Chapter Twenty-Five #2
She flinched and sobbed, “My father.” Her terror-stricken eyes flew back and forth between the aether ball and Kadeesha’s pitiless sneer.
Kadeesha didn’t allow herself to go there often, but she let all warmth, all traces of humanity, drain away.
She let Lady Keeya see that she was going to die anyway, but she’d make her death extraordinarily painful if Kadeesha had to pry additional information from her.
Lady Keeya swallowed thickly, tears streaming down her delicately boned face.
Kadeesha experienced a twinge of pity for the woman.
Like all fae males of the repugnant variety, Lord Prime Tareek didn’t give a shit about his daughter.
Instead of treasuring and protecting her, he’d sent her on a suicide mission.
One that might’ve been avoided if the male wasn’t an idiotic fool who’d failed to perform proper reconnaissance before sending his daughter straight into the enemy’s hands.
If he had, then he would’ve known of Kadeesha’s mother’s adeptness with poisons, or of Sylas’s notorious use of them at the very least, and then he would’ve surmised this particular attempt against her life was never going to succeed.
“And how did Lord Prime Tareek get his hands on the dress?” Kadeesha inquired.
Lady Keeya naming Lord Prime Tareek as one more individual within the Apollyon Court who wanted her dead—and presumably sought to overthrow Malachi too—wasn’t enough.
If there was more information to be gained about every last enemy she’d have during her remaining stay in Malachi’s territory, then it was prudent to ascertain it to best guard against it.
She didn’t plan on dying in these cursed lands.
“He had me intercept the servant that’d been tasked with carrying it to your room. I took her to my father instead.” Lady Keeya’s answer was but a whisper. A whimper, really.
“What has come of the servant?” Kadeesha had a hunch, but she wanted it confirmed.
“My father killed her.”
“I thank you for that information.” Lady Keeya’s admission wiped away any lingering pity she had for the woman who’d lured a servant, who’d held no power of their own or the ability to refuse an order from a noble, to their death.
“Your father and Lady Niyarre, are they working together alongside the Cleric’s Rebellion to see that Malachi cannot use me to seize greater power and to ultimately overthrow Malachi?” Kadeesha asked.
Lady Keeya’s shoulders sagged. “Yes,” she breathed.
“Who has taken up leadership of this Cleric’s Rebellion since the former high cleric of the royal court has died?” It was Apollyon Court business that had now become her business since there was an entire cabal that wanted her dead.
Of all the things that Kadeesha had asked Lady Keeya, the color drained from her tawny-brown skin at that question.
Interesting. She vigorously shook her head.
“They’ll … It doesn’t matter if you aren’t going to allow me to leave this room alive.
He’ll—they’ll slaughter my entire bloodline if I name them.
I have brothers. Sisters. Cousins. Family I care about. ”
Kadeesha’s smile was as icy and lashing as the winds that howled atop the peaks of the Yunnas.
“You should’ve thought about them before you brought a poisoned gown to my room.
Whatever you fear he’ll do,” Kadeesha said, using the woman’s slip against her, “I will make certain that your family suffers threefold.” She let the aether flames in her palm grow marginally larger and burn hotter before she asked, “Have you ever beheld anyone burned alive? I’m not referring to someone being quickly incinerated and then swiftly ushered into Nyaxia’s Mist Isles.
I mean have you ever seen an individual burned so excruciatingly slowly that you hear their tortured screams drag on and you pray to Nyaxia, or any other Celestial that will listen, to mercifully liberate them from the agony and help their souls pass into the Mist Isles so they’ll finally know peace?
“I don’t imagine you have,” Kadeesha answered her own question.
“The Apollyon Court is one that deals in void magic, darkness, and shadows. But we folk of the Aether Court, we deal in flames that can burn hotter than the sun itself if the one who wields aether is powerful enough. I assure you that I possess that might. I haven’t burned anyone alive in the manner I’ve described myself, yet.
