Chapter 42
I’d give anything to have substance to my hand right now so I could punch the solid black wall and have it not sink through, but there are guards around.
I watched her memories in the bathing room, felt the loneliness and fear she feels when Mazzar punishes her like a fucking child.
I will not leave her, even if she doesn’t know I’m here.
Ice crawls and cracks beneath my feet, shooting down the corridor and up the walls. The worst part is I can’t even fault Nizzara.
Because the reason she refuses me is out of loyalty.
That kernel of truth hits my stomach like a shot of whiskey, warm and buzzing.
She’s loyal. Not just when it is easy, or convenient, or when Liha is near, but fiercely, unconditionally loyal.
I didn’t think it was possible for deathwalkers to feel anything other than cold, but a flame sparks somewhere inside me, hissing, snapping, and hot. Just like it had when the refs hauled her unconscious body out of the preliminary duels.
I replay that duel over and over in my mind. She headbutted an infantry soldier so hard she knocked him out too.
Another concoction of awe and ice sweeps around me. Nizzara’s spiteful grit—no matter how impressive—won’t be enough to survive King’s Duel if she doesn’t learn a sword or get over her aversion to vessel power.
And I fucking care.
Sorren appears at the end of the corridor. “Hurry, slave,” he says to Yisabell who rounds the corner behind him. She hastens to keep up with his brisk walk as they approach Nizzara’s guards.
“Move,” he barks at them, and they part from the door immediately.
Yisabell slows when her feet cross my line of invisible ice. Tilting her head in my direction, a knowing sparkle enters her gaze, and a depth of knowledge fills her face, as if she can sense everything about me.
She smiles, and her memories fan out before me as if she’s playing all of the ones with Nizzara on purpose.
The first time she and her father arrived here in a cage, and Nizzara sent her a trail of pink smoke in the shape of a hunter bee, the Awom symbol of small but courageous strength.
The first time Yisabell scrubbed floors, and Nizzara found her, knelt beside her and started scrubbing too, asking her to tell her stories of the Mother Awom.
Images of Nizzara smiling, laughing, and warmth beaming from her.
Images of hugs, and tears, and jokes.
A tightening sensation cranks in my chest until I can’t breathe, and I know. I’ve fallen for the little beast.
“Now,” Sorren orders, turning back to Yisabell, who’s stopped in the midst of my invisible ice.
She turns away from me, a soft smile still on her face, and continues through the massive black door.