Chapter 48 Kidan
KIDAN
Kidan explained Obsculion to Susenyos on the walk back to campus. His jaw was taut and he wasn’t so much parting the branches to make way as hacking at them mercilessly. Each time the sound punctured her ears, Kidan winced.
Of course any talk about his lost immortality was difficult, let alone sharing it with his enemy.
“Obsculion, the process of magnifying emotions in visitors,” he said without expression. “I’ve read it in Mahlet’s journal.”
The exact opposite of House Locking. A relieved smile touched her lips.
Perhaps this was an opening. “Yes. I know we can’t kill him, but the house can help me draw out the truth from him.
About where the Nefrasi hideout is, about where the blade artifact is.
But the seeds of an emotion must be present first. Samson doesn’t have enough trust in me but he’s beginning to… ”
Kidan’s voice drifted, a harrowing grief unfurling in her. Etete’s death had been the price and still, it wouldn’t be enough to sway someone as cautious as Samson.
Susenyos stopped walking suddenly, the frame of his shoulders so still. “You think telling him I’ve lost my immortality will help bridge this trust between you two?”
“Yes.”
She watched his face transform, become guarded.
“Why not carve out my heart and give it to him?”
His words threatened to make her retreat, but she kept pushing. “He wants to punish you. Not kill you. For whatever you did to him, he wants to see you weakened.”
“I’m not weak.” Susenyos’s pupils contracted, a devilish red, with a fleck of gold sparking in the middle.
She shielded her eyes at the sheer brightness. “Let him think he won, Yos. Let him feel powerful for a day or a week so you can have everything you want.”
Taj and Iniko had stopped several steps behind, anticipating this fight and wanting to spare themselves.
“Never,” he said in a final tone.
“This is how we get him to lower his guard!”
Finally, they could be rid of Samson and get everything back to normal.
But most of all, they could find where GK was.
Kidan could no longer wait until she mastered the house to find him.
She’d face him as he was and deal with the consequences.
All this time she had been a coward, afraid of facing what she’d done to him, searching for a way out. But no more.
“No.”
Kidan shook her head. “I know you hate this but it’s a good plan.”
“A good plan doesn’t leave me utterly defenseless.”
He stared at the silver pin fixed to his sleeve, the dark eclipsing mountains smudged with blood. Kidan didn’t blame him. Of course he didn’t trust her. Probably thought she would betray him again. She needed to tell him how she felt. No more hiding.
Fighting the urge to stay quiet, she spoke earnestly. “Every time I think of getting rid of you, I get this tightness in my chest. It’s sharp, like a bite. It makes me physically ill.”
His gaze went to her chest where her hand was, so she continued. “That’s how I know I’m loyal to someone. When I can’t breathe at the thought of their death.”
Susenyos was quiet, watching her. It gave her the confidence to speak the truth with her feet planted on earth, where there was no mercy if she shattered.
“You wanted my loyalty, well, here it is. I’m offering it to you, Yos, broken as it is.
Dangerous as it is. Not everyone understands it or wants it.
I don’t even know why you do. So listen to me clearly when I tell you this, I will not let you die.
I will not let Samson hurt you. I will not let that happen.
But this is the only way we get everything we want. ”
Kidan was breathing roughly, her shoulders moving up and down.
The leaves rustled with her words. There was a shift in his expression, but caution appeared to root him to the spot.
“I have my limits, Kidan. I’m tired of having you as a hidden enemy.”
“I’m not your enemy. I will never be your enemy again.”
Susenyos’s spinning irises studied her for a long moment, then flicked to his friends in the distance. Iniko wore a careful expression. Taj was smiling broadly, eyes twinkling.
Susenyos ran a hand down his face and muttered in Amharic, before looking to the sky.
“If this fails, I’ll die as the worst thing I can imagine,” he said, his front twists swinging to his neck.
“But if it works, I’ll get everything I’ve ever wanted.
” He shook his head, meeting her eyes. Kidan’s heart quickened.
Susenyos flicked a glanced to Iniko then looked back.
“Let’s dance with the blades and hope we don’t bleed. ”