Chapter 38 Kasira #2
Kasira’s mind reeled back to her vision of Amorlin from when she had drunk from the pool, to the sight of a Kalish flag unfurling along the Library’s face and a battlefield drenched in the blood of people who had become her friends.
Vera had sought to take control of Amorlin quietly, to add its power to hers and eventually challenge her cousin for the throne, but if her choices were between taking it openly and not having it at all, she would do what she had to.
“That was not our agreement,” Thane snarled, stepping toward Vera. “You swore that if I proved her disloyal, her life was mine.”
Vera dismissed his furor with a glance. “It appears that my cousin may be more aware of my plans than I originally thought. It’s even more vital now that the Conclave succeeds, and I need Kasira in place afterward to deal with the fallout.
” Her gaze shifted to Kasira. “And if you so much as think about taking my cousin’s offer, I promise there won’t be a stone left standing of this place when I’m finished with it. ”
Thane drew a slow, deliberate breath. “I am not someone to break bargains with, Ambassador.”
“You will do as you’re told, or you’ll be returned to Belvar,” Vera replied, and in that instant, Kasira understood the Ambassador’s true weakness: She was far too used to her power, to the authority it granted her.
She did not expect to be disobeyed.
Thane’s knife was in Kasira’s gut before she had time to process where it’d come from, an uncomfortable pressure her body couldn’t understand.
Then came the pain. She gasped, stumbling back, and the knife tore free with a sickening squelch.
Her hand pressed to the wound reflexively, hot blood sliding between her fingers.
He slashed again, faster than he had any right to be, and caught her across the thigh. The knife bit to the bone.
“Stop!” Vera surged forward, but Thane was quicker. His elbow caught her in the temple, and the Ambassador crumpled.
Thane rounded on Kasira. “Stupid girl,” he chided, inspecting the blood-coated blade. “You always thought you knew better than me. I told Loraya you were too clever for your own good, but she didn’t listen. She couldn’t see through her love for you.”
Kasira dropped to one knee, her mind flipping and turning and oh hell, it hurt so much.
The blade was serrated; it had torn her insides apart with one strike.
And her leg—she couldn’t make herself look.
He knew his craft well; he’d opened an artery.
She reached for the magic with fumbling, invisible fingers, but it felt a thousand leagues away.
Thane flicked her blood from his knife and advanced on her. “It’s your fault Loraya died. Your fault she’s gone, and I will exact that pain from your flesh.”
“You’re not the only one who loved her!” Kasira screamed, groping for one of the knives in her belt. She barely had it out before Thane smacked it to the ground. She felt the sydara vine at her back, felt its leaves rustle and inch outward, reaching for her.
“Don’t delude yourself, Kasira,” he growled. “You aren’t capable of love. It’s too in your nature to deceive.” He lifted his knife to beneath her chin, tilting her gaze up to his. “Go on. Tell me one true thing about yourself.”
Kasira grit her teeth. The pain had settled, leaving her numb, but her mind couldn’t catch up. She could barely find the words.
Thane chuckled quietly. “You are made of lies. There is nothing real about you.”
“I care about the Library,” she croaked out. “About Allaster and May.” And Gievra and Fen and Carlia and Iylis. “I care, and it doesn’t matter, because no matter what I feel for them, I don’t—I’m not—”
“You’re not worthy of them.” Thane’s smile turned saccharine, and she shuddered.
She had refused to acknowledge how she felt because she didn’t truly think herself capable of such love.
Thane was right—she could no longer tell what was real inside of her and what was a con, and the Library deserved someone better than that.
Someone who would take care of it, not someone who ruined everything she touched.
“Oh, Kasira.” Thane shook his head. “They won’t even miss you when you’re gone.”
Her vision blackened, the truth of his words more painful than any blade.
Then something tore at the edge of the magic, a force clamoring for her attention, like a beast trapped in a cage. She reached for it, clung to it, familiar and cool as an evening breeze.
Gievra.
The beast’s call came back through her mind. Kasira thrust out a hand, knocking aside Thane’s arm. She spun away, but the edges of her vision were already darkening with blood loss. The pain had lessened, a sign she knew wasn’t good.
