Chapter Twenty-Seven
“It is a duplication spell,” Valor answered.
They came to another fork in the road, and Valor tugged on his horse’s reins. “We will go on foot from here; the ground is too sharp for hooves.”
Nick watched Valor take his feet out of the stirrups and lean forwards, swinging his leg over the back of the saddle.
Nick mimicked him, grateful that Julia stood patiently still.
By the time he’d walked to Valor’s side, his horse was untacked and wandering away, grazing on the only green grass Nick could see anywhere, that which grew along the edges of the trees’ shade.
Valor untacked Julia too. No plan for a quick getaway then. “What is it you need to duplicate? Food?” But Nick knew that wasn’t the reason. They didn’t go and piss off Vi and a host of mermen for food.
“The council has enough riches to feed all of Aridia for several generations. Food does not motivate them.”
“And not riches either, apparently.” Nick fell in step with Valor.
After only a few paces, Nick saw immediately why they’d left the horses.
Sharp shells lined the path. Nick kicked at one, recalling a beach back home that nobody walked on because of the razor fish shells littering the sands.
They were a nightmare to stand on, leaving cuts so jagged from shells so sharp you didn’t even feel a thing until it was too late.
“A witch lived in Aridia for many years. A skilled woman who worked for the council, able to cast the spell when needed. Ten years ago, my sister helped her escape. They planned to go to the city of monsters to seek aid from the merfolk brothers who hold power there.” Valor paused.
“It was not a bad plan. I, too, asked for their aid, unfortunately to little avail. Merfolk do not leave the ocean easily, and I had nothing interesting enough to tempt them away. Greya and his vanity? Rin and her endless plans that achieve nothing? The brothers didn’t care that they were long-lived, the idea of immortality means little to a race with such power.
Even Desre was not enough to draw them from the ocean.
They said a nymph imitating a siren was not worth their time. ”
Nick, having personally seen Desre’s power, wondered what would interest a pair of ruling merfolk brothers if not for that.
He took note of the casual manner in which Valor divulged the secret of their long life, when Kit had been petrified at the prospect of spilling the same and them finding out.
Nick supposed that it didn’t matter if Valor shared that secret, as the leader of the rebellion against them, he was doomed if he fell into their hands either way.
And perhaps given the high opinion Valor had of Nick’s family, he didn’t consider him in the same danger as other kits should he find out the truth? “Do her powers work on merfolk?”
“I am certain,” Valor began slowly, “if someone managed to draw one of the merfolk into her presence, she would not survive the encounter. Her strength is no match for even the weakest of their race. Unfortunately, they are difficult to approach, and even harder to bargain with. My sister and the witch didn’t even make it as far as the ocean in the end,” he continued.
“The witch cut her own throat before she could be taken back. My sister was brought before the council. Her husband and child were dragged from their home in the city.” Valor stopped walking. “Kit was ten.”
Dread calcified in Nick’s stomach.
“They did not realise at the time how rare it was to be able to cast that spell. They thought it would be a mere trifle to fetch another witch to perform it.”
“They killed his parents.” Nick knew Kit’s parents were dead; he hadn’t known the one who did it was holding him prisoner. Kit. God, Kit. Nick’s soul ached. He lost his parents at ten, and the one who did it had sunk her claws into him and hadn’t let go since. Valor nodded, expressionless.
“We were taken into Desre’s household.” Valor continued walking.
“It has been a long decade for both of us. Even in those earliest years when she held more interest towards me rather than Kit, I was hardly a perfect shield. I have never stepped aside willingly, not once, to allow her access to him, but it is not a choice with Desre. And I could mount no rebellion when by her side. I would rather Kit go through a few short years of unshielded torment and be free, then live his entire life in fear.”
Valor spoke with a mix of grief and spiked determination. Like he was trying to convince Nick to see that he was right. “I doubt a single minute under Desre’s thumb felt short to Kit,” Nick replied, angry.
Leaving Kit in Desre’s clutches couldn’t be right in any circumstance, but what if he’d been in that situation?
Against someone he couldn’t defeat. Against someone who always won.
Would he stay and provide patchwork protection?
Like Kit did for those on the ship? Would he leave entirely with a vow to return, like Valor had chosen?
For the first time in his life, Nick wasn’t sure if even his dad would have a good answer.
But with a little thought, Nick knew he wouldn’t do what Valor had done. He wouldn’t ever be able to pick a way forwards that left Kit defenceless, at Desre’s mercy.
The thick tree cover parted suddenly to deposit them on a riverbank. The shelled ground sloped into the wide Dia River, the water clear enough to see the glinting white shells until they disappeared into a blue haze. The river was quiet.
“It is usually a busy river,” Valor said.
“In summers past, boats heavy with the autumn harvest made their way to the seaport, while boats carrying goods made the journey upwards into the city. There are posts every few hours where rowers can disembark and be replaced with fresh men, so they do not halt even once upon the river.” His gaze fixed on a black shape on the opposite shore.
Grass and weeds grew over the gutted, burnt ruin of an old dock.
