Page 41 of Caroline the Cruel
“Angus,” she beckoned. He arose and approached her. Caroline threw her arms around the big man’s neck, eliciting an intake of breath from the crowd which had chased her up the hill. “There were times I thought I’d never see your stubborn face again.”
“Your Majesty, Johnneth said the Gods had whisked you away.” Angus couldn’t seem to stop himself from taking a handful of her white locks into his fist. “What happened?” His voice was full of foreboding.
Caroline whispered the answer so quietly only she, Angus, and the prince could hear. “We have a traitor in our mists.”
Angus stiffened, and Breicher glared down at her.
“Come. We’ll speak of it in private,” she commanded, and entered the castle. Both Angus and Breicher trailed. When the door slammed shut behind her, she finally exhaled. She was home.
They wound their way through the twisting halls and staircases upward into the belly of Roskide in silence. They made it to the war room. Caroline ushered them inside and shut and barred the door. Spinning on her heel, she thrust the rosenwood dagger out, catching Breicher by surprise. She pressed the blade into his taut stomach. A small stain of red the size of a grape blossomed where the point pierced his skin.
“You got the blood cleaned up that fast? I’m impressed.”
Angus’s eyes went wide, and he froze for a moment before a thick hand thrust out, wrapping around the other man’s neck, slamming him back against the wall. Caroline slipped out of the way just in time. The two men clashed, and Angus, though robust in his own right, was no match for the power blessed royal, and went flying back, hitting, and flipping over the heavy table in its center.
Caroline raised a hand, and Breicher froze under her will. “That wasn’t necessary. If you’ve hurt him, I will hurt someone you love. You need to gain an understanding of me and what I am capable of with the same supernatural speed.”
Angus had got to his feet and picked up the dagger she’d dropped in the commotion up off the floor, turning it in his hands. “He tried to assassinate you?” Realization striking, her commander collapsed to the floor. Angus placed his forehead to the stones. “Forgive me, Your Majesty. This is all my fault.”
“Angus, rise.”
He obeyed, and she clapped a hand on her oldest and only friend’s shoulder. “Your Majesty,” he stammered.
“Caroline,” she clarified, not liking his new formal tone. A punishment he was evidently delivering himself. “You couldn’t have known, Angus. There is nothing to forgive. And our Prince here knows not what he has unleashed.”
“Of course,Caroline.” Her name was a hesitant request in Angus’s voice.
She nodded at him approvingly. “All is forgiven. What has transpired was all fated in the stars. We have much to discuss.”
Caroline turned to the man who was still frozen in place. “Prince, in the meantime, please sequester yourself to the prison while I decide what to do with you.”
She waved him off, ushering Angus to join her at the table, not watching to see Breicher shudder as he obeyed her will.
Breicher scrawled another mark into the stone wall he leaned against, marking the eighty-fifth day. Guards came and went, delivering him meals and disposing of his chamber pot. They didn’t even bother to lock the cell he’d let himself into. Probably on instruction from Caroline, a taunt displaying her power, though he hadn’t once heard mention of her.
Caroline, the queen who’d returned an otherworldly creature. Had she died and come back to life? And why did seeing her alive make him so achingly glad?
A shiver shook down his spine as images of her flashed through his mind. She was his waking nightmare and dream all at once and he startled awake many nights, her name a haunt on his lips. Maybe they were the same?
Cool stone greeted Breicher’s aching head as he leaned against the wall and stretched out his long legs. He didn’t know how much longer he could endure this cramped prison cell. His warrior body needed to move—to work. It was the Gift of the Gods and they meant him to use it.
How could he have failed so miserably? He’d struck her deep with the rosenwood dagger. She should have been dead.
Gods. Breicher ran a hand through his chestnut hair, which had grown out since he’d been imprisoned. What havoc was the queen wreaking?
As if he’d summoned her, her velvet voice drifted toward him. It was so smooth—had he’d fallen asleep?
“Come,” she commanded, though he could not see her.
Breicher sprung to his feet, eager for whatever change of pace Caroline had planned. Even if it meant his death. It’s what he deserved. He failed. The weight of his guilt churned just below the surface of his conscience. He let his brother down, he let his people down.
He pushed the metal door of his cell open and followed the sound of the queen’s light footsteps down the hallway. He caught a glimpse of her white hair as she turned a corner. She was a ghost he followed, through twisting passageways, up countless stairs until they stopped before a doorway. It wasn’t hers. But it was in the wing she claimed as her own.
She glanced back at him for the first time, then pushed the door open. Breicher followed her into the space, transfixed and not fully understanding what plan the queen was hatching.
The first room was a sitting area, much like hers. A deep blue velvet couch sat in the center with black and navy brocade chairs on either side of it. Ebony wooden tables were positioned on either side of them and a larger one was in the center.
Caroline passed through the room, and he followed her into the next, a bedroom fit for a king. The enormous four-poster bed was an ominous thing, deep black wood spiraling toward the arched ceiling. A deep navy silk quilt lay across it and a wrought iron grate twisted in sharp lines covering the massive fireplace.
