Chapter 23
It doesn’t matter that Awom souls are protected from Nil, my soul is freezing over, about to cut down all the bodies in this room like fodder.
I ground myself despite the ice taking hold, pausing on each face around me, but the Awom flashes in my mind again and the growl that erupts in my chest is straight from Baratrum.
I sift through memories flashing through the minds around me to distract myself.
And of course, they all linger on her.
Nizzara gliding into the ballroom in that sinful golden dress, her chin high, and expression fierce.
Nizzara walking through the crowd, with every gaze pinned on her.
Nizzara as the Awom man was shot and killed. I try to skip over those memories, but her face—There are tears in her eyes as she beholds the Awom on his knees.
For some reason, she appears noticeably different in each perspective. Bigger breasts in one memory, fuller lips in another’s . . .
A guest’s voice interrupts my thoughts. “I want to know who designs her gowns,” a Zem woman says to a gaggle of tipsy friends wearing varying shades of red.
“I want to know who actually believes she’s a virgin. Twenty-one years old with those curves?” a blonde snorts into her wine goblet. “It’s obviously a ruse, but damn, it’s working on me.”
The Zem woman giggles. “Maybe tonight I’ll pretend I’m off-limits too.”
They laugh and sway before passing their empty goblets to a server and disappearing toward the darker corners writhing with entangled couples.
Tarella tugs a Zo man toward my corner, her memories swirling in jealousy, from both Nizzara’s betrothal and her Mark.
Her Mark. I see it in Tarella’s memories. She can alter her appearance. Is that why her beauty is so intoxicating to me?
It can’t be. Every time I’ve talked to her, she’s been without her spirit, which means—It must not work on men who already find her as unbearably attractive as I do.
Fuck.
When Rajim—my once father-in-law—passes by, I gladly take the change in thoughts. Mercifully, he’s not remembering Nizzara, but an older memory, one shrouded in darkness and fear. Something gleams in a box, but before I latch on to the image, Kazem touches Rajim on the shoulder, mumbling something, and the memories shift to Kathreen.
Ice cracks from my presence, and I know it’s time to leave.
Most of the infantry are stationed inside since none of the kingdoms trust each other, especially after the fourth kingdom was dissolved to barren wastelands. As far as Mazzar is concerned, his most immediate enemy is within his walls so that is where his infantry patrols. I pass infantry after giant infantry, stationed at each archway, down every hall, and notice the infantry general is nowhere to be found.
Fading through the gem-studded wall, I dissolve into the dark winter fog outside and idle over all the royal cars—the lasting remnants of the fourth kingdom and their once great technology. Seven infantries patrol in formation around and through the prized, gleaming vehicles, but other than that, the walls are bare of guards.