17. Rahzlyn
Rahzlyn
“I wouldn’t help you unless I had a death wish,” I ground out. Syndicate rebellion against the Astrals. “You’re the apostai.”
The man straightened slightly. “You have a death wish if you don’t.”
Chosens were only able to channel their power through talismans. They were rare and sacred stones imbued with the Zodiac’s magic upon the creation of Gaianos.
And these fools talked as though I could simply snatch one from a royal without repercussions.
“We are an interconnected network of individuals working toward an everlasting, more just, and equal future for all,” he explained, as if that answered all my questions. “One that doesn’t include the Astrals’ archaic limitations.”
“I think you have the wrong woman here.” I glanced back at the door. My odds of escape were limited against a man of his stature. Unless I used the crowd to my advantage—
He rose swiftly to step in front of me. “If you think we’re letting you walk out of this room without securing your allegiance to this mission, you are poorly mistaken.”
“To the mission or to you?”
The matron remained unbothered from her relaxed position. “You’ve been made aware of the cause we support. The answer to your question is one and the same.”
“And if I help you, that makes me an apostate,” I said with narrowed eyes. “While I’m not the king’s biggest supporter, I have no intention of getting myself killed for your cause because you don’t agree with the laws of our—”
“You know nothing,” the man barked. “About anything, least of all our cause.”
“I know you’ve destroyed places filled with innocent people, and you enjoy wreaking havoc on society for the sake of conflict.”
The man sighed as he rubbed at his eyes. “We’ve finally convinced him to be in this room without a guardian. This might be our only chance. Please don’t tell me we’re wasting it on the wrong woman.”
“I assure you, you are,” I said.
The matron shifted her legs beneath her gown so that she angled herself to the man. “She fits the criteria, exactly as we have been foretold.”
“So did Yarah.”
“And Yarah is no more.”
“Listen to her,” he insisted. “She believes the lies the realm has spread about us. How is she the one we were promised?”
“I don’t care about any of it,” I snapped, interrupting them. “I just want to live my life.”
“And you can,” the matron said to me. “Once you complete this small task for us.”
“What do you mean, the one you were promised? Promised by who? Kole? Because it’s not his fault I’m not the dancer or seductress you were expecting. I already said I’ve never trained with anyone before.”
The man jerked his head once at the matron, then walked briskly past me as though this weren’t a matter of life and death. “A fool indeed.”
I gaped. “I don’t know much, but I do know that for anyone to even attempt to touch a royal’s talisman is treason. But to try to steal it? King Zephyr will suffocate me with his magic the moment he realizes what is happening!”
“We have a plan to ensure that won’t be the case,” said the matron.
“Let’s say whatever plan you have works and I take the stone from him. What could you possibly hope to do with it? You can’t use its power.”
“That part is inconsequential to you. All you need to know is that here, with you, the king will be truly alone,” the matron said. “A trusted partnership has been established. His guardians will remain on the other side of that door.”
“And let me guess. When you finally asked Yarah what you intended her to do, she said no and conveniently became indisposed. Did you kill her?”
The matron smoothed her milky hair behind her ears. “We do what we must out of loyalty to a cause far greater than either one of us.”
From the cold finality in her tone, I assumed something terrible had indeed befallen Yarah. I shuddered with remorse. “And when he recognizes that I’m not Yarah?”
“We’ve studied the king’s tastes and believe—based on your little show for him just now—that won’t matter.”
“But the king has taken an oath of celibacy. All Chosens have. If you wish to overthrow him, all you have to do is expose him while he’s here. Does Kole know about this?” I demanded.
The matron tossed her head back and smiled. “My, how right Kole was about you. So long as you never reveal what you know, we’ll let you live in peace.”
“How do you know I won’t warn the king what you’re planning?” I challenged, likely provoking them more.
“It seems you don’t value your life enough. Perhaps a little incentive will help with that.” The matron’s attention caught behind me. I turned in time to find the man had returned with a long rod in his hands. I fixated on the burning tip.
A branding iron.
Too horrified to recognize the shape of it, I backed away instinctively—right into the matron.
“No!” I yelled, thrashing against her grip.
She knocked me to the ground and pinned herself on top of me.
Her hand sealed over my mouth. I kicked as the man took hold of my right foot, angling the ball of it, and a second later, the hot end scalded against my sensitive flesh.
