Chapter 24
When Biyu reached Yat-sen, she didn’t give him a chance to rise to his feet and greet her, she went straight for a tight embrace.
He flinched from the sudden contact—she would have done the same; they weren’t close as siblings, anyway, and they were in public—but it was the only way she could slip the scroll in his pocket.
He froze, blinking at her. Everything seemed to click immediately for him.
“Sister, it’s so good to finally see you,” he said with a warm smile. “Are you enjoying the wedding?”
“I am, and you?” She noted that his guards barely glanced over at her. They probably didn’t think it was suspicious for her to hug her brother.
“Good, good.” He waved dismissively. His voice dropped and he murmured, “Thank you for that. It will help things move forward.”
She could only nod. Her heart raced at the thought of what all of this meant. She had given him the spell, and now … now they could actually plan to do something. The thought made her tremble, and she wasn’t sure if it was in anticipation, excitement, or fear.
Her attention skated over to Drakkon Muyang and Daiyu. General Han, one of His Majesty’s trusted generals, was in front of them talking about something and laughing. Muyang’s mouth curved into a rare, genuine smile, while Daiyu appeared amused as well. They almost looked … normal.
Remember the day he took everything from you—remember the blood, the violence, the screaming, she reminded herself.
“Regarding the wards …” Yat-sen tried to smile, but it came out weak. “Can I trust you to break them?”
Break the wards?
Had she heard him wrong? But when she stared at him, there was only grim determination carved into his face. His eyes, midnight black just like hers, held a darkness that belied his calm, polite demeanor.
Her hands trembled. How could he ask her to do something as important as breaking the wards?
How would she even manage that? Nikator shadowed her every move.
There was no way she was going to get a chance to do that.
But then again, Yat-sen was tasked with killing Muyang.
The least she could do was try to break the wards.
She could imagine herself getting caught and how that would pan out. If Nikator caught her a second—third?—time doing something suspicious like that, she was sure he would toss her in the dungeons.
Biyu swallowed. “I … can try. But I have no clue where they’re located.”
“I’ll send you a map as soon as I can.”
She could only bob her head, unable to say the words through the dryness of her mouth. Just the thought of sneaking around the palace, trying to break the heavily guarded wards and not get caught, made apprehension coil in her belly.
“I’ll create a distraction. You’ll know when it happens.”
“When?”
“A few weeks,” he murmured. “Everyone is busy with this wedding, so it’s the perfect time to slip in guests.”
Waves of nausea overtook her stomach and she couldn’t hold back her shock. She wasn’t prepared to do something that soon. This was moving much too fast for her. She didn’t have … time for that. She hadn’t even mentally prepared for any of this. She couldn’t … she couldn’t do it.
She didn’t have time to voice it, though, because someone touched her elbow.
She turned sharply to find a pair of bright sapphire eyes that gleamed like the hottest parts of a violet-blue flame.
Her pulse raced and she wasn’t entirely sure if it was from her nervousness, or the fact that he would toss her in the dungeons if she failed on this mission—no, her heart was racing because he was staring at her with enough rage to burn down this entire hall.
His eyes narrowed at her, then flicked to Yat-sen.
“Prince,” he said with a slow nod.
“Nikator,” her brother said with a tight smile.
An awkward, tense moment passed between the two before Nikator motioned her to the back of the hall. “We’ll be taking our leave.”
“Ah, yes. It was nice to see you, Biyu.” Yat-sen lowered his head in respect while Nikator pulled her through the thicket of people, not even bothering with another glance at her brother.
Biyu struggled to keep up with him and his angry, long strides. “Nikator, what—what’s your problem?”
“My problem?” He glanced down at her sharply; his beautiful face, with all its glorious angular planes, was carved out of pure fury. So unadulterated that she grimaced. “You disappeared on me.”
“I’m sorry, but—” They finally pulled up in one of the darker sections of the hall behind a pillar.
Banners of the Drakkon dynasty shrouded this area in shadows, so it was perfect to have such a heated conversation, but she didn’t want to argue with him.
Not when her chest was squeezing in on itself anxiously.
