Chapter 13 #2
I turned back to my father, squeezing his hands, praying I'd find some ounce of his former self in his eyes. For a moment, his dark gaze shimmered and he reached out to run his thumb across my cheek.
“My daughter, how gentle you are. Are you looking forward to the pageant?”
I shook my head, angry that he was ignoring everything I'd asked of him. “No,” I snapped, losing any self-control I had left. “I don't want to be bought, Father. Surely I deserve the right to choose my own husband?”
“The pageant is tradition,” he said softly. “Magdor's son, Kahn, will likely win anyway. He is a fine, upstanding man. He will make you very happy.”
Anger. Hot, red and everywhere, took me hostage and I rose to my feet knowing begging was pointless. So I decided to see what shouting Magdor’s crimes to the rooftops would do.
“She is in your head,” I barked, my hand snapping out to point at his witch of a wife.
She had the gall to hold a hand to her chest and look aghast, but I wasn’t even close to done.
“She’s controlling you, Father, don’t you see?
Just the other day she fed some potion to Kahn bought from a Prophet of the Fallen to make him handsome.
You must have noticed that. All of you must have.
” I turned my heads to the guards, seeking some movement, some sign that they were listening and that they believed this too.
Because surely they had all witnessed what Magdor had done.
What she was capable of. They were the eyes and ears of this palace.
They were here before she was, they had to know something.
“Do you have anything to say, guards?” I called to them, but they remained stock still, ignoring me as if my voice was nothing more than the squeak of a mouse.
Cassius would have believed me. He would have seen something, and he would have spoken now had he still been here.
My throat thickened as I thought of Magdor ordering his death and I barrelled on, not letting myself dwell on the pain of that moment.
Father was looking at me with a patient expression, but he didn’t seem remotely bothered by my words, while Magdor was out of her seat, drifting closer like an angry crow looking to peck my eyes out.
“From the moment she arrived, she has disrespected me,” I hissed.
“I am nothing but respectful, Your Majesty,” Magdor disagreed.
“She has tortured me,” I growled.
“Oh, come now, I have punished you as a child ought to be punished, that is all. You really are so dramatic, my dear.” She clucked her tongue, reaching for my arm but I knocked her hand away from my skin, rearing up and cupping my father’s cheek so I was all he could see.
“Her ring is laced with emperian cobra venom,” I said urgently.
“Have the guards take it from her and check it. She injected me with it.” I yanked up my silk sleeve, showing him the mark, though it was barely visible now, just a tiny, raised bump.
“What an imagination she has, it really is quite delightful,” Magdor said, painting on a smile.
“One of her serving girls pricked her with a pin, that’s all.
The girl was quite distraught about the mishap as well, it’s rather unfortunate that you would point the blame at her, but if you’d rather she was punished for it-”
“That’s not what I said.” I swung around, hunting for the ring on her hand which held the evidence of that venom, but it wasn’t there. Gone. The only ring cladding her fingers was the one binding her to my father in marriage, and the sight of it made my gut twist.
“Search her rooms!” I ordered the guards. “You’ll see. You’ll find evidence that she’s wielding magic against my father.”
The guards didn’t move and as I looked down at the emperor again, I found him gazing serenely at me as if he hadn’t heard a word I’d said.
“Your hair is so like your mother’s,” he whispered. “So rare.”
“Yes,” I choked out at the mention of her, leaning in close to him. “You remember what you used to call us?”
He raised a hand to run his fingers through my silver hair and my heart swelled with how much I’d missed the affection of my father.
Sometimes I felt like I was made of metal, my skin cold and uninviting to the flesh of others, because no one touched me anymore.
I really was becoming a trophy, turning into a pretty chalice day by day, and soon I’d feel as empty as one too.
“My songbirds,” Father whispered and a tear slipped from my eye at that nickname which I had missed so much.
“Yes,” I breathed, nodding but then Magdor’s shadow fell over us and the man I knew so well vanished from his eyes once more.
“Sweet daughter, are you looking forward to the pageant?” he asked as if he had forgotten he’d asked that same thing already.
