16. Sybilla
Chapter 16
Sybilla
T he men were chained to the far wall with magic-binding cuffs and sitting slumped over in their own waste.
They held Source power yet had chosen to attempt killing me by hand.
That ignited an indignant sensation that burned to be let out. I’d felt all the intentions of their cruelty—felt their wretched hatred—and it had been like an ugly brand on my skin. That would last far longer than the extent of my injuries.
I was no stranger to the unkindness of men.
There had been prior assassination attempts.
Poisons.
Convenient carriage malfunctions.
A few attempted break-ins that Emmerick had squashed.
Sources, I missed Emmerick. His steady presence would’ve been a welcome reassurance right now.
No attempt on my life had ever come so close. He’d always been there.
I clapped my hands to get their attention. “Good afternoon, jackasses.”
The sandy-haired man who had sliced my cheek woke first. He paled when his gaze landed on me. The dark-haired man lolled his head. When he woke, his stare was distant, but he trembled.
I steadied my voice. “The faster you cooperate, the more likely you are to live.”
Neither of them moved. Neither of them spoke. When I glanced back at Krait, he was leaning against the bars, and offered a nod of approval.
“Who sent you to kill me?”
Silence. Their fear coated my tongue in a metallic, sticky flavor.
Fear made men stupid.
“I will give you until the count of three. Then I’ll inflict the same wrath I did last night and see how long you last.”
I aimed one palm at each of them.
“One...”
“We will tell you!” The light-haired one broke first.
“Nice bluff.” The caress of Krait’s voice in my head made a chill roll down the back of my neck.
“Who?” I demanded.
“The direction to kill you came from the North.”
I straightened. “‘The North’ as in north of here? Sahlmkar?”
“No,” the dark-haired man answered. “The North Corridor. Our orders came from Helos.”
My tongue grew heavy in my mouth. “You’re lying,” I growled and stepped closer.
“We’re not lying!”
“Who from Helos wants me dead?” I spat and crossed the room. I wanted to strike the man, to unhear what he was telling me. Emmerick was in Helos—he could be in danger.
“The Death Origin, Caym, has influence in the North Corridor. We answer only to him. We pray only to him.”
The man glared at Darvanda as he appeared between me and the prisoners. I almost slammed into his broad, muscular back. His Shadows stretched out of him like tendrils of dark vines and lifted the men off their asses and slammed them to the wall. Both prisoners grunted on impact.
“Your necks can be snapped. I can let my Shadows shatter every bone in your bodies. Or you will tell the Queen everything you know about whoever from Helos you spoke with.”
The light-haired assassin said, “Caym knows that Queen Wymark is the Last Daughter of Isleen, and she is a threat if not contained. His envoy told us she’d be here in Sahlmsara, that she’d be an easy kill, but clearly, he lied .” His words were hurried and panicked as he stared over Krait’s shoulder at me. “We do not know what name the Origin goes by now, or his face, only that he is in Helos. He sent an envoy to Sahlmkar who brought a dagger for us to use to kill you. We caught the boy leaving the estate—he was able to lead us to your quarters.”
Krait glanced at me over his shoulder with a creased brow. “ What boy?”
Shit.
I swallowed hard. “I’ll explain later.”
So would he...because I didn’t know what being the Last Daughter of Isleen meant, but every perfectly sculpted muscle in Krait’s shoulders and back had tightened when the title had been stated.
“Let them down,” I ordered.
Krait hesitated before dropping his Shadows and letting the men fall into a foul-smelling heap with a thud.
“You live only because I do...” I swallowed. “But I imagine a century in prison would suit you both.”
“Three,” Krait concluded. “And her mercy doesn’t match what I’d like to do to you. So thank her.”
The men blubbered their gratitude.
My mind raced, and I began to grow a bit dizzy. Someone from my own realm wanted me dead, the Origin of Death was hunting me. I turned and walked away, up the narrow stone steps. At the top, I took my first deep breath since I’d entered the cell.
