47
My brother’s jade-green eyes snapped toward me. “Nauriel,” he gasped.
He reached me in a few strides, wrapping me in a strong hug that made me groan in pain. I clung to him as tightly as I could with my free arm, deeply inhaling the woodland scent of his long brown hair tickling my face.
“You’re here,” I sobbed in Elvish. “You’re finally here.”
I couldn’t believe it. Was I dreaming?
His arms tightened around me, conveying his pain to me. “It’s all my fault.”
Because he hadn’t pulled me out of the water when I had fallen into the Thalion Sea from the Glawar waterfall. Because he had stood by while Amlach saved my life. Because he had abandoned me to my fate as punishment.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, kissing my hair and then my temple. “I am so sorry.”
I set aside my resentment and caressed his smooth cheek, feeling an overwhelming gratitude that he had found me. “I know.”
The emotion disappeared from his gaze when he noticed the colored powders highlighting my facial features and the sleeveless, low-cut dress I was wearing.
“Spirits,” he cursed with a horrified grimace, as he ran his fingertips over the wounds and bruises on my arms. “Look what they’ve done to you . . .”
I held his hands, giving him a reassuring smile as tears welled up in my eyes. “I’m still in one piece,” I tried to joke.
But he didn’t smile back. His disgusted eyes, fixed on my silver collar, drifted down to the handcuff around my wrist and followed the chain that connected me to Amlach.
He gave him such a cocky sneer that a muscle twitched on my brother’s jaw.
“About time, Prince,” he taunted him in the common tongue.
At those words, strange bells started ringing in my mind. I cut him a wary sideways glance. Why did I get the impression that he expected the elves to arrive? What was he hiding from me?
Araton released my hands and clenched his right fist around the dagger’s hilt on his right side. He looked at Amlach as if he might tear open his throat and reach inside to rip out his windpipe.
“Get her away from this trash,” he commanded in Elvish.
“Araton,” I hissed back, driven by a fierce instinct to protect.
My brother glared at me incredulously.
Amlach’s grin widened in a smugger expression.
One of the soldiers put the arrow back in his quiver and slung the bow over his shoulder, then approached to examine my collar and Amlach’s. Eventually, he said, “It requires a key, my prince.”
As if he understood our language, Amlach looked toward the man who had bought us. “Master Roxior.” He slightly raised the wrist linked to mine. “Would you mind?”
If he was scared like all the other humans gathered in the center of the salon, Roxior didn’t show it. He pranced toward us with all the calm of the world. He cast a quick, cautious glance at my brother and the sword on his left side, then his resentful gaze settled on Amlach.
He watched him from head to toe, as if Roxior were an insect he was ready to squash.
This only worsened the venom on Roxior’s face. The man slightly primmed his upper lip and took out the small, familiar key from an inner pocket of his red robe, handing it to the elf soldier.
As soon as we were free, Amlach violently seized the Master by the collar, causing his crown of roses to drop to the ground.
“If you believed you could screw me over, old man,” he snarled in a rumbly voice that sounded like it came from the bowels of the earth, “you’re very much mistaken.
” He released him as if touching him had tainted him, then took a deep breath to compose himself.
Afterward, he crossed his arms behind his back and began to circle him like a vulture, adopting an unusually regal stance.
“See, Prince . . .” he continued out loud for everyone to hear.
“Your sister and I had an agreement with this man. We offered our fighting skills to help him get revenge on those responsible for his beloved gladiator’s death, and in return, he would bring us back to the Lands of the East.” He stopped before Roxior.
“But you never had any intention of seeking revenge.”
The Master did not deign to reply, radiating hatred from every pore along with the sweat beading his forehead.
Amlach’s lips curled into a wicked smile.
“You know, I’ve done my research. And I found out that the young man was in love with you, true, but you weren’t.
And when he refused to give himself to Mistress Yrrek, you did everything possible to convince him, because you wanted every single coin he could get you to pocket. ”
Roxior breathed in contemptuously. “In Rubra, everything is a matter of money, Commander.”
