Chapter 10
Anelize crashed into him, shoving him against the bookcase with all the force she could summon, rage becoming her one true ruler.
“You,” she sneered, bracing her forearm against his throat.
“Anya!” Zara cried as footsteps rushed toward them.
The man, still grinning down at her as if he found her outburst incredibly amusing, raised a hand over her shoulder, and the footsteps behind her came to an abrupt halt.
It didn’t matter who dared to try to pull her away from him, she would find a way to return.
Rip him to shreds with her bare hands if not with her own feeble power.
“Now, is that any way to say hello to an old friend?” he drawled darkly.
Anelize bared her teeth. “You’re no friend of mine. You’re the one responsible for all of this.”
That question seemed to bring him great displeasure as his smile slowly dropped, his eyes narrowing. “What?”
“I saw you,” she hissed. “I saw you take Enid. And after we saved your miserable life, you—”
“Anya, please, you’ve got it all wrong,” Zara began.
“It’s all right, Zara,” the man said calmly, not looking away from her.
“Are you sure I am the one to blame for your misfortune? Lest I remember incorrectly, it was your aunt who came up to my patrol to report her nieces for suspecting they were committing treason by allying themselves with the rebels. All to claim a lofty sum the king has been offering to capture Vedrans. Or have I gone and mistaken her for someone else?”
“You have the gall to make light of this? Do you have any idea what you’ve taken from me? What you’ve done to your own kind, Vedran?”
Somehow, she hadn’t noticed that he’d leaned forward so they were standing eye-to-eye, him dropping his head just enough for her to see the specks of black dusted along his irises.
They were so close to one another that she could feel his heart beating beneath the soft fabric of his tunic.
Alive and well, all while Enid was gone.
A somber look passed over his face as he spoke.
“If it had just been me taking the report, I never would have shown up on your doorstep, but unfortunately, she ensured to tell half the Watchmen patrolling the city that day about you and your sister. By the time I arrived, there were already men beating Wellyn halfway to death. Believe me when I say that my hands were tied and I took no joy in any part of it.”
“Believe you,” she scoffed. “As if I would be so foolish.”
“Anya, please, listen to me. He is not to blame for any of the tragedy that took place today. Let him go, and I promise you I will explain everything there is to know about our plight.” Zara said.
Their plight?
Stepping away from the Vedran, she turned to face the placating looks on Zara and Henry’s faces.
Both of their hands held out as if to calm a feral animal.
As if they expected her ire. That was when she truly took a look around the room.
The many weapons laid out on a long table in the corner, the black cloaks hanging over the settee, the young man seated at the table where maps and letters were strewn before him.
The four pointed star, the mark of the rebels, drawn over one of the closed envelopes beside his hand.
“What is all this?”
“This is the reckoning,” the man with the scar said. He crossed his muscular arms over his chest and a twisted grin spread over his lips as he added, “The king’s reckoning, to be exact.”
Zara sent him a reprimanding glance, as if merely uttering those words were enough to get them all arrested by the Watchmen.
For many years, the Vedrans had long since gone into hiding.
So many, far more than she knew, had gone and hid amongst the people of Elvir.
There were others, however—the very ones who painted all of them in a terrible light—who chose not to hide but fight.
Stand up against the king, killing Watchmen and sparking fear in the people who would gladly report Vedrans if it meant earning themselves any bit of money, just as Magda had done.
Rebels.
Anelize shook her head. “You can’t be serious.”
“Of course we are, why else would we all be here?” the other man said. His eyes deep and rich, full of anger. His voice dripping in condescension, vaguely familiar. “Otherwise, we’d be as useless as you were. Defenseless in the face of danger.”
Anelize’s eyes sliced toward him. His voice, his stance, even the air of unmistakable arrogance made it clear exactly who he was. And why he regarded her with annoyance.
He was the rebel who had saved her then. The very one who could have gotten her killed with his loquacity.
“Don’t mind my brother, Miss Yarrow. Adan here never did learn how to properly talk to a woman. I’m Idris, by the way, Idris Bane,” the other twin said as he threw an arm around his brother, jostling him playfully. “If you keep this up, you won’t be gaining her affection any time soon.”
Idris laughed when he received a shove in response.
Adan mumbled a curt, “Shut up,” before he turned to face the hearth.
Anelize ran a hand over her face. Despite having been asleep for two days, she felt the weight of all that had happened pushing down on her shoulders. More worries seeming to fill her head.
