UNMARKED

29, pt 2

A/N: I left out a piece that needed to be in this chapter, so I'm adding it on as a second part. You get two major updates in one weekend! Yay! 

Blayre left Caval's suite of rooms with an overflowing mind. She wished she could hop on a ship and sail away from everything in Emares. Start over somewhere new. "You're a Blumore, and we don't run from our problems." Her father would have said, had he been in the capital with her. "Find support. Find your wolf pack. Lean on them. Don't make a big decision alone." But she had to make this decision alone - it was either that or label her friend a traitor and forever live with the guilt.

And the only person, she wanted to confide in was someone who she absolutely could not. Rory. His chambers weren't far from here. The feeling of guilt intensified. She should go see him - at least once before she ran away to the mountains. Because that was what it felt like, even if it was an assigned job.

It was as though she had no control as her body turned toward the hallway that would lead to Rory's chambers. She was being drawn to him like an ocean tide.

Footsteps approached from the other direction and she squinted, trying to make out the face in the dim lighting. "I wouldn't go that way if I were you." The voice was deep and cold and belonged to Duke Lonan.

Blayre froze, a chill snaking down her spine. The man had an uncanny way of jumping on her like a hawk snatching a mouse. And she didn't like that feeling. Not one bit.

Blayre said nothing, rendered utterly speechless in her state of cold fear. Damn the man. Damn him to all twelve hells.

"Don't look so upset. I'm only trying to give you fatherly advice. Continuing your relationship with His Grace does not benefit anyone, my dear. Surely you have realized this by now." The duke picked a piece of lint from her tunic and she cringed at even the slight physical contact. "Besides, a relationship with the young sorcerer seems far more realistic for you. Considering you're both bastard-born." Lonan's gazed led in the direction of where Blayre had come from, a satisfied smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Fury welled up in her, melting the ice that had frozen her insides. Why did every person in the gods-damned capital think that women only sought relationships with men to advance their place in the world? She didn't need a man for that. Never had.

"Nothing like that is going on between myself and Sorcerer Caval, your grace." She growled, finally allowing her temper to get the better of her. "And either way it is none of your business who I choose to have relationships with. Nor should the subject of my parentage concern you."

Lonan grasped her chin and her stomach roiled. She shouldn't have said that. Maintaining her silence had been the better option. But she realized that she was as fed up with the control as Caval was. "Remember who you answer to." Caval had said the night of the ball, when she'd mentioned her predicament.

Lonan was not the Crown. And he had no right to be touching her. No right to intimidate her. "Don't touch me." She seethed, jerking her head away from him. But instead of pushing past him to go to Rory, she turned and fled like a selfish coward.

****

Blayre had a lot of thinking to do.

She stared out her bedroom window, cracked open so that a slightly humid breeze blew through, bringing with it the moisture of the falling rain. She had hoped that it would camouflage the moisture from the tears that ran down her cheeks. She wanted Lonan to burn in all twelve fiery pits of hell. If he'd only just left her alone - she was capable of making her own decisions. The right ones.

And then there was the matter of Caval. The sorcerer knew about her Sense. He had made that very clear. Had even gone so far as to show her a book that he had been reading about something that very closely resembled her special skill. Well, it hadn't exactly been an academic text. More of a book of legends revolving around the tribes on the other side of the Airgean mountains.

The very tribes Blayre's father treated with.

The very tribe that Lord Darach had removed her from as a babe.

Did the answers lie on the other side of the mountains? Perhaps she was not as alone as she had always felt.