If she could just get ahold of the magic, if she could raise her numb fingers—Thane slashed down with the blade, and it caught her across the chest. She crumpled as he stood over her, her blood dripping from his knife.
The scent of night-blooming jasmine reached her, a cool breeze caressed her face, and then her vision was full of white.
BETWEEN FLASHES OF light, Kasira saw another world.
A glimpse of a sharp blue eye, a flash of near-white hair, the edge of a hard-clenched jaw, before the vision shifted to another woman’s face.
She wore a silver chain around her neck, a star and dagger charm at its base.
Kasira stared hard at that charm, something telling her that if she looked away, if she so much as blinked, she might never see the stars again.
Kasira, came a voice, distant as the sky.
Kasira, rebounded her thoughts.
What makes a life?
She came to in bits and pieces. A flash of copper, the touch of soft hands. A ruffle of disgruntled feathers. Then pain. A sharp, sundering pain in her chest and her stomach and her leg that engulfed her until her breath seized.
“Kasira?” Allaster’s voice cut through the haze. “Breathe, Kasira. Just breathe.”
It sounded so simple, and yet the drag of air she pulled into her lungs was nearly too much. She forced it back out, and the tightness holding her throat closed went with it, her chest easing as the pain settled into something manageable.
Her eyes flickered open.
Hazy shapes resolved: May, alive and standing at the foot of her bed, chewing on a nail. Gievra peering over May’s shoulder with one burnt-golden eye. And at her bedside, Allaster pressed so close his knees were crammed against the mattress, the torc at his throat bobbing with his relieved sigh.
He sank into a chair. “I thought you were going to stop trying to get yourself killed.”
She swallowed against her dry throat. “I thought you didn’t care,” she croaked back, expecting him to scowl at her, if not remind her of the thousand ways she had screwed up. But he only stared at her with an intensity that stilled her.
It was then that she realized how much of a mess he was. His curls looked as though he’d run his fingers through them a thousand times, his rings crammed to the knuckles and his eyes hollow pits.
“What happened?” she whispered into the silence.
“We found you bleeding out in the north garden,” May replied softly, and Kasira realized that her eyes were red from crying. “Thane …”
“He tried to kill me.” The memories came flooding back to her: the plunge of the dagger into her gut, the feeling of her blood spilling between her fingers. “He tricked me into thinking he’d done something to you. I couldn’t find you. Are you okay?”
May touched one hand to her head, where a vicious cut swelled with bruises that had already begun to heal.
“As well as could be expected, considering,” she replied.
“Someone ambushed me in the portal room. When I came to, I was in the catacombs.” She brushed three fingers down the back of her forearm, gooseflesh rising on her skin.
“But I couldn’t sense your energy through the magic.
” Kasira struggled to sit upright, and Allaster lunged forward with his hands on either side of her, as if expecting her to fall apart.
They stared at each other a moment, his face now inches from hers, before his fingers sought her pillow to adjust it.
He cleared his throat, slumping back into his chair. “The catacombs are steeped in ancient magic. It blocks most other energy signatures.”
Kasira forced out a breath, the heat in her cheeks fading.
“Is that common knowledge?” she asked, and he shook his head.
So the spy had been a part of this too, then.
Which meant it wasn’t Elyae. Was it Talthari then, or another mage altogether?
Were they the ones who had attacked May and let Vera through the portal room door?
Vera.
Kasira dove into the magic, but there was no sign of the Ambassador. Surely if she had been there when May and Allaster arrived, they would have said something. The spy must have let her back out through the portal room, and Thane—Kasira’s brow furrowed. She couldn’t sense him.
“Thane?” she asked.
“Is dead.” May shifted uncomfortably. “Gievra killed him.”
The Alkatir lifted his head, beak tilted to the air.
Kasira gawked at him in utter stupefaction.
He must have broken free of the Eyrie and come to her aid.
He’d finally left his pen—to save her. She couldn’t reconcile that with the guilt clogging her chest, couldn’t process the sense of loss spiraling through her. What did she care if Thane was gone?
He was my last tie to Loraya. Her fingers curled into the sheets. My last tie to my past.
“There’s more.” Allaster slung one long leg over the other. “Someone already reported Thane’s death to Kalthos. Vera is claiming we killed him because we didn’t want a Kalish mage. She’s invoked the Conclave.”