27. Basten
Chapter 27
Basten
F ive days pass while I’m locked within four extremely annoying walls.
King Rachillon’s soldiers put me in the servants’ wing of Drahallen Hall, on the ground level of the Stormwatch Tower wing. The room is cramped, with a bed so short my feet hang off, a piss pot and a wash basin, and a high, barred window that looks out on the kitchen garden.
But hey, it could be worse.
I showed up here claiming to have a king’s blood but looking like a beggar, then pawed the king’s daughter. I guess if you can’t decide between putting your prisoner in the dungeon or a stateroom, this is where you choose.
They drew my blood, so now, it’s just a waiting game until the bloodtaster arrives to decide my fate.
I slide open the top dresser drawer and laugh at my paltry belongings. Rian’s Golath dime. A second shirt no cleaner than the one I’m wearing. The locket with Sabine’s portrait.
One piece of good luck? I remember in perfect detail every second of my interactions with Sabine since coming to Drahallen Hall.
However Iyre’s magic works, only the memories from before she touched my temple are gone. Apparently, I can make new memories that directly involve Sabine. Which means I don’t need the locket anymore. All I have to do is close my eyes and summon her perfect pout, pupils blown with desire…
Oh, gods.
There’s no greater turn-on than knowing Sabine Darrow is sleeping under the same roof. Now that I’ve seen her again, any doubt is gone: I know she’s mine the same way I know water is wet.
The days drag, and I get real damn tired of staring at the same water stain on the ceiling. But the time isn’t a total waste. In those five days, I’ve overheard every scrap of gossip about what’s happening within the castle walls.
And these are the key pieces:
One . Captain Tatarin departed two days ago to lead a goldenclaw team to the southern Volkish coastline to Immortal Thracia’s newly discovered resting place.
Two . Vale won’t launch a full-on war against Rian until all the gods are woken—which means, if Captain Tatarin succeeds in locating Thracia, he’ll have four more gods to find.
Three . Unrest is growing along the border. The rulers of the neighboring kingdoms are growing worried. The Queen of Clarana has increased her troops along all borders. The Kravadan king—whose kingdom is the only one to share a border with both Volkany and Astagnon—has sent emissaries to propose a peace deal.
On the sixth day, a different set of footsteps approaches down the hall. Unlike the guards, who reek of boot polish from two floors away, my new visitor carries the expensive scent of myrrh mixed with iron.
I bolt upright, already waiting at the door when it swings open.
King Rachillon—no, Vale —tosses me a bundle of cloth.
I catch it, lifting an eyebrow. “What’s this?”
He rasps flatly, “Fresh clothes acceptable for royalty. Go ahead, change. The bloodtaster arrived and verified your claim, King Basten. Servants will move your belongings to a stateroom in the Aurora Tower.”
His face is stiff as bark, his eyes dull. Oh, yeah. He still hates me.
“ King Basten? No need for insults. Call me Lord Basten until there’s a crown on my head.” I toss the expensive clothes onto the bed, then grip my old shirt by the back collar and drag it over my head. I slap my dirt-lined chest. “You’ll find that even under the finest clothes, I’m still a scoundrel.”
“You do not appear to seek the approval of a god.”
I shuck off my pants, flashing my ass before pulling on the new woolen pair. Emphatically, I say, “I don’t.”
He strokes his graying beard. “Nor a father’s approval. Not that I would ever grant it. Sabine is not yours; do you understand? You will be granted some freedom of movement around Drahallen Hall, within limits. Go near my daughter again, however, and it won’t matter that you’re a king. Everyone rots the same in the dungeon.”
I fasten the silver buckle and button up the brocade vest. “Marrying a future king isn’t good enough for her? She’ll have the richest kingdom in the known world at her feet. Power, too—she and I will rule together as equals. What more could a father wish for his daughter?”
“Much more,” he growls.
I turn away from him as I rake my sweaty hair back into a tie at my nape. Anger snaps in my chest. I could care less if I piss off the King of Fae— Sabine sees potential in them.
Me? I only see bullshit.
“Come.” Vale begrudgingly holds open the door. “It is time we discuss what comes next.”
