BALTHAZAR JOH’EL #3
“Probably,” he said, steeling himself against the pain, only to gasp in anguish the second his arm twitched.
Esme sighed. “Probably not,” she said, then looked sideways to Urias. “Tell Isobel we’re postponing the trial.”
“She won’t want to.”
“And the dumb fucks that paid her five hundred talons a seat won’t want to watch two broken men groaning on each other,” Esme hissed.
“Hmm,” said Urias, conceding the point. “I’ll see what I can do. Have him ready anyway. I have a feeling she won’t budge.”
“Never fucking does,” Esme grumbled as Urias helped Janos out of the room. She kicked the door closed behind them before turning to Bal, hand over her eyes.
“What the hell, Bal?”
“He came to me,” Bal said, somehow pulling himself to his feet. The pain in his shoulder threatened to topple him at any second. He swayed forward and Esme rushed up to catch him.
“Hello, there,” he crooned. He raised his one working hand to brush the hair from her face and she caught it.
“You can’t flirt with me to make me forget that you almost got yourself killed for no reason,” she said.
He rolled his eyes. “I could if you’d just let me,” he said, then let her walk him back into a chair. “I am in perfect condition.”
“Never become a salesman. You’re a terrible liar.” Esme paced in front of his chair. “We’re fucked if Isobel doesn’t postpone.”
“You said it yourself that she will. Janos can barely stand on his own.”
“Yes, but at least he can use his hands. Your dominant one is useless,” she said, pointing to the hand Janos had crushed. In the absence of burning bloodlust, pain lanced up Bal’s arm all the way to his throbbing skull. “What were you thinking, Bal?”
Esme was the most interesting creature. She could spit venom and coil and strangle and hiss.
And sometimes she couldn’t keep an edge to her voice to save her life.
Even now, annoyed as he knew she was, her anxious eyes stayed hooked to his shoulder.
She pulled the other chair close and wordlessly unbuttoned his shirt.
Bal wanted to make a joke about her undressing him, only to find a potent mix of blood loss and desire stealing his breath.
Esme peeled his ruined shirt from his wound before reaching into one of the cavernous pockets of her skirt to pull out the little container of salve from their night on the roof and a kerchief. It was purple. Of course.
“I’m sorry,” Balthazar whispered.
Esme wrinkled her nose at him. “Well, that fixes it,” she muttered. Still, she wiped the blood from the wound before tearing a little bit of his shirt and folding it into a bandage. She pressed it to the wound and Bal gasped. “I’m not sorry,” she added, eyes drawn with remorse.
Bal took over applying pressure while she unscrewed that noxious salve. She was right to hate the stuff, but it worked wonders. Esme collected a healthy dollop with her fingers and nudged Bal’s soaked bandage out of the way before slathering it on.
“The trial is an unarmed fight,” Esme said worriedly.
“Well, I’m halfway there,” Bal said with a shrug, then hissed.
Her terse lips quirked. He’d almost got her to smile.
She pulled a small knife from another pocket.
The golden hilt gleamed in the candlelight, and the massive ruby sitting in the butt of the hilt spilled red light over her lap.
“Use this only when you are sure to kill, not a second sooner,” she said, then pushed the knife into his palm.
“And hide it. Isobel can’t know you have it. ”
Bal turned the weapon over in his hand. It had a keen edge, but he knew it must be a keepsake. Did she wear this on her all the time?
“This is yours?” he asked. Lines of script in a dialect of Micrean he didn’t speak wrapped around the handle. He recognized some letters, though. He knew what Omniel Asterou’s and Esmerelda’s names looked like.
“It was a gift,” she said. “And now, you are going to use it to become king.” She wrapped his hand around the writing. “No need to read it. Just kill with it.”
Bal’s eyes flicked up to hers. He knew of a story, one not even contained in the Asterui Bukkai.
Omniel Asterou had only ever been tempted once, by a serpent disguised as a beautiful woman.
When he’d got near her, she’d bit him, her poison spoiling his divine flesh and turning him human.
In some stories, he stomped the snake’s head. In others, he sliced it in two.
And in others, he grabbed it, mounted it, and it became a Wraith.
Esme sighed, but her whole body vibrated. Her knee bounced and she knotted her fingers to hide their shaking.
Bal put the knife aside and leaned forward, forcing his ruined hand up to her cheek. “I’ll be good,” he told her. “To you, always. I will be good.”
He had stumbled onto many things when researching this woman: that she loved garlic, that she preferred silver to gold, that she overheated easily and hated sharp cherry flavors.
He’d also found a courtyard in a hidden passageway with a brick in a corner carved with her name.
He’d found that she flinched at loud noises, still, after being a Wraith for eons.
He’d found that she often stared off into the eyes of regal portraits.
And he’d found that if he kissed her while dragging his fingers down the seam of her back, taking time to feel her every inch, he could read the raised marks down her spine without her even noticing.
Omniel Asterou had hurt her dearly.
He’d also given her this blade.
Esme’s lips thinned into a tight line that wobbled when she tried to speak. Bal didn’t need her words. He didn’t need her to pretend he didn’t know what he knew.
“I swear it,” he said, not knowing if he should kiss her. Instead, he dragged her frigid hand to his mouth and kissed each knuckle.
Esme let him touch her, kiss her, watching him as if to be sure he wouldn’t bite her. Then, just as she opened her mouth to say something, a chorus of horns blared across the arena.
Isobel hadn’t postponed.
Esme helped Bal rise and rebutton his shirt. She pushed the knife into his hand again. “Only at the—”
“The last second,” Bal finished for her.
“Don’t—”
“Don’t die. I won’t. I promise.” Bal kissed her palm. She smelled like wind and lavender. “I’m a man of my word.”
Esme nodded before pulling him into the lightest of kisses.
Bal struggled not to open her mouth and leach as much from her as she’d let him, but he let her pull away after a few seconds.
Desperately did he want to tell the old bat Micrea called a queen to shut the horns up and give them an hour, but after this last trial he would be able to take all the time he wanted.
Today, he’d have Janos Rivel’s head.
Tomorrow, Esme’s heart.
After that, everything else he wanted.