CHAPTER 29
THE A’KORI PALACE
Present Day
Riah leaves me to my thoughts as we journey back to the palace.
I tell myself that the reason they treat their soldiers better is because they can afford to.
I tell myself that the reason La’tari prisoners often die of starvation is because we lack resources to feed them.
And all of this, I tell myself, is the fault of the A’kori, of their king.
But no matter how many times I repeat these lies, I cannot make myself believe them.
I’m pulled from the maddening torrent of my thoughts halfway through our journey back to the palace when the lieutenant curses under her breath. I follow her attention to the five riders approaching from the north.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, squinting in a vain attempt to make out what her sharp feyn eyes can so easily see from afar.
“Try not to fight, but if we must, try not to die.”
It’s all she has time to say before they nearly collide with us, halting our procession east. Four humans, three men and one woman, sit astride their mounts next to a white-haired male with dark brown skin and deep blue eyes.
“Shivay lathrek,” Riah greets him.
“Shivay thien,” he replies in a husky voice.
One of the few phrases I picked up as a child, when I was curious after my first encounter with the feyn. It is an ancient and formal greeting from a time in their histories.
Shivay lathrek. May the light of all life greet you in the morning.
Shivay thien. May the light of all life find you in the darkness.
“Perhaps you would be kind enough to offer some assistance. We’ve gotten a little turned around looking for the barracks,” the feyn male says with a knowing smile.
Had Riah not been on edge before, his line of questioning would prickle my spine.
The lieutenant doesn’t hesitate to reply, “I’m sorry, friend. I didn’t know there were any barracks in these parts.”
The male smirks at her, disbelieving, making a show of examining her uniform. Riah pulls on the reins, forcing her mare to step back from their party.
“If there’s nothing else I can help you with, we need to be on our way,” she says.
It’s the tension in her voice that has me sliding my daggers from their sheathes to rest in my palms. No sooner do their hilts settle in my hands than his smile grows wicked.
“I can think of plenty of ways you can be of further assistance to me.” He tips his head toward us, issuing a command to the others, “Take them alive.”
Riah may as well have said nothing for all the thought I give her earlier warning.
I don’t think before flicking my wrist, lodging one of my feynstone blades firmly into the male’s eye.
I don’t expect it to kill him, my entire life I’ve been taught just how difficult the feyn are to kill.
But he falls from his horse, collapsing into a heap of unmoving flesh.
Riah doesn’t spare a glance in my direction as she directs her mare into the midst of mounted humans.
She isn’t armed, not with a weapon. I’m convinced she doesn’t need one when she grapples one of the fair-haired men by the throat and he looses an agonizing shriek, abruptly ended by the sickening crack of his neck before he falls from his mount.
Fates.
The men unsheathe their swords, striking at the lieutenant.
She goes on the defense, attempting to disarm one and procure his weapon for herself.
I loose my second blade at the man attempting to attack her from behind.
The knife whips past Riah before sinking into his jugular with a solid thunk.
His eyes widen as he claws at the blade, but he’s already dead, removing it will only quicken his descent to haliel.
“Stop throwing your weapons!” Riah growls.
A thank you might be more appropriate, but I understand her line of reasoning. I’ve disarmed myself, even if it was to save her from a sword to the back.
I’m too caught up in Riah’s skirmish to notice that the woman dismounted behind me. A mistake that truthfully should cost me my life. She pulls my leg, pitching me off balance, sending me to the ground.
Standing over me with a cocky grin, she sneers, “You’re about to wish you’d done as your friend advised. If you had any idea who we are, not only would you have remained armed, you would have run.”
Her smile fades to a frown when I grin, the heat of battle soaking into my veins in a rushing wave.
I sweep her legs out from under her and round back with a kick to her head just before it makes contact with the ground.
With a loud crack, it bounces off a large stone half sunk into the earth.
Blood gushes from the wound and her body goes limp. The woman will not rise again.
By the time I get to my feet, Riah is wiping a thick slick of blood off the blade she acquired from her opponent, the remnants of the assailant unmoving at her feet.
She points it at me as I pluck my own blade from the feyn’s punctured socket, my eyes lingering on the odd serrated shell of the male’s ear.
