Read Online Lady Of Regret (Book 2) by James A. West - Free Book Online Page A

anything I do not want.”
    “Arthard is a monster I’d not offer up to my worst enemy. And trust that I have more than a few who deserve to be skinned alive and staked atop an anthill. Arthard is the worst of the lot. Just this past fortnight, the greedy wretch sent his thugs to burn me out.”
    “Truly?”
    “Last winter he determined the levies I pay are not enough. I am not alone. He has beggared most honest merchants and tradesfolk in Sazukford. The dishonest, well, that sort never suffers long. Since the River Idoril serves as the only quick way to get bloodwood timber to Millport and the Sea of Muika, he has increased the levies tenfold on passing barges. The fool will destroy Sazukford, without ever recognizing how or why. On top of it all, he demanded I share his bed. When I told him to go sell his arse in Giliron, he rightly took that as a declaration of war.”
    “Yet the Silver Archer still stands.”
    “Only because I have the queen’s blessing, and the love of many in Sazukford. If not for those, Arthard would have strung me up in one of his cages. Still, he is not a man easily thwarted. By secretive, fiendish means, he has done all he can to make my life miserable.”
    “I saw the cages outside the wall,” Nesaea said, remembering the ring-thief.
    “Arthard loves them,” Lynira seethed. “In the last year, he has doubled their number.”
    “Punishing criminals is the duty of highborn,” Nesaea said, tone neutral. “As I recall, Sazukford has more than its share of lawless.”
    “I’ll grant you, Sazukford is surely no righteous city, but is it a noble’s duty to tax beggars and cripples? And when those unfortunates cannot pay, is it duty to hang them beside murderers?”
    “Surely it’s not so bad?”
    “Worse,” Lynira said, gulping her wine down. “There has been more than one urchin hung to die. That’s why he tried to burn me out. When I spoke against him, with half the Dreamer’s Quarter at my back, he sent us off with arrows dropping all around. Later, a runner delivered a message telling me I could leave Sazukford peaceably, or die. Naturally, Arthard has hidden his tracks well, fearing the queen’s reprisal. As it stands there is only my word against his.”
    “Where will you go?”
    “Nowhere,” Lynira said darkly. “By right of birth, Arthard holds Dionis Keep, but I have earned my place in Sazukford. He is nothing but a tiny shit of a man with title and lands. The only thing he has earned is the hatred of most folk in the city. If it is war he wants, then he will have it.”
    Nesaea sipped her wine, waiting patiently for her former mentor to continue. In time, she did.
    “Tell me, why do you want to see Arthard?”
    “His court magician, Sytheus Vonterel, is my father.”
    “Tragedy upon tragedy,” Lynira said regretfully.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Arthard’s magician proved disappointing to his master. For tricks and conjuring, illusions and sleight-of-hand, Sytheus served well enough. But he had made other promises that, when called upon, he failed to deliver. Arthard’s niece came down with a bloody flux, and the magician could not heal her.”
    “She died?”
    “Nothing so dire. Otherwise the magician would be bones in a cage, rather than locked in the lord’s dungeon. A common hedge witch proved more adept with her potions. The girl is hale as ever.”
    Nesaea imagined her father as he had been, with his love of rich food and a portliness to prove it, his love of sunlight and laughter. Now those things were denied him, locked as he was in darkness and damp. Sytheus Vonterel had ever been a man to believe his skills greater than they were, and now he was paying for his conceit.
    Lynira’s silence drew her attention.
    “You have thought of something?”
    Lynira nodded. “I cannot give you an audience, but often those who have the skill to escape the inescapable, say a certain girl who escaped the bonds of a Giliron pleasure slave, also have the skill to