Pain unlike anything I’d experienced sliced through my body from the underside of my foot to the point my vision blackened. Tears spilled down my cheeks.
“Congratulations,” the matron crooned. “Our precious Black Rose. You are one of us now. An apostate, as you all like to say.” She squeezed my cheeks.
I squirmed against her hold, my foot still burning.
“If this isn’t enough incentive to keep your mouth shut,” she hissed close to my face, “then hopefully you value the life of your brother more than your own.”
They released me. The man slipped out an all-too-familiar golden pocket watch and tossed it onto the floor beside my sobbing face. “Proof that your brother lives. For now.”
My tremulous fingers roamed over the grooves of my family’s pocket watch, etched with the symbols of each of the twelve signs in a circle.
They had him.
They’d taken my brother hostage.
In the darkness of the shop, I contemplated the plan laid out for me tomorrow—or rather tonight, given it was nearly dawn. For the sake of my family, for Basil, I had to follow through.
I retched again into the bucket beside me.
If I didn’t do what they asked, I would end up like Yarah, and so would Basil and my grandparents: indisposed. If I did as commanded, there was a high probability that the king would kill me on the spot.
The only way out of this meant seducing the king well enough to steal his talisman and replace it with a fake. Something I fathomed no one had ever accomplished, or at least lived to tell the tale.
Either way, I was now branded an apostate. A torrent of rage emerged at the thought of anyone daring to lay a hand on the people I loved. I may have been helpless against the apostai, but the burning inferno inside me affirmed I would do anything for my family.
Including committing treason.
“Where have you been?” Nahn asked, startling me. She carried a candlestick to light her path down the staircase.
I was grateful for the cover of darkness; she couldn’t know any of the torment and shame I carried, nor the threat I’d foolishly brought upon us all. “I… ran into some friends in the city and lost track of time. Mel was there, too.”
“Mel’s asleep upstairs.”
Shit. I hadn’t seen Mel—or Kole—in what felt like weeks. “I have other friends.”
“And these friends are more important than your responsibilities here?” Nahn descended the last few steps carefully. “Mel’s been most helpful in your absence. She’s efficient, dutiful, and—”
“Everything you’d ever want in a granddaughter, I know.”
Nahn muttered something under her breath and set the candle down on the ledge above the hearth. The fire had gone out, and I hadn’t bothered to rekindle it. “I know you’re hiding something. You scarcely look at me before running out the door at the crack of dawn. Where are you really going?”
“Deliveries,” I insisted, even as I kept my gaze averted. “I told you, I get sidetracked when I see friends. You know how much I love the city.” I hated lying to her, but these weeks I’d managed to avoid a betrothal conversation and I didn’t want to spark one now.
“A messenger from the baroness stopped by earlier,” Nahn said. “Apparently, there was an issue with her order yesterday.”
The edge in Nahn’s voice had me straightening. “What kind of issue?”
“The kind that was never delivered.”
“Shit,” I cursed into my hands. I’d forgotten to fill up the replacement orders after yesterday’s mishap in the street. I should have checked to make sure hers wasn’t one of them. Or, more importantly, I shouldn’t have let them get destroyed in the first place. “Nahn, I…”
“You what?” Nahn questioned. “Failed to prioritize our most important client?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I should have known better than to trust you with something so important.”
I flinched at her scathing tone. “Nahn, please, I just—”
“Your brother would never be so careless and irresponsible.”
Cheeks fuming, I blurted, “I got a job.” I really didn’t want to have this conversation, tonight of all nights, but I couldn’t listen to her disappointment anymore. “As a dancer.”
There was a foolish, minuscule part of me that hoped she might be happy. Despite the trouble I’d found myself in, I wanted her to be proud—even if the job killed me. For one moment, I wanted to see the admiration in her eyes that always shone so brightly on my brother.
Her eyes rolled toward the ceiling. “Gemini save us.”
“It pays well,” I added. “At least, it will in time.” If I survived.
“Oh, stars, I need to sit down.”
I quickly stood to help Nahn into the chair and winced, painfully reminded of the fresh brand. My hands hovered over her arms in case she needed my support.
Once seated, she shrugged me away. “Impetuous child. You will never succeed in that life.”
“But I want—”
“What you want and what you need are two very different things. I have given you too much freedom, enabling your selfish, aimless desires. Not once have you ever expressed gratitude for the life we’ve given you.”
