Chapter 49 Bastien #2
I don’t bother to confirm or deny. Bryony Devaliant’s fate depends entirely on the whims of a half-mad god-king and a brother whose self-control has always been more decorative than functional. The girl did not look well when I last saw her. Assurances would be premature at best.
“Irrelevant,” I say. “I want my weapons.”
A muscle in her jaw jumps. For a moment, I’m convinced she’ll launch herself at me in a doomed blaze of defiance. I almost want her to.
“That’s it? You broke in for some knives?” Her voice climbs with each word. “Who cares which realm they’re in?”
I’m tempted to reach into the lockbox of her mind and squeeze until something ruptures.
In one hundred and ten thousand years, I’ve never met a human who could keep me out.
The fact that she can is starting to piss me off.
I’m not above challenging anything that defies me by digging my teeth in until it stops squirming.
“Watch yourself,” I say. “I don’t play games, and you’re wearing my patience thin. Any blade forged from Turpori steel is mine by right.”
Understanding clicks in her expression. “I see.”
How much does she know? What else is she hiding behind those walls?
I press against her mental barriers, searching for cracks. Places I can slip through and take what I want.
“Get out of my head, Blade.” Her voice is soft, but her mind rises to meet me, repelling my intrusion with a hard slap. “Before I make you regret it.”
I blink. “How are you doing that?”
You shouldn’t be able to do that. No one can do that.
Breaking into minds is what I do.
“Your mind feels wrong.” She meets my stare without flinching. A lesser creature would have crumbled by now. “It doesn’t play nice with mine. What happened to it?”
An itch starts up beneath my skin. Her scent fills my head, the inescapable musk of human. It blankets my tongue until I’m choking on it, until my gorge rises and my fingers twitch with the need to dig into flesh and tear—
“The knives,” I say sharply.
The itching is spreading. And I have the sudden, horrifying certainty that she sees me. Down to the rotted core, the empty space where my heart should be, all the filthy memories I keep locked away.
And she does not look away.
“Come with me,” she says, cool and clipped.
I fall into step a precisely calculated distance behind her, close enough to intervene should she stumble, far enough to avoid even the suggestion of considerate hovering.
As we walk, I analyze variables—the positioning of guards (inadequate), potential ambush points (numerous), structural weaknesses (laughable).
And Theodora. The newly crowned empress and the sole surviving Anchor, leaving two realms vulnerable to anyone who might want to see the veil collapse and a new war sparked.
It’s a disaster waiting to happen.
The armory, when we reach it, is at least marginally better defended. Iron-reinforced doors, competent locks, some attempt at organization.
Theodora leads me to a cabinet in the corner. “I moved them in there.”
I trail my fingertips over the wood. My shadows shimmer down my arm, seeking the hidden tumblers like the teeth of a key. The lock crumbles, and the doors groan open.
The knives rest on a bed of black velvet, singing with the resonance of my power. The metal knows me, remembers when my hands and energy shaped it, and it croons a welcome as I lift them free.
“You need to hear something,” I tell her as I push the blades into the belt along my ribs. “You won’t like it.”
She sighs. “Gods, what now?”
“Get pregnant. Immediately.”
A startled laugh escapes her. “Excuse me?”
“The Shroud needs your bloodline to continue. Right now, your body is the most valuable thing in two realms, and tonight proved how vulnerable you are. Any halfway competent assassin could slit your throat and bring down the veil.”
Her shoulders stiffen as understanding sinks in: this woman is chained to Hellevig and unable to leave without the veil collapsing. This city is now her prison.
“Are you offering to fuck a baby into me, Blade?” The words are steady. Inflectionless. “How selfless.”
There’s the bitch I met at Aldgate.
I curl my lip in disgust. “Don’t flatter yourself, Empress.”
Just the thought makes me want to heave up knives.
I turn to leave, but at the door, I look back at her standing in a pool of moonlight. “Try not to die. It’s annoying enough dealing with you alive.”
* * *
I knock on Evander’s chamber door. Rustling fabric and a muffled curse filter through the barrier, followed by the telltale creak of a mattress. Of course. My brother’s proclivities are as predictable as they are tedious.
