Dreamwalker's Bride - Chapter 186

Chapter 186: Confrontation
Anaisa stumbled slightly, making as much noise as she could with her feet to give advanced warning of their approach to those below.

To Trace.

Barnabas grabbed her arm more tightly with his hand. It would surely bruise.

He pushed her ahead of him as a kind of shield.

Behind them walked a few soldiers, and then the king, alongside Sanders. She looked over her shoulder at the seer.

His face was grave, and concentrating, and it made her wonder if Emily was whispering to him. She had to admit the experience was rather unnerving, having another person speaking in your mind.

Anaisa concentrated on the tasks ahead. They were difficult, and so much could go wrong. They had planned for as much as possible, but Barnabas had been playing political and intrigue games for longer than she’d been alive.

They would be very lucky to outsmart the man; their main hope lie in him underestimating them… but one did not usually survive long in the political arena by underestimating their enemies.

A lot–too much, perhaps–depended on Sanders. He had been able to get the magic user controlling weather to start a storm to the North, which boded well, but even that could have been part of Barnabas’s orchestration to lull them into thinking their plan was working.

He shoved her again and growled into her ear. “What have you little rats managed to do, down here in the dark?”

“Survive,” Anaisa snapped back. “We’ve managed to survive.”

“And hoard treasure, I see, only to abandon it?” He looked at her. “Scared away by a little smoke?”

Anaisa glared at him. He should know very well how suffocating smoke would be in a contained space like this… but did he think they’d given it up too easily? Or did he suspect there had been none at all?

“I’m not scared of anything,” She tilted her chin defiantly, and Barnabas raised one eyebrow.

“A liar. Like your father,” He tutted. “I think you may find a similar end.”

“I’ll never do what you tell me,” Anaisa tried to jerk her arm away, but he held fast.

“Only because I would not waste my time telling you what to do,” He shook his head, keeping his words vague enough that no one close enough to overhear would draw the conclusion that he actually had the power she’d accused him of.

He rolled his eyes, as if she were so far beneath his notice that there was no circumstance that would prompt him to use his power on her.

She wondered exactly how much he’d used on the king. And if he had any left to use…

“Coward,” Anaisa huffed under her breath. Name calling was juvenile, but the family temper was strong.

Barnabas controlled his with an air of practiced ease now, like a cat facing a mouse that dared to squeak out insults as it waited to be eaten.

“The coward in all this is your husband,” Barnabas said coolly. “Hiding far below while I have his injured, suffering wife in my grasp? Pathetic indeed. One might think arranged marriages are all for nothing when a man shirks his most basic duty.”

“He has a greater duty,” Anaisa defended Trace fiercely, both to keep Barnabas distracted and to convince him that her capture wasn’t part of the plan. A little loss over the control of her tongue. Just a little. “But you don’t know the meaning of duty, do you, Barnabas? You’ve eschewed every possible path to honor and chosen depravity, murder, deceit, and magic to get your way!”

Barnabas’s grip on her arm tightened enough to make her bite back a cry of pain. She drew a hiss of breath between her teeth, and he chucked.

“So brave in the face of execution,” He moved closer, leaning to whisper in her ear. “Maybe I’ll order him to be the one that takes your head from your shoulders. Wouldn’t that be entertaining?”

Anaisa thrashed against him, elbowing him in the ribs. He yanked on her shoulder, sending her crashing to her knees.

“Insolent wench,” He spat at her. “How dare you attack a Count of the Realm!”

“That position should be mine, and Katia’s! Not yours!” She retorted, preparing to release everything she’d been wanting to say for so long.

There was little for her to lose. She’d revealed all the truth about her past. She might as well throw it in his face in front of the soldiers and water the seeds of doubt they had about his leadership.

“Your father was a confessed traitor righteously executed,” Barnabas delivered a swift kick to her stomach, and she fell the rest of the way to the cave floor. He’d released his hold on her arm to tower over her.

“I have no doubt in my mind that you ordered him to make that confession,” Her breath was shallower than she wanted it to be; his kick had driven much of it from her. “You killed him. How many have you murdered? How many of the queen’s babies? How many heirs to the realm have died by your machinations, your poison?”

There were audible gasps in the cave from all who heard her accusation. Anaisa glanced at the king, who wore an expression of contained, tortured rage.

He must have suspected before, when all this began happening, that Barnabas was behind the poisoning as well, but having it said out loud must have hit him more harshly. Beside him, Sanders looked completely shocked.

That made sense; the man could only see magical acts, not mundane poisons used against a magical person. And Barnabas had not used magic to compel Nivan to poison the queen.

“Is that why you kidnapped the queen’s doctor?” Barnabas tilted his head, “To torture him until he would agree to frame and accuse me of such a vile act? I did not have access in the palace until the last year, I know of no harm that has come to any other heirs.”

His voice was calm. Calculating. It was masterful. Implying that the doctor’s departure was part of the traitors’ plot, and that framing Barnabas was one of their goals.

“You have quite a talent for spinning lies,” Anaisa snapped. “I hope you’re caught and hung in your own web.”