The stakes are high, the love is forbidden, and the slow burn turns steamy in this swoony, witty, and heart-stoppingly romantic sequel to instant Osric is a member of the Fyren Order, a guild of assassins who gleefully murder for money. Aurienne is a Haelan, a scholar-healer whose Order’s motto is Until they don’t. When Osric first bribed Aurienne to heal him, he never imagined those lines would begin to blur. But every healing session draws them closer together. He finds himself developing unwanted feelings for Aurienne as her capable hands heal his body--and his heart. Aurienne’s perfect life has been flung into chaos in the form of a devastatingly handsome assassin. She should be in her research lab, not illicitly healing a Fyren every full moon--nor wrestling an attraction to him that threatens to slip into something else. Things go superbly sideways when Osric and Aurienne discover more about the deadly Pox deliberately unleashed through the Tīendoms. The plague may be the work of another Order--an Order far nastier than either of them can handle. As the lines between Osric and Aurienne continue to blur, the balance between peace and war, and love and hate, trembles, shifts, and hinges on a heartbeat.

Autorentext

Brigitte Knightley

Leseprobe
The Story Thus Far

When we first meet Osric Mordaunt, assassin extraordinaire and occasional dickhead, he is afflicted by seith rot, a disease that erodes his powers and will eventually kill him. The only one with the expertise to heal him is Aurienne Fairhrim, a researcher who specialises in seith. The complication: Osric is a member of the Fyren Order, a guild of ruthless killers-for-hire; Aurienne is a member of the Haelan Order, an order of scholar-healers. They detest each other.

Osric, desperate for a cure for his seith rot, attempts to bribe Aurienne to help him. She refuses, but her superior, Xanthe, commands her to do it, because the Haelan Order is also desperate: an illness called Platt's Pox has re-emerged with extreme virulence, leaving thousands of children dead or brain-dead. Osric's bribe will go a long way towards launching an immunisation programme.

A forced collaboration ensues between Osric and Aurienne. Osric learns that seith rot isn't curable through any known means, but he convinces Aurienne to revive an old research project, with him as her experimental subject. They follow a fairy-tale-based healing protocol at the full moon. At first, Aurienne hates it, as it isn't real science. However, moon by moon, they begin to see results: Osric's seith rot slows. More disturbingly, every encounter brings them closer. Their bickering and hostility grow into unwilling attraction.

As the Pox epidemic rages on, Osric helps Aurienne investigate an attempted break-in at Swanstone, the headquarters of the Haelan Order. This leads them to Wellesley Keep, where they commit a mass murder (oops) but also discover a cellar full of mysterious bottles. Suspecting that these contain Platt's Pox, Aurienne takes some for testing.

At the Fyren HQ, one of Osric's Fyren colleagues, Brythe, mentions an upcoming job at Swanstone. Worried for Aurienne's safety, Osric ambushes and kills Brythe. Osric, seriously injured in the fight, discovers that Aurienne wasn't even at Swanstone. She was at her parents' house in London. He joins her there, posing-much to her annoyance-as her paramour. While healing him, Aurienne learns of Osric's heroism in protecting Swanstone from Brythe. Osric's stay culminates in a dance, during which, because they are posing as lovers, they share a kiss. The kiss confuses them both-it feels too good and far too real.

Osric is summoned to the Fyren HQ by the Fyren leader, the formidable Tristane. He learns that, given Brythe's mysterious disappearance, Tristane has decided to take care of the Swanstone job herself. Osric alerts Aurienne that Tristane is on the way to the Haelan headquarters. Aurienne is grateful for the warning. She confirms that the substance in the mysterious bottles is the Pox, which means that the plague was deliberately unleashed. As they talk, Aurienne realises that the infected children might be used to create an army of brain-dead monsters: Dreor, a nearly extinct Order of death-knights.

Because Osric helped her so much, Aurienne has a change of heart. She had previously refused to go with him to the Druidic headquarters known as the FÆrwundor, because Osric is wanted under Druidic law (he murdered their leader for cash). She agrees to sneak into the FÆrwundor with him at the next full moon. This time, she hopes to heal his seith rot, not just slow it.

Osric notices that she has softened towards him. He realises that they are not sitting in the moonlight as enemies but rather as lover and beloved. He no longer owns his heart; it has passed into her keeping. But she is a Haelan and he a Fyren. There can be no love between them. His final thoughts are on the impending pain of it, the folly of it, the beautiful impossibility of it all.

1

Qui Dit Aimer Dit Souffrir

Osric

Tall and stark stood the fortress of Swanstone. Its steep battlements, overtopped with moss and seaside centaury, tumbled towards the shore. Beyond the ramparts shivered an agitated sea. White waves crested like knife-cuts before collapsing into black water. The tide was rising.

Outside the tallest window of the tallest tower sat Osric Mordaunt. Bastard by birth, Fyren by profession, scoundrel by inclination.

Inside the tallest window of the tallest tower sat Aurienne Fairhrim. Respected Haelan, preeminent scholar, and champion of moral good.

Once upon a time, Osric had regarded Fairhrim as purely functional, as a Means to an End whose sole merit was that she was the only one who could heal his disease. He had considered her haughty and cold, insufferably high-handed, and-most damning of all-pretty at best.

He had thought he hated her.

He had been wrong. He had been wrong about many things.

Fairhrim asked, "Is something the matter?"

Osric shook his head, but it was a lie. Something was the matter. He was falling for her. Thrilling. Sickening. He held the truth unspoken. He tasted it on his tongue.

The sun rose like a lover, languid and sublime, and ambered the sea. On the windowsill between Osric and Fairhrim sat a row of glass cloches covering medicinal plants and rare orchids. The orchids caught the dawn on petals of apricot and white. The shadows that protected Osric from detection by patrolling Wardens shrank.

Fairhrim-always the sensible one, Fairhrim-said, "Shouldn't you be going?"

Osric said, "I ought to. I'll send my deofol to you in a few days to make arrangements for the FÆrwundor."

"Thank you, again, for everything." Fairhrim lifted a cloche and picked a bloom from one of the orchids. "Take this."

He asked, "Why?"

She said, "You're an appreciator of beautiful things."

She gave him the flower. He contrived to brush his fingers against hers as he took it.

Home he floated.

At Rosefell Hall, the Mordaunt family seat, Osric placed the orchid upon the mantelpiece among jewelled music boxes and a collection of Germanic daggers. Bereft of water and heated by the hearth, the flower lasted a few days before fading.

The timeline matched Osric's feelings exactly. Fresh and vital to begin, by the third night, they had withered into shame. He studied the flower's remains with a drink in one hand and a whetstone in the other.

A Fyren in love with a Haelan. Absurd. Farcical. Impossible.

He was a fool. He was a cretin. He was the author of his own misery. Gods save him.

Gods save him, please, he added as an afterthought.

The gods were unresponsive. Which was fair; Osric did little to please them as a general rule, and oft took their names in vain, frequently in conjunction with as…