A Crown Of Blades(ARTK, Book 3)

Chapter 88-89

Jono 23rd,3330 A.G

  Avelyn had Lisa's breakfast were sent up to her chambers, and asked Loys and the other guard stationed at breakfast to bar her from entering. There were things to be discussed- and she would simply be too young to contribute to the conversation. So when she took her seat next to Hal, across from mother and Aunt Lynette- she were almost immediately yelled at.

  "Why have you confined Lisa to her chambers?" Mother started, then continued before she could answer. "The guards say you would not give a reason. Do you believe yourself to be above simple explanations now?"

  The way mother sat back, the hurt in her eyes- Avelyn knew that pain too well. The quick anger were part of that; she knew that she'd snapped far too easily on more than one occasion, so she tried not to take it personally.

  "Of course not." Avelyn coughed- if she were going to explain the plans, she needed to get something else out of her mind first. "But.. grandmother... were she.... were she ill in some way before she passed? It was it just....."

  "Sudden." Hal quietly answered. "One hour she and I were walking through the gardens together as she yelled at me over my choice of whores, the next she apologized- and a few hours later she'd died in her sleep."

  There were a lingering silence where Hal appeared to be blaming himself; and that she could not allow. Anyone who'd ever come across Rohesia Emeric knew she were far from a prude, but.... Perhaps slightly judgmental. She would have thought on Hal's choice of whores for a few moments before bed if it were a particularly poor choice, and then she would have moved on. It certainly wouldn't have killed her, and so she told Hal as much.

  He gave a small, fake smile- yet that pain were in his eyes as well. A pain none of them could dream of healing in a single moment, and so she finally brought up something they could do.

  "I have a plan." Avelyn finally sat up, making sure she could have direct eye contact with each of them. "It came together quickly and it will require your cooperations..... but I believe we .... will be able to deal with two birds, so to speak. The woman who murdered my husband and the one who murdered father."

  At that, mother sat back up. "As we speak, Anna Whittaker is preparing her soldiers to leave. We would not be able to fight Helywyse Whittaker alone, so this afternoon..... I will leave to seek an alliance with Nara Ashhand."

  The yelling immediately started in front of and beside her. For over a hundred moments she did nothing to stop it, nothing to explain herself- she simply let them get it all out so she could continue. Hells, if this plan had come from Hal- she would have screamed at him too.

  She waited until that were over with and he were no longer shaking with anger to keep talking. "Now that you're done with that-"

  "Are you out of your fucking mind?" Apparently he weren't done yet. "That woman is the reason I've had to tuck Lisa into bed the past few weeks- even though a couple of years ago she thought herself too old. She says it helps with the nightmares."

  Avelyn flinched at the image that passed through her head; of lisa waking up screaming, but she would not let it distract her.

  "As I were saying- just think about it brother." She turned fully towards him, needing his cooperation the most out of her family members- given that what remained of the Valian army were his. "We use her for her army. We allow her to believe we're trustworthy- that we will forgive her long enough to get this done; I in particular will try to befriend her, then when she lets her guard down I will cut her throat. Simple- but only after her assistance in killing the woman who killed my husband."