Chapter 25
Allie
“You know what pisses me off?” I took another swig from the flask, grimacing again at the acrid taste. It felt like charred goat meat someone had left too long in the smoker.
That didn’t stop me from drinking, though. It mellowed the pulse in my skull and was frighteningly effective in dulling the roar in my heart.
Or pride.
I didn’t know which one hurt more right now.
For the past half hour, the portal had kept jumping around. Ryker had positioned it somewhere above the crowd, hidden between some beams. Because we could watch–but weren’t meant to be seen. Like we didn’t belong in the world Evie was stepping into.
Dax and I had seen too many jewels, the menacing pointed helmets of the Capital soldiers, and the high ceremonial hats of the Senate of Sages–or as Dax lovingly called them, soggy old suckers.
No sign of Evie or Ryker.
Instead, the portal had settled on someone’s bald head for the past minute.
It would’ve been laughable if it hadn’t been so sad.
“Those are fighting words, cousin.” Dax whistled. “Do go on.”
“Why us?” I handed him back the flask. “Why the Protectorate?”
“Oh.” He sighed in disappointment and took his own swig. “I thought we’d have a good Commander bashing to entertain ourselves.”
“I’m serious. We didn’t bother anyone else, never wanted anyone else’s territories, didn’t help topple any other Clan or spread lies and terror.
We’ve always been the voice of principle and reason whenever there was a skirmish, damn it.
” I banged my fist against the table, instantly regretting it when my fingers stung. “Why us?”
Dax opened his mouth, but I was very far from done.
“Even the Blood Brotherhood,” I went on, voice rising.
“They’re weird and they have those weird bloody traditions of theirs, but they gave up their warmongering ways ages ago.
They didn’t even invade the Northern Clans back when they tried to kill their precious heir.
It’s nothing compared to the Serpents attacking everything in sight to steal, the Northern Clans sucking power away from others while also starving their own people–”
Dax raised his brows, but didn’t interrupt.
“Or the Morgana Clan who bristles and strikes when someone so much as says their queen isn’t the most beautiful in Malhaven.
That’s not even counting all those shoddy spells they use against the Clan Council’s rules.
” I threw my hands in the air. “Yet we’re the ones who have to suffer.
The ones with targets on our backs and around our necks. It’s not fair.”
By the end of it, I was breathing heavier and wanted to smash something.
“The world doesn’t work that way,” Dax said patiently, obviously handling his bitter liquor better.
“It bleedin’ should,” I grumbled.
Dax snorted a laugh. “Watch out, the Protectorate’s about to bust out of you.”
“Everyone should mind their own damn business. Like Solkar’s Reach. But try to make the world a better place than how they found it, not hide away. Imagine if everyone did that.”
“But they don’t.”
I crossed my hands in front of my chest. “That’s not good enough for me.”
“Then put on the crown and change the world.”
The fight left me in one shameful breath. “One person can’t change an entire continent.”
“Dria Vegheara did.”
That wasn’t comfort.
That was expectation.
“I’m not Dria Vegheara.”
“You’re the closest thing to her. Her blood runs in our veins. That precious, precious blood someone wants to drain from us.”
When I didn’t laugh–didn’t even look his way, staring at the hazy palaver portal that kept jumping again–Dax cleared his throat.
“Allie,” he said, all laughter gone. “If my travels have taught me anything, it’s that there are more terrible men than good ones in this world, and they play by very different rules.
While you’re trying to do your best, they resort to the worst, usually behind closed, gilded doors that very few bother to open so the light can vanquish the darkness.
Even when they do, most don’t care what’s hidden there.
Or worse, praise those terrible men because they’d do the exact same thing if given the chance.
And most really want that chance. Would lie, steal, and murder for it. You need to accept that–”
I bristled once more. “I don’t–”
Dax raised his open palm. Now I had to be the one not to interrupt.
“Because if you accept that reality, you’ll know where to strike to rid Malhaven of them.
Which doors to open and not let what you find behind them shatter you.
Because you will see the worst–” His tone darkened.
“–and they need to pay for what they’ve done.
Their tactics will never be fair, their principles even less so.
Your principles are strong. Good. Selfless.
But you need to learn how to play better than them in order to triumph. ”
The words stirred my lesser impulses, already soaked by the alcohol. The ones Grandpa Constantine had tried so hard to weed before they’d even taken root.
They wanted vengeance at all costs.
Victory.
Then the screams began echoing again and I found the courage to come back to my senses.
“I don’t believe that,” I said and meant it. “I don’t think the goal justifies the means.”
My life would have probably been much easier, albeit heinous, if I did. At the end of the day, goodness and kindness should always prevail. I couldn’t allow myself that.
“Let’s hope you’ll never be forced to second guess yourself on that matter.” Dax shrugged and the gravity in him dissipated, replaced with that lightness he wore so well. He squinted at the portal. “I don’t know who’s more depressing, us or them.”
