Chapter 31
Iknow what lies in the private library behind the Zo throne. Prophecies. In my time impersonating a scholar, I’ve learned there are three gods who have the ability to prophesy. Some have written books, including these books in Tigous’s secret library. Wala’s line—the goddess of life and knowledge—sees the future in pathways, able to see all possibilities that could stem from one point in time. I can only imagine the size of her books. Scientia—the all-knowing goddess of consciousness—sees THE pathway. The absolute future that will happen, but she’s a stingy hag who loves riddles. Then there’s Tempus, who is the father of time. He can make changes to the future. If he puts it to paper, it happens. His word trumps Scientia’s and he seems to like pissing her off every few hundred years or so. Throw in half-witches with foresight, and what you have is a realms-damned headache.
When I emerge from the cove door, Brunar summons a maid for my books and leads me toward the training room, even though it’s the last place I want to go.
Liha whispers, “I don’t think you should read that book, Soriah left. At least for a while.”
There’s only one reason Liha ever keeps me from doing anything. To protect me. I don’t have it in me to argue with her about it.
“Why don’t you go play?” My emotional state is probably wearing on her.
“But we are supposed to train for tomorrow.”
“I’m not in the mood to train.”
She nudges me with her warm pocket of air. “Let’s practice, like we’re supposed to.”
I grit my teeth. “Liha, I’m sore, tired, and hungry. I may be going to the training room, but I’m not moving a realms-damned thing.”
“I can stay. We can talk about—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Especially with her because she’s incapable of dealing with heavy topics, or any emotion that’s not bubbly or exciting.
“But the preliminaries . . .”
“Don’t mean anything. No killing blows are allowed, and losses don’t count. It doesn’t matter if I rank last.”
She sniffs. “Very well.” And she leaves.
My guards perform a sweep through the weights and weapons, then station themselves outside the only door.
I find the squat bar and sit in front of it. No one is around. The weights are racked. The lights are dimmed. The silence and darkness seem to grow the longer I sit, staring up at the bar, trying to breathe. All I can think about is the countless times I convinced myself that deep down, she loved me.
A cool velvet sensation brushes my shoulders like a cloak of night. “In the middle of a demanding workout, I see.”
“I don’t want company,” I say, breathing the forming tears away.
Dae’s darkness envelops my senses, as if I am tucked away in his own precious cloud of calm.
“Hmm, then why do your desires ask me to stay?”
I scoff. Apparently, my desires do not hide from him as easily as they do for Liha. “Because I am weak.”
“I doubt that very much.”
His presence brushes near my cheek, sending a jolt of cold icy fire through my caster’s shield, like lightning in a winter storm. I close my eyes, relishing it because it somehow settles the churning in my chest.
There’s a stretch of silence and my stomach takes the opportunity to growl.
His cold air stirs around me. “It sounds like you need to eat.”
As if on cue, the lightheadedness worsens. Did I even have breakfast today? I lean back against the padded bench behind me and wince from the concealed lashes on my back, still tender but not excruciating.
I take a deep breath, still pushing down the waves of heartache that recede for a moment only to crash again. “I can’t.”
“Don’t tell me you are on one of those diets—”
“Have you ever watched a man’s head be severed from its body?!” I yell, tears unleashing. “Blood and tissue and raw meat. That’s what it looks like. Raw. Meat.” My breathing kicks up as the more gruesome of my father’s executions surge into my mind and my hands start to shake. “He forces me to eat meat, sometimes. Just to prove that he can.”
The temperature around me drops until I swear my breath clouds in front of me. “So, you starve?”
My fists curl and it’s so cold it hurts to bend my fingers, but it soothes the remaining ache in my back. “It is my only way of making a point.”
“What is your point? How long you can go without passing out?”
“That I can rule without killing,” I say. “That control, power, and ruthlessness can exist without killing!” My fists tremble in my lap, from low energy or anger, I’m not sure. Images of heads rolling, blood spurting, and the sounds of loved ones screaming take over my thoughts.
His voice sharpens. “Speak of something else.”
“Like what?” Like how half of my family tree just disappeared?
“Tell me about Yisabell.”
I rest my chin on top of my knees. “She’s from Baddadwom. In the far north, like most Awoms.”
When I don’t say anything else, he says, “Go on.”
“She was brought here when she was five. Even then, she was smart and brave.” A hint of a smile worms its way up to my lips. “She’s like a wise, old oracle mashed with the silly desires of a twelve-year-old girl.”
The cold air softens around me.
“You know the Awoms descended from the oracles.”
“I know. That’s why they worship the—Wait. You speak Awom?” I sit forward. His pronunciation is perfect.
He continues in Awom. “I am skilled in many things, Nizzara.”
Despite everything going through my mind, my name in his voice causes my skin to heat.
I clear my throat. I don’t want to think about my mother or my stinging back, so I find myself saying, “I told you about Yisabell. Now tell me something about you.”
There’s a pause. “What do you wish to know?”
