Chapter 5 #4
Kahn started jerking, his limbs twitching and the rolls on his thick neck weirdly smoothing out.
I blinked hard, unsure if I was hallucinating.
But then the impossible happened and his ears grew smaller, more normal until there was nothing odd about them at all.
Hair sprouted from his bald head and long, flowing locks of auburn tumbled over his shoulders.
His muscles bulged against his tunic, even more prominently than they had before and I took a step back, alarmed by what I was witnessing.
I’d never seen magic before. I’d read books, knew all the stories of old, but never in all my years had I seen something so powerful at work right before my eyes.
“What's happening?” I breathed, backing up further, adrenaline bursting through my veins, but Magdor's nails sliced into my shoulder before I could get away.
Kahn jerked upright, wiping the soup from his jaw and I stared at the changes to his face in stunned silence.
By the Fallen. He was somehow handsome with a straight, chiselled nose, eyes of deepest brown framed by dark lashes, his mouth fuller, smoother and hooked up at the corner in a way I didn't recognise at all. No…this is wrong. This isn’t natural.
“He now has the beauty to capture your heart,” Magdor purred in my ear. “A perfect suitor for a perfect bride. A gift from me to you. What more could a woman ask for?”
I pulled away from her, horrified by what she was suggesting. That changing Kahn's looks would make me see him any differently. He was still a man who wanted to buy his way to owning me. Still the son of the stepmother I hated. Still as dumb as a rock and as indecent as a whoremonger.
Kahn turned his hands over, eyeing his flesh as his fighting scars faded away to leave nothing but gleaming smoothness.
“Mother,” he gasped. “I think I'm having an episode.”
She hurried over, patting him on the arm as she gazed up at his defined features. “No, no darling. This isn't one of your blackouts.”
Blackouts??
“You're quite fine,” Magdor went on. “Your wife-to-be has offered you a great gift so that she can love you inside and out.”
“ Magdor ,” I snarled, regaining my senses and realising she had just broken the law, had thwarted my father’s rules on such magic as this.
Hope surged inside me, because this could be my chance to get rid of her at long last. “This is not my doing. I have witnessed your crimes and I will have you arrested by the Royal Guard.”
I looked around for assistance, but the balcony was empty and Magdor just tittered a laugh.
“Oh Austyn, you really do have a big imagination. Those laws are made by my husband, and there have been changes made to them in recent months, perhaps you hadn’t heard?
Then again, it isn’t your duty to worry yourself with things like politics.
So let me inform you that acquiring potions from Prophets is acceptable within the right circumstances under a new decree and as the empress, I am always in the right circumstances. ”
“My father won’t stand for this. I’ll tell him,” I growled, but the confidence in her gaze was making me doubt. When had he ever listened to me since she’d arrived in our home?
“You truly are making a fuss over nothing.” Her eyes flashed with danger. “How spoiled you are to throw this gift back in my face.”
Kahn beamed, staring at me with a cocky assuredness as he swept a hand through his thick hair.
“I will be the most envied of husbands in the land, Princess. It is only a matter of time before you fall madly in love with me. Now bite your tongue like an obedient girl and come lay a kiss on my cheek.” He offered it to me and my hand curled into a fist, ready to snap out and break the perfect alignment of his new cheekbones.
Rage erupted inside me as I stalked towards him, the angry creature in my chest raising its head and spitting acid.
“I could never love you. Handsome or ugly, it makes no difference. I wouldn't choose to marry you if you were the only man left in this world and the future of the Fae race depended on it!” I swung my fist and I was fairly sure he was so caught off guard by a woman throwing a punch that he didn’t even try to block the blow, my knuckles cracking against his cheek with a satisfying thwack.
“Austyn!” Magdor shrieked, but she wasn’t the one to get hold of me, Kahn was, his grip like a vice on my arm. His face blanched of colour, then reddened, shifting from somewhere between purple and orange as embarrassment and rage coloured his features.
“Do not hit me,” he hissed through his teeth, spittle raining down over my veil and I yanked at my arm to try and get free. But he wouldn’t let go, a violent storm brewing in his eyes and setting my heart racing with fright.
Magdor stepped closer, rubbing his arm. “Now, now, baby. Take a breath,” she encouraged and the note of concern in her voice sent a tremor through my chest.
“Let me go, Kahn,” I commanded, keeping my voice steady but his grip only tightened to the point of pain, bruising his fingerprints onto my flesh. “Now,” I snapped with a ring of authority to my tone and to my surprise, he listened.
Kahn backed up and suddenly let out a roar that sounded more animal than man and fear raced through to my core. He turned towards the table, lifted it into his arms and threw the whole thing over the edge of the balcony with a crash that made my heart leap into my throat.
