Chapter Twelve
A SMALL SQUAD OF GUARDS ESCORTED KADEESHA to a salon where she’d been informed her Nkita and mother were waiting for her.
Finally, thank the Celestials. It’d taken an extra day for them to arrive beyond Malachi’s Cadre returning to court.
According to his Cadre’s report, the kongamatos had heavily resisted the original plan of rune teleportation, and since nobody who wanted to live forced a kongamato to do anything, the Nkita squadron had flown north once getting word that Malachi had extended sanctuary and Kadeesha wanted them to join her.
The watchdogs Malachi had sent to fetch Kadeesha from her rooms were dressed in black-and-silver coats so fine in splendor one couldn’t mistake them for anything except palace guards.
There were twelve of them in total who boxed her in from the front, back, and sides as they marched her down halls buzzing with courtiers’ gossip about the challenge Malachi’s cousin had issued.
Truly, Kadeesha was honored. Malachi perceived her at the appropriate threat level to assign so many guards. Yet His Grace had simultaneously greatly underestimated her. If not for their bargains, twelve of his best warriors wouldn’t be enough.
She erased Malachi from her thoughts when her escorts stopped in front of a narrow mahogany door.
One of them, a tall slender woman with creamy tan skin and a permanent scowl in place, pushed open the doors and gave her fellow guards the order to spread out around the salon.
Kadeesha brushed off the irritation of their lingering presence and rushed into the room.
What was most important was the fact that those she cared about were beyond Rishaud’s reach.
They couldn’t be used to further punish her deeds or as leverage against her.
She laid eyes on her mother first. She and Yashira might’ve existed within a complicated relationship, but she was her mother and so a weight lifted from Kadeesha’s chest at finally seeing her mother safe and well with her own eyes.
Behind the relief, Kadeesha snorted at the picture Yashira cut.
Leave it to the woman to be perched on one of the salon’s sofas with an exquisitely made-up face, not a hair out of place of the braided wreath atop her head, and wearing an immaculate formal sea-blue gown as if she was attending afternoon tea and hadn’t just been smuggled out of the Aether Court and into the enemy’s territory to preserve her life.
Yashira, in an entirely expected manner, stared at Kadeesha, completing the same intense perusal.
Also of no surprise, it wasn’t a welfare check on Yashira’s part.
She clucked her tongue and scolded, “Really, Kadeesha, how could you be so reckless? How could you have placed yourself, your father, your court, in such a dire position?”
Kadeesha drew in a deep, steadying breath. “It is lovely to see you well and whole too, Mother. You’re welcome, by the way, for extracting you from Aether lands before Rishaud could murder you or take you hostage in a petty rage.”
All right. Perhaps she wasn’t very successful at summoning patience.
Yashira scowled harder, if that were possible. “I see the news has already reached you here.”
She had no idea what Yashira was referring to. Kadeesha spun to Leisha and Samira, her second and third in command. “What is she talking about?” Kadeesha asked the women who’d give her a straight answer without berating her more. It was then that she noticed how haggard everybody else looked.
She knew something was terribly wrong—something beyond the catastrophe at her wedding—before Leisha answered, “The Hyperion king has decreed that Aether lands are now an annexed territory of the Hyperion Court. He’s appointed an archduke to govern it on his behalf, citing it as rightful recompense for the wedding disaster and your subsequent fleeing.
Apparently, a term of the marriage contract that Sylas signed stated that if the wedding or marriage ended in ruin through any fault of Sylas’s or yours, then the Aether throne would be dissolved, our lands would be folded into the Hyperion Kingdom, and Rishaud would be awarded absolute dominion over the whole of Aether lands as repayment for losing access to you, and thus the prophecy, and as compensation for the extensive bride dowery he paid. ”
Kadeesha’s throat went dry as rage at Sylas sparked in her veins. “He didn’t!” she cried. “He wouldn’t! Why would my father have agreed to that? It’s insanity!”
“Rishaud promised your father he’d have partial ownership over the portions of the Yunna range and its resources controlled by the Apollyon Court once it was conquered,” Yashira explained.
“It was too valuable of a bargain for Sylas not to agree to it. On Rishaud’s part, that clause pertaining to total dominion over the Aether Court was his way of ensuring your father didn’t screw him over.