“I’m sorry, but where were you? I had to leave to find someone safe because you weren’t around! ”
It was partly the truth.
Nikator crossed his muscular arms over his chest and it took everything within her not to ogle at the way the material of his tunic pulled taut over his chest and bulging biceps. “I left for a few minutes to discuss something with my siblings—”
“You don’t have siblings!”
“Who told you that? All the Peccata members are my siblings.” He gave her a weird look, like he hadn’t realized she didn’t know that.
And truthfully? She hadn’t known that. There was little information out there about the Peccata members, and she had just …
never thought to ask. She also hadn’t thought he would indulge her with any information regarding the rest of the members.
She had heard him refer to them as brothers or sisters, but she had thought he had meant it in a camaraderie way, not in a familial sense.
Still, it deflated a bit of her argument.
“Well, the point is that you left me, and I had to go to someone safe, and that safe person is my brother. Just like how you want to talk to your siblings, I like to do the same with mine.”
“Why were you not safe?” His eyebrow lifted higher.
Music filtered around them in a soft buzz.
Something flickered in his gaze—akin to suspicion, guilt, and then rage all over again.
His jaw tightened and he glanced over to the area she had been initially sitting at for most of the wedding ceremony.
Jian had left her seating area, so it was vacant.
“Was your intended with you?” He snarled the word like it was poison, and his eyes lit up with a feral anger that made her inch back.
Her wince was all the confirmation he needed.
“Oh, that fucker—” Nikator turned as if he was going to seek him out—and she realized that was exactly what he was going to do.
Her eyes widened and she latched onto his arm before he could make his move. “W-wait! Nikator, you can’t be serious? We’re at my sister’s wedding. You can’t—you can’t make a scene like that!”
“Did that bastard touch you?”
Her silence stretched. She could feel the tension of his muscles where she touched his forearm; he was like a beast ready to unfurl its rage and violence. She didn’t think it was possible for his expression to grow any darker.
“He did, didn’t he?” His chest rumbled with a growl, hands clenching together. His slitted gaze skated over to the sea of faces, searching.
“Nikator, please.”
“I already told you what I’d do to that leech.
I—” Something glimmered in his eyes and she realized with mounting horror that he found his target.
She followed his gaze to where Wu Jian was.
He was standing amongst a group of nobles who were all ogling groups of noblewomen; he laughed and conversed like normal.
Fast as lightning, Nikator reached for his waist—where his dagger undoubtedly was tucked away.
She grabbed his hand. “Don’t cause a scene.”
“I’m not going to cause a scene,” he hissed; the promise of death hung over him so strongly she could practically feel it thrashing in her chest. So loud, so roaring, so powerful. “I’ll just take him aside and—”
“Nik!” Biyu grasped his face with her palms; she was on her tiptoes and she wanted to stare levelly at him, but he was so dang tall that even stretched as she was, she couldn’t.
It was the first time she had called him by his nickname—a moniker she had only heard from the Peccata members.
It had the desired effect; his attention finally ripped away from Jian to her.
She couldn’t stop the rapid racing of her heart; she could feel the blood rushing to her face, to her ears, and the pounding of her pulse seemed to deafen the music around them.
She tightened her hold on his cheeks, her finger pads pressing against the rough, emerging stubble.
He peered down at her with those deeply blue eyes; up close, she hadn’t realized how thick and long his lashes were, but they framed his eyes so perfectly.
It was easy to get lost in those sapphire depths.
“I don’t want you to cause a scene,” she whispered so quietly that she didn’t think he’d be able to hear her. “I want you to stay by my side.”
She could see the hesitation clear as day. “Why?”
“Because … because I don’t want him to die.”
His nostrils flared, a darkness enveloping his gaze.
Maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say.
“N-not because I care for him. Certainly not,” she rushed, her own expression morphing into disdain.
She didn’t care if he died, but killing him at her sister’s wedding?
How were they going to explain that to His Majesty?
She doubted he would be thrilled at the prospect of murder at his event …
But then again, this was Drakkon Muyang they were talking about.
He’d probably perk up in his throne at the mere taste of macabre entertainment.