Chapter 35
By the time I surge into the Red Cape, dancers are leaving for their apartments above the bar, barefoot and dangling red heels at their sides. I float past clean-up crews scrubbing floors and sweeping broken glass. Tired bouncers lock the outside doors, and wary bartenders are picking up stools that lay sideways on the floor.
I’m hovering near the stage, eyeing a blood splatter, when Jasper steps out from a private booth. A cloaked individual in white slinks out behind him and disappears down the back hall leading to the back exit. The rebel contact he’s kept in his pocket, no doubt.
When I near him, he stiffens, goosebumps rising on his arms.
“It’s been a long night,” he groans, but returns to the private room, waving for me to follow.
“I need to ask you a question,” I say as he takes a seat.
His face remains blank, waiting, and not even pointed in my direction. After a moment, he says, “I’m not a realms-damned ghost talker, so if you want to speak to me, you’ll have to put feet on the ground or project your voice.”
I materialize, forgetting that others cannot hear me like Nizzara. “You’re a witch. Can’t you hear me?”
His bloodshot eyes raise to mine. “Half-witch. Big difference from your girl.”
I open my mouth to say she’s not my girl, but instead I say, “What is a pure witch, exactly?”
Nil said she was like him. I shudder, my shoulder still aching with an unshakable hollowness from his shadows.
Jasper drags a hand down his face. “She could be from any number of godly lines. Half-witches and pure witches both come from the power of gods. Scientia touched my mother’s womb while I was inside. That’s why I can read minds.”
“If you were touched in the womb, then how did Nizzara come to be—”
“Pure witches grow in the womb of a goddess or are fathered by a god. An actual child of the gods.”
“What if Mazzar is the god?”
Jasper shakes his head. “I’ve met him. He’s only half.”
“Half? You didn’t mention this before.”
He shrugs.
His hair is disheveled, and his guard’s uniform is torn. “What happened?”
His jaw tightens. “Mazzar’s infantry soldiers plowed through here searching for rebels. And by searching, I mean drinking, hitting, and tearing through the place.” He looks down at his hands. “Helina got a nasty gash up her arm. Some of the dancers were . . .” His fists clench, and he takes a breath. “And they took a millworker who was delivering salt. He’s to be executed for rebel association.”
Ice crackles across the floor. “You didn’t stop them?”
He surges to his feet and pounds the table with his fist. “We can’t stop them. They are Zarr infantries. You of all people should know. No one stops the Zarr infantry.”
“What about your gift? Why didn’t you use your mind tricks on them?”
A vein pops above his red collar. “I have to be touching the person to use my gift. I can’t keep my hand on twenty-five infantries moving on orders.”
He falls back to his chair and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I know how you feel about the executions. I tried to protect the man, but I failed.”
This would not be happening if I hadn’t lost my crown in the first place. The rebels, the executions, the starving people would not be happening. The ice beneath my feet crawls and spreads along the floor and up the legs of the table.
“No. I failed. I will not fail again.”
My attraction to Nizzara is clouding my real purpose here.
If I accomplish nothing else, I must end Mazzar’s rule. Unfortunately, that still means using Nizzara. Something inside me whispers that she’s on the verge of trusting me. And it feels as wonderful as it does terrible.
The curtains shift surrounding the private room, and Helina enters. Blood is beginning to blossom through the layers of white bandage wrapping up her arm and shoulder.
“Oh,” she says, her gaze falling to the ice-covered tabletop, then to me. She folds her arms. “Don’t worry. They only took one man suspected of having connections to the rebels, and I hope for his sake they kill him swiftly.” Her face darkens when she points a glare to Jasper. “The bouncers are becoming a problem. They are getting handsy in Red’s absence.”
I turn to Jasper. “How many bouncers does Red have here?”
“Twelve,” he says. “Including me.”
“Would they follow me?”
He tilts his head. “I could influence them to—”
I shake my head. “I do not force people. Are there any who would follow me willingly?”
He takes a deep breath and thinks for a moment. “Maybe two others. The rest are about as friendly as Red.”
I curl and uncurl my fingers before turning to Helina. “I need a room with a bath.” I’ve been making far-off appearances and dropping supply sleds, but it’s time to take a more hands-on approach.
Jasper raises a brow and Helina folds her arms. “It’s about time,” she says.
