Chapter Thirty-One
RISHAUD HAD COME ALONE. CLOTHED IN A PRISTINE white coat and pants and a resplendent gold cape that made him seem untouchable, perhaps even larger than life, he stood before the closed gates of the repaired entrance to the palace.
A battalion of guards stood just inside the gates.
The soldiers faced the enemy king with longswords, claymores, and crossbows at the ready.
Above them, dozens more guards—all archers—stood atop the palace’s high walls with void arrows already notched in bows and trained on Rishaud.
The Hyperion king might’ve been immortal, and one of the strongest fae alive, and he wouldn’t be slain by even hundreds of wounds inflicted by the weapons, but an assault en masse would thoroughly incapacitate him for a time.
That was, if Malachi’s guards were fast enough and skilled enough to strike at Rishaud before he harnessed the power of the sun to incinerate them all in less time than it took to draw a full breath.
That precise threat was evident in the menacing set of Rishaud’s broad shoulders and the cruel, mocking smile that bared razor-sharp canines.
As Kadeesha approached the gates alongside Malachi, Trystin, Leisha, and the whole of Malachi’s Cadre, she didn’t dare take her eyes off the Hyperion king.
Regardless of his claims that he’d come to discuss peace, she didn’t trust his intentions.
Like at her wedding, she desperately wished for Zahzah to be at her side.
The war serpent would’ve incinerated the bastard before he’d had a chance to strike out at Kadeesha’s father and court.
Not for the first time, she berated herself for not foreseeing the danger and insisting that the ceremony be held outdoors with Zahzah present.
She severed mourning the past and anchored herself firmly in the present.
Anything less was perilous. Rishaud was too dangerous to be so foolish.
If he lashed out with his magic, she would need to act swiftly to throw up a protective barrier—an impenetrable wall of aether flames—between Rishaud and everyone else to keep as many as she could safe.
It’d give Malachi time to return a counterstrike, one that would kill even that which was immortal.
“Raise the gates,” Malachi barked to the guards who stood beside the lever once their party had come to a halt right in front of the gates.
“No!” Kadeesha cried out to Malachi. “Are you insane?”
“Paltry gates won’t stop me if I wish to breach this palace, girl,” Rishaud said coolly.
Regardless of his outward equanimity, there was no mistaking the promise that she’d pay for her choices in the Hyperion king’s gold stare.
Yeah, there was no way in hell Rishaud was here for the reason he’d said.
“You’re being discourteous, Kadeesha,” said Malachi with astonishing civility. He then laid a proprietary hand against the curve of her back.
When she turned toward him slightly, he caught her eye, and the entreaty was clear: Trust me.
That was the exact problem, though. Malachi was the sort of male you should never trust. Except …
he had proved guileful and the people he held dear were also in striking range of Rishaud.
If nothing else, she knew Malachi wouldn’t do anything to place his inner circle in unnecessary danger, and she could trust that, she decided.
All right. But you better know what you’re doing, she projected back at him.
“I don’t need gates to stop Rishaud from breaching my palace when I’m standing right here, Princess.
” Malachi spoke aloud to her as if they were lovers having an intimate conversation and Rishaud wasn’t standing before them.
Or, rather, as if Rishaud’s presence was inconsequential—inferior to Malachi in every way and beneath Malachi’s concern.
To punctuate the statement, Malachi promised Kadeesha, “I can take your betrothed apart, piece by piece, all on my own. I already sliced off an appendage once, so no need to worry.”
Rishaud’s lips curled back. Yet he said nothing, and Kadeesha couldn’t discern what game he was playing with the outward gentility he presented that was the furthest thing from his true form.
It left her anxious as the gates rose, leaving Rishaud with an unobstructed path to those on the other side, including her and Malachi’s retinues, who stood in a line at their backs.
She decided not to wait for Rishaud to breach his claim that he’d only come to parley.
She erected a wall of aether flames behind her that would protect her and Malachi’s folks from harm.
Malachi, for his part, remained where he’d first planted himself, a king who’d be summoned or yanked around by nothing and no one.
“State what you’ve come to say,” Malachi commanded Rishaud.
“Kadeesha and I were in the middle of something.” He brushed fingers along the column of her neck, pausing just below her Marking and rubbing the pad of his thumb across the visible brand he’d left on the woman whom Rishaud had in part come for.
Kadeesha didn’t need to fake the automatic shiver elicited by Malachi touching the sensitive spot or the way her body involuntarily leaned into his.
Rishaud’s eyes landed on the Marking and lit with rage, the mask of civility dropping. “You’ve let him desecrate you? You belong to me!”