A growl built in my throat. He wouldn’t listen to me even if I yelled for days on end. I was a songbird for real now, trapped in a cage, and I could see clearer than ever that the pageant was going to go ahead. There was no way out of it.
I stared at my father, my heart fracturing at his cool expression. “Don’t hurt that farmer. Lower the taxes. Stop punishing the people of our city for failing to meet such impossible goals.”
Magdor released a tinkling laugh, snaring my attention again.
“You're quite the philanthropist, my dear. What in the world would happen to the kingdom if you were allowed to rule it? There would be nothing but chaos. Order is created by earning respect, Austyn. The crown is respected because punishment is enforced if it is not. If you had your way, the people would run amuck.”
I ran my tongue over my teeth, trying to work out what the hell I had to bargain with here. Being the princess should have meant I had a lot more sway than I actually did. But I was as helpless as most of the people in Osaria. No one listened to me any more than them.
I lunged forward, snatching a dagger from my father's hip in a maddened act, all other courses of action failing me and leaving me this final option, and I pressed the blade to my own cheek. His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t make a move to rise from his throne. Not yet anyway.
“I won't be your pretty little princess unless you do as I say. I'll go to the Unveiling with cuts all over my face. And then who will want to buy me?”
I'll do this. I swear I'll do this. Screw beauty. What's it worth? I'd give it up in a heartbeat to gain control over my fate.
Father stood up and my heart squeezed with hope. His eyes raked over me then he shook his head as if I was a mild annoyance to him.
“Stop behaving like a child.” He stalked away from the throne, heading across the room and slamming the door behind him.
My shoulders shuddered and tears threatened to come. But I wouldn’t let them. I wouldn’t be hurt by the fact that he’d just walked away from me.
But I am, it hurts so deeply I can’t bear it.
I faced Magdor instead and her eyes turned to darkest night as I twisted the blade in my hand, the knife seeming to sing a song against my palm.
My Affinity for metal made my skill with a blade unmatched, it moved for me like it was an extension of my flesh.
And maybe the real answer here didn’t lie with words, maybe it lay with blood.
I assessed her as she assessed me, my gaze moving to her slender throat.
How easy it would be to slice it open, or perhaps her heart was a better target.
I’d have to stab hard and true, but I could do it, my Affinities would help me, the blade would seek out the fleshy meat of her heart and skewer it for me.
“Out,” Magdor commanded the guards and they marched from the room without hesitation.
A resounding boom hit my ears as the doors shut behind them and I hid the smile that flickered at the corners of my lips.
Because I was in a maddened state with a savage answer within my grasp.
When she was dead, perhaps my father would break free of whatever spell she’d cast on him, perhaps there was a chance for our salvation.
And that chance was worth risking everything for.
My breathing quickened as she hounded closer, a parasite in my home, her eyes flashing with a fierce anger.
I’d never seen such darkness in her and it set my pulse racing as the shadows seemed to creep closer, hugging her body like she was a magnet to them, sending a shiver down my spine as a cloying kind of pressure gathered in the otherwise empty room.
I shifted the blade in my hand, moving it to my side and holding it ready, enjoying fulfilling this need within my flesh as it danced in my palm like a bird taking flight between my fingers.
Magdor’s gaze strayed to the knife then back to my face, a twisted smile resting on her lips. “And what will you do now, Austyn? Surely you’re not thinking about wielding that knife against me?”
“And what if I am?” I warned, watching her as she prowled to my right and I turned, keeping my body angled towards her, never taking my eyes off of the danger in the room.
She tossed her hair, laughing mockingly.
She still looked just as she had when she had first shown up here all those years ago, not a single new line in her skin, not a strand of grey in her hair.
It was unnatural and yet no one had ever commented on it beyond praising her beauty and claiming she must have been touched by the god of beauty and purity himself.
But I didn’t think Halios had anything to do with the creation of this monster.
“And what would you do after you stuck that little knife in me, Princess? Run to Daddy? What would he think of his dear daughter stabbing his beloved wife?”
“He doesn’t love you,” I snarled. “He loved my mother. You have bewitched him somehow. Did you give him a potion just like you gave one to your son?”