Chapter 17 Roland
ROLAND
Once my hands and feet were bound, the villain carrying me from the aviary moved quickly, and though I shouted, it was into the small of their back and muffled by the falling snow outside.
That or the late hour meant we made it well away from where we’d started.
The sound of his steps turned wooden and hollow, and I had a vague sense of the world tilting before I was dumped unceremoniously onto what felt like a bed.
“What do you want?” I demanded, thrashing on the plush mattress. “If it’s gold, I can pay—”
My captor didn’t reply, but left me there, blind and bound. He stalked away, and a moment later, I heard the slam of a door and the click of a lock. The room around me groaned, and the squawking of gulls told me he’d brought me to the dock on the river.
The world swayed, even when I’d been set down. We were on a ship, and I could hear the sounds of people moving around beyond this room, and the creak of wood as they prepared to set sail.
“Who are you?” I shouted into the void.
Once again, no response, and no matter how I struggled, my hands were behind my back and I couldn’t wiggle my legs free of their bindings.
I lost all sense of how long I’d stayed there, shouting to nothing until the nausea made me hesitate to open my mouth anymore.
All I could think of was the rocking movement of the ship and how my stomach twisted with every shift. By the time the door opened again, I was dizzy and ready to retch. Quick, perfunctory hands undid the binding at my ankles first, then the person leaned over to free my wrists.
When they stepped back, that left me to loosen the bag over my head with cold, bloodless fingers. I ripped it off my head with a hiss.
Across from me, Lord Forov sat with his ankle propped on the opposite knee, his head cocked curiously.
I bared my teeth at him. “You have erred, sir.”
His lips twitched. “Have I?”
“Mm.” I pushed to sit up, but with the swaying of the boat, I didn’t trust myself to stand.
Already, my stomach was rolling. “Everyone who has ever crossed me is dead.” I imagined Bet’s blank face as he finished a man’s life, the coldness in his eyes when he set to his grisly work. “For your sake, I hope it’s quick.”
“Your Majesty, forgive me, but you’re in no position to be making threats. And we shall be allies. There’s simply no need for it.”
I scoffed. “My allies will burn your empire to the ground.”
Forov raised a pointed eyebrow at me. “You put such faith in the snakes you allow to nest around you. They won’t come.”
He was wrong; Tris would come, and without magic, one dragon was enough to tear through whatever defense this one ship had.
But once, I might’ve had whole clans flying to my rescue. Dragons who believed in the future we were working toward wouldn’t let anyone snuff it out so easily. Now? I thought I was largely alone here. Surely Hafgan would’ve shared a warning with every dragon in the Mawrcraig Mountains.
“If they do,” Forov continued, “we’ll consider it an act of aggression and shoot them down.”
“Ah, yes, clearly we would be first to strike.” I stuck my chin out. “Kidnapping our king means nothing in the balance. What do you want?”
Forov’s brow furrowed, the lines around his mouth deepening as he frowned. He seemed to pity me. “The same thing as you, Your Majesty—an alliance.”
“Oh, you’ve ruined that chance.”
“I don’t think I have.” Forov inspected his fingernails, and I—fuck it all, but I wanted to tear them from his fingers and shove them down his throat.
“Destovia is at a crossroads. If we’re to defend our empire, to provide the allyship your kingdom needs so direly, there is only one thing that can guarantee our partnership moving forward. ”
“Something I can give to you?” I’d be damned if I would. This might not be a cage, but it may as well be for all I could escape it.
Even if I were to transform, to turn into a beast and tear my way through every person on this ship, I didn’t have wings of my own, and even under the heady fury of the monster inside me, I didn’t think I had the strength to swim across the ocean between Llangard and Destovia.
“Magic.” He set his hand down in his lap and leaned forward, beady eyes suddenly intent on me. “Cavendish blood.”
I snorted. Of course that was it.
He was undeterred. “We have heard tell of what your people can do—what your aunt did in Windy Pass. The Cavendish walk among us as gods.”
It took all that I had not to roll my eyes. What power any Llangardian mage had came directly from their bond to the dragons around them, and Forov had already proven himself as a man who valued such allies too little.
If Destovia learned the truth about magic, this man or those who worked over him would prove no better than Athelstan. They would—
They would do what I had done, and take dragons for all they could.
But in this, I couldn’t help them. My magic was a dead, paltry thing against what it had been in my youth.
Even then, I’d had nothing a fraction as impressive as Aunt Gillian’s power.
I kept my mouth shut and let Forov continue.
“Emperor Joseph desires his heir to have magic of their own, not through rite or ritual, but through birth alone, and your family is one of the last. Your ancestors nearly extinguished the snakes that plagued you.”
“Ancestor,” I corrected.
“What?”
“It was one man. Athelstan, who was so reviled that his own son banished him from Llangard. Or most recently, Vidar. He survived by craven magic, took a new name, and I killed him myself. It’s not a legacy to replicate.”
I’d have killed him again—not for all his crimes, but for the particular abuse he rained upon Aderyn. It made me selfish, and at least in this, I didn’t give a damn.
Forov’s forehead wrinkled, but his eyes were hungry. Perhaps he was weighing how much to believe me. He might think immortality was something he could achieve, or something he could offer his emperor.
It wouldn’t last. If it came to it, I’d kill him and his emperor both.
“It is power, and we require it.” Forov turned his chin up. “But we aren’t unreasonable. You need this match too—ties to Destovia so that no other nation dares threaten you. You’ll remain king, of course. Rule by proxy long enough to sire children on Princess Josephine.”
I balked. “I will not be marrying her nor anyone else.”
Not anyone. Not ever.
The very idea of love had flown away on emerald wings.
“Don’t be stubborn. It wouldn’t be appropriate for you to refuse her hand, and she is a finer match than any you could make in Llangard. I’ve seen your stock—”
I hissed, pushing to my feet, ignoring the way my stomach rebelled. “You’d be wise to hold your tongue on the matter of my people.”
Forov shut his mouth, his lips thin, the arch of his brow smug. “Perhaps you’re right. It’s too early for these conversations. You’ve had a trying day. I trust the accommodations are well-enough appointed for you?”
I cast a glare around the room. It was fine and adorned richly. The furniture was a dense, dark wood, polished to a high shine.
I fantasized about breaking it on the floor and beating this man to death with a jagged chair leg.
Otherwise, I saw no obvious weapon in the room, which seemed large for a ship but far smaller than what I was used to in the Spires.
“Quite,” I sneered between my teeth.
“Delightful. Do knock if you find that you’re in need. Someone will see to your every desire. This will work, Your Majesty. In time, you’ll see it too.”
If he were so sure of that, there was no reason for him to lock the door the moment he slipped out of it, but he did.