I worried for my Em, who lived among people who wished to see his former Queen dead. Thoughts nagged in the back of my mind—what if he knew? What if he had conspired against me?
Those were the sort of intrusive thoughts that had kept me from telling him about his lineage in the first place...
Knowing there might be some part of my identity that had been hidden from me in the same way made my skin crawl with rage. Krait’s heavy footfall on the stairs behind me egged on my anger.
Spinning on him with the ferocity of a cornered animal, I questioned, “Did you know?”
“Did I know what ?” He stopped at the top of the stairs and leaned against the doorframe with crossed arms, having the nerve to look both pissed off and attractive.
“Are you the Origin of Death?”
He let out a few breaths of heavy, grating laughter that sent chills up my arms. “No. That would be my uncle.”
My eyebrows rose. The old texts told stories of the Shadow and Death Origins being brothers. Caym and Desidero.
Those were stories.
“Be serious,” I warned.
“Oh, I am serious,” he answered. “I’m not the Source of Death. But I am the Shadow Origin—the fifth heir of Desidero.”
His willingness to disclose this disarmed me. All of my steam and anger came crashing to a halt. He hadn’t balked at telling me that he was a fucking Source Origin— as though it were common knowledge, as though that shouldn’t rock the ground I stood on.
I shook my head, unable to believe it. The Origins were fables and fairytales—not living, breathing, growling, frowning men.
“Let’s pretend I believe that for even a moment,” I began. “Why do those prisoners think that the Death Origin rises? Why do they think I have anything to do with him?”
“Because he is, and you do.” He stared down at me intently, searching my face for a reaction while offering me no glimpse into his stakes in any of this.
I rested my hands on my hips. “What are you trying to say? Use more words.”
“Only if you explain why you didn’t tell me there was a third person in your room last night.”
“He was just a child,” I defended. I couldn't blame the boy, who had been pale with shock and fear.
I’d witnessed people I loved being hurt.
I’d stood by and done nothing when my father’s hands landed on my mother.
There was a remorse that I’d recognized in that boy’s stare. He did not belong strung up in a dungeon with those men.
Krait pushed off from the doorframe and stalked forward. I took a few steps back. The hallway was narrow, and my back soon pressed against the cool mixed-tile wall before he stopped. I didn’t love the idea of being backed against a wall in most contexts...but something about the way he moved was both intimidating and alluring.
He wasn’t touching me, but his proximity brought an intoxicating smell—the same warm spice and smoke of his pillowcases. It made me want to step closer.
“It pains me to tell you that it doesn’t matter if that boy was a toddler. He sold you out. Like it or not. I can’t keep you safe if you omit information.”
“I’ll remember that next time someone in your court tries to kill me. Since my safety seems to be very important to you.” Tilting my chin up to meet his smoked-gray eyes, I narrowed my gaze.
“There won’t be a next time,” he said.
“Because I am this ‘Daughter of Isleen’?” I retorted—wanting to know what that meant but not wanting him to sniff out my desperation.
He nodded and grunted a muffled, “ Mhm. ”
“What does that mean?”
He swallowed hard before he said, “It means you are descended from Isleen, a daughter of the First Reverist, Isolde. You are the last full Reverist aside from Caym himself—who took Isolde’s power. It means you are the only one who can continue Isleen’s line.”
I searched his face for any hint of a lie. Even if I couldn’t hear his thoughts, he would give something away.
He added, “You will be a target of Death because of it.”
When he spoke, I could feel his breath on my cheek. He still made no move to touch me, despite leaning down into my space. I could slip out past him on either side. Barely.
My heart clenched. I’d always known that an heir would strengthen my claim over the Central Corridor, but I’d never considered that I would pass the magic that coursed through me to them.
Once upon a time, I’d imagined a life with children—before my mother’s death, before the glum reality of what being a royal in Henosis meant had dawned on me.
