11. Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
Cyrus sat at the dining table, his plate of food untouched and his eyes fixed on Gregor, who sat at the opposite end, chewing his food with his mouth open.
Cyrus didn’t like unplanned visitors.
He didn’t like visitors at all, especially when his mind kept turning back to Essandra.
But he was quickly finding he didn’t so much mind this visit.
Gregor had sailed straight from the Shadowlands after meeting with the Shadow King, and he was furious.
Cyrus had let him rant at length in the throne room, where he’d greeted him, and continue on through the main hall, then throughout a walk of the palace grounds, where Cyrus didn’t speak at all.
And the man still hadn’t exhausted himself as they took their evening meal alone together.
The king of Japheth raged about how his nephew had met a suspicious and untimely end in the Shadowlands, for which the Shadow King had offered no retribution.
“Mikael has absolutely no regard for how one should treat an ally,” Gregor said as he shoved another slice of meat into his mouth with his hand.
Of course he didn’t. He was the Shadow King.
“And he just let that woman stand there and threaten me with war.” He licked each finger on his hand. “Threaten me with my own brother!”
That woman. The Shadow Queen. Gregor had quite a lot to say about her.
“It’s too bad your previous efforts weren’t successful,” Cyrus said.
Gregor’s bushy brows drew together. “What do you mean not successful ? What—oh!” He licked his lips. “Oh, yes, yes. Absolutely, too bad.”
Cyrus forced down the smile forming on his lips. Perhaps the queen escaping his grasp wasn’t an entire loss—it looked like she’d break the alliance between the Shadowlands and Japheth for him.
“All he had to do was give me the Destroyer,” Gregor continued.
It was now the second time Cyrus had heard that ridiculous name. “This is his commander?”
Gregor gave a jerky nod. “He can’t give me one man?”
“How many men does he have?” This was the real value of Gregor’s visit.
“Who knows?” He waved a hand in irritation. “He shares nothing ! Everything is hidden when I visit, everything’s a secret. So-called allies.”
And suddenly this man was worthless. Cyrus was now very much done with this visit.
But Gregor, in his exceptional ability to read a room, continued. “I’m in need of a good commander to oversee the various mercenary armies I employ. Do you have a man?”
Was he really asking Cyrus to give him one of his trusted men?
“You have a couple, I think,” Gregor said. “The dark-skinned one is with you quite often. I’m assuming you’d like to keep him for yourself?”
Everan. Cyrus shifted, offense creeping over his skin. “Everan is a free man who makes his own choices.”
“Of course, of course,” Gregor said quickly. “What about the golden-haired one?”
Kord. Cyrus snorted. Kord didn’t even want to fight for Cyrus; he certainly wouldn’t fight for Gregor.
“I’ll tell you what,” Cyrus said. “You find a man who wants to take your job, and he can go with my blessing.”
“Well, it can’t just be anyone. I need someone with very specific talents. A dangerous man.” He shook a long, knobbed finger. “Mikael’s man is feared by everyone. A man of blood and death. This is the kind of man I want.”
Bravat was the only man who came close to that, but Cyrus was going to kill Bravat, not send him on a job.
Gregor wouldn’t find another man like that here, even among the bloodsport fighters.
In the arena, they’d fought because they had to.
They’d fought to live, to survive. Cyrus was the only man with bloodlust now.
“Money is no object,” Gregor said. “He can name his price. I’ll pay him his weight in gold.”
Gregor might not be a man who dealt in slaves, but he acted as though he could buy whatever he wanted, perhaps because he employed an entire mercenary army, who obviously had a price.
But he didn’t understand things like conviction and heart and loyalty.
Gregor wouldn’t get a man from Rael, but Cyrus would certainly get amusement from watching him try.
When Cyrus’s tolerance was gone, he withdrew for the evening.
He would meet Gregor again in the morning for breakfast, where he hoped to convince him to break with the Shadow King.
His council had urged him to discuss joining against Serra, but if Gregor wouldn’t break his alliance with the Shadowlands, there was no use discussing anything else with him.
This was needed to allow their own alliance to progress. If one could call it an alliance.
He stopped by Essandra’s chamber on the way to his, but there was no guard at her door and no answer when he knocked.
He hadn’t seen her since he’d left her workroom.
It was probably better that way. They’d both been heated, and it would likely take her a little time before she was open to talking. He’d find her tomorrow.