“Us.” It was always us, for some godsforsaken reason.
“Gods, they sure love their gold, don’t they?” He wrinkled his nose. “And we thought the Serpents were excessive.”
I tilted my head to the side. “All the gold in that room could fill up at least a quarter of our vaults.”
“And the necklace on that one.” He leaned toward the oval, which now showed a gilded woman with a frozen smile nobody should trust. “I wonder how that thin neck of hers doesn’t break.”
“I think that’s Valuta.” I grimaced. “I wonder if some of our gold bought those jewels of hers.”
“You really think the plot is that big?” He handed me the flask again.
I took another ungraceful swig that probably would have made Mrs. Thornbrew tsk at me. “Bigger.”
The alcohol caught in my throat as glimpses of the Dragon began flashing. He somehow looked deadlier thundering up the aisle at his own wedding than he had back on Sanctua Sirena. He seemed angry.
Raging.
A distant roar blared in my ears.
“What’s crawled up his royal behind?” Dax asked as we both drew our chairs closer to the palaver, backs hunched, eyes tracking every image we saw.
The Dragon’s dark eyes steeled as he stopped at the altar, looking ready for murder. Again.
I kept seeking Ryker’s sparking eyes in the crowd, but all I saw was a sea of red.
The drums in the background erupted in a forceful rhythm better suited for a charge, not a wedding.
I gripped Dax’s shoulder tightly.
This was it.
The moment Evie became more powerful than all of us.
She would be able to open all the doors and shine all the light to fight the darkness.
Once that crown was on her head, we could finally allow ourselves to dream about taking back Aquila.
She could help right all the wrongs I couldn’t fix.
The temple doors burst open to reveal a hazy figure clad in a gargantuan dress that probably weighed more than everything in my closet.
Evie had truly become stronger. She didn’t walk.
She floated.
My sigh of relief had barely escaped my lungs when a bolt of shock slashed through me as the image turned sharper.
“That’s–” My throat closed. “That’s not Evie.”
Too tall, too vulnerable, too meek to be my cousin.
“But she is stunning.” Dax exhaled. “I didn’t know she’d have a bridesmaid.”
Neither did I–and it wasn’t me, like it should have been. “That must be Banu and Valuta’s daughter. Kyra. Kora–”
“Kaya.” He whistled. “As beautiful as the rumors said.”
But she wasn’t Evie.
My muscles tensed so hard, I’d risen in my chair a few inches.
Watching.
Waiting.
Hoping, even as the pressure in my skull pulsed harder.
Finally, after a few eternal minutes, with the Dragon’s face turning more thunderous and the drums blasting away, Evie appeared in the temple.
We caught the barest peek at her, swaddled in yards upon yards of gold brocade, her smile brightening the entire golden room.
Then the silvery oval shifted once more.
Dax and I groaned.
“Godsdammit.” He banged on the table, harder than me. “You go, Evie! Stand proud, like a true Vegheara!”
My heart jumped as the portal settled on Ryker, for the briefest moment. The shift was so sudden, Dax didn’t even seem to have noticed it.
But I did–and it tightened my chest.
He stood near the entrance, next to the Viper–I remembered those bangs I’d sliced–like they both wanted to stay far away from what was unfolding before them.
He looked as intimidating as ever, eyes sparking, but there was a bow to his shoulders. A tight line to his lips. A sharpness to his jaw that I didn’t like.
As Evie passed him, his gaze dropped–not to her, not the altar. To the ground. Ashamed.
In that moment, I knew.
Something very wrong was happening–and I could only sit there and watch the inevitable take place in front of me.
My hand fell from Dax’s shoulder, who kept hooting encouragements at Evie as if she could hear him.
After jumping through the crowd once more, revealing faces marred by surprise, the palaver turned back to the altar. The Dragon raised an enormous pearl crown.
One fit for the queen of the fiercest Clan in Malhaven.
I stopped breathing, as hope and dread fought within me.
Then, in front of our eyes, the entire Blood Brotherhood court, and Evie, he placed the crown on Kaya’s head.
For a moment, my rage singed so hard, dark spots danced in front of my eyes.
Dax froze next to me.
“This can’t be happening,” I whispered, hands jerking as if I could stop this wedding like I’d done before.
But no.
I had to sit there, thousands of miles away, and watch Evie bow her head and accept a small, copper crown that seemed to have escaped a fire.
I watched the life drain from her face and those wide, vulnerable eyes of hers harden.
And I was powerless to do anything about it.
The fractures in my heart deepened.
I fell back into my seat, defeated. Some part of me still refused to believe what I’d seen.
But my soul knew. And it wept for Evie.
“Allie,” Dax whispered. “What did we just witness?”
“Evie not becoming the queen of the Blood Brotherhood.”
And Ryker’s betrayal.