Chapter Twenty-Five #3
Lady Keeya must’ve sensed the fact that Kadeesha was done with the interrogation because she started to shout again for help and thrash, understanding her death was imminent.
Kadeesha placed a finger to the female’s lips.
“Shhhh,” she crooned, the deep-seated fury still clutching her in a viselike grip.
Kadeesha could be assigned many crimes, but she’d never betray her own people, or be complicit in the schemes of others to do so without putting up a fight.
And even if she didn’t possess the power to fight herself, she’d at least give enough of a shit to warn someone who could fight back.
“I’ll do you a small mercy, though you do not deserve it, and make it quick like I promised,” she informed Lady Keeya.
It was all the warning she got before Kadeesha smashed her aether ball into her chest and willed the flames to burn a hole through her skin and rib cage and engulf her heart—another foolproof way to kill an immortal fae.
They were beings who healed bodily damage extraordinarily swiftly, but when the vital organ that pumped their life force was destroyed in such a manner that it didn’t leave anything behind to actually heal, well, that was as effective as a beheading.
Still caught in the thrall of the more bloodthirsty facets of her magic, Kadeesha made Lady Keeya, who’d betrayed her own folk, pay penance for the disgusting act by screaming in agony.
She had promised to kill the female quickly.
She hadn’t promised a completely painless death.
“I am assuming this is one of those moments where you didn’t leash your temper as tightly as you ordinarily like to do,” came a melodious voice from behind Kadeesha.
She turned to face Yashira, who was standing in the doorway of the adjoining sitting room and smiling as if she beheld a rare treat indeed.
Kadeesha rolled her eyes. Her mother was predictable to a fault.
Yashira swept into the room, shutting the door behind her.
She came to stand in the bedroom beside Kadeesha.
Her nostrils flared as she stared down at the dead fae.
Her eyes immediately cut to the gown draped across the bed.
“There is Deathbane on that dress,” Yashira hissed.
“There is,” Kadeesha said blandly. She stopped short of thanking her mother for the many lessons in recognizing a variety of poisons by scent.
She was grateful, for it had saved her life this day, but Yashira would be insufferable if Kadeesha handed over the recognition.
Her mother would endlessly gloat and then inevitably wield it against Kadeesha to guilt her into doing something she wanted from her later that Kadeesha was resistant toward.
Yashira scrutinized the corpse sprawled at the foot of the bed. “That is Lady Keeya Tareek, eldest daughter to Voshon Tareek, who presides over one of the Apollyon Kingdom’s eastern territories, is it not?”
Kadeesha sighed. She didn’t answer Yashira because her mother knew who she looked upon. Kadeesha wasn’t surprised that Yashira had been at this new court for only a short time and had already made it her business to know the major players and their pertinent offspring.
“Why have you come?” she asked Yashira. “Is there something you need?”
Yashira tapped an almond-shaped nail—which was filed slightly rounder and wider than the stiletto shape of Kadeesha’s nails—against the oak pillar that was slick with Lady Keeya’s blood. “I came to see how you fancy the gifts that the Apollyon king bequeathed to you.”
Kadeesha frowned. She hadn’t heard her mother right. She couldn’t have. Then, she frowned deeper because she was one hundred percent certain that she had in fact heard Yashira correctly. Now she knew where Malachi had found more or less additional intimate knowledge about her.
Yashira moved closer to the bed and ran an adoring hand over the gown.
The threat of Deathbane poison was nothing to her mother, who’d practiced mithridatism over the five hundred and thirty-four years that she’d been an adult fae.
“I told the maidservant His Grace sent to me with the inquiry about your preferred tastes in attire to carry back to him that you’ve kept a fresh vase of violets of paradise in your rooms at home since you were a little girl because you love their shade.
I expected him to have a gown sewn of the hue, but this …
” She touched two reverent fingers to the strand of flowers around the garment’s waist. “This is an impressive use of that information.” Yashira moved her attention to the diadem beside the gown.
She made a strangled noise. When she looked up at Kadeesha, her gaze was wide.
Kadeesha could see the cursed scheming wheels already spinning.
