The Beauty of Darkness (The Remnant Chronicles #3) - Mary E. Pearson Page 0,161

from his eyes. “I’m sorry, Pauline. I saw you trying to pull away, and I—” He shook his head. “I know I had no right to intervene or imply that—”

“You already knew who he was?”

He nodded. “Lia told me he was still alive, and I put it together. The same shade of blond as the baby. Your reaction.”

The color on his neck suddenly deepened, as if just realizing his admission—he had been watching me. His eyes bore into mine, and I saw a hundred questions behind them I hadn’t seen before. Would I ever forgive him? Had he gone too far? Was I all right? But mostly I saw the kindness in them I had seen the first time I met him. Silence and dust motes hung in the air between us.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said again, and glanced at his knuckles that were red from the blow to Mikael’s face. “I know you wouldn’t want it to appear that a barbarian Assassin—”

“Will you walk me back to the abbey, Kaden?” I asked. “If you have the time? Just for appearances, in case he’s still watching?”

He looked at me, surprised, perhaps even fearful, but he nodded, and we left for the abbey. Both of us knew that Mikael wasn’t watching.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

After my aunts and Gwyneth helped me bathe and dress, I shooed everyone from my room. For almost a week now, I had been consumed in meetings with generals, officers, and lords, and today I had addressed more regiments who had arrived after being called back to Civica. I needed one quiet moment. I remembered what Dihara had told me about the gift. The walled in, they starve it just as the Ancients did.… You’re surrounded by the noise of your own making. And there had been a continuous stream of noise, most of it passionate and loud.

Rafe, Kaden, and I led private talks with Generals Howland, Marques, and Perry, Captain Reunaud, the Field Marshal, and Sven and Tavish. I personally greeted General Howland, trying to put our rocky start behind us. Our team of ten gathered maps, made lists, and devised our strategies. Kaden and I told them in vivid detail about the weapons and numbers we faced, a hundred and twenty thousand. When the Field Marshal suggested that the Komizar might divide his forces to attack on many fronts, Kaden assured him he wouldn’t. The Komizar would hit with his full force on Morrighan, ruthlessly plowing his way to Civica to make it a quick decisive victory. I agreed. The Komizar’s blood pulsed with the power this army gave him. He wouldn’t divide it. I remembered his face as he beheld his creation—its immense, crushing impact was a thing of beauty to him.

During our meetings, arguments erupted over everything from timing to routes the Komizar would take to the best ways to arm our soldiers. One thing was clear—we needed more—so that call was sent out too. More weapons, more soldiers. The lords were sent back to their counties with the same orders for recruits and supplies.

All of Morrighan was enlisted in the effort. Metal of all kinds was brought to the forges to repurpose into weapons. Gates, doors, teapots, no item was too small or too important that it couldn’t be used to save the kingdom. The mill was tapped to work around the clock. More wood was needed to build stockades, polearms, and defenses yet to be imagined. Training began as well, the sharing of skills, because it was undeniable that Dalbreck’s soldiers had a refined disipline that would be helpful. Initially this rankled the officers, the prospect of Rafe’s regiment of one hundred soldiers training Morrighese troops, but I snuffed that argument cold, making it clear that pride was not to be an obstacle to our survival, and Rafe smoothed it over, genuinely reaching out for advice from them as well.

I was caught off guard several times when I saw Rafe and Kaden explaining—or arguing—strategies. I saw them both in ways I never had before, in ways that had nothing to do with me. Ways that were all about their own histories and hopes, obligations and goals. I watched Kaden, skillfully skirting questions about the future of Venda even as he plotted to strengthen Morrighan. Some of our battles had to be waged later. They still called him the Assassin, not in a disparaging way but almost as a badge of honor that a Morrighese citizen had infiltrated enemy ranks and now returned to his