Chapter 10 #3
When he opened them again, a small flame sprang to life between his fingers, not the raging beast Lory’s fire had been in the mountains, but a controlled, gentle, orange-gold tongue, awaiting his command.
“May Eroth welcome you behind his Veil,” he said, lowering his hand and setting the flame down in the cremator like it was a precious item he could detach from his body and place anywhere he wanted for safekeeping rather than a deadly power that would consume anything in its path.
Lory held her breath as the pants of Narica’s uniform caught fire, spreading over her entire body before leaping onto the next, and the next.
An inferno engulfed the insides of the cremator, heat blowing into her face along with the sickening stench of burned flesh, but Lory kept still, not taking her eyes off the flames as they devoured the remains of the four ashlings who had stood on the platform in the mess hall not an hour ago.
Until Khayrivven unfroze beside her and shut the steel door, locking in the fire he’d gifted to pay his respects.
Sweat beaded his face, droplets sliding over his jaw and running down the side of his throat, soaking the collar of his shirt. Lory didn’t feel the heat, her entire body numb from what she’d witnessed.
“Time to get back,” he said, taking the cart and pushing it toward the elevator, ash swirling in the air in his wake. “There is nothing more for us to do down here, and you’ve got a mission to prepare for.”
How he could switch from cremating the dead to thinking of the mission in a heartbeat was beyond Lory, but she didn’t argue. This was the first time they were truly alone with no eyes or ears threatening to burst through a door at any moment.
“What’s the mission?” She caught up with him by the elevator, watching him push the cart inside. “Apart from it being at the palace, I know nothing.”
Khayrivven turned around, one hand on the handle at the front of the cart, and leaned against the threshold to the elevator, the crease back on his forehead.
“There have been unrests in Sen Dunai. Small ones, but enough to alert Ulder about the Criu rebellion spilling into this province. Even here in the city, we’ve seen people who share Narica’s opinions.
” His gaze slid over her shoulder to the cremator.
“The Triad has been tasked with finding out if those were all unrelated incidents or if someone at court is pulling the strings.”
“We’re there to spy?” Lory’s heart lightened the slightest bit at the news that she wasn’t going to kill anyone tonight on the mission after all.
With a nod, Khayrivven motioned for Lory to get into the elevator, but Lory wasn’t done.
“What did Narica mean?” Lory tried not to think of what Narica’s words had caused in the mess hall, tried to banish the image of Ycken’s knife piercing her throat. “What was she going to say?”
The devastation in Khayrivven’s eyes as he shook his head in denial of the truth almost made Lory cry out with frustration, but she’d learned her lesson. Pushing Khayrivven to talk didn’t work if Khayrivven didn’t want to talk, and this time, he didn’t seem like wanting was the issue.
Ignoring the stench and heat, Lory took a step closer to the young captain, the Flame-born man in front of her, placing her hand atop his.
“You’ve shown me your brand. You’ve vouched for me with your life.
You’ve followed me into the mountains to make sure I’m all right.
” A light squeeze of his hand, and his eyes shuttered, those gray irises splintering in a million emotions.
“You can trust me, Khayrivven. The way I trust you with my life.”
His chest stilled, shoulders hunching with defeat as he hung his head, masses of black waves veiling his features.
He wasn’t going to speak, Lory thought, as he shook his head once more with a sigh.
“Death to Ulder. Free Criulias. Ashthorn is a lie.” Khayrivven rephrased Narica’s words, completed them, and as he lifted his gaze to hers, head still lowered so he needed to glance up from under his brows, Lory’s heart skipped a beat.
It was there in the set of his mouth, the muscles feathering in his jaw, in the steel in his eyes. He’d known. He’d known Narica was part of the rebellion.
“Oh my Guardians—” Lory’s breath came heavily. She should have known. Should have guessed that the man whose sister Ulder held captive would somehow work against him. Ulder had his parents killed, had taken Elina and kept her as leverage. Of course he’d find ways to take revenge.
It wasn’t as much shock as disappointment with herself that drove a gasp from her mouth, making Khayrivven cringe as if she’d slapped him. “Oh my Guardians,” she repeated. “You knew. You know. There is more going on here at the academy. The unrest in the city… Why didn’t you tell me?”
It wasn’t as much the fact that he was a rebel as that he had hidden yet another truth from her.
That she hadn’t pieced it together herself sooner.
It all made sense. His secrecy, the way he sometimes disappeared for days.
The knowledge about the rebels in the Amrin Mountains.
Didn’t change the cold sense of betrayal settling inside her chest, though, as she realized how much he’d kept from her.
Not that he owed her any explanation. They weren’t even officially together or anything.
Just sneaking around the academy for the occasional kiss.
He’d shared his Flame brand with her, but that didn’t mean he had deep feelings for her as a woman, only that he wanted to let a fellow Flame know she wasn’t alone.
And the worst part of it: He might have told her, had this toxic academy not put a leash on his tongue, had fear for Elina’s life not been ruling his entire existence. The injustice—
As Lory spiraled into her own thoughts, Khayrivven’s chest heaved with a steadying breath as he turned his hand over beneath hers, taking her palm into his and tightening his fingers around it.
There was no apology on his face as he peered down at her, all gentleness gone.
“You can’t tell anyone. More than my life depends on it. ”
The cold spread from her chest through her entire body. “I’d never dream of telling anyone.”
A curt nod was all the confirmation she got that he’d heard her, his eyes over her shoulder on the wall of the elevator.
“It’s hard to know who to trust in this shithole of an academy. Just because you’re a Flame doesn’t mean you share the same ideals and beliefs. It doesn’t make you Criu or an ally against Ulder. No matter what the prophecy says.”
The Flame that will take down Ulder’s rule. Lory remembered the day Khayrivven had shared with her about the prophecy his father had made all those years ago, when Khayrivven had been a young boy. The prophecy that had cost him his life and Khayrivven his family.
“It doesn’t matter what my father saw might happen in the future.
It won’t matter unless you make a choice, and when you had the chance, you didn’t.
” The disappointment in his tone was well disguised by a familiar anger, but his grip on her hand remained fast, pinning her right where she stood in front of the cart.
“When the leonthor told you to make a choice, you didn’t choose either side. ”
Lory’s stomach bottomed out. “So you did hear him. You heard what he said to me.”
Khayrivven shook his head. “I’ve heard them since the first day I set foot in the Amrin Mountains under the banner of Ulder’s army.
I’ve heard their accusations, have heard their laments over a Flame lost to the tyrant’s cause.
Have heard their threats whenever I got near their caves.
Their shadows have followed me every single day out there in the mountains.
” A rawness entered his expression that made Lory want to reach out and comfort him, even now, when his lack of trust stung like a needle.
“I never knew what they were or how they communicated with me, but that day, in the cave, when the leonthor appeared from the shadows, I knew. Lory, I knew that my double life will be the end of me. And the end of everything I hold dear.” His gaze found hers, a raging storm ready to destroy the world.
“Your double life…” Lory repeated. “You mean that you’re a Flame.”
“And a rebel.” His shoulders straightened as he spoke the words.
Instead of stepping into the elevator, he pulled Lory back into the crematorium, gesturing for her to follow.
Lory’s feet moved of their own accord as she crossed the room behind him, unwilling to pull back her hand and break the thin thread connecting them through the cold dominating her body despite the scalding heat radiating from the center of the room.