Chapter 18
Eighteen
Very, very much, Lory wanted to say, but her tongue stuck to her parched palate.
Had they asked her two weeks ago, she might have said she didn’t care at all, that she would see Evven again behind Eroth’s Veil.
But things had changed. The kiss, the dreams, the fire in Khayrivven’s eyes—Lory was no longer the floating soul ready to be harvested that she’d been in the streets of Dunai.
Ashthorn Ward had made her appreciate life in a new way, and for the first time in years, despite the dangers and the condescension, she’d found people she cared enough for to want to stay in this world.
Thal, Aiden, Tabi, Jarek, even Brycon, with his weird type of magic that made him a hypercritical know-it-all. But most of all… Khayrivven.
To her surprise, it was General Ycken who presented what the Triad seemed to have been building up to, running his hand over his perfectly cropped beard and shaking his head.
“Your magic is a death sentence for most, but we’ve been observing you, and we’re willing to make you an offer, Elory Vednis. ”
Lory’s heart jolted with a painful flare of hope and panic as she studied the flames vanishing from her hands as if someone was sucking out the life of her magic. A glance of terror at Khayrivven told her nothing as he kept his face carefully empty and his posture unchanged.
“What’s the offer?” Her voice was barely more than a rasp, but it painted a victorious grin on Ycken’s face as he gestured something at the man who’d carried her manacles. The man turned on his heels and vanished through the side door.
Turning back to Lory, he adjusted the sword at his hip, glancing at the colorful window behind them. “We’ll give you three months to train for the most important test of your life. If you pass the trials making you thornling, we’ll let you live.”
All ashlings took those trials to be upgraded to thornlings—she knew that—but the way Ycken kept eyeing her told her there was more.
“You won’t train to become part of Brestolya’s magical army but to become Ulder’s personal weapon. You, Elory Vednis, will become an assassin for the king. That’s the deal. Take it or die.”
An assassin. Lory’s heart stuttered in her chest. She’d lied, she’d stolen, she’d committed so many crimes she could no longer count them.
But killed, she hadn’t. Even to survive in the streets, she’d always found another way.
Take a life—the only time she’d come close was when she’d fought her way out of the dark alley with Evven, and he had died.
As if of their own volition, Lory’s eyes found Khayrivven’s, searching for a truth she knew he wouldn’t give her.
“Take it or die,” Ycken repeated.
Heat and cold chased each other through Lory’s body as her power threatened to burst out of her again.
Take it, Khayrivven’s voice echoed through her head, her vision darkening again as he dragged her into another dream, but Lory dug in her imaginary heels, pitting all that was left of her strength against it.
Live as a murderer or die as a failure? Neither option seemed like anyone’s first choice.
She’d failed Evven, and she’d failed at avoiding Ycken and his bloodhounds in the streets of Dunai. She’d failed with her magic, and she was about to fail to keep up the only line she’d managed to maintain in her life.
“Deal.”
The word was nearly swallowed up by the enormous space, and a part of her wished she hadn’t spoken it, but there was no way back now.
Ycken nodded once, and the door opened, admitting two men carrying a barrel filled with glowing embers.
Specks of ash floated behind them on the air as they lifted it onto the platform, right next to Khayrivven, who had unfrozen from his spot and was checking the hem of his sleeve for loose threads rather than to meet Lory’s gaze.
When she turned to Aiden, his bruised features twitched in a facsimile of a smile, and a mountain crumbled from Lory’s shoulder as she realized he might have been the only person in this room who truly understood what it felt like to choose murder over failure.
“Hand it to me.” Lenya stood from his chair, holding out his hand toward the barrel, and Khayrivven’s fingers seemed to be trembling as he picked up an iron poker from the heap of embers and carried it over to the Master of Whispers.
“Hold her down.”
Two pairs of hands grabbed Lory by the shoulders so fast she couldn’t duck under them, smashing her onto the table so hard the bowls clattered to the floor, and her teeth sang as Brunn and Ycken pinned her down.
A broad grin dominated Lenya’s face as he held up the poker in front of Lory’s wide eyes, showing her the V-shaped end with little swirls on top. A branding—this was a branding iron.
