The Cornish Princess by Tanya Anne Crosby

ChapterTwenty-Three

Leaving the guards to make ready, Gwendolyn ventured over the rise and found her new Shadow kneeling beside a small stream—a rivulet so small that Gwendolyn didn’t even realize what it was until she arrived by his side. “A winterbourne?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Not yet,” he said, though with an unmistakable note of concern. All the while, his hand remained splayed over the trickle of water, as though he were inspecting its essence by touch. At last he said, “The land is struggling.”

Gwendolyn took it as an accusation, but not so much directed at her as it was at her father.

“What are you doing?”

As though her question nudged him from a stupor, he turned his hand to scoop up a bit of the water into his palm, then splashed it into his face, before combing his long, wet fingers through his silver mane, darkening his hair.

Gwendolyn shivered, rubbing her arms for warmth. Doubtless the water was frigid, and until the sun re-appeared in full, the air was still cool.

By midday, perhaps, it would be warm enough to swim, and yet who could swim in such a meager stream? The river was so tiny, it was impossible to say whence it had come.

The land wasn’t particularly flat here, but neither were there mountains in the immediate vicinity. She supposed it was possible for it to have bubbled up from some long-vanished spring. “Is it hot?” she asked.

“Warm,” he said, and Gwendolyn sighed over the terse response.

Gods.She didn’t wish to fight any longer. If she must be forced to coexist with Málik Danann, she must really learn to manage him. But they couldn’t make peace until she knew what quarrel he had with her. “Why did you tell my mother where we were?”

“We?” His shoulders tensed, but he lifted another handful of water to his face, and this time didn’t bother to wipe it away, leaving the droplets to glisten like diamonds on his flesh.

“You know… the pool.”

“Why else? Because it suited my purpose,” he confessed, and Gwendolyn lifted a brow.

“What purpose might that be?”

In answer, he cast Gwendolyn a backward glance and his lips split into a not very pleasant smile. Indeed, with the morning light glittering throughout his silver mane, and shining over his iridescent skin, he was like… a feral creature, particularly with that gleam in his eyes—savage and dangerous, and sinfully handsome.

Gwendolyn shivered again, but this time because a tiny niggling thought reentered her head—hideous, but compelling, just the same.

There were no longer wolves in these parts.

Quite easily, she could imagine Málik shredding a man with that mouthful of teeth. All that was missing from his person were a pair of claws, and yet… did she not hear tell faekind could shift forms?Could he have been the one who killed Bryok?

“I only wonder… did you perchance know the First Alderman?”

“The dead one?” Put so succinctly, and without a trace of remorse.

“Indeed,” said Gwendolyn, frowning, peering back toward the wych elm, where the guards stood waiting. “The dead one.”

“Nay,” he said.

“So, then, you never met him, even once?”

Málik stood, meeting her gaze directly. “Nay. I cannot say I ever did.”

“I hear tell his wife left him, but I guess you wouldn’t know such a thing since you’ve never met him. She’s in Chysauster,” Gwendolyn revealed.

One brow arched, and his eyes seemed to shine a little brighter with the revelation. “Truly?” he asked.

“Indeed,” said Gwendolyn, hitching her chin. “In fact, I intend to speak with her.”

“In Chysauster?”

Gwendolyn nodded, and Málik continued to stare at her a long while, before widening his smile. “You must realize, Gwendolyn… I know what you are doing.”

Gwendolyn blinked at his familiarity.

“You do?”

“Indeed, I do.”

Gwendolyn swallowed, wishing he would enlighten her, because really, she didn’t know—and most especially she didn’t understand why she seemed so inclined to bedevil a man who seemed, by most measures, so dangerous a creature. Did she mean to corner him?

So what now? If he was Bryok’s murderer—for whatever reason—she was now at his mercy, and far, far from home.

He pushed back a lock of hair that fell into his face. “Only keep this in mind as you play at your game, Princess… curiosity is like a drogue. Even in small doses it can be deadly.”

He walked away then, leaving Gwendolyn to stare after him.

Was that a threat?Because if it was, it would behoove her to climb atop her horse and fly away home, and yet, Gwendolyn did no such thing. Instead, she followed quick at his heels.

“What does that mean?”

“You know what it means,” he said, without turning. “Only be sure of this: Your father put me to a task, and I’ll not rest on my laurels, Gwendolyn; neither will you. Whilst we are in Chysauster, I expect you will attend me daily to practice.”

Gwendolyn halted, crossing her arms against the chill. Clearly he didn’t like her, but why? She had never actually done anything to him—not really.

Certainly not until he’d shown her such disrespect!

He was the one who had given her insult, and then betrayed Bryn. He was the one who should apologize, and yet, far be it from him to consider it.

Long hours later,Gwendolyn was still brooding over their conversation by the stream.

Gods.He was the most insufferable creature she had ever encountered.

And now, not only was he not riding beside or behind her, he had taken the lead, so she was forced now and then to spur her mount in order to catch him or not lose sight of him over the hilly terrain. When finally Gwendolyn had enough, she sidled up beside him and said through clenched teeth, “I am not playing at games, you must realize.” She really needed him to understand that the mission she’d embarked upon was delicate and important.

