Chapter 13
A tremor ran across Biyu’s body as the thought of her death intensified.
“Let’s talk somewhere more private,” Vita murmured, breaking through her macabre thoughts. She tucked a strand of light brown hair behind her ear and motioned toward the opposite end of the hallway. The guards stationed on this floor were sending furtive, curious glances at them from time to time.
Nikator looked like he didn’t want to comply, but when Vita and Minos began walking down the corridor, he gave in and followed them, dragging Biyu along.
Five minutes must have passed with the four of them silently moving upstairs, down a few winding, confusing paths until they finally reached their destination.
Minos entered and held the door open, ushering them all inside.
It was a spacious, mostly empty room with weapons of every kind displayed on the walls, stuffed dummies shoved in one corner, a few couches and a short table at one end, and a row of windows overlooking the capital.
Biyu got the sense that this was a training room.
She had never been here before, but she was certain they were still in the inner palace, though there were no banners, signage, or anything related to the Drakkon dynasty plastered in this room.
Minos shut the door behind them and Nikator released her wrist like she was the plague itself. The muscles along his shoulder, his arms, and his body tensed like an uncoiled beast, ready to spring into action, to attack, to kill.
He paced deeper into the room and picked out one of the long knives hooked onto the wall. Without warning, his body twisted and the weapon flew from his hand, striking one of the dummies in the corner with a loud thud. The handle shook with the impact.
Biyu jumped at the display of raw power—raw fury—that thrummed over him.
Nikator picked out another weapon and did the same again, and again.
Minos swore under his breath. “Oh, he’s pissed, isn’t he?” He met Biyu’s eyes. “What have you done?”
Startled, she only trembled worse than before.
She could practically feel Nikator’s anger deep in her chest. It was like a roaring flame, dancing and thrashing within her, pulsing through every pore in her body.
She could imagine herself as one of those dummies that he had struck.
Was he imagining her there? Was he thinking of killing her like his other victims?
“Nik, come on now. Let’s sit and talk—” Minos started.
Nikator released another weapon—this time a shorter knife—and it slammed into the dummy’s head. He turned toward the three of them. His chest rose and fell, but Biyu wasn’t sure if it was from exertion, or the rage that coursed through him, hotter than any fire.
Vita motioned to the couches. “Why don’t we all sit?”
“So we can twiddle our thumbs before Muyang gets out of his meeting?” Nikator scoffed, raking a hand through his deep red hair. “I don’t have time—”
“We have nothing better to do right now.” Minos raised his hands as if trying to pacify a beast, and it only made Nikator bare his teeth at him. “Let’s talk this through and figure out our options.”
Muyang. Nikator had just … called His Majesty by his first name like it was nothing.
The shock of it jolted through Biyu and she could only stare at him as he argued back and forth with Minos.
He wasn’t allowed to do that. Nobody was allowed to call the emperor by his given name, unless they were close enough to him to not be scared of being executed.
But that should have been impossible. Why would Drakkon Muyang allow his tools to speak so casually about him?
“Princess Biyu,” Vita said.
Biyu flinched at the coldness in the beautiful woman’s voice.
“Sit,” she said.
There was no way she could not cooperate; these people would kill her without a second thought, especially now that they had a clearer reason to. Biyu lowered herself onto the seat; shudders rippled through her body and she resisted the urge to vomit. She really was going to die here.
Vita towered over her and crossed her lean arms over her chest. She was dressed in a flowy dress. It was pretty and pale, but it washed out her tanned skin and silver eyes, and it did nothing to hide the edge in the warrior’s expression, nor the promise of death that clung to her.
“Can you explain what happened?” she asked, voice low.
Biyu’s lower lip trembled and her gaze cut over to Nikator, who had stopped pacing and snarling at Minos, and was now glaring at her, as if waiting for an explanation.
Minos circled around the couch and sat beside her, his arm framing the back of the couch and closing her in. He smelled like wildflowers and spice.
“You don’t need to be so scared,” he said smoothly. “You just have to tell us everything that happened so we can better understand. You didn’t mean to hurt Nikator, did you? I can’t imagine a pretty thing like you doing something savage like that.”
