Total pages in book: 222
Estimated words: 210715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1054(@200wpm)___ 843(@250wpm)___ 702(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 210715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1054(@200wpm)___ 843(@250wpm)___ 702(@300wpm)
The books had tried. There were only so many ways to describe a man and they had hit all of the important points. Both Everard and Reynald had strong features and square jaws. Both had light eyes under dark eyebrows. But they couldn’t have looked more different. Reynald was solemn and hardened by the years, while Everard in front of me was magnetic and brimming with power. Also, the books described Reynald as keeping his hair in the style of the men from the Highlands. I had pictured him with a longish mane, but his hair was cut so short, it was barely a dark trace against his brown skin.
Why was he giving me this? A gesture of good faith?
“I had it made for his son.”
I touched Reynald’s portrait. I never got to meet him.
“I was seventeen years old when the Okula invaded for the third time,” Everard said. “I’d been a duke for a year at that point, long enough for Sauven to get over his shock and start plotting to kill me. He issued a royal edict demanding Selva respond to the threat and promised the backing of the royal army. I followed through. He didn’t. He fucked around, he delayed, he puttered. He mulled over the rations and the routes. He used any small excuse to be late to the fight. He hoped the Okula would gut me, and he would arrive just in time to mop them up. Heroically, of course.”
He smiled. There was no humor in it.
“Midway through the campaign, I found myself pinned down in a mountain pass. It didn’t look good for us. The Okulan vanguard kept charging our position, wave after wave, endless. When they came, they looked like a human sea. I was running out of arrows and soldiers. When it looked like the next charge would break us, Reynald’s company smashed into them from behind.”
Oh! “He was the ‘Fuck ‘em’ knight.”
Everard nodded.
“He’d been given written orders to reinforce us and verbal orders to delay. Instead of meandering as he was instructed, Reynald advanced in the middle of the night and marched his knights through a mountain trail that was passable only for goats. His charge threw off the Okula’s strategy. We crushed their vanguard between us. Their main force pulled back to regroup. When we met on the field, among the corpses, I told Reynald that if he ever needed a favor, he had only to ask. I considered him my friend.”
At seventeen, Everard was probably on his first major campaign as the duke. Reynald would’ve been a seasoned, war-tempered twenty-five, already in command and expert with a sword. Adolescent Ramond must’ve looked up to him.
“How did he die?”
Everard’s face turned grim. “It was exactly as you said. He came home to find his wife murdered and his son stolen. For months he went to the teahouse, watched Derog, and plotted his revenge. Reynald was always a careful man. He calculated his risks. Had Derog left the house, he might have cornered him on the streets, but the slaver never stepped foot outside of it. Reynald didn’t know for certain how many people were inside the estate, if they had children that could’ve been taken hostage, or if Matheo was still in there.”
That did sound like Reynald.
“He dug around and found that Derog had paid bribes to the right people. He was protected. They wouldn’t stick their necks out for Derog, but they wouldn’t make a move against him either. An official complaint would be useless, and a direct assault by himself was impossible. Reynald needed to borrow someone’s power and resources to enter the place.”
“And he sought to borrow yours?”
Everard nodded. “He could’ve have just written, but it was the kind of favor he wanted to ask for in person. He left the city and was on his way to me when Striver collapsed.”
How could that have happened? “Did someone shoot at them?”
“No.”
“Do horses just die like that?”
“Sometimes.”
I hugged myself.
“There was no sign of foul play,” he said, his voice suffused with sadness. “The stallion was old, and his heart had simply stopped. Striver was a Jekran warhorse, loyal to a fault. They will run themselves to death for the sake of their riders. Reynald’s mind was on Matheo and what he would say to me. He hadn’t noticed anything was wrong until Striver went down. He’d fallen badly, hit his head, and the stallion’s bulk pinned him to the ground. A random, stupid twist of fate.”
So he just lay there, pinned down and hurt? “Did anyone find him?”
“Eventually. He had set out before sunrise, and it wasn’t a well-traveled road. They brought Reynald to the nearest village, two hours from Kair Toren. He knew the end was near, so from his deathbed he bundled his possessions into a pack, found a willing courier, and told them he was one of my men and I was expecting the package. His sword would be the proof I needed. The courier happened to work for the Shears, and he took it straight to Solentine.”