Shadows of the Scriptures

NINETEEN: The Unburnt Goddess

“Of course, I will need to get my father’s grant, your Graciousness,” Addie elaborated. “I can’t marry unless he approves.”

Garnif lowered himself into a polished pine chair Ser Irelli Codwan had fetched for him. “Damn knees,” he groaned, then looked up at her. “That ought to not be a problem. Has he any reason to disapprove?”

“No, your Graciousness, none. But still I need his blessings.”

“Very well. Where is your father? I’ll dispatch an honor guard to go get him right away.”

“He will not co-operate,” Addie said, running her mind at fifty miles an hour. “He . . . doesn’t like nobility, your Graciousness. He doesn’t like people, when it comes to that. Least of all westerners. Besides, he will be at the docks waiting for me so we can head home. If instead of me he sees a retinue coming for him, I fear what may happen.”

Garnif wrinkled his forehead. As though it needed more wrinkling. “What do you suggest be done?”

“I could go get him, your Graciousness,” said Addie the Wise. “To the docks and back will scarcely take me till dusk.”

“No,” Garnif said. “You are too strong, there’s no knowing what you may do. We saw what you did back in the hall.”

Son of a bitch!

“Don’t you trust me?” asked Addie innocently.

“No,” said Garnif. “I venture to suggest I hardly know you, Nayari.”

“And you want to wed me all the same?”

“Indeed I do. The gods themselves do.”

Damn this cocksucking ancient dunce!

Gryphik, Sadh and Doin had already left the keep. Likely Edgaar, Maihui and the smugglers too, with bags of money instead of bags of the Elixir. She knew they would be hatching schemes to break her out. But would their schemes work, and how long would it take for them to work?

“My father is a prideful man,” said Addie firmly, trying to imagine what her own father must have been like. A drunkard who fell in a ditch and broke his neck, likely. “I will not have him brought here by brute force, nor his consent of my hand in marriage.”

“An honorable man, eh?” said Garnif. His look told her he had already figured her lie.

Damn this cocksucking, motherfucking, ancient son of a bitch! Damn him a million dozen times!

“He is, your Graciousness,” said Addie.

“An honorable man, in the line of drug exchange? Sounds a tad far-fetched to me.”

Addie bit back her rage. Her face screwed up in quiet fury. Teeth gritted. She had not suffered all she had to be detained by an old rugrat who wanted to marry her because she resembled his dead wife. She would not be a coward as she had been when faced with those demon Shadows and let her mentor die. She would not let the gods play with her like a piece on a boardgame. Not anymore. Heat descended down her neck, concentrated into her nails. She hardly noticed Violet Smoke swathed around the Wolf’s muzzle.

All of a sudden, Garnif’s grin froze on his wizened face like sap on bark. He clutched his chest with both hands, gold scepter spinning on the floor, and slumped in his chair.

The guards behind him stared for an extended moment. Lucindelle craned forward, touched the Highlord Commander’s shoulder. “Father?”

The old man did not so much as twitch.