For now—sleep. He closed the door to his chamber behind him.
His annoyance sat coiled in his shoulders, and he reached back and gripped the nape of his neck, squeezing tightly.
It wasn’t terribly late into the evening, but he was tired.
He stood at the edge of his bed and let his eyes close and his head fall back.
And he found himself in a kitchen.
It was a kitchen he recognized, one he’d been in before. A very, very long time ago.
The kitchen of the Mercian castle.
This vision wasn’t like other visions. He wasn’t merely an observing bystander. This was a memory, the same as the memories that he saw in others’ minds when he traveled the blood bond.
But there wasn’t a blood bond right now.
A bowl of figs sat on a wooden center table. He—or, rather, the host of his vision—grabbed one and cut it in half. Cyrus frowned. He didn’t even like figs. No sooner had he pulled the halves apart than a young woman came barreling through.
She grinned when she saw him.
The Mercian queen.
She was younger here.
Her mouth spoke silent words, rattling through them faster than he’d be able to follow even if he could read her lips. Then she pulled him down a side hall and into a back pantry. Sunlight poured through the window of the small room, but they pressed back into a recess behind bags of grain.
He obviously said something, as her hand shot up over his mouth.
They were hiding from someone.
But her face was all smiles.
He held out the fig he still had, and she smiled wider and took a bite. Cyrus watched as his thumb traced her lower lip, and he leaned forward to kiss her.
When he pulled back, she was still smiling.
Cyrus let the vision drop. He’d seen the queen many times before, and the visions of her weren’t particularly meaningful, especially a silly vision of young love. He was more interested in how blood-bond sight could come to him without a blood bond.
He’d ask Essandra.
Later.
He still felt anger from what had happened with Orion, and there was probably a little something left over from the conversation that had happened just before that.
Cyrus had been with Gregor since he’d arrived, so he couldn’t say for sure that she was avoiding him, but no doubt there was an argument coming.
He wasn’t willing to let Essandra continue to break the ownership bonds of assassins.
The Jackals certainly weren’t a group he wanted to catch the attention of.
He had enough things to worry about, and with something like this, it wouldn’t be Cyrus they’d come after—it would be Essandra. Which was worse.
His blood heated just thinking about it.
The Jackals would come after her.
They would come to kill her.
And Orion had brought this.
The thought lit a fire in him, and before he even thought about what he was doing, he strode out of his chamber and down the hall.
Orion had opened a door that couldn’t be closed now, with a danger that would linger.
Essandra was already burdened with a powerful witch after her, and now to have an assassins’ guild too… With each step, he grew angrier.
Cyrus didn’t even bother to knock. He tore straight into Orion’s room, his sword drawn.
The bed was empty.
The room was empty.
Behind him was not empty. And Cyrus spun.
The tip of his sword touched Orion’s throat just as Orion’s blades touched his.
They stood, each poised to deliver a lethal cut.
“You knew I was coming,” Cyrus said.
“I thought you might. And you’re not the quietest man in this castle.”
“Do you really think you can kill me?” Cyrus challenged, leaning directly against the points of Orion’s blades. Daring him to try.
“Oh, I’m a dead man, for sure,” Orion said. “But I’d hoped you’d stop long enough for me to tell you that I never had any intention of putting Essandra in danger. I wasn’t thinking. It was a mistake. I would never choose to hurt her.”
“Your ignorance chose for you,” Cyrus snarled back.
Orion nodded sullenly. “More men will come now, and I know that’s because of me.” He dropped his swords from Cyrus’s neck, surrendering. “You never did strike me as a forgiving man, so I won’t hold it against you if you do intend to kill me.”
That was exactly what Cyrus intended.
“But if you find the grace to spare me, I’ll make sure no one gets to her again.”
Cyrus paused. Essandra wouldn’t stop breaking the bonds simply because he told her to. But if Orion stopped the men before they even reached her…
He put more pressure on his blade against Orion’s skin.
A trickle of blood ran down the assassin’s throat.
“I can’t bond you like the Jackals can,” Cyrus said, his voice edged in warning.
“Nor would I. But you’ll consider yourself bound to me all the same.
You’ll kill every assassin that steps foot in Rael. ”
Slowly, Orion nodded.
“If something happens to her,” Cyrus warned, “I’ll carve my own mark into your flesh just before I flay your skin from your body.”
Orion swallowed. “I’ll take that as grace.”