With a low thrum of wariness, I follow him through the military offices on the Stormwatch Tower wing’s lower levels, then pass through the towering central foyer. The Hall of Vale is straight ahead in the Sunflare Tower wing, but he leads me instead through the kitchen garden toward the stables.
“What exactly does come next?” I ask quietly.
He doesn’t look back as he murmurs, “A deal, Lord Basten, if you are so inclined. It seems we both have something the other desires.”
We pass a pair of kitchen maids, baskets of lettuce underarm, who bow to Rachillon from beneath their sunbonnets.
He signals to the stable attendants, who roll open the doors. Drahallen Hall’s stable is like nothing I’ve seen. It’s circular, for one. A high dome rises overhead. The curved outer wall houses fifty stalls, each holding a horse worth a thousand gold coins. In the center is an intricate mosaic tilework. High, round windows let in beams of light that catch the errant flecks of freshly raked straw floating in the air.
We pass a stablehand braiding a stallion’s mane, then head to a round iron door that leads to a secondary, smaller, domed stable. This portion of the structure looks far older than the more modern construction of the rest of the stable.
The iron door is bolted shut by a heavy steel bar that must take ten men to slide open.
Vale places his hand on the bar, and bolts of fey blast from his palm. The lines of energy wrap around the bar, sliding it open with sheer magic alone.
“This chamber is old,” Vale says, noticing how I eye the stone walls. “Older even than Drahallen Hall’s foundation. The one place we can have complete privacy.”
The light is low inside. The only window is an enormous circular moonroof set at the dome’s apex, tightly shuttered now against even a crack of sunlight.
A single wall torch casts a glow over an opulent stall. It’s the size of a small barn, with mosaic tilework in the shape of vines running along the floor. The walls are flawless white marble blocks, mortared with molten gold. A gilded tray rests on a marble column, holding golden grooming equipment: a bristled brush, hoof pick, mane comb. Not a speck of dust floats in the air here. I could eat off the mosaic floor.
“Basten?”
I turn sharply at the sound of a female voice. Sabine stands up from a stool, folding the storybook she had open in her lap and tucking it under one arm. Her eyes are wide as they dart between Vale and me. Cautious. Her plump lips part as though poised with a question.
Gods . I’ve fallen a thousand times. Off horses. Off rooftops. But nothing compares to the sheer weightless terror of falling in love with Sabine Darrow.
Tòrr and Myst look up from where they were happily munching honeyed oats, blinking at me in indignation for the interruption. Was Sabine…reading stories to them? Is this something she did in Duren?
A pang snaps against my ribs because where a memory should be is only a void. Blackness. And it fucking aches .
Tòrr lets out an irritated shriek, and Sabine taps his nose with a disapproving frown. Likewise, Myst gives his neck a nip. Chastised, he retaliates by stomping off to a marble water fountain. Myst clomps after him, chittering.
Whatever those two horses are arguing about, they sound like an old married couple.
“Tòrr is only grumpy because I was almost at the end,” Sabine says.
She toys with the book, running her nail over the leather binding. How is it possible for a woman to become more beautiful in five days? I’ve replayed our meeting in her bedroom a thousand times, and even in my fantasies, she was a sketched-in copy of this breathtaking original.
My breath grows ragged as I take in the curve of her jewel-encrusted dress along her waist and hips to fan out beneath her ass—a style that shows little skin but leaves nothing to the imagination.
Possessiveness flares in my chest. Her hair is loose other than a tiny fishtail braid circling her crown. Her creamy skin glows with health.
But her eyes?
Their grain of fear is the only thing to mar her perfection.
King Rachillon clears his throat heavily as he steps to the center of the stall, where the torchlight reflects off the shuttered moonroof and bathes his features in liquid gold.
“Three thousand years ago,” he begins, “I housed a monoceros here named Saph. She was a vicious thing. Completely feral. Ravenous for sunlight. She burned every village in a mile-long path from the Volkish coast to Norhelm. Tens of thousands died. Artain trapped her here—right on this spot—with the immortal lasso. With Meric and Samaur’s assistance, we constructed this stall around her in a single night. By the time Samaur made the sun rise again, its rays were useless to her. She was imprisoned here for one hundred years.”
“What is the point of caging a monoceros,” I ask, “if you do not intend to use its power?”