Fingernails dug into her shoulders and arms as she strained against the steel grasp, the weight of two trained and skilled fighters who’d learned to restrain armed enemies.
No way out—there was no way out for Lory, and as a knife ripped through her shirt, tearing it apart from the neck down along her spine, she knew the branding iron wasn’t just for show.
Like a leonthor ripping into her with needle-sharp teeth, white-hot metal bit into the sensitive skin stretching over her shoulder blade, and Lory’s breath left her in an ear-splitting scream before the pain knocked her unconscious.
“Careful with her shoulder,” someone whispered as Lory came to, her eyelids fluttering like hummingbird wings.
She’d seen them once, over a fountain in one of the richer districts of the city, a creature of glimmering cerulean and emerald, its little body suspended mid-air by those tiny, powerful wings.
She’d wished to be like that bird—that she could fly away, lift across the sand and misery, and disappear wherever the winds would carry her.
That had been before she’d lost all hope.
“Why is it still bleeding?” someone else asked, a female voice Lory recognized to be Anees’s.
Firm, professional hands tilted her sideways on a hard surface, the bare skin of her chest slithering over wet, smooth ground.
“She shouldn’t be bleeding.” The mild fear in Anees’s tone was a comfort as much as the pressure someone put on the throbbing spot on her shoulder where Lenya had shoved a branding iron into her skin.
How could that have happened? How could they have burned her?
“Lenya wasn’t particularly careful,” Khayrivven whispered, and Lory’s stomach constricted as a sob built in her throat.
Biting down on her tongue, Lory refused to let it hatch.
“He burned her down to the bone.” A light touch grazed the side of her shoulder as if mapping out something—a cool touch.
“Aiden,” Lory rasped, and the finger on her skin trembled.
“I’m here, Lory.” When Lory peeled her eyes open, the ice wielder was crouching beside her, one hand on her arm while the other wiped a strand of sweaty, sticky hair from her cheek.
She didn’t care that she was half naked, only that she wasn’t alone as the pain pierced deeper with every heartbeat.
“Try not to move. We’re just checking the wound and making sure it won’t get infected.” Khayrivven’s voice came from behind her, and another, warmer set of fingers ran along the edges to that throbbing area on her shoulder. “It looks all right so far.”
“How—” A cough broke out of her, followed by a cringe of agony. “How can a branding look all right?”
They’d fucking marked her with an iron the way they did cattle. And Khayrivven had stood by. He’d handed them the fucking tool.
“It’s not infected, Lory,” Anees explained, sliding around her head to her front and pulling a scarf from a satchel on the clean, black stone floor.
“Here, let me cover you.” She unfolded the beige fabric and draped it over her neck and her front so her breasts were hidden.
“Try not to move while Khay cleans out the wound, all right?”
Her hand rested on Lory’s shoulder, fingers closing around her biceps as if in support, but when Khayrivven pressed a wet cloth to her shoulder, she knew it wasn’t for comfort; it was to keep her from thrashing and fighting as white-hot pain seared her flesh all over again.
“Get your fucking hands off me.” She didn’t care who might hear her scream at the captain, whom everyone feared. Right now, all she cared about was the way her mind seemed to detach from her tormented body.
Khayrivven didn’t stop dabbing her raw flesh, but his movements were gentle, as were his murmured apologies. “Only a little while longer, Gutter Gem. I’m almost done.”
When he pulled back his hand, Aiden leaned over her side, placing his fingers by the edge of her wound, sending enough of his magic into her to numb the pain.
“You’re doing great, Lory. Just breathe.
” Anees helped Khayrivven lower her back to her stomach, and Lory’s gaze landed on the puddle of blood-laced liquid beside her, seeping into Khayrivven’s pants where he was kneeling on the floor, a blood-stained cloth in his hand, and his brows knitted together as he kept staring at her naked shoulder.
She didn’t get to tell him how little she cared what he thought after what he’d done to her. Unconsciousness swept her away before she could spit as much as a word at him.
“Lory.”
