The Ippos King (Wraith Kings #3) - Grace Draven Page 0,138
take long to warm his hands and face, and while the rest of him creaked from the cold, he could write and make the words legible. And thank the gods, he was no longer bored.
Unlike the previous evening, time flew as he wrote, and he had several pages completed and ready for the Archives clerk who arrived to take them. “Dame Stalt will see to it these are copied and the originals sent to King Rodan if requested, margrave,” the clerk assured him before she left. Serovek wondered how much of what he wrote would remain the same in the original Rodan saw. He suspected that even if the king demanded exclusions or significant edits to suit his whims or purpose, the dame would leave the copy as it was and stash it away for safekeeping.
He continued working through the afternoon as the stack of blank parchment and supply of ink steadily diminished with the scratching of his quill. He didn't look up from the current page at the sound of a pair of footsteps pausing outside his cell, expecting the clerk's final return of the day.
“I see they're treating you well, margrave.”
Serovek froze in the middle of a word, quill tip leaving a spreading ink spot where it pressed against the parchment. Bryzant. One of only two people who could make him forget the cold because they made the blood run hot in his veins, and unlike Anhuset who made him run hot with desire, his steward ignited him with fury. He casually laid down the quill, brushed his hands together to wipe off any sand and slowly rose from his chair.
The reason for his current predicament stood on the other side of the cell bars, watching Serovek with a satisfied half smile that tipped toward gloating the closer the margrave came to the barrier between them. Serovek wondered what had incited him to travel to the capital. A hostile environment at High Salure? Worry the king would change his mind if Bryzant wasn't there to spin more lies? Or maybe just satisfaction at witnessing his liege's downfall and execution. All three suppositions had merit.
He hoped his voice sounded much milder than he felt inside. “I wondered if you'd stay at High Salure or come here to fill the king's ear with more poison. Couldn't resist paying me a visit to see what your plan wrought, Bryzant?” He allowed a sneer to creep into his tone and curled his top lip upward to emphasize it. “Or is this some kind of memorial to crushed hopes over the fact that Chamtivos is the one dead instead of me?” The steward's gloating expression melted away, revealing the true emotions he'd managed to hide for so long: Envy, jealousy, ambition. Three things that drove some men, like Chamtivos, to commit heinous acts of familicide, abduction, and torture and others like Bryzant to ally themselves with monsters in order to climb the ladder of power.
The steward glanced briefly at the guard nearby, listening to their conversation. A sly malice veiled his features, at odds with the injured tone he affected. “You were my liege until you turned traitor, Lord Pangion. While I'm crushed by such revelations, it seems only courteous to inquire after your health. Can we not at least converse civilly?”
“I don't have chats with treacherous lickspittles like you,” Serovek scoffed, scoring a hard hit with his contempt as Bryzant's nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed. “All those years of faithful service and you were merely biding your time, making your plans, for what? Becoming margrave yourself?” Serovek snorted. “What do you know of governance or even battle?” He didn't give Bryzant a chance to answer. “Maybe, like Ogran, you were motivated by monetary gain. You're the youngest son of a lesser nobleman. Without holdings or inheritance. A generous reward from the king would buy the first and take care of the second. Blood money always helps a belly crawler stand.”
“So high and mighty, even locked in here,” Bryzant snarled, abandoning his woeful demeanor and forgetting the watchful guard. “The Beladine people might have hailed you and that pathetic monk as heroes, but you'll not die a hero's death or be remembered as such.”
Serovek had held onto his fraying temper, taking pleasure at the small cuts he delivered against his erstwhile steward. That grip slipped the moment Bryzant insulted Megiddo, a man whose boots Bryzant wasn't fit to lick. Too intent on their conversation to notice how Serovek gradually moved closer and