Jenna Helland - The Fanged Crown

“It’s no trouble,” Cardew reassured her. “Your uncle is just thinking of my welfare.”

“The soup is cold,” Tresco declared with distaste, throwing his spoon into the broth, which sloshed onto the tablecloth. “I’ll tell the cook to bring us something else.”

Throwing his cloak over his shoulder, Tresco swept out of the room. As soon as the door clicked shut, Ysabel stood up. Lifting her skirt to her thighs, she straddled Cardew and hugged him tight around the neck.

“I thought you were dead,” she whispered.

“Ysabel,” he breathed as he clutched her back. He could feel the bones of her rib cage through the silk of her dress. “I’ve thought of you constantly since I left.”

Gripping the back of his chair, Ysabel pressed her body down against his until he took a shuddering breath.

“No,” he said. “Not when Tresco could walk in.”

“Did you bring me something special?” she whispered coyly, her lips brushing his ear. “Did you bring me something from the wilderness?”

“I’d go to the ends of the world to get you whatever you want,” he said. She cupped his face in her hands.

“Did you bring me anything?”

“I brought you another spellbook,” Cardew whispered, gazing up at her. “I’ll leave it behind the tapestry the way I used to.”

“And I’ll reward you, the way I used to,” she promised, pressing her face against his neck.

“You make me … desperate,” he told her.

“When can we be together?”

“Soon,” he promised. “Soon you’ll be my wife.”

Ysabel kissed his mouth hard. Then she pushed away from him, smoothed her skirt down, and sat primly in her chair just as Tresco swung open the door.

“Cardew was just asking me about the portraits,” Ysabel told Tresco, pointing to the wall at the collection of ten paintings, all of Evonne Linden. There was Evonne as a child, sitting on a swing under a massive oak tree. Evonne at her wedding feast, the day she married Garion. Evonne standing in the marble hall outside the judges’ chambers in Darromar. “I told him that it had been our personal project. We hired the best painters in the realm, didn’t we Uncle?”

“Indeed,” Tresco said heartily.

“I didn’t know Evonne liked horses,” Cardew said dryly, looking up at a painting of Evonne riding a chestnut stallion.

“Well, you didn’t know Evonne well at all, did you?” Tresco replied, motioning impatiently to the servant who had arrived with plates piled with lamb. “Did I ever tell you that it was Evonne who gave me the idea of exploring Chult in the first place? She had done all sorts of research on the sarrukh and said they had wealth beyond imagination in the ruins of their …”

As Tresco droned on about gold plates and copper goblets, Ysabel gave Cardew a secret smile. Cardew maintained a perfectly calm façade, but inside his chest, his heart was pounding.

From the outside, the colony looked more like a military outpost than a village. Fashioned from roughly hewn planks and mud, the perimeter walls seemed as tall as the Crane’s mast and were crowned with long black thorns. Creeping vines had engulfed several areas as the jungle reclaimed the colony. But the ground in front of the gate was muddy and barren, making the compound seem even less hospitable.

“Welcome to Cardewton,” Liel said, without a trace of irony. The gate was slightly ajar, and Liel ducked inside and disappeared from sight without another word.

As if waiting for an invitation to enter, the men remained outside. Looking at the isolation of the spot, it seemed strange that Cardew chose to name the colony after himself. Only a man with Cardew’s limitless ego could perceive a mudhole in the jungle as a prize worth claiming.

“Having seen her, I can see why you’ve been so moody so long,” Boult finally said. “But, does she seem odd to you?”

Harp shrugged. “She seems subdued. The Liel I knew was like … a force of nature.”

Boult snorted. “She’s a druid. She is a force of nature.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t. And neither do you.”

“It was like she had raw power that could barely be contained by her body,” Kitto said quietly. “It was like heat came off her in waves.”

Harp snapped his fingers. “Exactly. That’s what I meant.”

“I don’t feel any power in her at all,” Kitto said. “Just coldness.”

Boult shot Harp a smug look. Harp had no idea what Boult should be smug about, but Boult rarely needed a good reason to feel superior.

“Don’t start,” Harp snapped. “It’s been almost a month since Cardew showed up in Tethyr. We don’t know what’s happened to her since he left her behind.”

“Then what are we doing standing out here?” Boult said. “Let’s go find out.”

Once inside, they could see that the space inside the walls was limited, not much larger than a city block in Darromar, with only a few permanent structures. A shabby wooden building with a thatched roof stood in the center of the encampment and had probably been the common area for the colonists. Near the eastern wall, a sturdy hut had been built in a grove of goldenfruit trees—a grove that had stood long before someone built a wall around the area.

“How long were the colonists here?” Boult asked as Harp and Kitto struggled to close the heavy gate.

“About three months, I think,” Harp said, inspecting the locking mechanism on the gate, which consisted of a flimsy metal hook. It didn’t look very secure, but then maybe the night creatures weren’t interested in breaking and entering, just stomping and eating.

“They didn’t get much done, did they?” Boult said, surveying the motley array of buildings.

“What do you mean?” Harp asked.

“If you were building a colony, what would be your first priority?” Boult asked.

“A dry place to sleep,” Kitto said.

“Exactly,” Boult agreed. “But look at those hovels.”

Harp looked around at the handful of rudimentary lean-tos scattered along the perimeter. Made from sticks braced against the outer wall and covered in dried grasses, the lean-tos looked about as cozy as the low-walled pens that were clustered along the back wall of the encampment.

“Those aren’t the dwellings of people who are planning to stay,” Boult pointed out.

“What about that house?” Verran asked, gesturing to the hut in the grove of trees. The mud walls of the hut had been built on a wooden platform several feet off the ground, probably to discourage snakes and rodents from seeking shelter.

“I’ll bet you the first round that is Master Cardew’s house,” Boult said under his breath to Harp. “Is that where Liel went?”

“Let’s give her a few minutes to herself,” Harp said.

“To do what?” Boult asked grumpily.

“Maybe find some shoes,” Harp said pointedly. “We’ll look around. Kitto, will you keep an eye on the gate? If you see any sign of Liel, give us a shout.”

Kitto nodded and settled down on a stump near the wall while the others headed for the common building. They could see holes in the thatched roof, and the roughly hewn planks used for the walls were warped and graying. As they opened the squeaky door, the stench of rot was sharp in the air. “Dead colonists?” Boult asked.

“It’s not human,” Verran blurted out. Then he looked as if he wished he’d kept his mouth shut.

“What are you, a dog?” Boult asked incredulously. “How do you do that?”

“Down, Boult,” Harp said easily. “Identifying corpses by smell could be a useful skill.”