My leg muscle begins to cramp, so I stand up to stretch it, leaning on the bar and pushing my heel down. “Tell me something real,” I say.
I’m surrounded by false faces.
False emotions.
False family members.
I want something real.
After another long pause he says, “My mother passed away during childbirth when I was seven.” His darkness swirls in a more frenzied pattern as he speaks. “The day before she passed, I threw a monstrous tantrum over some stupid toy, mad she wouldn’t buy it from this peddler on the road. We had the money for it, and I knew my father would’ve bought it, but she said I should buy it for another child who needed a toy, since I had plenty. After an hour of my kicking fit, pushing her to the end of her patience, she told me she’d sooner die than raise a selfish, spoiled son. Later that night, she kissed me good night, told me she loved me, and died a few hours later, having gone into premature labor while I slept.”
“Did the baby—”
“No,” he says softly. “My little brother passed too.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
The chill through the air is heavy and sad. Lifting my hand, I bring it closer to where his tall presence stands beside me, where I imagine his chest would be. He stiffens, or at least the air stops swirling.
Maybe it’s the fact he’s a spirit—not a solid man—that allows me to be so forward, but I place my hand where his wide chest is. My vessel hums on my finger as I brush through cold air, and I wonder if our desires align—if that’s the reason for this undeniable current.
“What is it you desire?” I ask.
He takes a long time to answer. The air shifts from cold to colder, then back to cold. “Honestly,” he says, stepping toward me, closer to my caster shield. His presence so close. “I desire you.”
My throat dries. Damn that voice of his. “You desire to bond with me?”
“Among other things.”
Heat blossoms in my cheeks. He must be like Liha, a shameless flirt in his afterlife.
“I’m already bonded. And I will not abandon Liha.”
“Even if it meant winning the King’s Duel?”
I drop my hand from him. “No, not even if it meant winning.”
There’s a pause before he says, “You can take multiple spirits into your shield.”
“That’s not possible.” As soon as the words are out, I feel ignorant. Father told me it’s not possible, but I’m suddenly positive he lied about that.
Dae is silent, letting me work through my thoughts. I think of Liha’s babbling, about fashions and non-stop gossip, but also the amount of power . . .
“That sounds like a realms-damned headache,” I say.
“Do you have a headache now, talking to me?”
“No.”
He tilts his head, and I imagine some sort of smirk on his face. “See, you’d do fine. You’d have more power to—”
“I don’t want more power.”
Does no one get it? I want less. Like always, I lock up the raging memories of my father.
“Power corrupts those who touch it, especially people like me.”
“Nizzara,” he purrs, his voice an instant muscle relaxer. “I assure you, just because I am older, more experienced, and all around devilishly handsome, I would only corrupt you if you verbally consented to my corrupting.”
I roll my eyes. He is definitely a shameless flirt and undeniably Zarr. A smile breaks through my lips, but the weight of what we’re really talking about pulls it back down. I graze my thumb along the smooth black bar, racked at the same height I last used it.
“I’m serious,” I say. “I don’t want to become a monster, brimming with power and no control over it.”
A flash of my father’s descent into madness takes over my thoughts, slipping right through the locks I placed on them. The night he came home drunk in the most violent rage over something I was too young to grasp . . . He got better for a time, but then he stole the throne and the First-Made Vessel. The rages, punishments, and executions followed. It isn’t like he was a model person before, but he wasn’t the person he is now.
At least, not with me.
A tongue of ice writhes through the air and I shiver. Dae’s presence glides over to face me, opposite of the bar.
“You can choose not to be a monster.”
A humorless laugh puffs from my lips. “Can such things be chosen?”
I think of my rage that’s always near the surface. It is not my choice, and when that rage gets within reach of power . . .
“I’ve seen monsters, Nizzara, and you are not one of them. A little beast maybe, but not a monster.”
I huff, shoving down the sensation that tightens through my abdomen when he says my name like that. “You must’ve won many ladies by doling out that exact compliment.”
My self-control slips, and I allow myself to imagine what his voice would sound like whispering sweet nothings—or just my name—in my ear. Allow myself to admit I want that more than I let on.
“Oh, absolutely, I did, but I don’t think it mattered what I said to a woman, as long as I whispered their name at the base of their ear.” That invisible smile seeps into his voice.
How does he know—
I narrow my eyes. “You stay out of my traitorous desires. They don’t know a damned thing about me.”
A deep midnight laugh rumbles through the air, intensifying the heat through my cheeks and neck. I push off the bar and walk around to where the big round plates hang on the wall. I grab the twenty-fives, load one on each side, then circle back for another set, adding ten more pounds than Sorren pushed on me. My back is almost completely numb now.
“Aren’t you tired?”
“I am. In every possible way. I’m tired.” I adjust my dress and kick off my shoes.
“And lifting weights will make you less tired . . . ?”
