anything. When the watch spotted the regiment coming up the road, she ordered your clothes burned in the kitchen fire and your sword put someplace safe.”
Degarius’s head swam. As he sat on the steps, his knee that hit the floor ached. So the redcoats hadn’t found him today. They would sooner or later. He’d never make it to Sarapost with every redcoat looking for him—and every commoner, too. There would be a reward for his head. No, they wouldn’t take his head. They’d parade him through Acadia, publicly humiliate him, and then torture him to death. He’d kill himself before giving that bastard King Lerouge the satisfaction of watching him die. But what if he did evade them and make it to Sarapost? Maybe—and it was a big maybe—for his father’s sake, King Fassal would spare him if he understood he killed Lerouge in self-defense. With Acadia as Sarapost’s key ally, however, even King Fassal wouldn’t let him keep his generalship. That was gone. Even his captaincy was gone. The kitchen oven had burned his general’s coat and his medals. They would be buried in the ash pile. What was left to him? Not staying here, even if it was the only safe place in the world. He hadn’t prayed in over twenty years. There was no way in hell he’d start after this.
All of this was because of her . She’d had an affair with Lerouge. Hera Musette said so. It was why Lerouge put a knife in his back. Miss Gallivere might have insinuated about the wrong man, but she was right about the Solacian’s character. And he had thought her good, had wrestled far into too many nights with the impropriety of his feelings. They were base desire, nothing more. The temptation of the forbidden. Damn her for what she’d put him through on the ride here. For everything she had cost him. Damn her to hell.
He slammed his fist backward into the stair’s nosing.
JOINED AND ASUNDER
Lady Martise’s, Shacra Paulus, the next day
F or at least the tenth time, Fassal rose from his Aunt Martise’s couch, shook his shoulders, and adjusted the cuffs of his sleeves so they just showed from his new deep plum-colored coat with cerulean buttons and fancy stitching. The Tierian waiting with him, a sullen lump of a monk with yellowed toenails, offered no diversion except his disgusting bare feet. Clearly, the monk had reservations—warranted ones for sure—about being here. Because of Prince Lerouge’s death, Jesquin’s father had refused to let the wedding proceed as scheduled, so his aunt had arranged this clandestine ceremony. Surely, she’d donated a vast sum to the Tierians, and taken on a great risk of the king’s displeasure, to give them this one joy.
“Gregory,” Aunt Martise had said yesterday, “with Sarapost heading into war, if something happens to you, I’d never be able to forgive myself if I didn’t allow you this one joy.”
Fassal needed one joy. Poor Degarius. All Fassal could do was shake his head in disbelief. What had happened still didn’t seem possible.
Finally, the sitting room door opened, and Jesquin entered under the protective arm of his aunt. Suddenly, his nervousness was gone.
“Remember,” Aunt Martise whispered to Jesquin, “not a word. Let me tell your father tomorrow.”
Jesquin wriggled free of their aunt and came to Fassal. Plucking at the skirt of her black mourning dress, she turned her already moist eyes to him. “My wedding dress wasn’t finished. It doesn’t matter, does it?”
“You are beautiful, sweetheart,” Fassal said into her ear and gazed into her eyes that for days had been awash in tears for her brother. Now they were wet with joy.
“And you’re so handsome. Look at your coat.” When she touched her forefinger to one of the buttons on his chest, he clasped her hand and kissed it.
The Tierian led them through the vows and pronounced them married.
“My dears, you have an hour,” Lady Martise said. “Upstairs, the last room on your right is at your disposal.”
Lady