Chapter 21
A Wall Between the Two of Them and the Rest of the World; It Has Grown Dark Everywhere But Around Her
Baz had come about his considerable strength the usual way: with dedicated training, and the good fortune to have been born with a brawny, athletic physique.
Though his might had nothing to do with his fae power, there were many who believed it did.
His choice to do nothing to dispel the rumors had been carefully made.
The more the people and creatures of the Opalese feared him, the easier it was to keep them from violating the dominion.
And the more they did as his father wanted, the less likely Junot was to order Baz to assert order, a process that was always brutal.
The irony was that Baz’s true fae power would have terrified Opalesians even more than his legendary brute force.
But if they knew of it, then that would mean that Junot would also know, and Baz would never allow his sire to learn of his magical ability.
With just Baz’s strategic brilliance for warfare, Junot had conquered most of the world.
With Baz’s fae power as well? There was no one—anywhere—who would be able to resist.
Baz had taken a risk by pulling that specter into himself; he’d known it even while he was doing it.
Worse than doing it in the first place was that he’d done it in front of an assassin of his family’s rival.
It had been reckless and dangerous. But when Baz had stared into the phantom’s black eyes and sensed the depth of her darkness, he couldn’t leave her there, trapped and alone.
Baz knew all too well that in solitude the darkness within grew bolder and louder. Even so, it was a mistake. History had proven that someone always paid mightily for his errors, and it seemed always to be the ones he couldn’t do without.
The borrowed darkness was receding from his eyes; he knew that without looking.
It was always the same. It took a few hours to properly absorb the worst of someone, before it became a part of him.
The darkness that had traveled up his arm, that he’d felt throughout his body, had vanished from sight first. Regardless, Baz experienced the new ghost as a constant burning: through his veins and his organs, even in the marrow of his bones, where he presumed the woman’s darkness melded with his faithum, with the power that was supposed to remain pure—but that he had tarnished so long ago.
What had never happened before, not even once in all the centuries Baz had been messing with the darkness of others, was happening now…
Baz pulled on the handles to the double doors of the sitting room.
Since he’d arrived at the castle, they had always been propped open.
Now they were preventing him from reaching Moncho and Lev, which meant he was going to rip them from their hinges.
And if that didn’t work, he’d take down the very walls.
But before he could quash Mauldrene and her most recent tantrum—because it had to be Mauldrene fucking with him yet again—the burning caused by the phantom was coalescing and taking the reverse trajectory from when Baz had sucked her into himself.
His forearms corded and his biceps bulging, he froze with his hands still wrapped around the handles.
“What is it?” Velle asked in a hushed whisper.
When she leaned forward so the others wouldn’t overhear, her veil caressed his bare arms. He understood that the veil wasn’t real, only an illusion, but fuck if it didn’t feel sensual anyway.
It made him want to lock her in his quarters, lift the veil, and consume all her secrets.
“Nothing,” he grunted under his breath. “It’s nothing.”
She leaned closer. Despite his burning, he smelled her scent: it recalled the sea, its immense vastness and power, its ability to so casually mesmerize and prioritize his worries.
“It’s not nothing,” she said. “Is Mauldrene not letting you open the doors?”
“No.”
Her hips nudged him out of the way. “Let me try.”
He didn’t budge. “No.”
She tsked, glancing over at the nobles first, then at his friends, everyone’s eyes on them.
“I might not be as strong as you, but I’m strong. Besides, this doesn’t have anything to do with brute strength. If it’s Mauldrene, and it’s gotta be, then strength has nothing to do with it.”
He closed his eyes and focused on pushing back the burning sensation—the phantom. His insides felt as if they were on fire, actual fire.
“Don’t be a dick,” Velle said, softly enough that no ordinary fae would hear. But they weren’t in a room with anyone ordinary. Several affronted gasps rang through their audience.
Didn’t Velle know better than to oil an aristo’s tongue, much less a vigilant group of the nosy busybodies?
Dammit, she was a princess! She should know that the emperor and empress would only surround themselves with those s?nglures who had the most influence and power.
Their opinions helped sway the happenings at his father’s court, and Baz needed their attention far away from Velle—or a princess of Orania—not pinned furiously on her.
“Let me try,” she continued, either oblivious to the tension, or more likely, pretending she was.
She bumped her shoulder against his upper arm. He hissed before he could rein in his reaction.
Sharp eyes that noticed much too much swept the length of his body. “What is it?”
His arm was a block of solid flame, and when she’d hit him, she’d doused the fire in accelerant.
“Don’t be an idiot.”
More gasps surged from the onlookers, while Night and Ed drew closer. Ed cracked her knuckles, then her neck.
Velle flicked a look at them before squeezing his arm. He sucked through his teeth. She pushed onto her tiptoes and spoke straight into his ear, her veil soft as feathers, inflaming his already sensitive skin.
“Tell me what the fuck is going on with you right this second or I’ll kiss you here in front of everyone. Then you’ll have to figure out how to explain why you’re kissing a princess of Orania, of all places.”
When his only reaction was a further clenching of his every muscle, she said, “Fine. I’ll take off my veil, then. I can probably get it off even though it’s pretend, right? Then you’ll have a new set of problems to deal with.”
While she attempted to rid herself of the Rillis rope, no doubt, and make her escape.
“Seriously, Baz?” she whispered. “I can help. Let me help you.”
