Chapter 37
DIEM
“Really, Diem, that was far too easy.”
Symond’s smile was triumphant, his eyes lucid and sharp. His sloppy, drunken lean had transformed into menacing alertness, a vulture circling its kill.
My cheeks grew hot. It really had been too easy. I should have noticed his too-precise questions, how his gait on the stairs had turned curiously sure-footed and swift. I certainly should have predicted the flameroot—it wasn’t even the first time they’d tried it.
Lately, I’d lost my instincts. My mind was fractured, my emotions volatile.
The line between enemies and allies had turned so murky, I’d grown numb to being surrounded by threats.
Only in battle could I set it all aside and give myself over to the fight.
Maybe that was the real reason I’d been hunting all over Emarion for a brawl.
And now that I’d found one, it might be my last.
“This isn’t a very polite way to welcome your Queen,” I said, my tone deceptively light. I tried to pull free of whoever held me, but the grip wouldn’t give. “I believe we discussed consent the last time I was here.”
“As I said, that is your way. You’re in Umbros now. We take what we want.”
“And what is it you want?”
Symond’s smile grew wider.
My hand drifted toward the dagger I’d strapped to my thigh. Two Centenaries closed in, their blades hovering at my neck.
I stilled. “Too afraid to face me with my magic or a knife? I never took the Centenaries for cowards.”
Voices hissed behind me, but Symond’s smugness didn’t waver.
“You know, Yrselle is the only Crown I’ve had in two hundred years of life.
I served as her Chief Centenary for eighty of them.
” His features softened, as if bathing in a fond memory.
“She still read my mind every time I handed her a drink.”
“Well, I’m not Yrselle.”
He huffed a laugh. “Clearly.”
My eyes darted around in search of an exit.
The walls of the room all shared the telltale sparkle of godstone.
The only door was the one I’d closed, now guarded by a pair of scowling women.
What really chilled my blood was what I spied in the back—a body-shaped table, covered in straps, with spikes on every surface.
There was a drain on the floor crusted in a suspicious brown-red, and chains hanging from the ceiling held an assortment of scalpels, pliers, and hooks.
“Welcome to our playroom,” Symond purred. “Yrselle ensured her Centenaries had all the toys our hearts could desire.” I forced myself not to flinch as he moved closer and ran a knuckle along the column of my throat. “And I’ve been waiting to get my hands on you.”
I was so utterly, completely doomed. Even if I could get to my weapon, I was absurdly outnumbered. If I had any hope of getting out alive, it would be by wits alone.
Not my strongest asset.
As the circle of Centenaries closed tighter and stepped into the torchlight, I got a better look. They were true to their legendary reputation, sensual and ruthless, a viper slithering through silk.
Yet there was something different in the way they moved now.
The last time I’d come, they’d all shared the same swaggering confidence that the empire they’d built in the darkness could never be breached.
Now, they looked shaken, unsure—and there was nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal backed up against a wall.
The soft cries of an infant suddenly floated out of the shadows.
I squinted into the dark. “Is that a baby?”
The Centenaries hurried to block my view. “Take a step toward her, and you’re dead,” one of them growled, their glare almost urgently harsh.
“I didn’t come here to hurt anyone,” I said. “I’m trying to help.”
“We don’t need your help,” another said. “We’re safe here. They can’t get through the godstone.”
I balked. “That’s your plan—hide until the war ends? What about the people in your city?”
The Centenary shrugged. “They can protect themselves. They’re not our responsibility.”
“Not according to Yrselle.” I tried to step toward them, and more blades raised to stop me.
“Her grace did not stop with the one hundred of you. She opened her city to everyone, even the people other realms had turned away. She gave them protection from the other Crowns and a place to build whatever life they pleased, no matter who they were. She took outcasts and exiles and she gave them a home.” I looked at Symond, who had remained curiously silent.
“Yrselle took pride in her realm. Tell me, did that die with her?”
His mouth tightened. He slowly looked me over. “You think you can defeat him.”
An observation, not a question.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly, “but Yrselle did. I am trying to be worthy of her faith.”
Symond shot a glance behind me, and the man holding my shoulders let me go. I kept my hands high, far from my weapons, as a gesture of peace.
“I should have come sooner,” I admitted.
