Chapter 64
Chapter
Sixty-Four
EVIE
A ll of a sudden, I was overwhelmed by a barrage of cruel sounds.
Through the thunderstorm, I heard the sound of hooves, a slash of a dagger, and a woman’s wail that chilled me to the bone.
I ran up the hill toward the rustle, only to find myself at the edge of that same grim ravine. This time, two guards stood on the cusp of the gorge, looking down. Their horses stomped and neighed, clearly disturbed.
“Think we should go down and finish her?” one of them asked.
“Willful pest, isn’t she?” the other replied. “Fuck that, I’m not risking–”
He didn’t get to finish and he never would, as a shadow appeared behind them. A flash of the blade later, their heads rolled into that same ravine, bodies falling backwards.
Zandyr turned into a blur as he swooped down into the chasm, the memory dragging me along with him and blasting me with his thoughts.
He’d set up a rune around the area to alert him when someone else wandered by. It had been so eerily silent, he’d thought the alarm would never come. No other suitors had pestered Kaya since he’d shown a modicum of public interest in her, so he’d left on a scouting mission.
He hadn’t counted on Banu and Valuta attacking someone within Phoenix Peak.
He’d rushed here as soon as the rock in his pocket, magically tied to the rune, had heated up.
After breaking his bones in the warrior ritual at Ryker’s citadel, Zandyr had finally acquired his otherworldly speed; but it was too new, too unusual for his body, and he’d arrived thirty seconds too late.
Luckily, she was alive.
The woman moaned at the bottom of the ravine, ungodly amounts of blood pouring from her mouth, as if she’d bitten the liver out of a deer. A bush lay underneath her; it had cushioned her fall enough to keep her breathing.
As Zandyr rushed to her side, she managed to raise her arm, as if to strike him. Feeble, but there was still fight in her.
Her mouth opened in a grunted scream. Beyond the blood, she now had a stump instead of a tongue.
They’d cut her tongue off, so she wouldn’t be able to curse her attackers in the afterlife.
Bile rose in my throat as I recognized her. She was the guard who’d been grimacing at Zandyr’s back in the ballroom.
“Shhh, it’s me,” he muttered gently. The guard’s hand lowered slowly. “I got you. You’ll live, Vexa.”
Vexa?
This woman looked nothing like Kaya’s girlfriend, too narrow in the face, hair dark and long, hands still calloused, but smaller.
Zandyr kneeled and gingerly picked her up in his arms. Miracle of all miracles–if this was truly Vexa–she let him, coiling her hands around his neck.
“Where’s Kaya?” he asked, voice molten steel.
The colors blew me next to that same mansion as before, just as Zandyr entered through the window. Drums resounded from the palace, melting in with laughter and shouts.
The Blood Moon celebration, Zandyr’s mind answered my unspoken question. Banu and Valuta wouldn’t miss shining at the ceremony for anything–and having the perfect alibi for Vexa’s disappearance.
“Kaya,” he hollered in the darkness. “Where are you?”
No reply.
He turned on the spot, hair whipping raindrops on the advisors’ furniture. He let his senses spread. Kaya was alive, Vexa was sure of it. Zandyr was, too. Banu and Valuta wouldn’t rid themselves of their Jewel.
Zandyr had never liked this house. Full of gold, it had a cold echo throughout it–an echo he could use. He heard the faintest scratch against wood and a wail.
Coming from underneath.
He crouched low, splaying his palms on the mahogany floor. He followed the sound toward the back of the room, moving like a perfect predator, movements slow and controlled. I followed him soundlessly, amazed once again at his prowess. Whoever saw him standing tall, in all his Dragon might, would have never suspected he could prowl like this.
A true warrior, agile in any situation.
He hunted the sounds until he reached a massive armoire. His fingers dug into the small scratches on the floor, as a growl ripped from his chest.
In a blur, he rose and pushed the armoire to the side, revealing hidden stairs. Small, jagged, leading down into complete darkness.
A foul scent burned his nose. It smelled vaguely human, coated with grime and fear.
Without hesitation, he descended. He flitted a stick along the walls as he went, igniting the oily end.
With my heart in my throat, I followed, covering my nose and mouth.
The wails grew louder, the scratches desperate.
The dim light flickered inside a dingy room, revealing splotches on the ground–blood, sweat, bodily fluids, I couldn’t tell.
Nothing but a wooden dowry chest awaited, carved from cherry wood and adorned with golden accents.
A human-sized chest–and it was rattling.
Zandyr took out his sword and cut the chest’s locket. Kaya popped out, stare crazed, green dress covered in foul-smelling stains. She’d soiled herself and scratched the inside of the chest until she’d ripped her nails from the beds.
I gasped behind my palm, soul aching.