“Yeah?” Evander calls, voice rough with sleep and other things I’d rather not dwell on.
The smell of sex hits me when I enter. Evander remains chained to the bed where I left him, and the princess is nestled under the blankets at his side. They’re covered in each other’s scents—that unique aroma of Chosen like an imprint beneath their skin.
She stirs as I approach, violet eyes fluttering open. I study the rosy flush of her cheeks, the way her flesh has knitted back together without even a scar to show for all her suffering. The perks of fucking a healer, I suppose.
Evander watches me with a smirk. “You’re looking almost dapper, Bas. Who did you have to disembowel to manage that at this hour?”
What a useless question. As if I’d ever allow my appearance to become so dissolute.
I level him with a flat stare. “Your attempts at humor remain as pathetic as your self-control.”
“Jealous? Don’t worry. I’m sure we could find someone willing to hate-fuck even your cold ass if you asked real sweet.”
“When I want to act like a mindless animal, I’ll seek your expert advice.”
I withdraw a velvet-wrapped bundle from my coat and toss it at the girl.
She unknots the bindings to find her five knives. “You got them back.”
“Your sister was cooperative. Even useful despite the corpses.”
A sharp inhale. “Corpses? Is Theo—”
“She’s fine. No thanks to the idiot guards she surrounds herself with.”
“And you made sure she stayed that way.” Her smile is lovely enough that I almost understand Evander’s obsession. Almost. If I ignored literally everything else. “It was kind of you.”
Ah. She thinks she’s stumbled on tenderness beneath the ice, some sentimental insanity that forced my hand tonight. How precious.
“Tell me something. Do you know what used to be the rarest thing in existence?” I ask her.
She regards me mutely, startled at the non sequitur.
“Shadowmeld orebium, colloquially known as Turpori steel. It’s impossible to replicate because I’m the only being capable of conjuring and manipulating it.
At least until humans got hold of my power and abused it in ways I’m still dealing with.
Do you know what’s now the most coveted commodity? ”
Silence. Her brows dig together in confusion.
“Devaliants,” I say impatiently. “More specifically, viable Anchors. And now that you’ve murdered your uncle and become functionally worthless, your sister is our only safeguard against the Shroud’s collapse. Keeping her breathing isn’t kindness. It’s necessity.”
Let her chew on that. She bound her soul to a god and left two realms teetering on a knife’s edge. The least she can do is choke on the consequences.
I leave the room and shut the door behind me.
Alexios leans against the far wall in the corridor, arms crossed over his chest. His eyes cut to my brother’s door, then back to me. “Getting soft, Blade?”
His attention intensifies, his mind shoving against mine. I allow it for a span of three slow heartbeats. Four. Then I slam my mental ramparts closed.
He just smiles.
“The girl wanted a room tonight, so I chained Evander up,” I reply. Time to shift his focus elsewhere. “I was in Hellevig earlier, assessing our remaining Anchor’s security. The empress had some uninvited guests.”
Alexios’ expression sharpens. “Kidnapping or wet work?”
“Unclear. I was more concerned with removing a collar from her neck before her windpipe collapsed.” I dig the broken remains out of my coat and pass them over. “Recognize those symbols?”
He turns the pieces over in his hands. “No. This is your metal?”
I nod. “But I can’t verify when the collar was made or how many of my feathers are still in circulation. I had one like that put on me in the Bloody Court to keep me contained. This one is likely to compel obedience or conceal the empress’ death from you through the Claim.”
A muscle tics in his jaw. His eyes slip closed, and I feel the swell of his power again—a searing, seeking wildfire roaring through the aether.
“Those fucking mental walls of hers,” he mutters. “They were fascinating when we had spare Anchors. Now, they’re just a liability. She only lowers them to berate me about her sister.”
“The empress’ mental architecture is unusual. Strong natural defenses.”
Orderly, I don’t say. Elegant. Beautifully constructed. I’ve never craved a challenge more.