“I don’t understand. Why are you doing this? You would risk your lives fighting the Watchmen, all while knowing full well what they’re capable of?” She looked to Henry and Zara.
“They all know the risks, Miss Yarrow,” said the boy seated at the table.
His voice was surprisingly calm, sincere.
Pulling her attention toward him. She wasn’t the only one drawn to his words as she noticed the Vedran glance toward the boy.
His indiscernible gaze appearing to take on a fleeting glimpse of…
attentiveness, possibly even affection. The look she’d given Enid so many times before so familiar that it reopened a wound inside her chest. The boy leaned forward, resting his arms atop the table as he regarded her.
“We all do. And we have all paid a price to find ourselves in this room today. As I understand you have.”
Before she could ask who this boy was, Henry placed a hand over Zara’s shoulder as he said, “There is much you do not yet know, Anya. That is by no fault of yours, we know.”
The snort Adan released cut through the room.
They all ignored him as Henry continued. “But this is the only way to put an end to all of this bloodshed. This torment we’d been subjected to for far too long. This is war, and we intend on doing everything we can to put a stop to it.”
“Even if it means killing the king himself,” Zara added. Those terrible words sounded foreign coming from her lips.
The boy glanced down to the table with a solemn expression. As if he knew this was the only option. The only way forward. Yet she was the one having difficultly processing the implication of Zara’s words.
“And risk being executed in the process?”
“We all know the risks, but there’s no time to linger in the shadows anymore.
You have not been conjuring as often as we all have so you perhaps do not feel the effects of the curse taking root upon you yet.
But the rest of us do,” Zara said, coming to take her hands in hers.
Imploring her to understand. All Anelize could do was look at her, confusion and wariness roiling about in her mind.
“We are running out of time. Surely you must know that.”
Of course she did. The Vedrans may not use magic, as the rumors in Elvir may suggest, to conjure their powers, but the cost of doing so required a sacrifice that went far beyond the pain that came with cutting one’s palm.
One that consumed them with every cut, every drop of blood spilled.
At times, a debilitating cost that they could never recover from.
Anelize had barely conjured to escape the Watchmen, and she could already feel the consequences of doing so. The edges of her vision not as sharp as they had been days ago. It was a seedling of worry beginning to take root inside herself that she could not acknowledge yet.
“What does our curse have to do with killing King Amaranth?”
“Because he intends to bring about the end of the Vedrans entirely.” When the Vedran spoke, she tensed.
Glowering, she watched as he stepped forward, his long legs consuming the space in the room as he crossed over to where the twins were.
He leaned against the back of the settee, crossing one ankle over the other.
His blue eyes sharp and bright as the shadows in the room appeared to grow darker, the glowing fire casting a silhouette around him.
“The high possibility of our very extinction only grows closer with each passing day.”
Dread filled Anelize at those words.
The room suddenly grew tense, and an ominous, foreboding feeling hung in the air.
Henry said. “Recently, the Moroi have begun to roam the streets far more frequently than ever before. They used to keep to the forest, only wandering out to the fields if they sensed someone who should not be there. Only now, they’ve been stalking the streets past nightfall.
No longer mindless, strange beings, but hunters hungry for flesh and blood.
Not even the Vedrans can truly hold their own against them, not any who aren’t already experienced in defending themselves, at least. Do you know why they are called the Moroi? ”
She thought of that night in the alleyway. The creature that had attacked them, neither man nor animal but a grotesque combination of both. Decaying flesh and snapping bones. The scent of fetid rot that had reminded her of those struck with the malady.
“The harbingers of death…” she murmured.
“They have existed in Elvir since the end of the war, but do you know how they came about?” Henry asked her. “How these people became Moroi?”
“My father told me it started with the experimentation of conjuring that brought it. The malady. Some form of dark magic unlike our true power that turns against them. I know not why that is, nor how it has happened.”
“Isn’t it obvious? Why else do you think people have been disappearing throughout the city? Returning with the malady.”
All eyes turned to the Vedran across from her, watching him expectantly.
He was silent for a long moment, as if taking great pleasure in the suspended anticipation of his next words.
As if he thought the world itself would stop if he so wished it.
It made Anelize grit her teeth at the arrogance that poured over him when the corners of his lips tugged upward.
But the smile was wrong, twisted. Full of resentment, one so unmistakable that they all shared it in their own ways.
“It is because of the king and the power he has kept hidden away for nearly twenty years.”