“Vexa!” she cried, voice hoarse. How long had she screamed in that chest, hidden in the bowels of Phoenix Peak. She grasped Zandyr’s hands, trying to hoist herself up. “They beat her and took her–”
“I found her,” he said evenly, words clipped. He didn’t want to scare Kaya even more, but he couldn’t leash his fury. Not this time. There were years-old scratches inside that chest. “She’s with Master Sylvannis.”
“Sylvannis?” Kaya’s eyes went wide. “My parents–”
“He’s loyal to me, not to Banu and Valuta. Vexa will live.” He gently helped Kaya out of the chest, holding tightly onto her arms as she struggled to find her balance. How many days had she been in there? The chest was big, but she would have been forced to push her knees to her chest and coil her arms to fit. “Sylvannis also said he knows a good Morgana flesh fabricator to change her appearance. She’ll be healed and anonymous, free to escape the Blood Brotherhood and live out her days safely.”
Kaya shook her head sadly. “She won’t want to leave. I already begged her to.”
“Kaya, I’m only going to ask you once,” he said. “What is going on?”
“We’re in love. We were so careful, but one of the guards saw us kissing and told my parents,” she mumbled.
“I’d gathered as much.” After all, the ravine had been used for Kaya’s suitors, official or not. “I’m talking about this . This infernal room. The chest. You .”
Kaya bit her bottom lip, shaking her head. “I–I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Not an option anymore.”
“Zandyr–”
“Kaya.” His voice slashed inside the small space. “I let you keep your secrets once. Not anymore.”
“It’s…” Her shoulders caved. “It’s my dowry chest–and my punishment. To never forget my true purpose in life–to marry you and end up on the Blood Brotherhood throne. Whenever I misbehaved or looked wrong or said the wrong thing or forgot to dye my hair in time, my parents…they reminded me what my role is.”
“How long?”
“For a few days. The longest was a week, but they forced me to drink water and–”
“How long has this been going on?”
She looked down at her chest. “Since I started…you know…growing.”
She’d been young , barely on the cusp of growing out of childhood, if that.
She shrugged, lifeless. “It’s better than the beatings from before. At least the chest doesn’t leave marks on me.”
My eyes stung and I was powerless to stop the tears flowing down my cheeks.
I’d judged Kaya. Gods, I’d even said it to her face, consumed by my own grief. I could have never imagined this is what she’d had to live through.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Zandyr breathed out.
“I was…I was ashamed.”
“Kaya…you did nothing to deserve this. Nobody could.” Except Valuta and fucking Banu. “This is not your fault.”
“I know.” Kaya shrugged again. It was obvious she didn’t know, even if she spoke the words. “And I knew what you’d do if you found out.”
“What I have to do.” The rage was already swirling inside of him, eager to lash out. He’d escort Kaya to Master Sylvannis, then go inside that fucking party and–
“No.” Kaya finally looked up at him, a hint of defiance on her face. “You said you wouldn’t want to turn them into martyrs. They’re still powerful.”
Zandyr stared long and hard at her. Yes, the advisors still had an iron grip on the Blood Brotherhood, but Zandyr had begun to unfurl their fingers. The coinmaster was already working on investigating the advisors’ unfathomable wealth. Lord Valenthir and the Port Master had started drinking harder spirits, persuaded by one of Zandyr’s best and most beautiful spies. The civilians might still latch onto Banu and Valuta’s former glory, but they’d begun whispering about the guards.
He’d only had a few months to shatter a prestige built in decades, a task made infinitely harder by his parents. They protected the advisors and kept sending Zandyr on missions, away from the Capital, as if worried he might uncover something he shouldn’t.
“That’s not the reason you don’t want me to kill them. You still care for them,” he said at last, as softly as the violence bubbling inside him allowed. “ They did this to you.”
“They’re still my parents,” she said, almost inaudibly.
“They’re monsters.”
“Yes…I…” She blinked too fast, like I’d seen Zavoya do, and my chest constricted. I wouldn’t have put it beyond Banu and Valuta to toy with their own daughter’s mind. But she, at least, seemed to be fighting it better than the king and queen. “They’re still my parents.”
Zandyr pursed his lips in a thin line. Kaya was not ready to accept the truth blaring at her. Fine. There were other options. “Then run away with Vexa. Leave all this behind and live your life.”
“I can’t.” She raised the hair from beside her right ear, revealing a faint rune on her perfect skin. “They can track me wherever I go.”
Banu and Valuta had branded her.
They’d branded their own child.
“Zandyr…they will stop at nothing until I sit on that throne with you,” Kaya managed to get out. “I’m sorry. I–”
“It’s not your fault. It never was.” He took her hands in his, trying to ignore the bloody broken nails, even as his heart wept. His mind veered from one plan to the other at a frightening speed.
Striking now would derail the Blood Brotherhood, that he knew.
