Chapter 27
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
EVIE
H einous, unruly, violent Clan.
I marched out of Zavoya’s court as fast as my aching feet allowed.
Another heir? In case the first one dies ?
Insane.
They were all insane.
“Are you–are you saying you prolonged your life in case he dies?” I’d asked after Zavoya’s admission, still wanting to believe I’d misunderstood.
“I love my son,” Zavoya had said, shame seeping out of every word. “But the Blood Brotherhood expects loyalty to the Clan above all else.”
“Why didn’t you have another child already?”
“Too many children at the same time have led to civil wars in the past. The throne always has a deadly lure, even in the tightest royal families.”
I’d stared at her with wide eyes, caught somewhere between shock and disgust. “Loyalty to the Clan doesn’t exclude loyalty to your own family.”
It was antithetical to everything the Protectorate and the First Family believed in.
You protected your family and you protected your Clan. The two were so tightly wound, it was hard to differentiate the fate of one from the other.
If the First Family fell, so did the Protectorate Clan.
No other option, so you made damn well sure to guard both with your life.
All that talk of brothers and sisters and fighting as one had been bullshit. The Rohenstorms didn’t even fight as one family.
“Does he know this?” I’d asked, still shocked.
“Gods, I’ve never told him. Neither has his father,” she’d said quickly, as if that made everything better. “You can’t tell him either. Swear to me you won’t.”
“I would never do something like that. And I asked you if he knows, not if you told him.”
Zavoya’s silence had been all the reply I’d needed.
“A king and queen need to continue the royal dynasty. It’s our duty,” Zavoya had gone on, sounding so well-rehearsed, I wondered how many times she’d repeated this lie–mostly to herself, probably. Who else could she have talked to about such a thing? Better yet, who had told her she should think like that?
I still searched her eyes for any sign Banu or Valuta were controlling her mouth. I found none. Maybe they’d planted the words there long ago, but they’d rooted enough that Zavoya thought they were hers.
Or she was just that selfish.
“That’s not your only duty. You need to protect your Clan,” I’d said.
“We are. Our streets are safe.”
I’d huffed an incredulous laugh. “One of the former guard’s houses burned down a few days ago.”
“Did it?” Zavoya had asked with genuine surprise.
Ignorant fool , a vengeful part of me said.
“Yes,” I’d hissed, ignoring the alarmed looks Leesa was giving me. “And half of your population is out there fighting a war. Dying.”
“Zandyr will not die.”
“Why isn’t Eldryan with him, fighting in the war?”
“We can’t continue the bloodline without him. He’s the royal, we need his blood.”
Maddening, exasperating–“Then why aren’t you?”
Zavoya hesitated. “We’re true mates. If I die, Eldryan might as well.”
I’d stared, dumfounded. “Where I come from, family takes care of each other.”
“We have. We’ve trained him well–”
You didn’t! Adara did! I’d wanted to howl.
“Zandyr will not die,” she’d said, as if it was her personal mantra.
“Everyone dies.”
“We do. But Zandyr needs to leave an heir before his time comes. So you better hurry.”
I didn’t know where Zavoya’s own thoughts ended and Banu and Valuta’s manipulations began, but Grandpa Constantine would have decapitated anyone who would have dared imply I was nothing more than a sow to be mounted.
I glanced at Leesa, tightening my chin. Time to go.
“He is not a breeding bull. Or a sacrificial lamb,” I’d said, forceful enough that Leesa gave me a warning look. “He is more than his blood and name. His own parents should have realized that by now.”
“I don’t expect you to understand our ways,” Zavoya had said instead of a farewell. “But I do expect you to follow them. For the good of the Blood Brotherhood.”
This wasn’t good in any way, shape or form.
“It’s the way of the Blood Brotherhood,” Leesa said with resignation as we rushed through the gilded hallway. “The Clan needs to survive.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m tired of rehearsed speeches. Nothing about this should be the way. He is risking his life for this Clan and his parents are using their powers to keep themselves alive to procreate again.”
My steps turned to stomps. Ridiculous, insane–“Selfish. They’re fucking selfish.”
You can get so absorbed in your mate that nobody and nothing else matters , his words from before whispered into my mind.
This went beyond being absorbed in your mate.
I still held onto a sliver of hope that Banu and Valuta had manipulated Zavoya to convince her of this lunacy, but…
At the end of the day, Zavoya and Eldryan were using their immense magical abilities to keep themselves young and fertile in case they needed to replace their son , instead of doing everything in their power to protect him and the Clan–
“They’re insane. Absolutely insane. The Blood Brotherhood didn’t become one of the greatest in all of Malhaven with leaders like that,” I said. Fine, growled.
“It’s the new way,” Leesa admitted.
“The new way is to raise the heirs to sacrifice them for the good of the Blood Brotherhood ?” I bit out. “Fuck the new way.”
