Chapter 14
Long after Nizzara’s entry duel, I float through the walls of my castle, returning from the streets full of sickly people with no shelter. I navigate the halls, reading memories until I find myself hovering above three guards stationed at the corner of two main halls. I”m dipping into a guard”s memory, watching the little beast demand money from millworkers when a scream reigns down from above, jerking me out of the vision.
“Stay in formation,” a guard says. “I’ll check on it.”
The other guards nod and adjust their positions to exclude him as he departs. I follow him down the hall and up the giant, circling staircase toward Nizzara’s rooms.
“Another one of the princess’s nightmares?” The guard calls once he reaches the top two steps of the tower.
The high guard of Nizzara’s night watch says, “Yeah, they’re getting worse, I’m afraid.”
The guard on the stairs nods and turns back for his post.
I float through her door, ignoring my no spying while she’s asleep rule. Because, knowing what the little beast is afraid of could become very useful.
It has to be midnight judging by the silver gloom trailing in through the balcony doors. Nizzara is asleep, curled up on her side, and I’m taken aback by how soft her face is when it’s not twisted into the sneer I’ve seen in so many memories of her.
I’m also stuck on what she’s wearing. Or rather how little she’s wearing. Her silky black night gown is bunched up her legs, leaving her honey-toned thighs on display where a midnight dagger catches my eye.
Such a vicious little beast.
I find myself hovering closer until I catch the sheen of tears on her smooth cheeks and golden light—
Wait. I can see brilliant gold light edging her silhouette. Her soul. My mouth goes dry. Her soul is . . .
I don’t finish that thought.
Gorgeous.
Dammit. I finished the thought.
I’m sure if I get closer, I’d find the rotten edges and perhaps—in the case of the truly wretched—a hole in the center.
If I can see her soul, her little pink spirit must be gone.
I hover closer.
Silent tears stream over the thin bridge of her nose then down her cheek before disappearing into the black satin pillowcase.
Even though Nil said I can’t tear her soul out, I reach my hand out for her anyway. I can see it. I should be able to rip it out too.
The moment my fingers graze her soul, gold erupts in my vision, heating me from the inside out. I clench my teeth, trying to bury my fingers in the fibers of it, but it simply melts around my hand, offering nothing to grasp on to.
The golden warmth weakens my knees, and the black inside is not like the black of other souls. Not weak and rotted, but smooth and polished. Unbreakable. I yank my arm back, glaring at her as ice reclaims my insides.
I felt her. She’s angry, spiteful, and unapologetically violent. I refuse to acknowledge anything more about her than that.
I gaze into her face and open the door to her golden memories, falling into another time and space.
Suddenly, I’m hunched against a wall in her memory—seeing it through her eyes—as her father throws a wine bottle at her in a drunken rage. It shatters against the wall above her, bleeding red liquid down and soaking her nightgown. Her heartache punctures through me as if the bottle shattered against my chest. She clutches her arms in front of herself while Mazzar kicks a fallen chair out of his way.
“She’s fucking pregnant,” he spits.
Mazzar’s silver Military Vessel is on his hand and all the walls and chairs are white—The Zo castle, I realize.
He’s wearing the infantry uniform, with the gold insignia of a skull on his arm. This has to be during Mazzar’s first years of marriage to Soriah, meaning, Nizzara—this shaking perspective I’m watching from—is only two or three years old.
He grabs her beneath the arms and holds her against the wall, his eyes softening when they meet hers.
Tears stream down her face as if they’re my own, and he wipes one away with a gloved thumb. Her heart is full of fear, but also incredible, depthless love. I feel it all.
“Do you wish to be strong, Nizzara?” he asks, his black eyes boring into me with the look of a tortured father. “Do you wish to be brave?”
She raises her small chin up. “I am strong and brave,” she says, her voice too knowing for her age.
He closes his eyes. “Gods, so much like your mother. I’ll make sure you never feel this grief. Do you hear me? I will lay the world at your feet.”
She nods.
“You will not be as weak as I am.” Gems glisten across his gloved knuckles as he curls his fist and punches the wall, splintering the stone beside her. “You will know pain!” He strikes again, deepening the fissure. “You will know fear!” He hits again, and again, and again until his fist sticks and his shoulders cave. “So when grief finds you,” he says, sliding his fist down the white stone. “You will laugh in her face, Nizzara.”
I yank myself out of the memory like an addict from a dealer: high and swearing this is the last time, but only because her memories are warm. No matter what scene plays out in her mind, they are warm, and I forgot what warmth feels like.
When my vision returns, those black eyes are open and honed directly on me, and it’s now I realize her desires are whispering to me.
The golden strands of her soul tickle the air, singing her desires.
“. . . to be calm . . .”
“. . . to win the King’s Duel . . .”
“. . . to end the betrothal . . .”
Her deeper desires are there, not quite loud enough to hear, and with the warmth of her memories still fogging my mind, I don’t strain to listen.