Igniting Darkness (Courting Darkness Duology #2) - Robin LaFevers Page 0,33

longer than Monsieur Fremin’s men have been missing.” I step closer to the table, right next to the physician, who casts me one annoyed look before continuing to probe at the man’s throat. “What have you found there?” I ask as if it were not I who inflicted the wound.

“A hole,” he says.

“Like that of an arrow?” General Cassel asks.

“No,” the physician says, and I breathe a sigh of relief. “It is too ragged for that. The best I can piece together is that he fell from his horse, breaking his neck. He then had the misfortune to land on a small branch poking out of the bracken.”

“Let me see.” Monsieur Fremin shoulders his way through the small gathering so he, too, can examine the body.

I keep my face focused on what the physician is doing, but my gaze follows the lawyer closely, watching to see if there is any spark of recognition. There! His pupils dilate, and his eyes start to widen before he catches himself, pulling the collar of his shirt up to cover the movement.

“Is he one of your men, Monsieur Fremin?” the king asks.

“No,” he tells the king, but it is a lie. I don’t know if he recognizes the horribly distorted face or the man’s clothing or his boots. But recognize him he does. Fremin looks from the body to me and smiles, like a man who has unexpectedly caught a hare in an old, forgotten trap.

 Chapter 15

Fremin knows. The look he sent me fair trumpeted his awareness clear across the room.

Thank the saints everybody else was too busy looking at the body to notice.

But that will not last long. I’ve no doubt Fremin will find some way to use this knowledge to his advantage. Except, then he would have to admit he knew the man—which would raise new questions, and the king has not cleared him of all suspicion.

Well, not yet. But after this newest revelation, it is hard to say if that will hold. Clearly Fremin’s best hope is that I will be found guilty of this crime, but if not, he will no doubt take matters into his own hands.

A knock sounds on my door, and I scowl, wondering what new catastrophe waits on the other side. I consider not answering, but everyone saw me escorted back to my rooms. Besides, only a coward hides. I check the knives at my wrists, school my features, then head for the door, stopping as it opens and Genevieve slips in.

At the sight of her, the ugly tangle of fear that fills my belly coalesces into something hotter and far more satisfying. “What are you doing here?” I spit out. If not for her . . . I do not even let myself finish the thought lest I do something I regret. “I see that you are not confined to your chambers.”

It is hard to tell, but I think she winces slightly before her face resumes its normal impassive mask. “I have not been accused of killing four men,” she points out as she closes the door behind her.

My arm is raised, fingers curled, before I catch myself and wrap my hands around my arms instead of punching her. I storm over to the window and stare the long way down into the courtyard. The room is quiet except for the shifting of the dying embers in the grate.

“Is this newest body one of yours?”

I shoot her a scornful glance. “I am not so foolish as to hand you my secrets so you may take them back to the king.”

This time it is her fists that clench as she takes a step farther into the room. “I would not do that.”

The anger burbling through my veins does not want to believe her, but all my training and instincts fair shout at me that she is telling the truth. Even so, I owe her nothing. “You betrayed us once before.”

Her soft mouth grows hard. “I was wrong—but that does not make my actions a betrayal. Knowing the king’s own ambitions and devotion to the Church, it made complete sense that he would shut down the worship of the Nine.”

I cannot argue, because that seems to be precisely what he is doing now that he has learned of it.

“So yes, I believed it. And I wanted to fix it. I could not accept that I had been sired by Mortain for no other reason than to molder in an obscure castle under the leering eye of a