“I don’t agree with it, but I understand why it’s necessary. The Rohen dynasty has been leading us for centuries, but they weren’t the ones to form the Blood Brotherhood. They took the throne through civil war and they need to hold onto it through blood. If any of the long-forgotten descendants of the former dynasty are still alive, they’d use the chance to take back what they think is theirs.”
“Didn’t the former dynasty push the Clan to the brink of collapse, which led to the Rohen uprising?” I asked, distantly remembering some passages I’d devoured in the library.
“Few remember that. We don’t speak of the former dynasty,” Leesa said. “It’s not my place, but I always wondered why the king and queen didn’t have more children already. If The Dragon dies–”
“He will not die.” I whirled around, all my anger unleashed. “He is not a pig you fatten before the feast. I have the most reason to hate him, I can’t be the only one in this forsaken family who defends him. He’s–”
“A murderer,” an unripe voice cracked from behind me.
I whipped around, flicking my switchblade open. The guard from before, who’d been openly glaring at me outside the palace, stepped out of an adjacent hallway.
He was young . Too young to be a guard, barely fifteen or sixteen, but with the hateful stare of someone who’d seen too much too soon.
But the loathing in that green gaze…it gutted me.
He was shaking, either rage or fright, but he still faced me, fuzzy top lip curled.
“The Dragon is a murderer,” he said, voice shaking. “My brother is dead because of him. And you .”
I froze, words stuck in my throat.
What could I possibly say? He was right. The war started because of him and me.
“War takes many lives,” Leesa said.
“The war could have been avoided.” His voice carried so many unshed tears, even as his gaze turned glassy. “They told me. If the prince hadn’t come for you, we would have been safe and Lythar would have still been alive. Our Clan will be destroyed because of you .”
My hand fell limply against my body. I’d just faced the court and the queen, but this kid, with his ruddy cheeks and his wobbly lower lip left me defenseless.
Shame, deep and raw, flooded me. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he hissed. “Be gone.”
“Hey!” another voice, more mature, more urgent, more familiar , echoed from the same hallway. Quick steps resounded behind the boy as another guard, tall and towering, yanked him back by his shoulders. “What are you doing?”
“Speaking the truth,” the boy shouted. His tears finally fell. “They’re destroying the Clan, everyone knows.”
“Enough,” the other guard said firmly. “You could be whipped or imprisoned for even thinking that. Go! Dry your eyes and never speak of this again.”
He shoved the kid’s shoulder down the hallway and turned to me. I inhaled sharply. The voice. The unruly curls escaping his helmet.
He was the guard who’d opened the gates on the night of the fire. Nylen, according to Adara’s sources.
“You,” I said, still in a stupor.
“Your Highness.” Nylen fell into a deep bow. “Please forgive him, he’s only a child, he doesn’t know what he’s saying. He’s too young to be punished–”
“I’m not going to punish him,” I said, finding my words again, raspy and strangled as they were.
“Thank you, Your Highness.” He kept his gaze lowered. “He’s been listening to the wrong mouths. He doesn’t truly mean harm.”
“ What mouths?”
He worked his sharp jaw for the longest time. Then his eyes finally slashed my way, searing the breath in me. They were dark, turning darker, and looked at me like they were seeing too much. “The ones who truly want you gone. Loryk doesn’t know truth from lies yet.”
“Did he really lose his brother?”
The guard inhaled slowly, muscular chest growing even wider. “Yes.”
I struggled to gulp past the lump in my throat. “Then Loryk does know the truth.”
“A warped version of it, Your Highness.” He stood up in one elegant move. “We all know the risk of being part of the Blood Brotherhood.”
Did I ?
Owyn almost got killed because he’d shown me kindness.
Loryk’s brother died in a war started because of what happened at my wedding. Many others would perish by the end of it.
Leesa and I rushed out of the palace, the soles on my feet stinging. Nylen’s dark eyes followed us, but it was the boy’s words that haunted me.
Be gone.
“Adara needs to know about this,” Leesa whispered once we entered a secluded path. “If guards are openly defying you in the palace and someone is spreading rumors–”
“We’re in more trouble than we thought,” I hurried and didn’t stop until I reached my garden, now marred with holes. I closed the gate harshly and rested my back against it. I’d known today would be difficult, but even I couldn’t have imagined what I’d face. “What did you find out?”
“Not enough. But I do know that I’m very lucky I don’t have to work for Petrylla.” Leesa grimaced. “And that she’s also very pregnant, which explains her hasty marriage to the Port Master.”
Pregnant . That was a good start.
“I need to know everything about her. How she met the Port Master. What she does with herself day in and day out. Her favorite food,” I said. “Every piece of information, no matter how small.”
“I’ll tell Adara and Goose.” Leesa nodded solemnly. “We need all the help and luck we can get.”
“Nobody will help us and we make our own luck.” I staggered toward the house, my feet now almost unusable. “Let’s look over that scroll again.”
But even as I spent countless fruitless hours in the library with Leesa and Goose, Loryk’s reddened eyes and Zavoya’s words burned in the back of my mind.
In case the first heir dies.