“Powerful kings do not gift their playthings, or any other female they associate with yet do not intend to marry, any version of a crown. For one to be allowed to wear a diadem, it symbolizes the willingness to share power. Trust me, I know. I was with Sylas for over five centuries, birthed his sole heir, and I’ve never been granted the leave to wear so much as a circlet or a simple floral wreath. ”
Kadeesha ignored the bitterness that dripped from her mother’s words. She wasn’t venturing down that headache-inducing path. “What are you getting at? Speak plain,” Kadeesha said, already exhausted at where she could guess this was going.
“The Apollyon king isn’t playing at being enthralled by you as a part of some cat-and-mouse game with his rival.
If these gifts are any indication, he has become bewitched with you.
The fact that he expended the energy to bequeath you priceless gifts at all, that’s further evidence.
” Her mother’s gaze narrowed on her neck.
Her eyes popped wide. “So is that!” she cried.
“Kadeesha! This is huge. You are in an exceptional position to coax Malachizrien into making you his chosen queen in earnest.” Kadeesha could feel the elation wafting from her mother. She groaned.
“I intend to be crowned a queen already,” she reminded Yashira.
“I don’t want or need Malachi to make me anything.
Nor would he. You’re delusional. He is playing the exact game you described with Rishaud.
And he’s in the process of sifting through eligible brides who are of his court to make one of them his queen.
” Or at least, he was letting his auntie do so on his behalf.
And no, alerting Yashira to Malachi’s impending nuptials did not gall Kadeesha in any manner.
“Malachi, is it?” Yashira said, fingering the diadem. “You’re quite comfortable with addressing the king who sends you lavish gifts so informally.”
Kadeesha cursed herself at the slipup around her mother. Of course Yashira read more into it than there was.
“The gossip around court,” Yashira continued, picking up the crown, “is that Malachizrien has begun to take an interest in Nychelle’s matchmaking process.
Many young ladies are in a tizzy that he is finding fault with the slimmest things among the eligible candidates Nychelle has narrowed her list down to.
I wonder, daughter, why you think that is? ”
Because he doesn’t really want to take a wife, and he loathes the idea of marrying anyone!
She bit her tongue against the retort she knew wasn’t true.
Malachi might not have relished the idea, but he’d readily set his aversion aside to diminish opposition.
And she could come up with no logical answer, especially with a coup attempt happening and war looming, for why Malachi wouldn’t barrel full speed ahead to buttress his rule.
Perhaps the very illogical reason Yashira is getting at is what’s left, a voice offered up.
She shut it down. When Yashira wanted you to see things in a certain light, she had a way of getting into your head and warping your perspective of events if you didn’t actively watch out for it and guard against it.
Yashira clucked her tongue. “It is silly to be so resistant to the idea that a king of Malachizrien’s stature might either desire you in earnest or at the very least has seen that what his enemy desires you for is a powerful advantage to possess himself if you were to decide to wed him instead.
I don’t pretend to presage what the Apollyon king’s motivations are, but you win either way, daughter.
A queen of a hobbled vassal territory is not equivalent to being a queen of an independent and mighty kingdom.
Especially if Malachizrien is successful in killing Rishaud and usurping the rest of the Six Kingdoms’ monarchs.
He will then become the high king of Nimani, and you could be his high queen, fulfilling the prophecy that the Celestials saw fit to gift you as your birthright.
” Her mother’s eyes gleamed with greater fervor the more she went on.
“I do not care about that prophecy,” Kadeesha gritted out.
“I never have. It has only brought me headaches—such as being bartered away by my own father, a betrothal to a monster, and nearly being bound, irrevocably, to Rishaud. Now, you are trying to prod me into selling myself to a different king and selling out our people when I do so.”
“Think, Kadeesha,” Yashira hissed, ignoring everything Kadeesha had said. “Which is the more fail-safe route? A future battle with Malachi that you could and may well lose for a vassal throne, or securing your power as monarch of the Aether Kingdom and high queen of the whole continent?”
“Thanks for the vote of faith, Mother,” Kadeesha snapped.
“I am not saying I do not have faith in you. I am simply pointing out the shrewder strategy that—”