Smooth velvet with an edge of danger. His familiar voice enveloped her in an invisible caress as she opened her eyes to bright daylight.
“About time, Gutter Gem. I’ve been waiting for you to follow my invitation for a while.”
“Invitation?” Sitting up in a wide bed of golden silk and soft pillows, Lory rolled her shoulders, expectant of yet another onslaught of agony.
Not a hint of pain. Not even some remaining tenderness.
“Where are we?” Lory scanned the tall, cream-walled space, gaze catching on the front of windows next to the bed.
Outside, there was no sand, no desert—only lush green spread as far as she could see, and the air was comfortably cool and humid, perfect to take a deep breath after nearly losing her head. She’d never seen anything so beautiful.
“A dream.” Khayrivven sat down at the edge of the bed, lacing his fingers together in his lap and scanning her face. “You look better. Any pain?”
Lory shook her head.
“Good, that means I didn’t fuck up this time.”
Sliding back against the headboard, Lory made sure she was wearing proper clothes and found herself wearing a plain, soft cotton shirt and long, wide-legged pants, both in the cream of the walls with golden accents.
Nothing like the barely-there nightgown Khayrivven had put on her in the last dream he’d dragged her into. “You did that in the mess hall.”
Khayrivven cocked his head, his black waves shimmering in the soft sunlight filtering in through the windows. Wet stains cover his shirt and the knees of his pants, where he’d kneeled in what could have very well been just another dream but felt so much more real, even as a memory.
“Fuck up? I did, didn’t I?” A bitter smile quirked his lips, his gaze flicking to the greenery outside the windows.
Yes, he had. And not just then, but that wasn’t what Lory had been meaning to say.
“You pulled me into a dream in the mess hall without me being asleep. How does that work?”
Khayrivven’s brows wandered up on his forehead. “So, that’s what’s bothering you? Not that they marked you as Flame-born or that you just handed your life and your free will over to King Ulder, or that you’ll probably end up dead after the three months are over?”
Lory hadn’t even thought about what happened, too fresh the trauma and too dazzling the view. But the dream was only a reprieve, and reality would be waiting for her when she woke up. Lips pursed, Lory remained quiet.
“Usually, dreamweavers can visit the sleeping and manipulate their dreams. My abilities go a step further.” As if admitting to a crime, he lowered his head. “I can induce dreams to the waking.”
Lory swallowed the questions popping into her mind. Khayrivven was speaking, and he had answered a question about his magic. Hadn’t Lenya mentioned something about his powers?
And has he shown you the sort of magic he holds? Has he ever told you why he’s the youngest hand at Ashthorn?
“Only parts of it, and those parts aren’t the ones that would have gotten you killed.
” His eyes, gray like the clouds brewing above the desert before a thunderstorm, found hers, and no matter how Lory wanted to feel nothing, something sprang to life in her stomach—a thin trickle of warmth that could have been her magic or something more.
Not breaking the connection, Khayrivven reached for the hem of his shirt, pulling it over his head and dropping it on the silken sheets at Lory’s feet.
And Guardians be damned if the sight didn’t make that warmth turn into smoldering embers—embers like the ones heating the branding iron.
Before she could dive into panic, Khayrivven’s chest heaved in a shaky breath, and he scooted closer, until his hand was braced next to her thigh and his eyes pinned her with the sort of look that could have set cities on fire.
“Not what you think, Gutter Gem,” was all he said before he turned to the side, exposing his right shoulder just enough to show her a glimpse of a V-shaped scar with swirls atop the wide end of the V.
The outlines were so faint they had become nearly invisible, but Lory recognized the torch, anyway. This was a symbol of a torch, burned into his flesh the same way Lenya had it burned into hers.
Unthinking, Lory lifted her hand, leaning forward so she could take a better look, and her fingers absently traced the lines along his brand. A ripple ran through the muscles cording Khayrivven’s back as he shuddered under her touch.
“Flame-born,” she whispered, and when Khayrivven turned around, Lory’s hand sliding over his shoulder, his biceps, his forearm, a tear glistened in his eye.