I get under the bar and heave with everything I have. My poor, tortured legs cry out with burning, trembling, sobs of fire. My back throbs, but I manage one full squat, crying out at the weight of everything on my shoulders.
I grit my teeth. “How I feel does not dictate what I do.” Re-racking the bar with a satisfying clang, I lay my head against the solid bar and close my eyes to block out the spinning. “At least, I want that to be true.”
My stomach offers a hollow, nauseating grumble. I’m glad Sorren is not here to wipe the floor with me tonight.
“You know you can’t keep up with your training without enough food.” Is that a growl in his voice?
I look at the empty room behind me in the mirror. “One does not become resilient under ideal conditions.”
“Are you quoting Marko’s Works to me?”
I smile because he knows it and think of a lesser-known excerpt. “It is one thing to remember a quote, another to live by it.”
“Bruntar’s Ballad.”
A smirk curls in his voice and realms, I wish I could see it. It sounds dazzling, if that’s possible. To hear a smirk and know it’s dazzling.
“You’ll have to try much harder to stump me,” he says.
I rack my brain, chewing on my bottom lip as I dust off a line from an old book from the Zo library. One of my favorites. “To look upon the worst and see the best is true sight.”
Dae goes stone still before he whispers, “To behold the whole and find no flaws, only then can one be right.” He whispers, “Love from a Blind Prince.”
I’m honestly shocked he got it. “My tutor says nobody in the three kingdoms reads that book because it’s too idealistic. Too soft.”
“But you’ve read it.”
I slide my gaze toward his presence, which is now leaned up against the far mirror, and shrug. “Tell me not to do something, and I can’t resist.”
His presence jets closer and brushes past my legs, dipping beneath the bar. He resurfaces behind me, reforming into his full height.
“In that case, never kiss a spirit,” he says at the base of my ear. “It might set the bar too high for poor mortal men.”
I laugh. Actually, laugh. “Kissing a ghost”—I struggle to get the words out—“I might as well kiss the wind from a cart cow’s ass.”
I remember the day our court comedian told me that cart cow joke. It”s still the funniest joke I’ve ever heard. I giggle harder, tears filling my eyes. I think I might be delusional from hunger, or emotional trauma, but I don’t care because realms, it feels good to laugh.
Dae’s dark laugh rumbles around me, eclipsing all else. It slowly ebbs until it settles into an electrically charged silence between us.
“The funniest lines always have a thread of truth, you know,” he says.
There has to be a smirk on that ghostly face of his.
“Are you referring to your line about kissing spirits? Or my line about cart cows?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
I roll my eyes. “You are a shameless flirt.”
He chuckles. “Perhaps.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?” he says, still hovering at my back.
I look over my shoulder toward him. “For making me laugh.”
The air around us thaws and a silent current hums between us as I imagine his wall of a chest right behind me. The door to the training room barrels open and I jump.
“Your time is up,” Tarella says. “I have the next hour in here.”
Dae disappears, taking his addictive current with him.
I re-rack my weights. Thanks to Dae, I’m in good enough spirits to say, “Do you want me to stay? I can help you with your flips.”
Her eyes widen, her obvious suspicion taking hold. “I don’t need your help.” She points to my neck that’s turning dark shades of greens and purples. “By the way, your necklace is a beautiful shade of green.”
The light feeling Dae left me with boils away. I try breathing through it, try keeping my mouth shut, counting to three, but nothing works. I can’t stop my spiteful anger from speaking for me.
“If you like it so much, I’ll give you a matching one.”
She gasps and flings her fist up to hit my face. Instincts take over. I punch, and my fist connects before hers, snapping her head to the side. Like Moteran’s law of gravity, my body stays in motion, all muscle memory and reflexes. I tackle her to the ground and load my fist to drive it into her face again when she flinches away, a flash of panic on her face. My hands shake as I reign in the uncontrollable heat throughout my chest, and I get off of her.
Two deep breaths.
I point at her. “That right there is why you can’t duel worth shit. You shy away from blows. Face the pain. Own it,” I say. “Otherwise, it will own you.”
I want to stalk off.
Actually, if I’m really being honest, I still want to punch her. Our entire relationship is nothing but snide comments and forced niceties.
And jealousy.
She has a mother. She can be with whoever she wishes because she’s not the chosen heir, but I don”t want to be this person.
I offer her my hand. It feels equivalent to lending my flesh over to a rabid dog who’s known to bite. She stares at it, then me. She takes it, and I pull her up in silence, not trusting my mouth or my fist. I leave before I can change my mind.
Preysee balks when I enter my room. “You look haggard,” she says.
I can’t even bring myself to shrug.
She looks around, then lowers her voice. “I was planning on stopping through the lesser district tonight.” Her hand goes to her neck where a gleam of metal peeks out from her maid uniform.
My heart lurches for Palko who just spent another night in the dungeon.
I nod. “Go.”
Preysee’s eyes linger on my bruises. “Are you sure you don’t need me—”
“I’m sure. Go.”
She nods and bustles out of my room.