I staggered back a step. “I am grateful.”
She pointed her finger up at me. “Whatever employer you’ve stumbled upon has deceived you.”
“I got the job because they see potential in me.” I quivered, desperately wanting it to be true. “They hired me because I’m a good dancer—”
“They see your face and your chest and that’s it,” Nahn scolded.
My vision blurred. “Is that all you see?” I croaked.
“I am only trying to protect you from the harsh reality that is our world. You must use your beauty to your advantage, not to your detriment. The only power women truly have is our appearance.”
“That’s not true,” I said weakly as a tear slipped over the curve of my cheekbone. It couldn’t be.
Nahn’s lip curled. “There you go again, crying for no reason. You’re too emotional about everything.” She rubbed her forehead with a sigh. “Dancing serves no purpose, Roselyn.”
I swiped my arm across my face, erasing the wetness. “Dancing is my purpose. It’s when I feel the most alive, the most me. Don’t you care about that? How can I ignore the wind’s music—”
“The same way your brother does.” Nahn scowled. “Dancing is a folly fit for courtesans, not nobility.”
“I don’t care about nobility! No one in our family ever has. You have no problem pawning me off to lewd, pigheaded men, but dancing is where you draw the line?”
“This has gone too far,” Nahn said, ignoring me. “It’s time to put an end to these delusions.”
“My dreams are not delusions.”
“They’re fantasies. As your parent, I am responsible—”
“But you are not my parent!”
Her face slackened.
“A parent, a mother, wouldn’t think that this”—I gestured from my chest to my hips—“is all I am good for. A mother wouldn’t tear me down, raising me in the shadow of my perfect brother.
I may not be smart, but I have more to offer this world.
I know I do. Instead of helping me discover what that is, you’d rather see me taken away by a callous man’s fortune—or remain trapped here under Basil’s watchful eye.
” Adrenaline burned through my veins. I’d never spoken to her like this.
I couldn’t stop as years of pent-up resentment poured out of me.
“Is that what Pahn would want for me? To be owned as property?”
Nahn’s mouth trembled. I braced myself for her retort that would put me back in my trifling, obedient place where she thought I belonged.
“As it stands,” she said calmly, tilting her chin upwards.
Her eyes remained notably averted. “To make amends for yesterday’s mishap, I informed the baroness that you have accepted—”
“No,” I breathed.
“—Jere’s proposal and will marry him.”
“You can’t do this,” I said. “I should decide how I live my life. I’m a grown woman.”
“You’re certainly not acting like one. Do you pay rent here? What about taxes? Household provisions? No, and I’ve never heard you complain.”
My arms shook at my sides. Even though she was right, I burned hotter than the sun. “How can you ask me to marry into that family after what they did to Pahn?”
Her chin quivered. “Your grandfather doesn’t—”
“That hag is responsible for his sickness!” I cried. “He lost his mind after the baroness forced him out of the Academy, Nahn! Stars, why do you act like nothing’s changed? Like he isn’t gone?”
“Because he’s not gone!” she yelled. “He’s right upstairs, and if you don’t lower your voice this instance, young lady, I swear—”
“He’s a shell of the man you married. Of the man who raised us. Stop pretending everything is fine when it hasn’t been for years.”
Nahn winced. She smoothed her hair from her forehead. “Whatever the baroness did is in the past. The present is your betrothal. I wanted to give you time to come to your senses on your own. You will accept—”
“I will not!”
“You. Will. Accept.” Nahn rose from the chair. In her youth, she must have been as tall as me, but age had curved her neck and back significantly. “Or you will no longer be welcome in this home.”
“Is this what happened to our father? Did you force him to leave too with your cruel ultimatums?”
A burning sensation tore across my cheek.
It wasn’t until I recognized that my head had snapped harshly in the direction of the back doors, where moonlight pooled across the floorboards, that I acknowledged what had happened.
Despite her sharp tongue, Nahn never hit us.
Ever. Not as children, and certainly not as adults.
My grandmother gasped. I stared at her, too stunned to move.
When no apology came, I retreated in a fog of confusion. Tears streamed down my face. I chucked Basil’s pocket watch to the ground, narrowly missing her feet.
My legs carried me through the front garden and into the dead of night—aimless, wandering, and utterly alone.