“In fact, I used her often.” Vale turns his head toward the moonroof. “I threw my enemies through that moonroof at midnight, then left it unshuttered. If they weren’t immediately stomped or impaled to death, Saph gleefully dispatched them upon the first ray of sunlight.”
“Lovely,” I deadpan, rubbing my beard.
“I’ll do the same thing to you, Lord Basten, if you betray me. I’m sure Tòrr could be convinced to end you.”
Sabine balls her hands, her gaze alternating between anger at her father and concern for me. Tightly, she says, “Don’t make threats, Father. You need Basten if you want to win Astagnon. Rian won’t bow to you. The King’s Council won’t accept any other candidate without royal blood.”
“No, Lord Basten needs me ,” Vale growls. “There are other ways to win Astagnon. War will mean the deaths of millions, but so be it. Pick any man in Volkany to fuck—just not him.”
Sabine’s face drains of color.
Her lips pull back, ready to argue, but I lift a hand.
“Enough.” I can read Vale’s intentions from a mile away—this man craves war, and no bargains on our end will stop him. Only one thing can protect us now if Sabine and I want to be together—our own army. “King Rachillon—Vale—whatever you want to be called. I brought you a monoceros. Your bloodtaster verified my heritage. You want to keep a chastity belt on your daughter? Fine. I came for a throne. So, tell me how to get it.”
Vale’s face is unreadable. I can’t tell if I convinced him about Sabine, but he does look intrigued by my boldness.
“We’ve been in contact with Kendan Valvere.” He goes to the iron door, testing to ensure it’s tightly closed against eavesdroppers. “We have a plan to overthrow King Rian. Beneveto will travel to Old Coros to assist in the coup. His priests enjoy diplomatic access to all of Hekkelveld Castle, which will get our spies in. They’ll capture Rian, and once he is imprisoned, Kendan will ensure that he’s tried by the King’s Council and found to be a pretender to the throne. A bloodtaster will testify that you are the rightful heir. Rian will spend the rest of his days in exile, and the throne will be yours.”
As Sabine hugs the storybook to her chest, she is the portrait of calmness. But inside? Her heartbeat raps fast as hummingbird wings.
“When will this supposed coup take place?” she asks steadily.
“That depends on you. Both of you.” Vale moves back to the center of the stall, placing himself squarely between the two of us. “Kendan does not know his brother’s habits as well as you do. We need to know how to manipulate King Rian. How to isolate him from his sentinels for my spies to attack.”
The words land like a yoke on my shoulders. For as much as I want to see Rian suffer for betraying Sabine and wrenching out my heart in the process, there was a time—once—when I would do anything for him.
He was my rock when I was unmoored. His laughter made me laugh. A round of ale together, and all my worries vanished. He shared his table when I was hungry, his ear when I went on a tirade, his bed when I needed a drunken place to crash.
I stew on the memories, jaw working.
Sabine studies me, then pulls in a resolute breath and says, “Rian has an old battle wound that pains him. He admitted it to me once while he was drunk. A healer adjusts the bones in his back on the first of every month. He’s sensitive about the weakness. Doesn’t want his guards to know, so it’s only him and the healer. He’ll be flat on his stomach, face down, naked from the waist up. Without his weapons.”
I briefly close my eyes. I’m grateful to her for doing what I couldn’t do. For revealing his weakness. Hell, I know what has to happen—Rian’s ass in exile in some prison on the far side of the Kravadan desert—but she spared me from being the one to land him there.
Silently, I tip my head in a nod to her.
Her lips flicker in a sad smile.
“Good.” King Rachillon rests his hand on the round iron door. “First of the month, you say? That gives us some time. Now, Lord Basten, it is only a matter of getting you back to Old Coros before that day without having you immediately arrested as a traitor.”
My eyes lock possessively to Sabine.
No—it won’t be nearly that simple.
Like all fae castles, Drahallen Hall is set out like a star, with the Aurora Tower wing making up the southwestern point. That means the turret’s pointed roof is clearly visible to any onlookers until after midnight.
Luckily, I’m no stranger to midnight escapades.
Getting to the central portion of the castle’s roof is as straightforward as climbing the spiral stairs to the top, where a narrow landing leads to a trapdoor that opens into the bellringer’s post.
