5. Calista
5
CALISTA
I had to get out of here.
I didn’t know what King Talon wanted from me, but after our last interaction, I suspected he might kill me. Now that I was in the Empire instead of surrounded by a lethal desert, I would survive if I managed to escape the castle walls.
I just had to escape.
It’d been days since we’d last spoken, and a part of me wondered if he’d forgotten me, or perhaps he’d left the castle and gone elsewhere. If he did leave, then it was the perfect opportunity for me to run for it.
If I were caught and he wasn’t here, then he couldn’t kill me, and I doubted the guards would do it themselves. They’d wait until their king returned and gave his orders. I looked out one of my bedroom windows, trying to determine the best path out of the castle. The castle at Shadow Stone was different from the one I’d grown up in—because it was massive. With ramparts and towers and bridges, it was easy to get lost. I’d been there a few times as a girl, but I’d been too young to memorize all the different pathways throughout the castle.
All I knew was I had to go down.
If I left this part of the castle and made it to a different section, those guards would probably have no idea who I was. If I just acted normal, pretended I belonged there, they probably wouldn’t find me suspicious.
I could just walk out the front gate.
Ever since I’d arrived here, I hadn’t left my bedchambers, and I was certain I was allowed to come and go as I pleased, so I put on a long-sleeved dress I found in my closet along with a pair of boots and stepped into the hallway.
Guards were posted on either side of the door, and they both stared at me.
“Gonna go for a walk.” I stepped away and moved down the long hallway, my boots on the rug. I looked up at the high ceilings and noticed the statues of soldiers placed on either side. I didn’t make it very far before I realized the guards were both right behind me, watching my every move.
That meant I’d have to lose them before I could run for it.
I moved down the different hallways and entered the different rooms, admiring the paintings on the walls, the chandeliers that hung in rooms made to entertain hundreds of people but only collected dust. The sheer scale of this place was indescribable, a castle that must have taken decades to complete.
It was winter, so the sunlight faded earlier than anyone wanted, except in the desert where any amount of sunlight was too much. I stood on one of the ramparts, pretending to appreciate the view while trying to piece together an escape route. It was hard to memorize all of this and not write it down, but I would remember bits and pieces and jot it down back in my room.
All I had to do was make it out the front gate and get lost in the city. They would never find me then. I could start a new life, work for myself instead of someone else, be in control of my own destiny for once.
I headed back toward my bedchambers, seeing both guards standing a short distance away, both watching me with intense gazes, as if they expected me to jump over the edge or something rash.
I walked past them and followed the path that had brought me there, testing myself to make sure I remembered this portion of the route. I used paintings and sculptures as markers to outline the path. If I didn’t see the golden phoenix statue in the corner of the hallway, then I had taken a wrong turn somewhere. If I didn’t see the paintings of the germaniums outside of a cottage, then I was lost.
It was a long walk back to my bedchambers. Probably ten minutes. Dinner was served by this time of day, so I would probably walk in to see my meal on the dining table. I didn’t want to be a captive of King Talon’s, but the food and accommodations were so good that it sometimes felt like a vacation—at least, when I didn’t have to deal with him.
The guards returned to their positions on either side of the door.
I let myself inside, heading straight to the desk in the corner where there was a sheet of parchment along with a quill and a bottle of ink. I stood as I worked, and once the kink in my neck started, I kicked the chair out and sat down, making my notes while they were still fresh in my mind. Ink stained my fingertips because it’d been so long since I’d written anything down, I’d forgotten how to use a quill properly.
Once I was done, I let the parchment rest there, allowing the ink to dry and permanently mark the page for me to stow in my pocket later.
I stood up to head to the bathroom and wash the stains away, but I stilled when I saw him.
King Talon.
He sat on the couch, in nothing but his black trousers, his chest bare.
My heart raced at the intrusion, wondering how long he’d been sitting there, if he’d been there the moment I walked inside. It had been dark in the bedroom because the fire hadn’t been lit, and I’d only turned on the lamp when I’d made it to the desk.
So he’d probably been there the entire time…just watching.
Watching me map out my escape.
One arm rested over the back of the couch, while the other was on the armrest because he sat in the corner. His elbow was bent and propped, his cheek resting against his closed knuckles. The room was cold, but he seemed unaffected by it.
My heart continued to race.