“I don’t know if I could have prevented what happened, but I should have been here to try.
You needed your Queen, and I let you down, and I’m sorry.
” I let out a resigned sigh. “I’ll never be the Queen that Yrselle was.
The world she created here for you, where you are safe and favored and given everything you please .
. . that world no longer exists. I want to rebuild Emarion into something better, something inspired by this diverse, welcoming city that Yrselle built in Umbros, but I need your help to do it.
” I took a deep breath. “I want you to join my army.”
Tragedy, it appeared, had not stolen their sense of humor. The small room turned deafening with the echoes of their laughter. Most scoffed, some glared. Symond showed no reaction, holding my gaze in his pitiless stare.
From the shadows, a woman emerged, cradling something in her arms. A man stood close by her side with one hand resting on her shoulder and the other extended in front of her, ready to cast his magic at any second.
I noted his distrustful eyes—a captivating shade of sea glass that marked him as a Meros Descended—before looking closer at the black-eyed woman’s hands.
A silvery symbol I recognized all too well glowed faintly on her wrist. In the swath of fabric she held against her chest, an infant’s face stared back.
“Umbros hasn’t fought for another realm since the Blood War,” a different Centenary said, pulling my attention away.
“This is a fight for Umbros,” I said. “If Emarion falls, this realm goes with it.”
“Let’s kill her and get it over with,” another grumbled. “Put the Crown on one of our heads instead.”
I shook my head. “That’s not—”
“We should offer her as a trade,” another chimed in. “If we give her to the man who attacked us, maybe he’ll leave us alone.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” another asked. “It’s been too long since we had someone to play with.” She snatched a pair of pliers and strutted toward me. “And we did get out all our favorite toys.”
Ah, shit.
I recognized that insufferable pout.
“Hagface,” I said. “You’re looking well.”
She scowled. “I can’t wait to be the last thing you ever see.” She lifted the pliers to my eyes. “Get ready to reunite with your dead Prince.”
“My Prince is not dead. And if you kill me, he’ll bring my entire army down on your head.” I stared at Symond. “Do you really want to fight a war on two fronts?”
His eyes narrowed.
“Maybe the new Queen is right,” said the woman holding the baby. “We can’t hide in this room forever. Perhaps it’s time we looked beyond our own borders.”
Hagface snorted. “Motherhood has addled Drusila’s brain. Let’s hope the brat doesn’t end up like h—”
Drusila cocked her head, and Hagface went unnaturally still, arm trembling as she turned the pliers away from me and angled their sharp points so close to her own face, they brushed against her lashes.
“Stop,” Hagface begged. “Please . . . p-please, Drusila.”
“Our numbers are few,” Drusila said coolly. “Speak ill of my child, and they will be fewer.”
The pliers clattered to the ground, and Hagface sank to her knees and whimpered, clutching at her head while the others watched in amusement—all but Symond, whose shrewd gaze had never broken from me.
His fingers twitched at his sides. “You want us to fight for you.”
“For you,” I corrected. “For your people.” I nodded to the baby. “For her.”
We held each other’s stare, and he made no effort to hide the fact that he had painfully little confidence—in my plans, in my claims.
In me, specifically.
The others didn’t look much surer. In a realm infamous for its skilled liars, the Centenaries maintained their control by ignoring a person’s words and looking into the mind beneath. Fancy speeches would never sway them. Only one thing would.
“If you want answers,” I said, pointing to my temple and repeating his words, “you’ll have to take them yourself.”
The secrets I harbored could destroy so many people I loved, perhaps all of Emarion with them. But as Symond sank his mental talons in and began to feast on my thoughts, it didn’t feel like such a risk.
First, because I couldn’t stop them. I wasn’t quite sure why they hadn’t done it the moment I walked in. Perhaps they were more loyal to my Crown than they seemed.
Second, because Luther had given up his secrets to the Centenaries, too, the night of my Ascension Ball. He had not just sworn to sacrifice everything to protect me, he’d done it. Again, and again, and again.
I clung to thoughts of him as my body went stiff and my mind ceased to be my own.
I tried to urge Symond toward the things I wanted him to see: the fairer world I envisioned, the council I’d established, the unjust laws I had repealed. That alone was a gamble. The Centenaries had benefited from that very inequality, and they might be willing to kill me to keep it.