Biyu inched away from him. She didn’t like how close he was, nor how his calm, honeyed voice betrayed the humming, ominous chill that emitted from him.
Others probably couldn’t see beyond his easy grins and charming personality, but Biyu could make out the frigidness, the soullessness, in his deep blue eyes.
He was a beast waiting to sink his teeth into his prey.
“Princess?” Minos asked. “We won’t hurt you.”
“Yet,” she whispered, trembling.
Nikator stifled a growl and came to stand in front of her. He dropped down to his knees until he was eye-level with her. The blood on his face, arms, and neck had dried, and it only made him look all the more furious, more terrifying.
“You don’t seem to understand the situation you’re in.
Tell us everything,” he said through clenched teeth.
His attention skated over to Minos’s arm behind her on the couch, and he snapped a response in their foreign tongue to the dark-haired warrior, who lifted his brows and removed his arm.
Nikator shifted his razored gaze back to her.
He braced his hands on the couch on either side of her, caging her in.
“You’re thinning my already thin patience. ”
Biyu reeled back in her seat in an attempt to put more distance between them, but that only made him inch closer. The energy around him buzzed angrily.
“Talk. Now.”
“Back away.”
“Princess—”
“I—I can’t think properly with you so close,” she said without thinking.
A look of confusion momentarily passed over his features, and she could feel her face growing warmer at the implication of her words.
She had meant it in a way where being so close to him, so close to his rage, made her mind blank and black, her thoughts nonexistent.
But the way she had said it sounded … almost like she was tongue-tied around him.
But surely he didn’t think she meant it that way?
And surely … the only reason it was hard to think was because she was scared of his anger, right?
Nikator slowly pulled away from her and sat on the couch across from her, his gaze never straying from her face.
She licked her lips. She had to come up with something—a lie that could convince them that this was all a mistake—but her mind was drawing a blank. So she said what she could—the truth.
“I didn’t mean to cast whatever spell I did. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she whispered. “I … I thought the spell was going to make you forget everything about me. I wanted you to leave me alone. That was it—I swear.”
“How did you use magic?” Vita asked. She was still looming over her, peering at her like she was a threat. She had never looked at Biyu with anything other than contempt or neutrality, so seeing the darkness in her made Biyu shrivel in her seat.
Biyu twisted the magicked ring off her thumb and held it up for the three of them. Her fingers shook as she stared at the colorless gem in the center. “This ring has a magic stone in it. I was able to … to bypass the wards and use the magic in it.”
Vita snatched the ring from her and examined it closely.
Minos released a sigh. “So you used magic to basically try to rid yourself of Nik? And it backfired?”
“I … I don’t know if backfired is the correct term,” she said. “I don’t really know what happened. I cast the spell and it didn’t work. It hit him and … me, too, but nothing else happened.”
“How did you get the spell?”
“I …” Biyu sucked in her lower lip and stared at her lap.
She couldn’t tell them that she had snuck into the library; that would certainly make them more suspicious of her actions and it could criminalize her further; likely security would tighten in the library, too, so any future endeavors to find a powerful spell could be curbed.
But what other choice did she have? She was sure they’d find out anyway. “I …”
“The library,” Nikator said flatly.
Biyu winced.
He clambered up to his feet. “You went to the library that night, didn’t you? Then you got lost in the mage quarters.”
“She left her rooms and you knew?” Vita asked incredulously. She pinned Nikator with a harsh scowl. “Do you realize how utterly foolish that is? She is the princess—”
“I’m aware of my blunder,” Nikator snapped. “I don’t need your lectures.”
Minos sighed, long and hard, and leaned back into the plush cushions on the couch. He waved a calloused hand to Biyu and then to Nikator. “So you basically tried to make Nik forget all about you, but you somehow married him? Am I understanding this correctly?”
Married him?
There it was again—the confusing part of this whole situation. Why did they keep insisting she had tried to marry Nikator? She would never want to be close to him in that manner. She never wanted to share a cursed bond like that with him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Biyu started.
“Your story isn’t adding up.” Vita held up the ring. “This is a glass ring. Where is the magic in it? Do you have more stashed away?”
“N-no, I don’t—”