“Thought you wanted to kill me,” he said through gritted teeth. When Velle had spoken, it had been so quiet that no one else had heard—or no one else had reacted. But he hadn’t been able to control himself as well.
“My warrior prince,” Drake Milliand said, “are you in danger? I have my dagger.”
And what did he think he would do with said dagger? Pose with it?
Ed, Night, Zi, and Félix consolidated into a tight circle around him and Velle, cutting off the nobles.
“Your intervention is not needed, Drake. Stand down,” Zi said, her eyes narrowed on Baz and Velle. “Get away from him,” Zi next said to Velle.
“No.”
“No? No isn’t an option.”
“Then you should expand your options.”
Zi scoffed. “Fuck off.”
“No.”
Zi snarled. Velle hissed. Zi lunged for her; Velle jabbed her in the throat. Zi bent over herself, coughing and clasping her neck. The nobles probably came in their pants or skirts at the show the two of them were putting on.
“Give me…” Baz started but had to clamp his lips against the pain. It was as if his flesh were being burned to the bone with him still alive!
Velle’s hands covered his, which this time had Ed lunging for her. But Velle’s touch was gentle, and Ed stopped.
Velle faced her back to the others, erecting a wall between the two of them and the rest of the world. “Let go, Baz. The handles are hurting you.”
He managed to shake his head. The rings in his hair clinked faintly together. “It’s not them.”
“Still, let go. Let’s get you to relax.”
Baz was using every bit of his resolve to keep the ghost inside him.
She couldn’t come back out. They never came back out—they weren’t supposed to.
But containing the specter when she wanted out was like holding back a sneeze.
He’d passed the point of return. His body was barreling forward, ready for release.
“I…” he uttered.
“You what, Baz?” Velle’s voice was that of a friend. It had to be a ploy, didn’t it? Velle made no secret of wanting to hurt him. She wasn’t his friend. Wasn’t his … well, she couldn’t be his anything—only his enemy.
“I-I…” Agony blazed through his arm and his shoulder, spreading into his back. Was this what his Arabella and wee Carina had suffered when he’d burned them on a pyre?
No, they were already dead, Baz. Don’t be daft.
He searched for his friends. But it had grown dark everywhere but around her: his prisoner. Could it be Mauldrene angling her shadows around him? Taking advantage of his weakness to strike a brutal blow?
“No witnesses,” he managed to grit out.
Velle nodded, her veil cool as it fluttered along his burning flesh. She spun toward Zi, who was still nursing her throat. Zi growled like a beast about to attack.
“What manners,” Drake Milliand said, his horror loud.
Zi growled again; it sounded directed at him. When he yelped, Baz knew he’d been right.
“Enough, Zi,” Velle snapped. No consideration for the beast. “We need you.”
We? Even through the burn, Baz felt that we plenty—too much.
We the enemies, it had to be.
Baz’s vision shrank until all he could make out were flashes of Velle’s hands, of her skin, still touching his.
“We can’t leave this room, and they can’t either,” Velle told Zi in barked whispers. “And Baz needs his privacy right now. You get me?”
Silence stretched for several seconds, during which Baz figured it didn’t matter anyway. It was too late; he was immolating. Zi was probably glaring daggers at Velle while he combusted.
“Yeah,” Zi finally said. Her voice was actual venom. “I get you.”
“Good. Get to it, then.”
Another beat, another glare.
“Fast, Zi. Come on! He doesn’t have time to mess around. I can feel it.”
Zi sighed loudly, but then stalked away—to weave an illusion that would confound the nobles well enough to afford Baz the privacy he needed to melt down.
And melt down he would.
He shuddered so violently that his fingers slipped from the handles and into the comfort of Velle’s. She wrapped her arm around his shoulders and drew him close.
It’s the rope, he told himself. Or it was a manipulation.
Like Shen, she was just using him. More than Shen, she had reason to.
Shen had never been his prisoner. He’d treated her like his queen, and she’d still betrayed him.
What was Velle capable of when he’d nearly sliced her in half, then collared her, and held her captive?
Shen had believed herself to be cunning and capable, but Soravelle actually was those things.
Voices spoke around him, but they were muffled and growing more indistinct with each awful, passing moment.
More hands landed on him besides Velle’s, but he couldn’t properly feel their touch, only the heat—only the burn.
He sank to the floor, falling back instead of sitting, sinking into the arms of his friends, who’d reached out to catch him.
The phantom bore down his arm, straining to burst free from his hand—its darkness, which should have been cold, burned like the Fuerin Star.
With all his might, Baz worked to keep the ghost inside.
Once he took the darkness, he couldn’t ever let it go.
That was his penance. Not redemption, no, that was pointless.
But punishment … his punishment was far from complete.
All he could sense anymore was the burning specter …
and the sea, and iron, and the olandry flower.
Whatever was about to happen, there was no holding it back anymore, not this time. Not with this. He couldn’t.
He should have been saving Lev and Moncho. Soravelle Davana—somehow she was still there. His princess.
“Oh fuck,” Baz said, sounding like he’d combined olandule and olvidian and overdone both, like he was about to puke and needed a pail or a bare patch of forest, right the scorch now.
He opened his mouth again, to warn his friends, maybe? To scream against the pain? Unlikely. Not only was he a warrior, he was a leader of warriors. Not even here, not even with Zi’s illusion in place, could he expose too much weakness. His friends relied on him. He needed to be strong.
His teeth snapped closed against a final burst of pain—as the ghost that was never intended to rejoin the world of the living emerged … from the palm of his hand.