They lead me to Red’s apartment below the bar and return to clean the blood off the stage and sweep the broken glass.
Once I’m alone, and my bath is drawn, I get in. My skin stings as hot bath water climbs my chest, and the sensation doesn’t leave until I’m washed and out. I force myself to look in the mirror for the first time in ten years. The darkness in my eyes, just beneath my hazel coloring, is worse than I thought it would be.
I shave my beard, trimming it to the clean Zarr length I used to wear.
I find what I’m looking for in Red’s closet, and when I step into the empty bar up top and tap Red’s cane to the hard floor, Helina drops her broom.
“Give me a heart attack, why don’t you,” she hisses, before retrieving her broom from the floor. “You look just like him.”
I lean the cane against a table and straighten my red suit jacket. “Jasper, gather Red’s bouncers.”
Jasper folds his arms and leans against the bar, grinning. “So, forcing them to follow you is morally wrong, but tricking them into thinking you’re Red so then they’ll follow you is totally fine.”
I stick my hands in my pockets. “I’ve got to draw the line somewhere, don’t I?”
When Jasper leaves to fetch the men, I turn to Helina.
She flinches. “Sorry. You look too much like him with the mask and all.”
“How are the dancers?” I ask.
She presses her lips together then says, “The infantry soldiers had their way with two of us, but it’s nothing new. Red’s bouncers do the same thing on a weekly basis. Job hazard.”
“Are there any who want to leave?”
She takes a seat on the shiny red stool. “I’m not sure. Since Red has been . . . gone, they’ve seemed on edge. A lot of them need the money, and some of them enjoy working here.” She toys with the bracelet around her wrist. “Some have family to consider.”
“Tell them I forgive their debts, and anyone who wishes to leave can go. Any dancer who stays will not be forced to do anything they do not want to.”
She blinks. “You’d free them all of their debts? What if they all leave? You will have no establishment to supply your rebels through.”
“I will not use them like livestock. They are free to decide.”
She’s quiet for a long time before saying, “What about the princess? Is it okay to use her like livestock?”
Ice breaks out across my knuckles, and Helina notices it.
“I have orders,” I say.
She folds her arms, hiding a tremble in her hands. “I thought kings did not take orders.”
I point at her. “From gods, they do.”
Her eyes narrow. “I guess you have to draw the line somewhere, huh?”
“Why do you even care about Nizzara?”
She answers with a memory. It flashes across her mind as if she’s allowing me to see it. I’m in Helina’s place, looking through a high-end dress shop window.
Helina wraps her arms over her growing stomach, her fear and anger slicing through the memory as she watches a younger Nizzara inside, wearing an extravagant red gown. Her face is warm, and the shop owner’s smile seems genuine. Not like her guards lining the street, whose faces are cold and hard.
Nizzara leaves the shop.
Helina looks down at the few rens in her hand. Her own dress is ripping at the seams, over her pregnant belly, and when Nizzara passes by Helina, she locks eyes with her.
Helina drops her hands away from her abdomen that’s poking through her dress and turns to storm off.
“Miss,” Nizzara says.
A wave of fear washes through the memory as Helina slowly turns back to the princess. “Your Highness?” she says, her voice shaking.
“The shopkeeper has something for you,” Nizzara says.
My knees become weak as the memory withdraws itself. “You’re the girl from the dress shop,” I mutter.
Helina looks about the room before saying, “I don’t know her, but I can’t imagine she’s so cruel if she can leave two hundred gold ren for a homeless pregnant woman.”
It becomes hard to breathe.
Does she think being a deathwalker is so simple? That I can pick and choose which souls I’m ordered to tear apart? Does she know the real price it takes to seize a kingdom? Mazzar does. Not that it bothers him to pay it.
“This kingdom is worth more than a single life,” I say, my hands balling into icy fists, and the words tasting like ash. Having a soft heart is what lost me my kingdom in the first place. I believed Mazzar’s story about being exiled from his home and the death of his wife. My father gave him a title.
I gave him trust.
Helina’s eyes harden. “Is it?” Her knuckles whiten around her broom handle. “Is that how you will rule?”
The back door swings open and Jasper emerges, leading eleven large men in red suits. They funnel into the room, lining up and clasping their hands behind them as if they’ve done this many times before. Most of their suits are unwrinkled, their hair untouched, not a single cut or scrape on them.