Sylas was a monarch, and they are all ambitious and power hungry.
Your father could’ve easily been planning to wed you to Rishaud long enough for you to bear the child the prophecy says will inherit a united Nimani and then take measures to bring you and that child back under his control so he would become the monarch. ”
It was all uttered a little too matter-of-factly. “That was Father’s plan all along and you knew of it,” she accused her mother. Yashira didn’t even have the decency to display an ounce of remorse.
“Knew of it and approved of it. It was a good wager,” she asserted.
“Sylas had no reason to believe your betrothal and marriage would be annulled in such a way. Your father had every confidence you’d obey his wishes, and you had acquiesced to them.
The only reason Sylas’s grander vision crumbled was because you had a dalliance on the eve of your wedding and got caught.
That reckless decision altered the path Sylas had paved.
So don’t be so hard on your father’s decisions when your indiscretions created a mess nobody could have anticipated. ”
Kadeesha flinched. The guilt she’d live with for the rest of her existence escaped the mental vault she’d sealed it inside.
But that didn’t lessen her ire. Even now with Sylas gone, her mother was doing as she always did and backing Sylas’s desires while dismissing any faults he might bear.
“Either of you could’ve informed me of Father’s full plans to use me and my womb as a pawn,” Kadeesha said angrily.
It was like a dagger to her chest that both her parents had kept her in the dark. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded.
“Rishaud is shrewd. You not knowing kept you safer. Plus, the less people aware, the slimmer the chance of Rishaud discerning your father’s plans. Don’t take it to heart.” Yashira’s justification didn’t comfort her.
Kadeesha pursed her lips. How could she not feel a type of way? However, going back and forth with her mother would accomplish little.
“Where are our kongamatos being housed?” she asked Leisha and Samira. She needed to let off some steam. She needed to be in the air and flying before she combusted.
“A suitable temporary aerie was arranged for them in a cavern atop the mountain peak that looms above the palace,” Samira answered.
“I’d like to get a flying session in,” she told her sisters.
Zahzah would also give her attitude if she didn’t immediately go see her.
Kadeesha strode to where the tall woman who’d assumed the role of being in charge was posted by the door.
“Take me and my squadron to our kongamatos. We also need a training arena, one large enough to accommodate the enormous wingspans of several creatures. Do you have something like that on the palace’s ground? ”
Several of the guards paled at the mention of the winged beasts.
As well they should. According to historical records, the kongamatos had once ripped through the Apollyon people when they sought to master the creatures several millennia ago.
Those ancient Apollyon fae, just like ancient Hyperion and Wind fae, had learned a grisly lesson that continued to ring in present-day memories.
But not all the guards quailed. “I do not take orders from you,” the head guard snapped. “And the only orders I have from my king are to supervise your reunion and then escort you all to your rooms so that the newcomers may get settled in.”
Kadeesha managed not to take her fury out on the grating woman.
“Then you, or someone else, may go find your king and tell him if he wishes me to uphold our bargain pertaining to the kongamatos, my squadron will need to remain in top fighting form. That means I need uninhibited access to the kongamatos and a training arena. That said, if you can’t be bothered to carry that message to Malachi, I can also go find him myself.
” And she made as if she were about to open the door herself.
A muscle in the guard’s jaw ticked. However, she turned to a man standing on the other side of the door. “Take what she says back to Malachizrien and return with an answer,” she said tightly.
YOU LEFT. NO warning. The sharp reprimand shot into Kadeesha’s mind as soon as she entered the massive cavern. When Zahzah prowled into view, her wings were flared wide and fangs bared in irritation.
She dashed to Zahzah and hugged her neck.
“I am sorry. I had no choice,” she told the fierce kongamato.
Zahzah’s response was a displeased rumble.
She bared her thoughts completely to the war serpent, then waited for the majestic creature to root around in her mind as long as she pleased.
Zahzah had always been an efficient hunter, though, seeing little use in wasting time with sluggishness, and the sensation of claws gently pricking her mind quickly receded.
Zahzah snorted, a small stream of red flames shooting from her nostrils.
They encircled Kadeesha in agitation but didn’t stray close enough to burn her.