I Hate You

"Liber, please."

Evelynn tried to soothe her son as he thrashed, begging to be put down. Ilya had watched the whole of it without a flicker of expression. At last he spoke.

"Get rid of it."

Evelynn did not understand what he had just said. No one else in the room did either.

"I told you to get this thing out of here."

That cold, pitiless voice froze every one of them where they stood. Sophie was the first to recover. She went to her mistress and held out both arms.

"My lady, please give me the young master."

White to the lips, Evelynn did not move. Sophie pressed her.

"My lady, please."

"Ah... yes."

Coming back to herself, Evelynn passed the child over. Sophie gathered the baby into her arms and hurried from the room. Torn from his mother, the child broke into a heartbroken wail. Hurried footsteps pattered away, and the crying dwindled with them.

"Where's the bedroom?"

It was Ilya who broke the suffocating silence. He caught the dazed Evelynn by the arm and pulled her along as he asked. She knew she had to answer. Her heart hurt as if it were tearing, and not a word would come.

"Walk. Or shall I carry you?"

"I can... walk."

She whispered it, her voice scraped raw.

Like a doll with its strings cut, she walked in a blank daze until they reached the bedroom. The latch clicked; Ilya, following her in, shut the door. He swept the room with a glance, then drew her by the arm toward the fireplace.

"A silk-raised princess, just as I thought. Are you that cold?"

Princess? Who? Me? His words made no sense. Evelynn only stared up at her husband, empty-eyed.

"You're still shaking. Sit."

He added it curtly. Dropping onto the small chair beside the hearth, he fed logs into the grate and took up the kindling himself. Only when he was certain the flame had caught did he look at her.

"Relax. I'm not going to bite. I came because there's something I need to ask."

"Then please ask."

Evelynn said it without meeting his eyes.

"Your second brother. Tell me about Odin Mardus."

The unexpected question left her faintly unsettled.

"Didn't you say you'd play the double agent? Was that only talk?"

Ah. Mardus Castle was a closed place; planting a spy there would be no simple matter. She thought she understood what her husband wanted.

"I heard there's talk of a marriage."

"That's news to me. How did you hear it? Did the marquis send a letter?"

His usual languid, unhurried voice had climbed a tone. What she had just told him had clearly caught his interest.

"He would never. You watch everything that reaches me. If I knew a thing, there is no way you wouldn't."

Where Evelynn lived was a prison without bars. Even so, she had a source she trusted.

"Fine. You can tell me later how you learned it. Go on. Who's the match?"

"The Marquisate of Vasili, I believe. That's all I know."

A binding of the center to the east. Ilya felt a flicker of admiration in spite of himself. Ayatoll Mardus's political skill, if nothing else, had to be granted.

"Did the Marquis of Vasili have a daughter? So many women have passed through his hands, I suppose there might be one or two."

The name on his lips sent a chill down Evelynn's spine. If not for the bargain she had struck with the man before her, she herself would have been one of those women who passed through.

"Not bad, my beloved wife."

Ilya whispered it sweetly, and Evelynn smiled back. Somewhere in her chest, though, a hole had opened, and the wind blew straight through it.

He rose and came closer. Drawing the armchair she sat in up before him, he slowly bent down.

"Tell me what you want. Anything."

The low voice, nearly a whisper, was thick with a sensual heat.

"It's all right. This is a transaction, after all."

Unable to bear his face, she turned hers aside. He gave a short laugh, caught her chin, and made her look at him.

"Shall I hold you?"

Her vision blurred. She had sworn she would never cry in front of this man.

"Why are you crying? You used to like being in my arms."

He set his smooth forehead against hers and whispered.

"Do you remember when you first came north? Behind the princess, the wagons of provisions went on until you couldn't see the end of them. I'd never seen anything like it. Impressive."

Yes. She knew. Without those wagons, this man would never have spared her a glance.

"I thought I ought to serve you with all my body and soul. My princess."

He pressed his mouth to her wet eyes.

"I must have done it too well. We even ended up with a child I never wanted."

Evelynn, who had listened in silence, shoved him hard. Both her arms shook. He let himself be pushed back, laughed once under his breath, and went on.

"At first I thought he wasn't even mine..."

The crack of a slap split the air, and a suffocating silence dropped over the bedroom.

Evelynn stared at him, trembling from head to foot. Tears fell without a sound. Then she opened her mouth.

Ilya wiped the blood from his lip with a careless swipe of his finger and walked straight out.

Evelynn sank down beside the hearth and curled in on herself.

Not when her husband never once answered her letters. Not when people poured curses on her and on the child just born. Not even when she learned her own father had sold her off again. She had not cried.