“I disagree,” Malachi said slyly. “You left the Aether princess behind on the altar, and I claimed her in myriad ways. I believe that means your kingmaker belongs to me now.”
“You forsake divine will,” Rishaud spat at Kadeesha. “The Celestials—”
“Know that I’ve desecrated your prophesied bride quite well. She certainly has called upon them enough times during her stay at my court and at a pitch that I think it’d be impossible not to hear.”
Kadeesha felt the exact moment that the air shifted and became charged with the violence that Rishaud, for some murky reason, was holding back unleashing.
Malachi must’ve felt it too because he saturated the space around them with his power in warning.
Becoming a being of pure dominance, shadows poured out of his very skin and swirled around him like fierce winds.
“I did not come to do battle. I’ve come to negotiate terms to avoid a war that would be an unfortunate loss of many fae lives,” Rishaud declared, his voice carrying, instead of escalating things further.
Kadeesha scoffed. “You didn’t care about avoiding such loss at my wedding.”
Rishaud cut a scathing look her way. Her ex-betrothed’s licentious gaze swept over her, making her skin crawl.
Lust and fury and the same violent promise to break her, brutally so, that he’d delivered on the altar smoldered in Rishaud’s eyes.
Her own temper flared. She wanted badly to carve out both of his eyes for looking at her as he did—like he still owned her.
Like he, or anyone else, actually could break her.
She let the scalding rage rise closer to the surface and responded to Rishaud’s attempt to intimidate with an uncowed smile that was all teeth and issued a return promise to the Hyperion king: I look forward to demonstrating how mistaken you are, a display that will start and end in blood.
“You incorrectly speak, beloved,” Rishaud said, his deep, honeyed voice like blades hacking away at her. “It was our wedding. And you left me little choice. Your disrespect warranted a punishment that fit the crime, wife.”
“She isn’t your wife. Or your fucking beloved,” Malachi snarled before Kadeesha could martial her own response.
Malachi splayed a hand against the nape of her neck.
His fingers curled into her flesh, another possessive brand.
“In fact, don’t call her any fucking thing; don’t even speak to her. Kadeesha is mine.”
Rishaud’s infamous wrath swirled in his molten stare.
“She is not yours to claim. She was never meant for you. She was promised to me. The great Celestials made her for me. And she stood beside me on an altar before the watching eyes of the Celestials. That makes Kadeesha my wife in every way save a vow exchange. You’ve taken that which is not yours, and you will return it to me, or I will annihilate your lands, starting with this very city,” he spat to Malachi.
Then, he unsheathed the great sword at his hip and leveled it on Kadeesha.
“You have a fortnight to surrender my wife, my property, to me along with your life. When I come for both, yield, or I’ll wipe the existence of the Apollyonfolk from this realm and burn the whole of your lands until there is nothing left besides scorched ruins. ”
“Or I can kill you where you stand!” Malachi bellowed.
Almost faster than Kadeesha could track, the shadows limning Malachi shot forward, shaping themselves into a pair of void scimitars that hurtled through the air with deadly precision, the lethal edges perfectly aligned with Rishaud’s neck.
Except, they didn’t connect with a solid body.
The swords never met anything corporeal.
They glided only through air when Malachi’s scimitars sliced through Rishaud’s neck.
“It’s a fucking projection rune!” Malachi cursed savagely. “You coward!” he shouted. “Were you too afraid to turn up in person? You should be!”
Rishaud chortled. “I am afraid of nothing and no one. I merely have other affairs to attend, which take priority. Such as arranging a demonstration for the ruin that will befall your folk and your lands if you do not meet my demands for peace.”
“Stop using the word peace,” Malachi hissed, “when you mean our total subjugation!”
“I am here to negotiate peace. My peace,” Rishaud replied, reverting to a level tone that belied the threats he’d just made. “And to help you and the Apollyonfolk see that accepting my terms is the only way, I’ve arranged a taste of what war looks like with me, pup.”
As soon as Rishaud said it, a series of rapid booms reverberated one after another in the distance.
Kadeesha had counted four when they ceased.
Then, in the eastern skies, right above where the city proper lay, an enormous gold sphere appeared low in the sky.
It exploded outward, spraying golden sunfire across the sky.
The dozens of shimmering streaks shot upward, then dramatically curved downward.
Each glowing streak of sunfire raced toward the city below.
A scream of horror stuck in Kadeesha’s throat as she beheld what was happening and it dawned on her just what Rishaud had done.
“You monster,” she whispered, while Malachi’s roar shook the very ground beneath her feet.