He had a big chest, broad like his shoulders, his pecs perfectly defined like he lifted oxen in his spare time. His stomach was strong and tight even though he seemed completely relaxed. His pants were low on his hips, showing the V that separated the muscles of his torso from his hips. He was strong, but his skin was marred by ugly scars. Old cuts were visible on the surface, one on his side like he’d been stabbed between the ribs. There was another on his chest, right over where his heart rested. “You can read and write. Which means your upbringing isn’t as humble as you claimed it to be.”
“My caretaker was a messenger.”
“Messengers can’t read. That’s why they’re hired to be messengers.” His eyes were authoritative, but his posture was relaxed and indifferent.
I made sure to block the desk with my body so he wouldn’t be able to see the parchment. One look at that would tell him my plans. His eyes were locked on me, so I couldn’t reach behind me and crinkle it in a closed fist. “Do you always lurk in the dark like that?”
Several seconds passed before he answered. “Yes.”
“Can’t you do that in your own chambers?”
He left the couch and walked to the hearth, which was cold and dark. He kneeled down and tossed a couple logs onto the rack, his spine outlined by tight muscles on either side. Every time he moved and reached, a group of muscles shifted under his skin like a team working together. Then he struck a match and tossed it inside.
It smoldered and smoked before the flame burst in a fiery dance.
He placed another log on top, unafraid to touch the fire with his bare hand.
While he was distracted, I grabbed the parchment from the table and crushed it in my closed fist, making it so small it wasn’t visible in the cracks between my fingertips.
He stood to his full height, six-foot-something of hard muscles and even harder bone. “I meant what I said before.” He stared at the flames for a moment before his eyes found mine. “Run and I’ll kill you.”
My heart raced once more, and my fingertips tightened on the parchment balled in my closed fist. “Why are you here?”
“Because it’s my castle, and I can be anywhere I choose.”
“It’s not your castle.” I should hold my tongue, but my loyalty was loud. “It belongs to the king and his predecessors and their ancestors?—”
“All of whom are dead—so it belongs to me.” He stepped toward me but allowed several feet of distance to remain between us. “Regimes rise and fall every day. The kingdom you knew from childhood is long gone, and no amount of stubbornness will bring it back. I’m your king now, and you’ll accept me as your sovereign. You’ll serve me on the front lines and in the sheets.”
I hated every word he spoke, but that last statement sent me over the edge. “Excuse me?”
“You asked why I’m here.” He pierced me with those dark eyes, touching me even at a distance, gripping me by the throat even when his hand was out of reach. “You know the answer.”
A man had forced me to dig. A man had forced me to lie still. But I wouldn’t do it any longer. “No.” It was all I could say, the shortest sentence to get the message across.
His eyes narrowed.
“You said I always have a choice.”
“And I also said that the answer won’t change regardless of the choice you make.”
He was painfully good-looking, his power so absolute that it filled the room with words he didn’t speak, but I wouldn’t be forced, not anymore. “There’s a long line of women who would be happy to jump into your bed. You don’t need me.”
“I know I don’t need you,” he said quietly. “But I want you.”
“Why?” I snapped. “My fingers are covered with permanent blisters from digging these last seven years. My skin is burned raw from the sun exposure. I was enslaved by your general for a year of torture. I’m pretty, but unremarkable compared to the other women I’ve seen walk down these halls.”
He said nothing, his eyes glued to my face, finding something that captured his interest. He looked for more than a few seconds, at least a minute or two. His stare had the same heat of the sun, burning through my clothes and marking the flesh underneath. “Why do you assume there’s a long line of women who want to fuck me?”
“Because you’re a king?—”
“Because you find me attractive.” His eyes remained hard and unflinching, without a hint of arrogance. “Your answer is no—but I don’t think it’ll always be no.”
“Just because I acknowledge you’re handsome doesn’t mean I want to fuck you.”
“For now.”
“Forever.”
The stare continued, trying to penetrate my skull and see the thoughts underneath. Then he stepped closer to me, the light from the flames highlighting the tight skin over his thick muscles. His eyes never strayed from mine. “I’ve wanted to fuck you since the moment I saw you—and I will.”
“When I was dressed in rags and covered in dirt? When I was desperate enough to try to steal a dragon? When I was stupid enough to risk the repercussions from my captor?” When I was at my lowest point and my greatest high? When I chose to risk being burned alive by a dragon’s fire over surviving the heat across the desert? If I’d failed, General Titan would have broken both of my legs—and then fucked me while I sobbed in pain.