“Take your masks off,” I say, mimicking Red’s voice and stance the best I can from their memories. “And explain why you allowed my establishment to be ransacked by infantry guards.”
The bouncers stiffen and slowly remove their masks. I see how Red treats them from inside their memories. They’re either rewarded with women and money or punished with physical brutality and threats. There’s no in between.
I approach the big brute in the middle who has the darkest soul and most twisted memories. I throw him to the floor, careful not to use my full strength. I see his name inside his memories—Garret. They spiral into darker and darker images of violence involving women inside the establishment and young girls outside the establishment.
The monster inside me, so starved of its purpose, thrashes, demanding to be freed. It doesn’t matter that I fed just hours ago. It’s never satiated. It would be so easy to bury my hand into his chest and rip his soul from him. My hand moves on its own, rising above to plunge.
Darkness sweeps through me, and for a moment I forget what I’m doing, until Jasper clears his throat and interrupts.
“They were infantry soldiers, sir,” Jasper says, as if he knows I’m about to lose control.
His voice gives me pause, but the monster does not retract its claws so easily. It never has. My arm inches toward Garret’s upright chest despite my efforts to stop.
“That’s no excuse,” I grind out. I have to stop. I’m begging my hand to stop, until there’s only one thing I can think of.
Nizzara’s soul.
Her memories.
The golden light of her being.
A cleansing breath shudders through me as the monster slithers back toward its depths. Instead of burying my hand in his chest, I rise, and thrust the pointed cane into his gut, using more strength than I should.
He throws his head, howling in pain.
“How about it, Garret? What is your excuse for letting other men into my territory to take what is mine?”
From the corner of my eye, I notice an approving nod from Jasper and a shudder from Helina.
Garret sputters under the cane as I press my full weight into it. “They wore vessels,” he says. “They moved under orders from the king.”
“Jasper,” I call. “Assist me.”
Jasper approaches, a smile flitting across his face as if dishing torture out is a leisurely activity. A memory breaks from Garret. One with Helina, and a dark room, and Red’s consent.
Garret smiles back, despite the cane pressing above his large intestine.
“Get creative,” I tell Jasper, releasing the cane from his gut.
Jasper slams his boot down over Garret’s crotch. Another screeching howl breaks from Garret, but Jasper only presses his foot down harder, twisting.
I tap the cane in sync with my right step as I pass by each guard. They flinch and squirm, watching Garret scream.
“Let this be a warning to each of you,” I say. “I don’t care who comes in here. They do not touch the dancers or the patrons.”
I allow Jasper a few more moments before calling him off.
Garret staggers to his feet and gets back in line.
“You don’t think I know what you did during tonight’s chaos?” I turn to walk back down the line, reading each of their memories as I go. “Some of you took the opportunity to steal my booze, steal my money and—”
I stop in front of a guard. “Take advantage of my dancers,” I say, keeping my gaze pointed ahead and my ice to a minimum.
His eyes bulge.
I pass by one bouncer—Liam—whose memories and soul is lighter than the others. “While some of you”—I tap his shoulder and nod for him to step out of line—“some of you hid two dancers from the infantry soldiers.”
His eyes bulge too, probably wondering how I know that. I send him to stand beside Jasper.
I pass another guard. “And some of you protected the bar staff.” I send him over to Jasper as well.
Jasper nods as if to say, “Yes, these men will follow.”
I face the remaining lot of darkened souls that tempt the hungry monster inside, saying, “Things are going to change around here. Starting with authority.” I point at Jasper and the two other guards. “Liam, Jasper, and Kile now have authority over you. You will do as they say, and you’ll answer to me if you don’t.”
All their eyes slide to the three of them, obvious loathing in them. “And the dancers are off-limits.”
Liam stiffens behind me, and I see his memories of him and his girlfriend—one of the dancers.
“Unless,” I clarify, “It is consensual.”
He looses a breath while the remaining guards begin to simmer, their jaws tightening.
I point to the door they all funneled through that leads to the maze of penthouses behind the painting. “You are all excused.”
Garret straightens his jacket. “What about the job you gave us last moon cycle? Where’s our perks for that?”
The surrounding guards nod as if they want to know too.