But today...

Mama. She wept aloud like a little child, and she could not stop until Sophie came running, gathered her close, and soothed her.

After that night, Evelynn cried often. Everything she had pressed down and endured seemed to have burst at last. Whenever the tears came, Sophie stayed quietly at her side.

"Where did this come from? We've never had anything like it."

At the sight of a cake crowned with fruit scarce in the north, Evelynn's eyes went round.

"Well... a cook who makes the desserts at the main house came, this morning."

In the corner, the knight standing guard over them flinched—a great bear of a man, with a face far too young for that bulk—and, where no one could see, he grinned.

When Evelynn lifted her fork, Liber, playing alone beside her, seized a fork of his own. The child took one bite of cake and shuddered all over, as if lightning had struck him.

"Liber, is it that good? Sophie, you have some too."

"Mmm."

Sweetness touched her tongue, and for no reason at all the tears came again. Evelynn began to cry, and Liber cried with her. Even as he wailed, whatever was in his mouth must have been wonderful, because his hands never stopped digging into the cake and ferrying it to his lips.

Cream smeared all around his mouth, her son kept on sobbing, and laughter broke out of Evelynn.

"Liber, either eat or cry. Pick one. What is that—ha!"

"My lady, you ought to either cry or laugh, one or the other. What is that?"

The female knight watching them narrowed her eyes. When her gaze met the bear of a knight beside her, she let out a quiet sigh.

When the hour came to change the watch, the two knights went together to the commander's office.

"Commander, we're here."

"Bellina, Arthurs. You've worked hard. Did my lady enjoy it?"

The silver-haired knight answered. The epaulet marking her as a senior knight caught the light with particular brightness.

"Yes. She seemed fond of the cake with the fruit. Though the young master may have liked it even more."

All at once the huge knight beside her folded nearly double and burst out laughing. Naz's eyes pulled tight as he glared.

"Arthurs! Weren't you the one grumbling that you hated this? What's got you laughing?"

Arthurs was an apprentice knight under Knight Commander Naz.

"I'm sorry, Commander. The baby is just too cute. But guarding a Mardus... I still hate it!"

"You brat! Orders are orders. Quit running your mouth."

Naz smacked him across the back even as he stole a glance at Bellina. She stood without any particular expression, just as she had the day she was first ordered to escort Evelynn.

What? Is she... don't tell me she's smiling?

Naz saw it plainly. Bellina's lips were trembling, ever so faintly. It worked. He cheered in silence.

"Cute, is he? That face that's the very image of His Grace?"

"He does look exactly like him, an unbelievable amount... but he's all soft and squishy. I'm telling you, he's the cutest thing in the whole world!"

"Arthurs. That is disrespectful to the young master. Mind your tongue."

Naz counted it a small mercy all the same. That night he had been shocked once, seeing Ilya leave the room with a split lip, and shocked again by the wretched sobbing that tore out of the bedroom. His lord was plainly the one at fault—and yet what in the world had the man done?

"My lady seems very different from what I'd heard."

Bellina offered it carefully. Arthurs rushed in before anyone could stop him.

"They said the Witch of Mardus had His Grace bewitched... I couldn't see it. Honestly, if we're talking about faces, His Grace is even more—"

He gasped and clapped a hand over his own mouth.

"Think, for once, before you open your mouth!"

Naz dealt that broad back another smack, then sank into thought. In any case, my lady seemed to be recovering, more or less, from the hurt of that day.

His lord was another matter. Since that night, Ilya's insomnia had only deepened. Drink did nothing. Sleeping draughts did nothing. Night after night he spent in the training yard with bloodshot eyes, and the knights forced to face him were wearing thinner by the day.

Naz glanced at the clock on the desk. It was time for it to begin.

Torchlight wavered beyond the window, and a low murmur rose. Naz and the two knights broke into a run for the training yard.

"It's started!"

The hour was past midnight. The knights who guarded the archduke were sweating cold, struggling to hold Ilya as he raged like a wounded beast.

"Your Grace, please, be calm..."

"Shut. Up."

Murderous intent poured off him as he roared at the knights ringing him round.

"Damn it, I said shut your mouths!"

They knew it in their bones. The archduke's fits, quiet for a time after his return, had begun again.

"Your Grace!"

Naz went to him at once. A chill slid down his spine when he saw where his lord was staring—fixed, unblinking, on something beyond the wall of the training yard.

That's... the Annex.

His hand went to the scabbard at his hip, and his voice came out flat and firm.

"Your Grace. You must not."

"Is there anywhere here that I cannot go?"

Ilya snarled and lunged. Quick as lightning, Naz threw up his shield and caught the blade.