The king and queen were against him.
The advisors’ had strong allies.
There were rumbles of unrest at the borders and some concerning rumors about the Serpent heir that he couldn’t ignore.
He felt suffocated from all sides, so many fires blazing around him.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” he declared in that unflinching tone of his, the perfect embodiment of the Clan prince. “You will move out of this house into your own. After the flesh fabricator is done with her, Vexa will be unrecognizable, she will blend in without question and use a different name in public. Then I’ll proclaim you need a personal guard. And we will marry to distract Banu and Valuta until I can tear them down.”
Such a victory would give the advisors a false sense of triumph, enough for him to strike at the right time–and would shield Kaya from their viciousness.
After he’d witnessed this room, he feared Banu and Valuta might actually kill her.
Kaya looked up at him, disbelieving. “You’re engaged to that Protectorate girl. The contract–”
“The girl is dead. Someone would have found a trace of her by now,” he said, despite the faint echo of sadness Zandyr tried hard to ignore; he blamed it on the contract between our Clans. “We’ll marry until I deal with Banu and Valuta. If they want you on the throne, then they might convince my father to give me the crown sooner than he intended.”
Becoming king meant he would make the rules–and one of the first ones would be against the advisors. But they didn’t need to know that.
“Then, when it’s all done, we’ll divorce,” he said. “You’ll be able to live your life in peace and I can help my Clan.”
“Promise,” Kaya choked out, as if she couldn’t quite believe it.
“I’ll oath it.” Zandyr drew his sword and slashed a long line on his palm. “But you have to promise you will not let anyone know about this.”
He was no fool. He already suspected Banu and Valuta were toying with the king and queen’s minds. If Kaya had hidden her relationship with Vexa, she had some immunity from her parents’ powers, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He’d rather bet on survival instincts than a human’s promises, even Kaya’s.
The oath was the only way to keep their secret.
The air turned thick around them, as if the magic in Malhaven sensed a blood oath was about to take shape.
“Deal.” Kaya gulped and pricked her own palm on the sword, then slid it into Zandyr’s. “We will marry, then divorce, out of necessity, not love or resentment.”
“You won’t reveal the truth of why, through fair means or foul.” I felt his skin igniting painfully, like someone had dropped salt into the wound. His body didn’t like Kaya’s blood.
“You won’t be able to tell anyone, either,” Kaya said quickly. “Vexa’s life–”
Zandyr sent her a warning look. Words were important now. “Vexa’s life is her own and we have no bearing upon it.” He twisted the words. “I won’t speak of this secret either, not before or after the marriage.”
Their palms tightened around each other, controlled by an outside force. I could almost taste the metallic tinge in the air. This was only a memory, a past I could not change, but I still had to force myself to stay still and not rush toward them to pry their hands apart.
“We will see this through until our goals are fulfilled.” Zandyr clenched his jaw against the pain. A blazing feeling shot into my own. “This we promise under the cross of death–”
“You can’t kill Banu and Valuta Kovetmore!” Kaya burst out suddenly, the chant not in her own voice. “This we promise, for fear of death, now and beyond!”
Zandyr ripped his hand away from her and stared at his palm. The wound hissed and the skin restitched instantly.
“I don’t–” Kaya shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.”
Zandyr could.
If his suspicions were correct, the advisors could have instilled some command in her to protect them even at the cost of her own life. Or maybe Kaya’s misplaced empathy for her parents was simply that strong.
Either way, it was done.
He’d made a blood oath, the effects of it still burning through his veins, but hidden from Banu and Valuta.
Let them live long enough for him to destroy their reputation. And, after that… accidents could always happen. His father had said the Clan roads weren’t defended enough, after all.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.” His large palms circled her thin shoulders. “I think Vexa has been asking for you, I couldn’t tell–”
A nagging sensation burned the back of my neck. I turned, afraid Banu and Valuta would barrel in.
There was nobody there. Zandyr and Kaya didn’t react like anything was wrong.
I shook my head. It must have been the remnants of the oath taking hold of Zandyr’s blood, making me jittery.
Kaya gasped, eyes reddening further. “They cut out her tongue, didn’t they?”
Zandyr nodded grimly. “Sylvannis says it wasn’t a normal cut. There was some weird magic involved. He doesn’t know if he can help–”
I jolted on the spot. Zandyr and Kaya didn’t move.
What in the–
My mouth opened to scream, even as I was yanked painfully away from the memory.
It felt like my very soul was being ripped away.
I startled awake, my body still draped over Zandyr’s, my lips just above his.
I looked around wildly.
Adara stood above me, her hand on my shoulder. She’d pulled me back to reality.
“Thank the gods, everyone thought you were dead.” She breathed out, her eyes fully focused on me. “The Viper has arrived.”