Page 8 of Onyx Cage: Volume II
We both knew it was a lie. No kingdom would go to war over a spy.
“But if you’re caught on your way out, I will not intervene to save you, and if I catch you returning to Bear territory, I will kill you myself.”
She swallowed, her hands nervously twitching at her sides.
“Understood, My Lord,” she said, taking a hesitant step to the side.
“Take her things before you go,” I said, finally requesting what I should’ve done days ago as I gestured around the room.
Taisiya’s eyes flitted from the hearth to the nightstand, then back to me. “Is there anything else you wish me to take…or to relay to her?”
I considered that for several heartbeats, thinking back to the moment Rowan left. The way she had hesitated. But it had been subtle, nothing like her incredibly dramatic farewell to Korhonan.
Korhonan, who had met her at the tunnels.
Then, there was my father, and the fallout that was sure to ensue once this all came to a head. Let alone the fact that she was ready to leave me unconscious in my room, knowing there was a spy in my kingdom, in my clan, in my estate.
I hadn’t been lying when I told Rowan we both knew this was only temporary. She was gone, and now the last thing she had left behind was going to follow in her wake.
With quick steps, I moved to my desk, dipping my quill into the inkpot before penning a single line on a small piece of parchment.
You forgot something.
Just one thing. Just your spy.
And now we could both put this behind us.
CHAPTER SIX
Igave Taisiya an hour’s head start before I headed to my father’s study.
It was his guard who answered today, excusing himself when he saw me on the other side. I closed the door behind me and tried not to inhale his familiar scent of pipe smoke and steel. Most of the time, it was easy to block out memories of my childhood, of the man I thought I had known before I understood the reality of everything he was.
Deceiving him always managed to make me feel younger, though. As if I were still a child, unwilling to admit to him that the woman he had chosen to be my new mother after losing the one he loved was more monster than maternal.
But she wasn’t here now, thanks to Taisiya’s herbs.
“My son.” His greeting was a heartbeat too late, his half smile just a touch uncertain.
Taras had gauged his mood well. I leaned over his desk, making a show of noting who was listening in.
“There is a prisoner you should see,” I told him.
Walk with me so no one overhears.
He followed my gaze to the door, his paranoia kicking in right on cue. Then he nodded, still quicker to react than menwith twice his sanity. It was why I was never foolish enough to underestimate him.
“What’s this about?” he asked once we were outside of the palace.
An icy wind whistled through the narrow gaps between buildings as we moved from the main part of the palace to the tower reserved for prisoners.
“A traitor,” I responded shortly, unleashing a bit of the anger that had lived just beneath the surface of my skin since the night she left. “One who took something that belonged to us.”Belongs tome.
I watched the gears turn in my father’s eyes as he tried to remember what I would care enough to be angry about.
“And just when I was starting to have fun with her,” I added, giving him the hint he needed.
His expression clouded with fury, stopping in his tracks.