Chapter 86 #2
“Given you believed her little note all those phases ago—let her flutter off with your offspring in her womb—she deserves the right to end the male who failed her when she needed you most.” A sadistic smile pulls the corners of Arkyn’s mangled mouth, gone in a blink.
“But first, a parting gift. So that every breath you pull until your last, you think of me.”
He pushes the small blade between my ribs, angled toward the bottom lobe of my right lung. Despite the sharp stab of pain, my muffled roar is all for her—because he’s right.
I failed Elluin. Failed Kyzari.
Just like I’m failing Raeve.
She’s going to be forced to kill me, and I know she’ll never recover. This will be the end of us both, one way or another.
Arkyn twists the thin blade, like having a finger between my ribs, prying them farther apart. “With your death, I prove myself stronger than you, even if Pah was too blind to see it. That, I will feast on for the rest of my daes.”
He rips out the blade.
I gasp, too shallow. Not nearly enough air to keep my head from spinning, my next breath sharp, coupled with an aching cough that tastes like metal and oozes blood from the fresh stab wound.
A sure sign he punctured my lung.
My vision splits as I look past the monster intent on destroying my family. Hone my focus on Raeve, barely visible through the swirl of smoke.
I glimpse her eyes—open. Looking through the grate at me, black glimmering with flecks of light just visible from this distance. Confirmation that she’s given herself to Slátra.
Or perhaps Slátra took her by force. Perhaps she’s aware of what’s been ordered of Raeve and has taken the task of ending me. Protecting Raeve, as she always has.
As I hope she always will.
“Fire Lark!”
“Fire Lark!”
My view is broken by Arkyn shifting back, nodding to his guards. They sweep in, bind my wounds in a stretch of black material, knotting brown leather armor on my shoulders, chest, and thighs, half covering my burnt and tattered pants.
Someone moves forward with a bronze mask, but Arkyn raises a hand. “No mask.”
The smooth order sends a ripple of unease through the cell, like the threatening swing of an ax. Everyone stills. Even those knotting the patch of leather to my right bicep, covering a large welt.
“They need to see his face. His death in the arena will stand as payment for his war crimes against the Citadel.”
I seethe through my gag.
A deal, no doubt. In exchange for the Tri-Council’s support of his rise to power in the north.
Clever.
I just hope I’ve done enough for my folk in the time I’ve sat the throne. That I’ve flushed enough freedom through their veins so they won’t simply slide their hands back into the shackles I freed them from.
That they’ll fight for the goodness we’ve worked so hard to cultivate.
The guards finish knotting me in, stepping back as Arkyn presses almost close enough for me to cave his head in with a bash of mine.
“Now, I’m going to tell you what I told Raeve.
” His head cants to the side. “If you want your daughter and our sister to survive, you will put on a show for my audience to distract them from the coming falls. Something they’ll speak about for eons to come; a stroke of vengeance served by me in this dark and trialing time.
Only once I’m satisfied, once I nod from my balcony, will my Fire Lark offer you the reprieve of an execution. ”
All the fight leaves my body, every muscle turning soft like my flat lung.
He wants me to fight the mah of my child; the love of my existence.
He wants me to strike her—hurt her for the sake of my sister and daughter.
Sick.
Sadistic.
Fuck.
“Do you understand, brother?”
My nod is not instant. It’s not passed to him with ease. But it comes, because that’s what she would want. What Raeve would demand of me.
Do whatever’s necessary to ensure Kyzari and Veya survive.
Arkyn slides his bloody blade between the gag and my cheek and slices the wet material free. “SAY IT!” he roars past glinting canines, his eyes wide and bloodshot, temple plagued by bulging veins.
“I … understand.”
Never have I spoken words so rotten, chewing back a million others I want to force-feed him until he chokes. But I lack breath. Lack heartbeats to spend on him.
All I want is for him to step out of the fucking way so I can see Raeve again. So I can love her from afar with what little time I have left.
“Good.” He turns to leave, then stops, looking along the line of his shoulder at me. “Tell me, how did it feel?”
Perhaps he sees my confusion.
“Ending Pah. Taking his head.” A pause, then, “Tell me how it felt. In detail.”
Hard to miss the fevered desperation in his eyes.
The greedy hunger for me to relinquish some of the pleasure he thinks I stole from him.
Except revenge doesn’t bring you any sense of peace.
Being rid of a vengeful itch only lifts a veil, revealing just how hollow and lonely you’ve become in the wake of your rampage.
Without Rygun, a broken kingdom to nurse back to health, Slátra’s shattered pieces to eventually hunt down, and the promise I made to make this world a better place for Kyzari while Pah’s head still hung from my fist …
I might’ve gone south, close to the place Elluin drew her final breath, and dug myself a shallow grave. Then buried myself in it.
I clear the blood clogging the back of my throat and give Arkyn my truth, not that he deserves it. “Not as—good as I’d—hoped.”
Disappointment inks his eyes.
He whips his head around and looks back at Raeve still standing on that rocky knoll, loosely wrapped in tattered wings of white. He sucks air through his teeth, then goes, leaving me alone with a ring of guards ready to usher me into the arena.
To be slain by the one I love.