In his memories, Red is instructing them to scout for new dancers, promising prizes for the best girls, and Garret, I see, has provided many by using coercion. Coercion being a kind word for it.
“No perks,” I say. “Now get out.” When Garret opens his mouth to argue, I add, ”Before leaving is no longer an option.”
Baratrum air stirs throughout the room of empty tables, and a newfound fear lights their faces before they leave.
I instruct Liam and Kile to keep eyes on the others and report to Jasper if anything troublesome arises.
After they are gone, I turn toward Jasper who is leaning against the bar, his eyes heavy. Helina also looks exhausted. I miss that feeling. What I feel now is a completely different and never-ending kind of tiredness.
“Cancel the message to your cousin,” I say.
This seems to wake him. “Why?”
I shake my head. “I’ll handle the princess myself.”
“I’ll try to get word to him, but like I told you, the process is long,” he says, and Helina shoots a piercing glance at Jasper who adds, “but I’ll do what I can.”
There should be plenty of time, since Jasper’s brother was instructed to wait until the King’s Duel, which is still two months away.
“I also need to get in contact with the rebels,” I say.
If there’s any chance Lo’s still alive, I have to know. And besides that. They are my people, fighting in my name.
Jasper scratches his head. “They aren’t in the best position to help you fight against Mazzar,” he says. “They are recovering from a few raids, they don’t have notable numbers, and I told you. They don’t like visitors.”
I smile. “Let’s change that, shall we?”
The grin splitting Jasper’s lips is nothing short of maniacal. “Yes, let’s change that.”
Helina yawns. “You two can survive on nothing but violence and scheming, but I need beauty sleep.” She passes a look to Jasper that says, “Are you coming?”
His face softens as his gaze meets Helina’s. “I’ll arrange a meeting between you and the rebel leader tomorrow.” He takes her hand, and they wish me a good night before making their way to whatever apartment they’ve commandeered in Red’s absence.
In the empty silence of the bar, I pour myself a glass of honey-colored rum. I’ve never considered disobeying Nil because it’s impossible.
When he orders, I obey.
The threads of my soul belong to him.
I can’t help but imagine my mother, like I used to do when I needed to talk to her. In my head, she’s sitting on the stool next to me, a chocolate spiced rum in her hand. Her golden-brown hair is perfect, tied up in flawless braided fashion.
“It won’t make a difference.” She deploys her famous, raised eyebrow. “If you don’t take Nizzara’s soul, Nil will only send someone else to do it,” she says.
I rub my thumb along the side of my glass. “But I don’t want to be the one to do it.”
I imagine her taking a sip of her chocolate spice drink then saying, “A soft heart makes a short rule. That’s what your father always said.”
I roll my eyes and fold my arms. “Turns out he was right, wasn’t he?”
She points her piercing honey gaze to me. “But,” she prompts.
I sigh. “My mother would disagree with him.”
She flashes me her coy smile, the one mine was so often compared to. “Would she now? Why is that?”
A soft smile tugs my lips. “She said a soft heart is only a liability when the mind is soft too.”
She crinkles her nose, trying not to smile. “Oh, your mother sounds like a brilliant woman.”
An ache climbs my chest. “She was.”
“So, are you afraid to die? Is that what holds you in this bargain?”
I shake my head. I do not fear a final death. “It’s my people. They are suffering.”
“Hmm. If only there were a way to rid the throne of Mazzar and protect your girl.”
I stiffen. “She’s not my girl.”
“Right. So,” she says, leaning over to nudge me with her shoulder. “Tell me this joke about cart cows.”
I look down into the honeyed liquid, smiling.
When I tell her, she laughs so hard tears form in her eyes. “I like this girl,” she says.
“She’s betrothed.”
She sets her cup down. “Is it finalized?”
“No.”
Her eyes narrow on me. “Since when have you backed down from a challenge?”
A hopeless dread slithers through my stomach. “Since now. There’s no happy ending here, Mother.”
She tilts her head, and her eyes deepen as if all her motherly love exists in those two windows. “Sharpen your mind, Dae.”
Realms, I miss her. When I let myself return to reality, the barstool beside me is empty.
I fly out and up into the fog, to anywhere except Nizzara’s room, where she’s asleep with her hair in a silken mess, and her lips in a dreamful pout.
My mind must stay sharp. That means no more torturing myself with her memories. Or her realms-damned nightgowns.