“Are you not?”

He couldn’t possibly understand. He didn’t know how things worked amidst her people. Clearly he hadn’t any notion how important the First Alderman’s position was to her father’s court. Something about his death was terribly wrong—something aside from the obvious, and Gwendolyn intended to find out what that was. She opened her mouth to respond, to explain, but something else occurred to her—that smell. It was horrible in the hall, but worse in Mester Ciarán’s laboratory. It was not the odor of a man newly deceased.

Beside her, Málik cast her a dubious glance, perhaps wondering why she fell silent, and Gwendolyn loathed the fact that she admired the shape of his lips, even when they were set so firmly against her. “If you must know, the true reason I am going to Chysauster is to invite my cousins to my wedding,” she lied, but she didn’t know if she’d said it to remind herself she was having a wedding, or if it was because she needed to apprise Málik of this.

Gods.All she really knew was that she had less right to notice the sinew in his thigh than she did to investigate the Alderman’s death.

He answered with silence.

“You do recall I am to be wed, yes?”

Nothing again—merely the sound of one guard hacking up a pit and spewing it out. She heard it land in the grass and cast the man a backward glance, noting he had a full handful of prunes, and even as Gwendolyn watched, he chewed another mouthful, moving it from cheek to cheek as he stripped the pit of its meat.

They were less than half a bell from Chysauster now, and Gwendolyn was desperate to engage Málik whilst she still had his full attention. After they arrived in Chysauster, she would be forced to keep him at arm’s length—as much as possible.

For the sake of her own sanity, if not her reputation, neither could she allow him to call her Gwendolyn anymore, even despite that she found she liked it.

“But perhaps you didn’t realize,” she said haughtily. “After all, you probably weren’t invited to the Promise Ceremony, nor the wedding.”

“I was not,” he confessed, without concern, and Gwendolyn fell behind to admire the cut of his shoulders… the way his leathers and hosen fit so snugly.

By the eyes of Lugh,what was wrong with her? Málik wasn’t the man she was promised to wed, and neither did he care one whit for her.

“Of course not,” she said meanly. “You are not one of us. So why should my father trust you so implicitly with the most important asset he possesses?”

That got his attention, and he flicked Gwendolyn a backward glance, and the only sign she had that her words might have cut him was the way he also snapped his reins.

“You value yourself highly, Princess.”

“I—”

But she didn’t, not truly.

She didn’t enough, so Demelza claimed.

Gwendolyn found herself with a lack for words, much less a proper defense. Indeed, she was the King’s most valuable asset—his heir—but this was not what she’d meant. Not at all. Rather, she was speaking of Málik’s affiliation with the palace guards—the Elite Guard her father had trusted him so quickly to train. And really, Málik could be training them to serve the enemy—him, for all they knew. In fact—she glanced back at the men riding in their wake—proof might be plainer than the nose on her face. Neither of these guards had seemed remotely inclined to see to her welfare. They answered to Málik, and scarcely ever even looked at Gwendolyn, despite that she was their princess.

Neither had even thanked her for the prunes she’d gifted them, and the one had already eaten a handful. “I must wonder how you came to be in my father’s service?”

“More questions?”

“But you give me no answers.”

“I was summoned,” he said.

“By whom?”

He turned to look at her now and smiled. “You truly enjoy playing the sleuth-hound, I see.”

“I—”

“You can fool many, Princess, but you cannot fool me. You think I do not know why you were delayed before leaving the city, but I know.”

“You can’t, possibly.”

“I know more than you think,” he said.

“Then perhaps you will help explain the discrepancies I found?”

“I would if I cared to.”

“But I care! Something is wrong, and I mean to find out what it is.”

He lifted his brows. “Wrong with you? Your marriage, or something else?”

Gwendolyn was confused now. Did he, or did he not, know about her investigations? She grit her teeth. “I mean to say that something is amiss with the Alderman’s death.”

“So, you confess you are not traveling to Chysauster to invite your cousins to your wedding?”

“Nay! But—yes! Of course I am. I am, and you will see me do so. And yet I also have a… certain… intuition, and I must speak to the Alderman’s wife.”

“And this was not something you were inclined to share with your father—the King, to whom you owe your fealty?”

Gwendolyn lifted a shoulder, resigned to the truth of it. “If I had, he would not have allowed me to come.”

“Because he wouldn’t wish to see you meddle, perhaps?”

Gwendolyn’s cheeks burned hot.

Frustrated now, she popped the reins, deciding she’d had enough. “You are the most infuriating creature! I’m grateful our time together will be short,” she said, veering her mount toward a thicket of trees, inclined to find herself a moment’s respite.

Chysauster was over the next rise, and she needed to repair herself as best she could. If nothing else, she must steel her nerves—to put Málik in his place once and for all.

No matter how familiar he was becoming, he was not her betrothed. She could simply not allow him to speak to her the way he did. She was the Princess; he was her Shadow.