He continued his unflinching stare. “When you were brave enough to run, that’s how I would put it.”
I blinked. And I blinked again. I needed more than a second to process what he said.
“You’re a brave woman, and I find that deeply sexy.”
I swallowed and dropped my gaze instinctively, severing the connection between our eyes so he wouldn’t see the emotion beneath the surface.
“Plus, you have the gift…and I also find that sexy.”
My eyes lifted again to meet his. “What does that mean?” Khazmuda had spoken those words to me but had provided no explanation. No one had ever told me I had a special ability, and I’d never noticed a special ability about myself.
His stare slowly hardened, as if he hadn’t just said those kind things to me. “I’ll tell you.”
He didn’t say another word, but I knew that statement was conditional. And I knew exactly what that contingency would be.
“Give me what I want—and I’ll give you what you want.”
“I’ll ask someone else, then.”
“Only I have the answers you seek,” he said quietly. “Because I also have the gift.”
Khazmuda had said those words to me as soon as we met. He’d said it with awe, said it with admiration. “Is it because I can speak to Khazmuda?” I didn’t know how dragons communicated. Up until I saw Khazmuda when I was fifteen, I’d thought they were just myths and legends. So I really had no one to ask.
He never answered the question, staring at me with his penetrating gaze. “Perhaps. Or perhaps that’s just the beginning of a long and complicated tale.”
I swallowed, feeling the possession in his gaze, feeling the way it gripped me without actually touching me.
“Do we have a deal?”
I wanted to know, but if there was only one dragon on this continent, I didn’t see how that information would serve me. It wasn’t worth the loss of my dignity—again. “No.”
His eyes narrowed in disappointment, and he cocked his head slightly. “This information will change your life.”
“I’m not going to lie on my back for anyone. Not anymore. Not unless I want to. And I’ve never had the chance to lie down on my back for anyone because I wanted to.” My first experience with a man had been with General Titan. I’d been working in the Arid Sands since I was eighteen. My entire adult life had taken place in that desert. There was no first kiss with a boy. No butterflies in the stomach like Amelia talked about.
His eyes widened instead of narrowed, and he took in my expression with a whole different look. It wasn’t a look of intense anger or surprise. It was something I couldn’t describe. For the first time, he was an enigma.
“If you want me, you’ll have to force me. But I don’t think you will.”
He didn’t ask a question, but his eyes narrowed as if he had.
I was twenty-four when General Titan claimed me as his, and I’d known I was in trouble from the first time he’d seen me. Once he stared at me, his gaze was locked in place, and not once did it deviate. Unbridled obsession. Uncontrollable need. It was written there like words on a page. He was the predator, and I was the prey—but I had nowhere to run.
I despised the Death King and would kill him if I ever had the opportunity, but I could tell he didn’t possess those traits. My time with General Titan and hearing the stories from the other girls had created a clear profile for that type of man—and King Talon didn’t fit the bill. “Because you would have done it already.”
His eyes flicked away, like the hand he held close to his chest had been knocked to the floor.
“You wouldn’t remind me of your attractiveness. You wouldn’t try to make a trade with me. The manipulation is despicable, but it’s far more honorable than what General Titan did to me.”
His eyes remained down, his expression impossible to read now, his thoughts locked up in a vault hidden underneath the castle.
“I decline your offer, so please leave.” I was no longer on edge around him, because as hard as he tried to hide his cards, he’d put his hand on the table and lost the game. He was a violent tyrant who’d enslaved an entire continent of kingdoms. There was no doubt he was dangerous, but not in this regard.
He remained, his eyes still averted. “If I have no use for you, I may as well return you to the Arid Sands?—”
“I earned my freedom.” I’d found that black diamond with my hard shovel, my back sore from being bent at the hip all day.
His eyes lifted to mine. “And you let someone else take your place.”
My eyes narrowed. “How do you know that?”
His eyes were impenetrable like the walls of the keep.
“How do you know that?”
He still didn’t answer. “If I have no use for you, then I’ll have to kill you?—”
“Or let me go, like a rational person.”
A beat passed, his stare sharp as a knife. “Because you have the gift, that wouldn’t be a rational decision.”
“So you’re saying I have to fuck you to know about the tale, or you’ll kill me.”
His eyes lacked empathy. He was devoid of all emotion once again. “At some point, yes.” The conversation appeared to be over because he stepped away and headed to the door, his muscular back strong and tight as he moved. When he reached the door, his hand rested on the doorknob. “We both know how this is going to end. My advice? Don’t fight it.”