There, below the trapdoor, I wait behind a barrel of pitch, listening for the bellringer to leave his post. It isn’t long before his footsteps tromp over to the roof’s edge, followed by the sound of him pissing off the side.
I carefully climb the short ladder beneath the trapdoor and push it open. Once outside, I slip behind the raised parapet wall and crouch low to stay hidden from view.
Here’s where it gets tricky.
Unlike Hekkelveld Castle, whose wings are short and squat, Drahallen’s reach out like five elongated points of a blade. The roofs are sharply pitched, especially at the turrets, whose points rise to a 50-degree angle.
If I tried to cross that slope, I’d only slide on my ass. The only way across is to balance along the narrow ridge cap that runs the length of the Aurora Tower wing. The wind is vicious. Bitter-cold. By the time I reach the turret, my lips are so chapped they’re bleeding.
“Can’t get in the window or door, huh?” I grab hold of the rough stone bricks, cold and slick with frost, and haul myself up toward the turret’s base. “Then I’ll go through the damn roof.”
The wind whips my face as I unroll my rope, trying to throw it around the turret’s iron spire. On the third try, the rope catches, and I yank it tight, using it to hoist myself up the last few feet.
Clutching the spire, I listen.
The castle is a chaotic jumble of sounds. Servants gossiping. Love-making couples moaning. Half a dozen people snoring.
I tune it all out to focus on the room directly beneath me. It’s quiet. So quiet all I hear is the gentle ruffle of a lantern’s flame.
Adjusting my grip on the spire, I set my hunting knife under a slate tile and pop it up. The slate tumbles off the castle’s side, crashing to the river valley below.
I make the mistake of watching it fall hundreds of feet.
You idiot—eyes up.
Heart jackhammering, I pry up more tiles until I can slip feet-first through the beams.
I land in a crouch, knife at the ready.
The tower room is small. The circular shape makes it feel even tighter. There’s only room for a few worktables of various heights, a wardrobe, and some wall shelves. A lantern flickers, but otherwise, there are no signs of anyone.
I’m alone. So, I don’t waste any time searching the shelves.
Bottles cover every shelf, every worktable. No two shapes or colors are alike. They are all unlabeled, so the best I can do is hold them up to the light and try to guess at their contents. Before coming here, I re-read The Tale of Iyre’s Memory Bottles in a borrowed copy of the Book of the Immortals, and now, the words come back to me .
“…in a time before time, Immortal Iyre kept her prized collection in the highest tower: Thousands of memories trapped in bottles, corked with bloodroot. As Goddess of Virtue, it was her divine duty. Purify mortals’ souls by stealing the memories of their most sinful experiences…”
Sinful? My memories of Sabine? More like fucking divine.
I rifle through the bottles, looking for the small, round, yellow one Sabine described before moving to a locked wall cabinet.
Finally, through the glass panels, I spot it. It’s the size of an apricot. Murky yellow glass. The only one that fits the description.
“How about this for a key,” I mutter under my breath. I wrap a cloth around my hand and smash it into the glass.
My heart pounds as I fish out the small bottle, which feels so slight in my hand. It’s half full of a dark, sloshing liquid. My skin prickles with goosebumps, and I suppress a shiver.
Are these really my memories?
Something about the thick liquid turns my stomach, but I uncork the bottle. I’ve come all this way. No chance in hell I’m not taking back what’s mine.
My hand shakes as I tip the bottle against my lips. After all this time.
I want to remember.
Gods, I want to remember everything .
A bitter, room-temperature liquid fills my mouth. I immediately gag, doubling over. My tongue revolts, ordering me to spit out the liquid until I’m retching all over Iyre’s braided rug .
This is wrong.
I know that taste. I’ve tasted it a thousand times. On the air after each of my kills. Licked off my own busted knuckles.
Blood .
Gagging, I toss the bottle aside and, uneasy, tear through the rest of them. They each hold the same familiar smell. Blood. All of it human.
I stagger back, bumping up against the window. The wind’s chill slips through the cracks to spread frost up my spine.
No.
Desperate, I grab more bottles, but they’re all the same.
“Where are they?” I shout. “Where are my fucking memories?”
Before I can stop myself, I swing my fist into the bottles on the wall, letting out a roar.
Glass crashes, spilling blood that seeps through the floor cracks.
But I don’t stop.
