“Don’t worry about that. I know you’re good for it.”
Before Mr. Sandbar could take the cup the door opened again and everyone went still. In the doorway stood Mr. Riverton, an ordinary-looking man in his early thirties. But to the village he wasn’t ordinary at all—he was their one and only registered Lashed. He rarely came out except to pick up a bottle of mead from the bar now and again. Paxton felt himself go tense all over as his fellow villagers glared at the man. Mr. Riverton hadn’t fared well in the last few years, but Lashed never did. They seemed to age faster than normal people, dying decades sooner than they should. It didn’t help that most couldn’t find jobs and had to support themselves on the land or starve.
Paxton had caught his own mother sneaking food to Mr. Riverton’s lean-to porch early one morning, but he’d never told her he saw.
Mallory’s husband began breathing fast and ragged as he took in the sight of the Lashed man.
Mr. Riverton looked about at the staring faces, landing on Mr. Sandbar’s. “S-sorry, I was only picking something up to go . . . I’ll just . . .” His hand fumbled for the door handle to exit, but Mr. Sandbar flew across the room in a rage, brandishing a knife from his pocket that he shoved to the Lashed man’s throat, pressing him against the wall. Everyone crushed forward to see. Paxton and Tiern leaped from their stools, pushing through the crowd.
“What did you do to her?!” Mr. Sandbar shouted.
Mr. Riverton kept his hands up, his eyes closed. “I didn’t do anything, I swear!”
“I saw you look at her two days ago. You stared at her stomach! What did you do?”
“I was glad to see how well she was progressing—that’s all!”
“Lies!” Mr. Sandbar pressed forward, denting the Lashed man’s throat, causing a trickle of blood to flow. “You’re a filthy murderer! Just like your hero, Rocato!”
Mr. Riverton’s panicked eyes shot open. “Rocato was a madman! I’m nothing like him—”
“More lies!” Mr. Sandbar’s shout came out a sob as tears began to seep from his angry eyes. “You took my boys, just by looking at her!”
“Mr. Sandbar!” Paxton shouted. He grabbed the mourning man by the shoulder. “He can’t hurt her with his eyes, you know this. He has to touch with his hands to work magic, and I’m certain he’s never gotten that close. Am I right?”
Paxton looked at Mr. Riverton, who whispered hoarsely, “I never touched her.”
“Come on,” Paxton said. “Let’s get you back to Mallory.” He gave the man a gentle tug to pry him away from the frightened, cornered Lashed.
Tiern, who’d had the good foresight to grab the cup of alcohol, took the hand of Mallory’s husband and pressed the cup into it. His knife arm dropped and his eyes cleared, seeming to remember why he’d come.
“I’ll go with you,” Tiern said. He led the stricken man out of the bar.
The people continued to glare at Mr. Riverton, who lifted a shaking hand to his bloodied neck. He took one last glance around at the hostile faces before turning and rushing out, not bothering to get what he’d come for.
“Good riddance,” a woman whispered. “Their kind shouldn’t be allowed in here.”
Paxton clenched his teeth as a roar of familiar anger sounded inside him. He pushed his way back through the people and slid two copper coins across the bar. “This should cover Mr. Sandbar’s bill and my drink. Keep the rest.” The barkeep nodded, pale faced, and took the payment.
When Paxton turned to leave, the two lasses stood in his path, pretty in long braids and cotton skirts. He knew them to be sixteen, a year younger than Tiern.
“That was generous of you to pay his debt,” one of them said, tilting her head demurely up at him. “The poor man.”
When he looked at the girl, all he saw was future heartache and loss—the same fate that awaited all who wished to start families—not the kind of future he wanted for himself. Paxton didn’t plan to remain in Cape Creek forever.
“Get yourselves home before nightfall,” Paxton said.
He sidled past the girls and left the suffocating pub behind him.
Chapter
3
Princess Aerity could not sleep past daybreak. She woke and stared from her vast arched windows at the sea and the far creek that split through thick woods at the northwest end of the gray stone castle.
In all of her seventeen years, Aerity had never seen her father, King Charles, so focused on a foe. The entire castle was on edge. And for good reason.
The great beast was real.
Her cousin and dearest friend, Lady Wyneth, had seen it with her own eyes mere days ago, and the kingdom had lost one of its best and brightest naval officers. Breckon had been the pride and future of Lochlanach.
Since that attack, the entire castle seemed to be covered in a suffocating blanket of mourning and fear.