“You destroyed the posts?”
“All of them.”
“Even though Aridia is starving and needs food shipments?”
“Yes.” There wasn’t a hint of shame in Valor’s voice.
Nick studied the man’s profile. His city was starving, but he had worsened their situation, and Nick finally understood Valor and the warning Kit had given about him.
Nick was looking at a man willing to do anything to achieve his goal.
Leave a child behind with a monster. Strangle an already starving city.
“Your men aren’t in the city. They’re out here where they don’t need shipments to get food. ”
Valor inclined his head, a yes.
“Did Seche’s scouts even see any merfolk in the river?” Nick asked, voice sharpening with worry. He had chosen trust because he could see that these people cared for Kit, but from what he’d just heard, Valor’s care was a deadly thing.
Valor turned from his perusal of the river to Nick. “I was informed of the conditions you offered Seche in return for your aid. Death, not capture.”
Nick met Valor’s eyes, aware of the way the man’s tail was held, perfectly still. Cold blue eyes bored into Nick, like the answer to this question dictated what was about to happen.
Nick clenched his jaw, lifted his chin. “Kit won’t be safe unless she’s gone.”
“It is not vengeance for your abduction and treatment?” Valor queried.
Nick blinked in surprise. The thought hadn’t occurred to him, that he might want payback for his own trials.
Desre was the one who’d ordered him taken, the one who had him whipped.
But when he thought of the night he’d been abducted, it was the memory of her breaking her fan against Kit’s hand that swam behind his eyes.
At the memory of his whipping, it was the way Kit had whined, agonised that he was being made to do it, that left bruises upon Nick’s heart.
He couldn’t stand that an abuser had power over Kit.
He wouldn’t stand for it. And he didn’t mean it in a noble, good way, like how his dad protected Connor. It was a vicious fury. A rabid promise.
“She’s never touching him again,” Nick said, his voice hard and unrecognisable.
Valor’s tail swished, a shine of approval in his eyes. “Merfolk were spotted a few miles from here. We have timed our intercept to the minute.”
A large tail fin broke through the slow-moving water, a kaleidoscope of colour that Nick recognised in an instant.
A tail he usually scowled at for breaking their furniture beneath its immense weight now filled his heart with relief.
Nick raised a hand, shielding his gaze as the sun glinted off glittering scales of blues and greens.
His lips parted to call out but gasped in a shocked breath instead; an invisible force took a thousand needles of burning metal and hammered them into his arms. Pain seared through every tattoo, arms lighting up in pain as heat drove between muscle and skin.
“Adonis,” Nick gritted out through the pain.
Valor’s head snapped towards him as Nick curled forwards, entire body shaking. He clutched at the tattoos, digging fingers into skin, desperate for relief.
Adonis’s tail disappeared into the water, and his head popped out, hair wet and blond. He turned in a slow circle, dark-blue eyes seeking. His gaze swept past Nick on the shoreline, as if he wasn’t a stone’s throw away and nakedly visible.
“What is wrong?” Valor put a steadying hand on Nick’s shoulder as he trembled.
Nick’s eyes watered, and he stared straight ahead, not even blinking. Someone was running boiling water over his arms, and Nick didn’t know which way to recoil for relief. His head began to feel light, his vision going hazy around the edges. “Adonis!” Nick called again, louder.
Adonis looked right at him. He drifted close enough that Nick could read the confusion on his face. Close enough that Nick understood Adonis couldn’t see him. Adonis let out a soft, questioning sound from his throat, the gills beneath his jaw flaring out pink and vulnerable.
Nick sank to his knees, vertigo violently spinning the world. His body trembled uncontrollably, teeth rattling together. “This hurts worse than getting whipped,” Nick ground out.
Valor descended with him, his steadying hand the only thing keeping Nick upright. “Your spells bleed,” he said.
The iron stench invaded Nick’s nose. With a Herculean effort, he raised his heavy head, his gaze lining up with Adonis’s. Their eyes should be meeting, but they weren’t. Adonis’s nostrils flared, and his brow scrunched.
“Sir,” Valor called. “Your kin is here, yet it is as if you look right through us.”
Adonis didn’t answer. His tail fin flicked out of the water behind him, and after a long look at them, he turned, continuing on his path up the river.
Nick barely registered his departure, the pain in his arms too immediate to put aside. His blood came out bubbling and blackened against his skin in a burn. Valor hauled him into the river, submerging his arms, making the fresh water sizzle.
Nick shut his eyes in relief.
He was half aware of time passing, and when he finally peeled his eyes open, the sun had moved across the sky. Nick was kneeling in the water with Valor crouched at his side, watching him closely. “I hate that it doesn’t get cloudy here,” Nick muttered.
“Are you well enough to move?” Valor asked.
“I think so.” His voice came out hoarse.
“I thought you were on good terms with the merfolk. Their new monarch is your brother, is he not?”
“Brothers don’t always get along—not that that’s what’s wrong. I don’t think Adonis could see me,” Nick said.
“No. I believe your spells hid you from him.”