A treacherous flicker of long-dead heat kindles at the memory of those adamantine walls. The secret, shadowed spaces behind them I want to chart—
I crush the thought ruthlessly. Salt the earth so nothing so soft can take root.
Cool disinterest. Distant respect. That’s all.
“Send Elias to guard her,” I suggest, wrenching my focus back to tactics. To logic and necessity. “His background will make him less hostile to the idea of protecting a Devaliant. The empress’ security is weak, and she’s given permission for us to keep her safe with no risk to the Accords.”
“That solves nothing long-term. I need her monitored.” His burning gaze meets mine, and I know with sinking dread what he’ll say next. “Your psychic skill exceeds my own. Will a bond give you full access to her mind if I transfer my Claim to you?”
No.
No.
No.
My shadow wings flare wide. “No.”
One dark brow lifts. “Are you refusing an order? Or admitting you can’t handle it?”
“I destroy things,” I remind him flatly. “I don’t protect them. I’m not a bodyguard.”
Power lashes against me as lightning skitters across his skin.
“You do whatever the fuck I need you to do. Evander is chained to a bed, we have a confirmed fleshtrade operating in Hellevig using a codeword with possible Devaliant ties, and your metal just ended up around the empress’ neck.
Desperate times, desperate measures. I want you to watch her.
If she has ties to the fleshtrade, I want to know.
If someone is making an attempt on my Anchor, I want to fucking know. ”
I very carefully don’t react to the revelation that there are demigod poachers in Hellevig.
That he neglected to lead with that critical piece of intelligence.
It’s so like him to safeguard information until it suits his purposes and he can use it to back me into a corner with no recourse but obedience.
“A Claim doesn’t guarantee compliance,” I say. “Her mind could stay her own.”
“A risk,” he allows. “But a necessary one. Form a full sensory bond. You need to be able to locate her anywhere and reach her at any time. See into her thoughts for information, taste her fear, feel the shape of her wanting.” His head tilts.
“Can you still handle that kind of intimacy? Or have you forgotten how?”
I swallow hard. This forced link will be unbearable. I’ll have to take rusted shears to the cancer of it behind my ribs. Dig it out. Trade soap and boiling water and the bright pain of flensing for the creeping rot of something far worse.
“I have the theoretical knowledge,” I say through my teeth.
And aren’t those the most damning words.
The admittance that whatever atrophied scrap of selfhood I buried hasn’t rotted to nothing after all.
That some instinctual relic recognizes the animal snarl of possession.
The biting need to crawl inside her skin and curl up between the notches of her spine until she can’t breathe without choking on me.
Focus. Control. Breathe in and hold, lungs turned to stone.
“She might refuse,” I add.
“She won’t. Not if she values her life.” He turns to leave in a whisper of wings. “Five days, Blade. Settle your affairs and get your shit together. I’ll send Elias to mind the girl for now. And Bastien?”
I halt the growl building in my throat and shackle it down. “What?”
“Make sure she survives long enough to birth an heir. Even Evander can’t put her back together if she ends up splattered across her courtyard.”
Then he’s gone, leaving me alone in the corridor with nothing but the thundering of my pulse and the acid taste of bile in my throat.
I wrangle the tide of threatening emotion with ruthless precision.
Breathe in and hold.
Lungs turned to stone.
This Claim will be a necessity. A component in an overarching schematic, its purpose to reinforce the Shroud’s structural integrity and load-bearing capacity.
Nothing more, nothing less. The rest is altered brain chemistry. Misfiring synapses, chemicals flooding receptors. More to the point, my cock still works.
Lights flare as I enter my bedroom and strip out of my clothes. Every garment will have to be sterilized of the lingering scent of her.
I turn the tap on for the bath. Scalding water gushes forth, steam billowing to fill the space.
I step beneath the spray and reach for a bar of astringent soap, dragging punishing hands over my skin again and again, abrading the flesh until it’s red and stinging.
Still, I don’t stop. I have to cut away this filthy patina of humanity, scour the weakness from me like infection from a wound.
There is no room for gentleness here—only water and the sluicing of my blood down the drain.