But I’ve witnessed my father, the former Aether king, do it to those who committed offenses against the throne on many occasions.
It is not a pleasant thing to do … or smell.
And the experience stays with you, haunts you, for eternity.
If you do not tell me the new leader of the Cleric’s Rebellion, I will forget that I once vowed not to be cruel for cruelty’s sake as my father was and I will see that you are made to watch everyone you’d wish to protect burn slowly.
Then, I will see that you live for a nice long while with the knowledge that you caused it before I finally kill you in the same manner.
You’ll die for your ill-conceived choices either way, Lady Keeya, but how you die and the suffering you bring to your family is up to you.
Tell me who leads the Cleric’s Rebellion and I’ll let you die in relative peace. ”
Lady Keeya was pale as a wraith by the time Kadeesha finished.
She trembled in Kadeesha’s hold. Usually Kadeesha would’ve reined in her darker, more terrifying urges that were fueled by the destructive, fiery nature of her aether magic.
However, they served a necessary purpose at the moment. “A name,” she prompted Lady Keeya.
“Ri-Rishaud, the Hyperion king,” she choked out.
Kadeesha’s face went slack with shock. “Rishaud is of the Hyperionfolk. He isn’t of the Apollyonfolk.” Kadeesha’s voice matched Lady Keeya’s in hoarseness.
“Losing the court’s high cleric was a crucial blow to the rebellion,” Lady Keeya whispered.
“Then afterward … Nychelle banished all clerics from court and Malachi has been hunting down and killing any known ones that supported the Cleric’s Rebellion for years.
There are only a scattered handful of clerics that remain who supported the rebellion and who still believe Malachi will bring ruin to the court.
But their fervency is strong and, from what my father apprised me of, Rishaud used the prophecy about you and him to convince those remaining clerics to unite behind his banner.
To be his forces within Apollyon lands that work to destabilize Malachi’s rule. ”
Kadeesha’s molten glare narrowed on Lady Keeya.
She recalled what they’d learned of Lady Niyarre’s ambitions back at the Stone Keep.
“If you, your father, and Lady Niyarre are working with the Cleric’s Rebellion to usurp Malachi and place Lady Niyarre upon the throne instead, then that means you have all sworn fealty to Rishaud too.
You operate under his banners.” She knew her ex-betrothed well enough to be certain he would demand a display of absolute allegiance and submission as he’d done with the vassal monarchs.
As he would’ve tried to do with her if their marriage ceremony had been completed.
A hatred for this female in front of her, her father, the Stone Warden, and all who aligned with Rishaud scorched through Kadeesha’s veins.
“Rishaud is a monster. A tyrant. He treats his own ancestral folk along with the rest of the Six Kingdoms like things to be merely crushed beneath his heel and made to pay him tribute. This court is composed of Apollyon fae whom he believes are vermin to be extinguished. How in the hell do you all who have bowed to him think he will treat you and yours? He wants this land for its resources. Not its faefolk. He will massacre the Apollyonfolk if he gains dominion over your court so he can have all the resources within the land and none of its ancestral faefolk.” She gaped at Lady Keeya, because could her father and the other lord primes going against Malachi truly be so blind?
Lady Keeya continued to tremble. “Rishaud has promised we’ll be treated the same as his other dominions.
But the lord primes are not idiots,” she said quietly.
“They know all you’ve said, which is why Lady Niyarre seeks to kill you.
In the absence of his current betrothed, she means to convince Rishaud to take her as his wife and thus install her as high queen of all of Nimani.
Once she hands the Apollyon Court to him, you and the prophecy concerning you will be of no consequence.
He’ll have become high king of a united Nimani without you. ”
Kadeesha fought the urge to laugh. The Apollyon nobles didn’t know Rishaud well enough.
Or perhaps one of them did and was leaving the others in the dark.
“Even if Lady Niyarre becomes high queen, she will be achieving it at the expense of the extermination of her own folk and you have aided her.” But Kadeesha suspected the Stone Warden knew that.