I smash my fists into the bottles on the worktables. I wrench the locked cabinet off the wall and slam it down over my knee. Destroying everything. Like Iyre did to me.
A shard of glass slices into my thigh, making me hiss with pain.
But I like it.
Dammit, I need it.
I throw open the wardrobe door, determined to ruin everything and?—
A body slumps out.
Lurching forward on instinct, I catch the body and lower it to the floor. My thoughts go haywire. My senses, too.
What the fuck? A body? Who the hell is this?
He’s a young Black man with shorn hair. I press my hand to the man’s neck, but only out of habit. I can already hear how nonexistent his pulse is. Can smell the rot beginning in his flesh.
I drag a hand over my face. “ Fuck .”
Looking closer, I realize I’ve seen him before—in the Hall of Vale, refilling Iyre’s water glass. His limbs are cold but not yet stiff. He’s been dead two hours at most.
His complexion is strangely pale. When I slide my fingers up his arm, I don’t feel a drop of blood beneath the skin.
A deep cut on his right wrist catches my attention—the fatal wound. The callouses on his hands tell me he’s right-handed, so it’s unlikely he did this to himself. Besides, his left hand doesn’t have the metallic scent of a blade.
Which means someone else bled him to death and shoved him in this wardrobe.
The muscles of my back shudder, reminding me how far I’ve pushed myself. Groaning, I get to my feet and start to lift the dead man?—
A floorboard creaks outside.
Shit . Someone is coming. I grab a chair to climb back through the roof, but it’s too late.
The door opens.
Iyre saunters in slowly, hands clasped like a perfectly innocent schoolgirl, looking unsurprised to find me there amid her shattered bottles.
She nudges the broken yellow bottle with her toe.
“Lord Basten. How did I know that, sooner or later, you and I would have words?”
My jaw clamps as I climb down from the chair and shove it back under one of the work tables. “Maybe because since I set foot in this castle, I’ve wanted to do this .”
I slam my fist around her throat, shoving her against the wardrobe door. An inch from her face, I hiss, “Give me back my fucking memories, or I’ll do to you whatever you did to this poor bastard.”
She chokes, “I needed to renew my powers. Paz has always been more than happy to serve. His breath. His blood. Whatever I need. Of course—sometimes I get carried away with my acolytes.”
My stomach roils as I squeeze my fingers. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“We gain powers from offerings. The trinkets left on our altars, for example. But the most potent offerings come from sacrifice. Human blood fills my goblets. I eat memories like sugared figs. We take everything you wretched humans can offer us, and we turn it into pure fey. I didn’t bottle up your memories for some collection, human. They don’t exist anymore. They became fey .”
She hisses the word in a strange low pitch, and the lantern throws out red-tinged sparks of crackling fey.
When I flinch away from the sparks, she suddenly latches her hands on either side of my head.
Lightning surges out of her palms against my ears.
Pain bursts through my head. I let her go, staggering down to my knees, slamming my hands on either side of my skull.
A wail rolls out of my throat. For weeks, I’ve imagined wringing this fae’s neck until she replaced the void in my head with every memory she stole. The days with Sabine. The nights—gods, the nights.
What did I once tell Sabine about the fae ?
Trust a snake and get bit, and it’s your fault, not the snake’s.
For once, I hate to be right.
My hand presses hard against my chest, fingers curling in like I can hold myself together.
Like I can stop my heart from breaking apart. But I can't—there’s nothing to stop anymore. I’m empty.
"There were never any fucking memories,” I murmur.
The words taste bitter on my tongue. I choke on them, half snarling, half gasping, as if saying them aloud might make them less true.
But nothing changes.
My knees go slack, and I slide to the floor. My vision blurs. I can’t seem to focus on anything, my stare detached, everything cast in a weak shade of gray. Weakly, I kick at a broken bottle. It spins uselessly on its side, just like me.
“All this damn time…” A dry rasp catches in my throat.
I thought I could restore what was lost. My memories. My past. My time with her . I thought I could bring it all back.
But it’s gone.
Forever .
She rubs her throat, looking down at me like I’m filth. Slowly, she bends down to whisper in my ear.
“Food, Lord Basten. That’s all you mortals are to us.” She pads back to the door and gracefully swings it open. “Now get out before I find myself hungry.”