Chapter 8 #4
Byron strode between them. His gray three-piece suit was the same shade as his salted, tawny hair.
He clenched his square jaw as he spoke about the different mortals and lesser otherworldly creatures he wanted the Houses to hunt, the numbers needed.
He wasn’t a man who smiled much. I’d only seen that side of him when I spent my obligatory days with Nelle over the past year.
He loved his daughters and had barely tolerated my presence.
Despite always thinking my claiming Nelle was straight-up revenge, last night he finally understood exactly what my family was after. Tucked away in Byron’s treasury was a small piece of a god that had been Zrenyth’s Warlord, whose power lived and breathed in an ancient relic. Brangwene’s Hjarte.
We needed it.
Desperately.
Pulling my phone from my pocket, I flicked my father a quick message informing him of Sirro’s advisement to keep quiet about Jett and the Gestelt bolt.
My father checked his phone and discreetly pocketed it swiftly. He adjusted his position in his chair, affecting calm bordering on boredom. He didn’t look my way, only slightly lifting his chin in reply.
Sirro flashed a sly smile. “Rumor has reached my ears that you’re angling for an invitation to the Witches Ball and that you’re offering Nelle as your prize. But so far…?”
There was a moment of silence in my head.
Once I stepped out of the solar, something lifted the heavy weight pressing on my mind and soul.
All those things that had sent me spinning onward after trapping my little bird—the coverup of the battleground, burying the dead, threatening Byron, coming out of this meeting alive with Sirro, thwarting and redirecting him from the truth that our House had been the one who’d attacked his tithe convoy…
it had all disappeared. But the single person this had all been about came to the forefront.
Nelle.
And that weight descended once again, pulverizing me beneath its might.
“Nothing,” I replied, my tone flat.
But inside, I was anything but indifferent. Revulsion for myself bubbled like a stagnant pond fermenting in a baking-hot sun.
So far, we hadn’t stirred enough interest to entice a request for a Goods Appraisal. A fact that was making my family extremely nervous.
To be invited to The Witches Ball, one needed to have their possession appraised for its value.
If the prize offered was deemed worthy, an invitation to the event would be issued.
Time was running out for my family. A day or two after Nelle’s birthday, the appraisals would be closed off.
Once again, we’d lose our shot at getting into the very place we hoped to find the Horned God that would lead to our mother’s whereabouts.
I didn’t know whether or not I was relieved. If it was better that the choice was taken away… If Nelle didn’t gain the interest of the Horned Gods, it would force us to do something desperate…
And Nelle would be safe…
But we’d lose the chance altogether to find my mother.
Sirro slipped a hand into his pocket and shifted his weight to one hip.
His gaze left mine to track Byron’s movements as he strode in front of the attending members of our society.
The Horned God’s voice softened with introspection.
“You Crowthers really are quite ruthless. Putting Nelle up for sale at the Witches Ball. Is it retribution you seek for Tabitha? Revenge against Byron for betraying your mother? Your way of tearing Byron Wychthorn apart by selling his daughter to those creatures who only see body parts set upon an auction block?”
I didn’t respond, but I couldn’t stop the anger from burning the blood in my veins to a blistering heat.
Anger directed at myself.
There was an eager gleam in Sirro’s eyes when they met mine. “It’s a pity you can’t offer anything else if you are so desperate to get in there. And once you are, what are you going to bid on? What do the great Crowthers want?”
He surveyed me as if he could learn the truth from the nuances in my expression.
I gave him nothing in return. He chuckled, shaking his head.
“I thought perhaps something might blossom between you and Nelle. Both of you spending all that time together leading up to her twentieth birthday, before the Alverac bound her soul to yours permanently. I’d wondered if someone like Nelle could win you over.
But not you, Graysen Crowther.” His gaze silently spoke approval.
“Such a cold, black soul. Selling her at the Witches Ball…how mercenary.”
A sorrowful ache settled in my heart.
“There’s a particular Horned God, one of those creatures that spin spells, that creeps out of her hole in the ground before the Ball,” Sirro shared. “Jurgana’s rather partial to the Emporium. I’m sure she’ll arrive before the month is out.”
In my periphery, I saw Jett’s gaze slide our way, his eyes shining with eager interest.
Sirro leaned closer to whisper, “If I were you, I’d have a word with Zielenski and have him let you know when Jurgana is in attendance.”
The Emporium…
Holy hellsgate.
Everything inside me died further.
Sirro flashed a smile that showed all his teeth. “I’m sure a little display from your Wychthorn Princess would entice a Goods Appraisal. That is…if you want an invitation to the Witches Ball?”
I wanted to roar at the injustice I was going to deliver to Nelle. An innocent tangled in a betrayal woven by others.
“She was such a spirited child, full of fire,” Sirro continued, stepping closer.
He was shorter than me, but right this moment I felt like I was standing in his shadow.
“I’ve watched her grow through the ages.
Not so much in the past few years, our paths didn’t cross, and I was detained…
with…” His words drifted apart as his gaze slid along the rows of men and women in their expensive suits and handmade leather shoes, but I could tell he wasn’t focused on them at all.
No, he was thinking about Nelle. Lust, heady and potent, pinched my nostrils, making me want to throat-punch the fucker.
He glanced back and smiled in a way that set my teeth grinding.
Then his golden eyes went molten with the desirous thought he spoke out loud.
“Well, she’s all grown up now, and ever so delectable.
I wouldn’t mind a bite of her.” He canted forward slightly, getting into my space.
“Perhaps I’ll bid on the Wychthorn Princess at the Witches Ball. ”
It was a sucker punch I should have seen coming.
I almost fucking detonated.
Almost.
Something in my expression satisfied Sirro.
Whatever he saw made his smile grow broader, more delighted, and reflected in his eyes like a mirror, I glimpsed myself, the flash of silver in my irises as territorial fury rampaged through my entire being.
He wanted her, and he was going to get his hands on her no matter how.
And yet… I was the bastard who couldn’t go against my family and save Nelle from the likes of him. Worse, I couldn’t save her from the likes of me, nor my family. I’d be the one to put her up on that auction block to be sold. Me.
I can’t…
But without Nelle, we’d never save my mother.
My mother or Nelle.
The weight of it all crushed the air from my lungs and had loathing tugging me down into black despair.
Sirro seemed to read me so easily.
He pressed even closer, so close I could smell his minty breath that almost covered up the scent of his decay, and the coldness radiating from his age-suspended body had mine prickling all over with gooseflesh.
“Choices.” He pushed the word out, and it sounded cruel.
There was nowhere else to look but into those dark eyes.
“We all have to make choices. Some divide us right down the middle, cleave us in two. We have to pick one side or the other. Make one choice over another.” He scrutinized my face as if trying to pierce through my inner thoughts and unearth the turmoil.
One blink, one heartbeat later, that hard glare softened as if he understood the perilous position I was in.
He smiled, angling his head slightly. The words were a low purr, rich with challenge. “So, what will you do, Graysen Crowther? What choice will you make?”
It was the clang of a crash cymbal that reverberated through my very soul.
What choice will I make?
But it wasn’t a question he was waiting for me to answer.
He strode into the atrium.
And sound filled my ears of shuffling feet, shifting fabric, and chair legs scraping across the tiled floor as everyone rose to bow. But it couldn’t drown out the question in my head that looped over and over, tearing into my flesh like rusted barbed wire.
As I followed my brother through the atrium, past all those gathered who held such vast power in their own right, yet were on bended knee before the Horned God, Sirro’s question rattled around in my mind, in my heart.
What choice will I make?