Shadowforged (Light & Shadow) by Katson Moira

Author:Katson, Moira [Katson, Moira]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-04-08T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

And then, just as quickly as Miriel had seen the threat, it all began to come apart for her. The Meeting of the Peacemakers had finished, Kasimir declaring loudly at any opportunity that only honorable allies were good allies, but both Kings doing their best to ignore him. Now the village was set to be deserted, and we were all to pack. When at last the King thought to contact Miriel, it was only a single sentence on a torn bit of parchment.

“What is it?” I asked curiously. Miriel was staring down at the scrap of paper, her face unreadable.

“He says he will see me when we are on the road again,” she pronounced. “He calls his work here a great victory for us both, and assures me that he is working to make my dreams for Heddred a reality.” Her tone made it clear what she thought of his assurances.

Here, I thought, lay the difference between Miriel and the Duke. The Duke gloated in victory, he enjoyed it to the fullest, he was smug when he triumphed. Miriel accepted victory only with a calm that masked relief. Each victory was only a step for her, at best, or more likely another moment of evading her own downfall. And I knew she was afraid: one letter, only, a single sentence in response to the dozen notes she had sent him as we stayed in the village. Was he slipping away, as she feared?

“How are we to meet him, then?” I asked, when a servant had come into the room for her trunk of clothing and then hauled it away.

“He will take a servant’s clothes and come to my tent.”

“Anyone could listen in,” I said at once.

“Well, you make sure He doesn’t,” Miriel said simply. I did not need to ask who she meant. There was only one man she was so wary of.

“He’ll hear it all, one way or another. Be sure of it. Especially after Wilhelm visited. He’s waiting to catch you out at something and take tales back to the Duke.”

“You can’t stop him?” she challenged.

“I could, but not without him knowing I did,” I explained. I lowered my voice, superstitiously afraid that he would know we were talking about him and come to check on us. “We don’t want this fight yet, do we?”

“Well, you don’t,” she said pointedly. I ignored her.

“Watch your words,” I told her. She accepted the advice without complaint and drifted out into the main room, where the servants were carrying away every bit of luxury we had brought with us, to be packed into the Duke’s cart. Some would be missing when we returned, I knew, and the guard stationed at the village would be unable to keep the servants from taking anything they could lay their hands on to sell: relics of the Meeting of the Peacemakers.

The minor nobles, those without their own estates, were already petitioning the crown to be allowed the buy the beautiful mansions. They would form

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