What he was saying was a weight I wasn’t ready to bear and one that I’d never wish on another.
“Which is why no one touches you…” he whispered.
I stepped forward into his space—a challenge. The rise and fall of his chest brushed against mine. He clenched his hands at his sides, knuckles turning white, and stared down at me.
“You haven’t ever touched me without asking.” The statement flew out of my mouth before I could rethink it.
For all of Krait’s brooding, barking, big-bad-wolf ways, I realized that this man, the Shadow Origin, seemed to keep me at arm’s length. He’d taken my hand at the river only briefly and with permission. He’d only let his Shadows descend on me once upon meeting me.
Maybe once was all it took for most people to learn to not cross him.
I’d always been a slow learner.
“As I said...you can be taught to prevent anyone from laying a hand on you against your will ever again. Me, those men, Caym. I, frankly, don’t understand why your powers haven’t grown completely out of control by now.”
I didn’t understand what he had invested in my being the Daughter of Isleen, in my power. That made me weary. “Because I am a full Reverist?”
“Yes,” he answered. “You should be lethal by now—unstoppable. Your power is one that even the Origins feared. I don’t know what has stifled your magic’s growth, but you have the capability of compulsion—to completely control the feelings and actions of others.”
His closeness did weird things to my body.
I shouldn’t trust him.
Instead, heat gathered low in my abdomen, and I licked my lips. The way he gazed at me wasn’t full of fear. It was full of something akin to excitement or adoration.
The iron ring of his irises glistened, making me wonder what he would have done if I climbed him like a tree right there in the hall.
No man had ever infuriated me this much, and somehow that equated to attraction.
“ Fine,” I agreed. “Then we start figuring out how to make me ‘unstoppable.’ You teach me about what it means to be a full Reverist, about everything you know.”
I let my gaze lower to his lips, then past them to the stubble that ran down his neck and further to where the dark hair on his chest disappeared below his tunic. My hands had begun to sweat, so I wiped them on the silk of my skirt, which drew his attention downward.
He might not have been touching me, but there was something about the way his stare lingered that felt heavy and sensual.
He cleared his throat. “We’ll need to announce our intent to marry soon. Write who you need to write beforehand. If the threat comes from within your realm, our marriage will be a show of strength.”
Those words nearly jolted me out of whatever lust-filled fog I’d slipped into. I’d need to write to my friends…to Emmerick. This was not news that I wanted to reach any of them secondhand.
“I have a sneaking suspicion that there is more that you’re looking for in me than just an ally,” I whispered.
“There is,” Krait whispered back as he ran a hand through his dark tousles of hair, which I imagined pulling in a different context.
“There you two are.” Ryn rounded the corner of the hall, and Krait stepped away from me with lifted brows. The last Prince of Phynx smirked as though he knew exactly what he had interrupted.
What had he interrupted?
Two angry royals undressing each other with their eyes?
My head swam with confusion, fear and need.
I had to share a bedchamber with this man for Sources’ sake. I couldn’t keep fantasizing about ways to get him in some state of undress in the middle of a hallway.
Ryn reached us. Krait’s cheeks flushed mauve, which gave me a sense of satisfaction.
“Happy to report that an Egress has been built into a warded building in the courtyard. We are heavily guarding it—but travel for your friends in Luz is ready,” Ryn explained. “We also received notice that the next council meeting will be moved up to next week.”
I smiled—the thought of seeing familiar faces, ones I trusted, filled me with a warm sense of ease. “I will send word to Asterie and Fen. They’ll join us for dinner after the meeting.”
Who I really needed to see was Emmerick. I doubted he’d come anywhere near the Sahlms even if I begged.
The reality of what the prisoners had shared set in, and my smile faded. There was a chance that visiting him would put me in danger—something Em wouldn’t want.
I wondered if he would join our next council meeting.
I hoped he would.