The guards came charging back and Kahn jumped over the railing after the table, a distant thump sounding as he hit the ground below. I hurried to the edge, looking down and finding him running away across the grounds like a wild animal let loose from its cage.
“What’s the matter with him?” I gasped.
Magdor grabbed my shoulder, yanking me around to face her. “Now look what you've done!”
“ Me? ” I balked. “This is your fault!” I looked to the guards. “She’s used magic, she bought a potion from a Prophet of the Fallen. Arrest her.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Magdor tutted, pointing to the guards. “Take her back to her rooms and make sure she doesn't come out until she apologises for this catastrophe.”
“What?” I snapped as one of the guards took hold of my arm and I gasped, horrified that he had touched me. “Unhand me this instant – this is against the law!”
“It’s my order and I am the empress,” Magdor hissed, a gleeful glint in her gaze. “Be thankful I am not having them beat you too, you insolent girl.”
The guards’ eyes were hard as they followed Magdor’s orders over mine and I seethed, knowing my position was respected less than hers, but I had never seen her wield such power before, discarding laws which had stood in place my entire life.
I was dragged away, glancing back to find Magdor marching after me with intent in her gaze and suddenly I felt like a child again about to be punished by her.
But this was far worse, because now she was doing it in plain sight, and it seemed the guards were entirely under her control.
And that scared me in a way I had yet to be scared, because I had always felt assured that they would come to my aid if I was in real danger, but it seemed a wolf was now fully in charge within these walls and I was being fed to her on a platter.
I wanted to rip the veil from my head, tear it into a thousand pieces and cast them all away to the wind. But even if the fabric wasn’t damn near indestructible, I knew I couldn’t do that and risk more innocent lives being lost for the sake of men laying their eyes on my face.
The guards shoved me into my quarters and Magdor stepped in after me, twisting a golden ring on her finger a second before she stabbed it into my upper arm.
Something pierced my flesh through the silk I was clad in and I threw my hands against her chest in alarm, shoving her back a step, but a wave of weakness washed through me and I stumbled before I could do more than that.
“What the hell have you done to me?” I panted, my chest feeling too tight and my mind growing dizzy.
I launched myself towards the door, but she swung it shut before I could make it out, closing me in with her. I collapsed against it, my legs shaking as some poison took root in my body.
“Help! Guards! Fetch my father!” I shouted, but no answer came.
Magdor ripped the veil from my head, tossing it aside and I tried to push her back, my vision swimming as I staggered, losing my balance and crashing to the floor on my back.
“Monster,” I forced out, though my lips were becoming numb, and it felt like my body was turning to stone.
She leaned over me, a dark figure haloed by the lighting above as she observed my struggle with a sick smile on her lips.
“Hush now, it’s just a little emperian cobra venom.
It’ll wear off in a few hours. It’ll hurt in the meantime though.
” She laughed and the sound echoed around and around my head as I fell into the clutches of the paralysing venom and pain swept through my veins like liquid fire.
“Perhaps after that you’ll remember to be grateful for all you have and stop complaining about the luxurious life you lead. ”
I couldn’t let out a single scream, my hands falling still at my sides, my eyes unable to blink as Magdor exited the room, leaving me trapped in a nightmare that existed within my own flesh.
I hated this life. I hated this palace. But most of all I hated Magdor.
That vicious woman who had come to this kingdom with nothing and secured herself a crown in no time at all.
Somehow, she had seized more power than I could ever hope to within my own empire simply by marrying my father and twisting him to her will.
I desperately wanted him to return to me, to see what she was and outcast her from our home. But how?
I had always thought she had some Affinity which drew him to her like a moth to flame, but now I knew she had been buying potions from a Prophet, perhaps it was more likely that she influenced his nature to comply with her desires with elixirs.
But maybe that was a good thing, because if he was just drugged, then he had to still be the man I grew up with.
He had to still love me just the same deep down inside.
No matter what Magdor was giving him, there had to be a chance that he could see reason. That his love for me could shine through and I might just be able to convince him to divorce Magdor and save me from the insanity of this pageant and the husband it would saddle me with.
The next time I was let out of this room, I was going straight to the emperor to plead my case with him, convince him of her crimes.
She'd gone too far this time. How dare she instruct her guards to lay their hands on me?
How dare she use some foul enchantment peddled by some unscrupulous Fae on her son within the palace of Osaria, despite all the dangers such magic could bring?
How dare she leave me laid out, poisoned and in agony?
I'd be telling him every damn thing she’d ever done to me and pleading my case to him, and I’d be damned if my father would let her get away with it anymore.
It was over for Magdor. And as the pain of the venom burned deeper into my bones, I held onto the hope that this was the last time I’d suffer at her hands.
Because so help me, I may have only been a girl caged, but I held power in my own right, and I was done simply bending bars.
It was time I broke free of them for good.