Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I couldn’t breathe. My lungs frantically tried to pull in air and failed. I was drowning in blood. I was dying. I was?—
“ Sylina .”
The voice was a blade, cutting through my panic.
Someone was holding onto my shoulders, gripping me tight. I wasn’t falling.
I wasn’t falling.
I couldn’t see. The threads were chaotic, my grip on them slippery. Pulling the world into focus seemed impossible.
“Drink,” the voice commanded, shoving a canteen into my bloody hands. “Now.”
Atrius.
The name was the first tangible thing that came to me.
I did as he told me, taking a gulp of water. I immediately choked on it, then had to thrust the canteen back to him as I flung myself to my hands and knees and retched into the sand as he held my hair back.
When I was done, he pulled me upright again.
“More,” he said, pushing the canteen back into my grasp.
I did. This time I didn’t choke. I took one gulp, then another, and then I was throwing my head back and drinking the whole thing while water ran down my chin .
By the time I finished, the world had fallen back into place, though my heart still felt like it was about to fracture my ribs.
Atrius still held onto my shoulders, watching me with a thorough, assessing gaze. I nearly jumped when his hands fell to mine, gently closing around them—noting the wounds.
“You’re shaking,” he said.
I didn’t want him to feel that. I extracted my hands from his grip and folded them in my lap.
“I’m fine.”
He stared at me. I wondered if he was waiting for me to scold him for pulling me out of a Threadwalk— again . I should have. It was dangerous.
But I couldn’t bring myself to. Not when I was secretly grateful he had done it.
“What did you see?” he asked. His voice was low and heavy, like he knew the significance of what he was asking.
The truth still pulsed through my veins, too powerful to acknowledge. I couldn’t give him all of that. Too vulnerable. Too close to parts of myself that were supposed to be gone.
“It’s going to be bloody.” I stood and immediately regretted it. I just wanted to put more space between Atrius and me, so he would stop looking at me that way.
I leaned against a broken tree trunk more heavily than I hoped was visible.
“There will be steep losses if you attack Vasai,” I went on. “Lots of blood will be spilled.”
“Whose blood?” he asked. “My soldiers’ blood?”
This question, reasonable as it was, speared me with a sudden bolt of rage.
“Bloody for everyone,” I snapped.
“So you saw our defeat.”
My jaw clenched.
I couldn’t risk lying to Atrius again. If it was my own decision, I might take the risk. But the Sightmother had given me a direct command. I was not to sabotage him further.
Yet I couldn’t bring myself to answer his question .
The non-answer, it seemed, was answer enough. Atrius exhaled.
“I see,” he said.
He sounded a little relieved, and in this moment, I utterly despised him for that.
“The Pythora King’s warlords are not above using civilians as their shields,” I said. “You saw that in Alka.”
His eyes hardened. A faint echo of disgust shivered through his presence.
“I did.”
“You thought Aaves was bad? Aaves was a lazy nobody who stumbled onto his throne through corrupt incompetence. Tarkan is far, far worse.”
Atrius’s eyes narrowed. “You believe he needs to be treated as more of a threat.”
He sounded skeptical. Atrius, I had learned, was somewhat arrogant when it came to the skill of his military force.
I knew, logically, I couldn’t fault him for looking at all of this through that lens. Yet I resented him for it.
Atrius rose too, pacing along the edge of the sigils in the sand, scattering the impeccably drawn lines. “He has a large army,” he said, as if to himself. “Larger than most of the warlords. But from what I’ve seen, they’re unskilled. My warriors could handle them easily.”
My jaw tightened. I whirled around.
“Who do you think makes up Tarkan’s famous army? ” I spat the word like it was a mockery, because it was. “It’s not an army. It’s a slave pit. You’re right, they’re unskilled. They’re unskilled because a third of them are children.”
I was showing too much. Letting my mask slip. That was a mistake.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted from Atrius, but what I got was… nothing. Just a flat stare.
Weaver help me. What did I expect? I knew what kind of atrocities went on in Obitraes. Such a thing probably didn’t seem so egregious to him.
I drew in a breath and let it out, collecting myself.
“You asked me to Threadwalk, and I did,” I said. “And what I saw is that it is a bad idea to attack Vasai with pure brute force. That’s all I can tell you.”
“Is it?”
Atrius approached me, one measured step after another.
“Yes,” I said.
“Did your vision show,” he said, slowly, as if every word was its own command, “that we wouldn’t win?”
He knew the answer, of course. Knew why I couldn’t bring myself to say it.
I bit my cheek for a long moment. Too long.
“We would win.” He answered his own question. “The bloodshed would be his.”
He sounded downright smug about it.
My fingernails cut half-moon marks in my palms. I wouldn’t beg a vampire for anything. Let alone a conqueror. I should let it go. Let him act. Let him win. Follow my orders, and earn his loyalty.
I just— couldn’t .
“You don’t want to rule over a dead kingdom,” I said. “I respect you for that.”
I paused, reconsidering. What did my respect mean to him?
“ Your soldiers respect you for that,” I corrected. “I’ve seen that since the moment I arrived here. You can win by your strength alone. But, please, it’s?—”
I bit my tongue. Please . Begging.
“It isn’t the wise way,” I said, at last.
He didn’t speak. I resisted the urge to shift beneath his stare, so steady it felt like he was peeling back layers of my skin.
“I intend to avoid meaningless bloodshed, but I don’t know what gave you the impression that I came here to avoid all of it,” he said finally. “I’m here to win. To take what your king doesn’t deserve. He took it by force, just as centuries of conquerors have before him. We evolve, but war is the same. It isn’t up to me to redefine that.”
I knew this. Knew it was a downright laughable idea that a Bloodborn conqueror, of all people, would be the one to take some kind of moral high ground.
And yet… why did some part of me think he would ?
Why did some part of me think it would matter to him?
I didn’t say anything, letting the silence stretch on—letting Atrius fall into his obvious contemplation. After a long moment, a scowl flitted over his mouth, as if in reaction to a silent argument he’d been having with me in his head.
“You actually think I care at all about the fates of some useless human ingrates?” he spat.
It was a challenge.
And… a real question.
“I do,” I said, and to my shock, it was the truth. “I don’t know why. But I think, maybe, you do.”
He scoffed. Paced. Turned. And then, finally, turned back to me.
“Suppose I listen to your foolish advice, for some ridiculous reason I still can’t make sense of. What alternative is there? How do you expect me to take down a city-state with no army?”
It was, I had to admit, a very valid question.
I considered this. Then I straightened. Suddenly, I no longer felt unsteady on my feet.
“You might recall,” I said, “that I was an assassin for fifteen years.”
Atrius stared blankly at me. Seconds passed.
Then the bastard burst into laughter.