Knight Redeemed by Tammy Salyer

Author:Tammy Salyer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tammy Salyer

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

With a measure of reluctance, the four Knights went in search of Chancellor Aoggvír, who’d been tasked with seeing to them and the Himmingazians. Safran had to give Jaemus a tug on the wrist to get him moving. He seemed frozen to the spot at the news of his realm’s imminent demise. Eisa had little trouble imagining how he felt. Vinnr had so recently been facing the same sort of threat.

But no longer. And despite the fact that she’d chosen to pursue a different avenue for attempting to constrain the tyranny of Balavad—and had, in the end, been ineffective—Eisa would not stand to be accused, if that was what Ulfric had in mind.

Thus, she attacked him first.

Facing him rigidly, she demanded, “What heretical thing have you done, Ulfric? Have you spit on everything you swore to defend?”

Her tone was blazing; he met it not with his own fury but with a reserved coolness Eisa wasn’t prepared for. Slowly, he spun away from her and walked to the railing, gripping it roughly as if to keep himself from jumping over the side. When he turned again to face her, he spoke in a voice gritty with regret.

“I never in a million turns, a million lifetimes, would have chosen this, Eisa. What did I ever do to turn your opinion of me so bleak?”

He wasn’t accusing her of anything, yet she couldn’t have been caught more off guard. His blatant sorrow—about her deeds? about his own?—had an edge to it that cut deep. And there was more, a depth of compassion that reminded her of the Stallari in his prime just after he’d met Symvalline. He’d become a changed man then, a man of level-headed, reserved judgment, giving all commoners and even the occasional wayward Knight the benefit of a doubt before accusing them of misdeeds. Eisa would have, and had, followed that man to the ends of Vinnr. Until Lillias had ripped the last shred of any compassion, any love, she’d had straight not from her chest but from her very spirit.

As Ulfric waited for her to respond, a crack of lightning flashed across the sky and rain began to fall. For some reason, Eisa’s thoughts remained on the Yorwoman, and the searing crack of lightning mimicked the pain that seared her own spirit still.

“Eisa?”

She pushed the thoughts away with an effort and brought that old bitterness to bear on something present—the Stallari. “You lost your faith, Ulfric, you and Symvalline both, and intended to forsake your oaths, leave your companions, and quit the Knights.” She eyed him, taking in the shields he now wore over his eyes, the way he faced her but hid at the same time. “Instead, you—”

“You don’t know what I did.”

The level statement stopped her. Here she stood, accusing him, yet she hadn’t been there. She was the one who left her companions. He said he hadn’t chosen this. Should she believe him? Shouldn’t she, at least, hear his full story and how Vaka Aster

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