot, he doubled over and released a sob. How could she do this to him? Made it seem like they’d hurt her when she’d been the one wreaking havoc. He’d been so outraged, so ready to fold into her like the coward he was. Hollis was right, and he’d been trying to warn him. She was playing him. Another sick revenge fantasy she was playing out in slow motion.
She lied to him the whole time, all the while knowing she was drawing him in closer and closer. Like a spider, luring in her prey for the kill. The memory of a few hours ago flashed through his mind, of her on the altar, saying her vows. She hadn’t even been listening. But when she’d looked up at him, blushing, he’d believed her, eagerly crawling into her web.
He should have known better than to fall for a woman who’d taken out the Gods. The warmth drained from his face at the thought of her power. What would she do to his family now that he’d found out about her punishment before she landed the final blow? His heartbeat picked up. He needed to play along, stall, and try to reason with her. She’d let him rule beside her as a figurehead if he played his cards right and spared his family.
He had to buy some time.
Breicher took his time on the way back to the wagon. His cousins were catching up around the fountain in the center when he arrived. “Where’s Hollis?” he asked, noticing the man who he owed so much to was missing.
Jamison stood. “Hollis needed to pay a visit to an old friend really quickly. He shouldn’t be too long.”
Breicher chuckled, knowing whatold friendwas code for. Where he had found someone eager so early in the morning was anyone’s guess, but he chalked it up to his brother, who had a lover in practically every town in Veetula.
As Hollis sauntered back into the square a few minutes later, beaming like a man who’d just had a good round on the mattress, a niggle of envy crept up inside him. He’d been abstaining for Caroline. She’d still kill him if she found out, but if he were careful, he could pull off a tiny fraction of the enjoyment Hollis got from their lineage.
“We have to go back,” Breicher said, as Hollis approached.
Hollis ran a hand over his face. “You still want that demon?”
Breicher shook his head. “You were right, Hollis. But she has your family and we’ve seen what she’s capable of.”
Every step was like treading through wet sand as he walked up the stairs to the main entrance of Kierengaard. As soon as he’d explained himself to his brother, Hollis understood they’d had no other choice.
They’d come up with an alibi and send his cousins on their way. The wound Jamison had given him would serve a purpose, after all.