“You have some explaining to do,” she says.
I wipe the blade clean, sheathing it in my leathers before retrieving the second and doing the same.
“They were a gift from the general,” I reply.
“I guessed that much. The only feynstone left from the sundering is in the storerooms of the crown. What I’d like to know is the name of the Drakai who trained you, and why your father thought a lady needed to learn to fight like an assassin instead of paint, or play music, or—”
“Breed?” I quip, swinging into my saddle while I do my best to deflect from her line of thinking.
“I was going to say ‘sew,’” she corrects, doing her best to prevent the smile teasing the edge of her lips.
“I assume he wanted me to learn for the same reason any father would do such a thing. To keep his daughter safe.”
She shakes her head, completely unwilling to believe me. “Most fathers would just give their daughter a knife and a bodyguard.”
“Actually, I think most fathers would barter their daughters to a husband and charge him with their safety,” I say disdainfully.
Riah lets it go for the time being, making herself busy strapping every weapon she can find to the back of her mount, saving her search of the male for last. She kneels beside him, untying a dagger from his hip when her fingers go still, her eyes widening as she takes in his face more closely than before.
“Foc,” she says, jumping to her feet, scanning the edge of the forest as she rushes to mount. “Go, now,” she commands me, “as fast as your horse will take you. Don’t stop until we reach the palace. I’m right behind you.”
A wailing shriek sounds from within the tree line, prickling the hair on the back of my neck.
I don’t have time to look and find the source before Riah cracks her reins in the air, sending my horse into a leaping gallop.
Her brow creases as she chances a glance behind us and whatever she sees draws every bit of color from her face.
Flinging her legs over her saddle, Riah doesn’t stop to tie her horse as she flies through the giant gilded doors of the palace. I rush after her as she bolts through the halls, charging into the general’s war room without announcing herself.
I’m right behind her, my own brow drawn in a mixture of concern and curiosity. What had she seen that alarmed her so?
“Vatruke. On the rise, halfway between the palace and the barracks,” she says, out of breath, “They are hiding with the La’tari from the warship, along the edge of the northern forest.”
The general’s eyes flick to me briefly before returning to the lieutenant when he asks, “How many?”
“We only encountered five in the open,” she says, “Four Drakai and one of the Vatruke. We got lucky; I wasn’t recognized.”
“How did you escape?” Riesh asks, wide-eyed.
“We fought,” she explains.
The general moves to my side, his eyes sweeping over me, checking for any sign of injury.
“You managed to kill all five completely unscathed?” Riesh says. I try not to be offended by the shock in his voice, though he directs the question at Riah.
“I only felled two Drakai,” she admits, “Shivaria claimed the lives of the others.”
My stomach pits when she says it, and an uncomfortable silence falls over the room.
They each look me over in turn, as if they are seeing me for the first time.
For once, I’m glad Awri is absent, still tending to her mate.
She already looks at me strangely far too often.
Not that I haven’t given her good reason.
“How?” The general’s question is directed at Riah but the male refuses to break my gaze.
The lieutenant gives her report, starting where our day began, the barracks. I’m not sure it’s entirely necessary for her to divulge the entirety of my heated exchange with Siserie, but the pride that fills the general’s eyes upon hearing my response to the female’s ire is worth the retelling.
Despite the serious nature of the story, Riesh laughs a deep belly laugh when he learns I gifted the term of her sentence to Toren.
Maybe I was too brash. What if the male leaves her there for a hundred years?
Then again, he likely knows far better than I just how long she deserves to linger in her confinement.
But it isn’t the general’s approval of my decision to leave her that catches my attention. It is the fury in his eyes when Riah repeats the hateful remark Siserie spewed at me before we left. ‘She is nothing but a mistake.’
“What did she mean?” I ask, interrupting Riah’s tale. “When she said I am bound to your king?”
What type of fea bargain have I unwittingly struck with their king? I find myself wondering again if a fea bargain can be nullified by ending a life. I will need to find out.
“Fates,” I say under my breath, “It’s the bargain I made with Niya, isn’t it? The same bargain I made with Bagya.”