Page 250 of Onyx Cage: Volume II
His expression, however, made it clear that he did not share the same fondness for that memory.
Maybe that was why I decided to throw him a bone by wounding my pride right alongside his. Or maybe it was because he had put himself at great risk to help me then, and likely again in coming here.
“If it makes you feel any better, she slapped me in front of my entire squadron,” I said, taking another sip from my glass.
His eyes widened in shock that quickly turned to horror as he stared at my wife in question.
She simply shrugged.
“Let’s not pretend you didn’t both deserve what you got and more,” she replied before turning her attention back to Korhonan. “But if it helps…”
She trailed off, taking a sizable swig from his glass before encouraging him to take it once again. He did take the glass but still refused to drink it. She must have truly traumatized him.
I chuckled again as we moved to the seating area by the hearth, willing to take my amusement where I could get it since I was fairly certain whatever news he had brought was far from humorous.
“What brings you here?” I asked outright when we were comfortable.
My wife’s Lochlannian habits must have been wearing off on me.
“We needed to speak, in person,” he said flatly, leveling me with a look.
I nodded for him to continue, noting the lines of exhaustion in his features. He may not have joined his men in the battle here, but the effects of war had still reached him down in Elk. Between his hollowed-out eyes and the gaunt lines of his face, he looked nearly as haunted as my soldiers had in the days after the battle.
Taking a breath, he sat forward, his hand still clenched around his vodka glass.
“Things cannot continue as they are,” he said simply.
I arched an eyebrow in question. They certainly could not, but I sure as storms wasn’t about to cave to his tyrant brother.
“If you’re here to tell me to bend the knee?—”
“That is not why I’m here,” he interrupted me quickly, his jaw clenching. “I’m here because I know you are planning something, and I want in.”
I kept my expression impassive, not allowing any of my thoughts to play out on my features.
It was one thing for Korhonan to openly disagree with his brother back at the Obsidian Palace, another to subvert his efforts to kill my wife, but this…
Was he truly offering to go to war against his own flesh and blood?
I recalled everything I knew about the man in front of me, and the unyielding loyalty he had always shown his older brother—a man who was more like his father than a true sibling.
Hadn’t that loyalty been why he betrayed me to him when we were younger? How far Iiro must have fallen in his esteem if his offer now was a genuine one. Korhonan had many faults, but for a Socairan, he was nearly as transparent as my wife.
He couldn’t have faked that hollowed-out look if he had wanted to, and he was a mediocre liar. That was why he hadn’t tried to pull what Inessa had in the Obsidian Palace, despite his desire to protect Rowan.
This level of deception was beyond him, even if it hadn’t gone against everything I knew of his black-and-white morality.
“I will never be able to convince my men to fight against their allies, nor their former duke, now king,” he continued after a moment.
I met his gaze, not missing the signs of defeat that lingered there.
“You didn’t come all this way just to say that,” I said, and he gave a small shake of his head.
“No, I didn’t. I can’t convince them to fight on your side...” he said, a muscle working in his jaw. “But they will stand down if I order it. They were not happy, being led into a slaughter.”
Of course not, but would they have minded as much if they had been victorious? Or did they actually understand that this war was as pointless as the blood we had all been guilty of spilling?
Regardless, if he was telling the truth, this could be the answer to our problem of how to get into the palace. We had our armies, but without a way past the gates, we would be sacrificing them in droves.