I wanted to understand the gift, but I wanted to escape more.
I would much rather live a normal life like everyone else, a life I’d been denied, instead of succumbing to the wishes of the man who’d killed my father, taken my homeland, squandered my childhood, enslaved me in the desert…had taken my innocence.
I made a few other trips around the castle, the guards close on my tail. I pretended to admire the artwork posted throughout the hallways, pretended to visit the kitchens because I was hungry even though I’d just eaten a few hours ago, spent time in the garden like I wanted to smell the roses when I didn’t give a fuck about roses.
I gave a fuck about freedom.
It’d been days since my last conversation with King Talon. He seemed to have other things to occupy his time because he disappeared for days without a word. Sneaking out in the middle of the night seemed like the safest choice. There were fewer people out, and it was dark.
The guards were posted outside my door every hour of the day. They had a single shift change that happened in the evening just before I had my dinner. After standing out there past midnight, the guards probably got tired and deliriously bored. It was the perfect time to make my move.
But I couldn’t go out the front door.
I’d spent a lot of time looking out all my windows, and it was clear from every angle that a small ledge traveled all the way around the castle. It wasn’t big enough to hold my entire foot, but it was enough for me to balance on my tiptoes and step sideways. I could climb to one of the windows in a different hallway, away from King Talon’s chambers so there would be fewer guards on duty, and break through a window to get inside the castle. And then I could make it the rest of the way through the route I’d mapped out.
King Talon said he would kill me if I ran for it…so I better not get caught.
Once it was past midnight and everyone in the castle was asleep, I put on a pair of trousers and a long-sleeved tunic along with the boots I’d come here in. Then I took a breath as I looked out the window, seeing vague details of the city in the torchlight, and wondered how far of a fall it was.
I’d die on impact, so at least I wouldn’t suffer.
I could sit there all night and ponder my gruesome death, but I knew I couldn’t continue to debate with myself over it. I had to take this opportunity while it was available. Otherwise, I might miss the chance. There were only two outcomes I would accept—death or freedom. I was about to have one or the other, and that gave me the strength to crack open the window and let the winter air strike me in the face.
I was instantly cold, my knuckles turning red and my fingers numb. But I climbed onto the windowsill anyway and braced myself for the brunt of it.
“Don’t look down…don’t look down.” I stood on the windowsill, my fingers gripping the grooves in the wall, my hair whipping around in the wind that blew at this height. My forehead rested against the cold wall, I took a couple breaths, and then I started to move. “You got this…you got this.”
I took my time, shifting right a couple inches at a time, never switching grips until I was absolutely certain that it was the smart move. Farther and farther, I went, moving at a snail’s pace but remaining alive.
It took me at least an hour to traverse the edge of the castle until I was in a different section of it, a place where there should be fewer guards because the king slept elsewhere. When I found a window big enough for me to fit through, I tried to crouch down to take a peek and see if anyone was around, but it was hard to squat down on such a small ledge. When I tried, my boot nearly slipped, and I almost screamed. My frozen hands clutched the stone of the castle as I panted with adrenaline, my eyes squeezed tightly shut as I winced in pure terror. “Oh fuck.”
It took several moments for me to calm, for my heart to slow once again so I could progress. Instead of trying to squat down again and look through the window, I decided to go for it.
I slammed my boot into the glass and shattered it with a single kick. The sound of breaking glass was audible, but most of the window remained intact along the edges, so I had to kick several times to make the glass come free. If I didn’t, I would be cut from head to toe when I tried to crawl inside.
I kicked again—and that was when I slipped.
It happened in less than a second, so fast I couldn’t even process that I was in free fall, the distance between me and the window growing at an exponential rate. My arms flailed about in an attempt to grab something, but I was too far away from the castle. The screams came next, echoing against the stone as I toppled and spun toward the earth, the last few seconds of my life utterly horrifying.
While I spun, I saw the cobblestone foundation below, saw the torches as they became brighter as I drew closer. In my next spin, I saw something black jet through the darkness. Then my fall was broken far sooner than I expected.
Great talons reached out and snatched me, enveloping me into a cocoon of safety. The ground had been rising up to meet me just a moment before, but now it faded away as I rose higher in the sky.
I craned my neck to look up…and saw Khazmuda’s mighty wings block out the moonlight.