Amlach gave him a cold half-smile. “But then,” he went on, “Yrrek had him killed, and you lost your only source of income.”
“Until we arrived here,” I said, feeling so disappointed in Master Roxior and, more importantly, in myself for believing him.
The man drifted his icy stare on me, completely unrepentant.
Amlach watched him as if he wanted to gouge his eyes out with his nails. “Tell the Prince of the Elves of Aegel what your future plans for his sister were. Your real plans.”
Roxior struggled to stay stoic, his voice so harsh it made my skin crawl with repulsion. “Once won these Games, I would have gotten rid of you, Commander, so I’d have the elf trained properly and turned her into a golden slave who would have made me the richest Master of Rubra in history.”
“What’s a golden slave?” Araton demanded in the common tongue.
“A whore, Prince,” Amlach responded, his deadly gaze fixed on Roxior.
A look of anger and loathing was etched into my brother’s aristocratic features. In an instant, he drew his dagger and lunged at the human.
“Araton!” I shouted commandingly.
My brother stopped a nanosecond before cutting Roxior’s carotid artery, the man’s robe clutched in his fist, his arm trembling with rage.
“Elves are not murderers,” I reminded him in our language.
I didn’t want the men’s blood, which was already on my hands, to get on his as well.
I stole a glance at the Masters of Rubra, whose stern faces assured me that the Council would definitely judge Roxior for his behavior.
“Leave him to his downfall,” I told Araton.
A muscle pulsed on his cheek. A vermilion trickle slowly trickled down Roxior’s neck as he stared at Araton, eyes wide with both hatred and terror, his breathing becoming very shallow.
“Brother,” I said peremptorily.
He swiftly pulled back and sheathed his dagger.
Roxior let out a sigh of relief and touched the cut from the elven blade, doing his best to hide the tremor in his hand when he saw his blood-stained pads.
Amlach stepped back from him until he was beside me again, with a suspicious, cruel look.
Too late I realized its meaning.
In an instant, Araton drew his sword and decapitated the Master with a clean slash.
Roxior’s wife’s desperate cry drowned out the guests’ and servants’ horrified noises. One musician bent over to vomit, while a very young dancer burst into tears in a friend’s arms.
Shocked, I stared at Araton as he sheathed his weapon without a flicker of emotion. When he approached me, I felt an irrational urge to move closer to Amlach, almost as if my brother had suddenly become a stranger to me.
“That rat intended to defile your body, Sister,” Araton said in Elvish, his voice low and yet so hard. “Our father would have made me return to kill him if I had allowed him to live now.”
It was true, I was aware. However, not even our father would have murdered Roxior in cold blood, despite knowing his plans. I was sure of that.
So, what was that dark influence I sensed slithering around my brother?
He turned his focus to the soldiers, who had never lowered their bows. “Let’s go!” he commanded.
They were perfectly synchronized as they gathered around Amlach and me, prepared to escort us out. Amlach responded with a nearly amused expression at Araton’s hostility toward him, then headed to the hall’s threshold without waiting for me.
In a burst of courage, Mistress Yrrek left the group of guests to take center stage. “You’re going to miss me, Commander,” she said conceitedly and provocatively.
Amlach paused to glance at her over his shoulder and flashed her a smirk so filled with mockery and malice that the woman lost all confidence and wobbled as if he had just slapped her.
Highly alarmed, I observed him exiting the hall with the soldiers, then looked down at the blood still pouring out in faint gushes from Roxior’s severed neck.
His head rested in the crimson lake. I looked regretfully at the expression frozen on his face, which was directed at the ceiling: It was the epitome of genuine panic.
“Nauriel,” called Araton, who was waiting for me at the hall entrance.
I forced myself not to glance even once at all those people who, over the past three months, had enjoyed watching me struggle through sand, blood, sweat, and saliva to survive. So, I left with my brother, my mind flooded with a myriad of distressing thoughts.
Of all of them, one was so painful that it felt like a blade twisting in my heart.
The opportunity to build a life with Amlach on our island, surrounded by happiness and children and love, was lost forever.