Chapter Four
Farah
Putrid liquid stuck to the roof of Farah’s mouth before sliding down her throat.
It tasted ashy and a bit like spoiled eggs with a hint of fish.
As soon as the liquid settled in her stomach it threatened to run back up and spew all across the chaise where she’d collapsed.
Tang and copper formed on her tongue and Farah leaned her head back, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Why won’t this gods-damned room stop spinning?” The walls shifted around her, a constant loop of white-washed stone and navy silk curtains.
“Because.” Farah let out a yelp at the sound of Chloe’s voice. Where did the wolf even come from? “You drank your weight in rum and then proceeded to finish it off with the worst possible bitter ale on the isle. What did you expect?”
Ah, right. Not her best idea. Mixing alcohols had never worked in her favor, especially when the first of them was rum.
That menacing drink was both her greatest lover and most wicked adversary.
Usually, when she drank the sweet liquor, she ended up back home with someone, but the only other person in the room was the Nexian princess. Oh gods.
“We didn’t— You know…” she asked sheepishly, scraping her hands down her face. It wouldn’t have been the first time she ended up in the wolf’s bed.
Scowling, Chloe clacked her nails together in a tick. “We did not.” Her tone was…angry?
“Good,” Farah replied.
Except, would it have been such a bad thing if the princess and her slept together?
It was time they moved past the incident from years before.
It wasn’t as if Farah had meant to leave without a word—or a measly note—but when a katáskopos is called into duty, not even a beautiful woman half naked in bed could delay their charge.
“So, if we weren’t intimate,” Farah said, drawing out the last word, “why exactly are you here? And what gods-awful beverage did I just sip?”
“That is a tonic Cal likes to whip up when my brothers become too intoxicated. It is foul, but it will sober you up faster than any other potion you could purchase in the markets. I avoid indulging too much for that very reason.” She clasped her hand together, rubbing thumb over thumb.
“As for how you ended up back in your room, I carried you.”
Farah reluctantly raised the cup to her mouth for another sip of Cal’s concoction. Could even the God of Craft not make something taste the tiniest bit better? Her brow kicked up in a questioning gaze. “You? Carried me? From the Iron Wolf all the way back here?” That was well over a mile.
“I did. You made quite the raucous in the streets all the way home, slamming your fists against my back and yelling at me to put you down. Rather embarrassing for you, if I do say so.”
“I was shouting in the streets?” Gods, could today possibly get any worse? Farah needed off this isle as soon as possible, even if it meant dealing with Avra’s wrath.
Chloe laughed, crisp and enchanting, not like her usual menacing snicker. “No, you passed out moments after I hauled you from the taverna. It was easy from there.”
What was worse—acting like a belligerent idiot, or passing out at the taverna and being hauled back to the castle?
Farah was supposed to be one of the elite.
A woman of the shadows trusted with the isle’s darkest secrets.
An assassin with the skills to eliminate any adversary.
Yet here she was, wallowing in pity because someone she never met or knew existed was killed by her father.
Should she even be surprised? That her father who branded his own daughter and manipulated his son to the point of madness would slaughter an innocent for his own agenda?
King Athanas was the very worst of them and Farah so desperately wished to be rid of the consequences of her father’s vicious path to peace.
“I’m not usually like this,” Farah said after moments of silence. The look Chloe gave in return was no softer than before, more acrid against her tongue than Cal’s concoction.
Rolling her eyes, Chloe let out a huff. “Are you not? Do you forget I was aboard The Nostos with you? You were at the gambling tables below deck every night, drinking rum as the stars came and went in the sky. Or what about Lesathos? You blatantly disregarded Leighton’s direct orders to stay aboard while we went to the safehouse.
For a spy, you are quite lackadaisical with your activities. ”
“I do not report to Leighton, I report to your father, and enjoying yourself amongst friends is not a crime, little wolf.”
“No one aboard The Nostos is your friend,” Chloe bit back.
Farah’s skull prickled at the words and her nose flared. “They are kinder to me than you, and you once called me a friend. Or have you forgotten?”
Chloe’s eyes glazed over as she averted her gaze. “That was a long time ago, Farah. You are not my enemy, but neither are you my friend anymore. I am simply indifferent.”
Grinding her teeth together, Farah attempted to relax her now clenched fists and stone her face. “Indifferent, you say? And yet, you didn’t leave me piss drunk in the village.”
“Because you were making a mockery of my isle, of my father and this crown,” Chloe snapped.
Farah slammed her now empty cup down. “Did you ever think to ask…why I was that way? Why I said to hell with traditions I have honored in the past? Why I would let myself go on the eve of such an important mission?”
The room heated to an unbearable temperature and black veins began to weave their way down Farah’s fingertips and over her arms. She needed air, fresh ocean air and to be anywhere but in the confines of stone and glass and other things she could break.
“I do not pretend to care about why you do anything anymore.”
Smoke curled Farah’s fingers and the scent of ash filled her nostrils. “I had an older sibling? Did you know that?”
Chloe scoffed. “Of course I know that, he broke my arm for Fates’ sake, Farah.”
“I am not talking about Kohl.” Her gaze travelled to the floor, fingers digging into the settee beneath her.
“This morning your parents informed me that Avra and Khalid had a child. A child that was sacrificed for the two of them having not completed the marriage trials. It shouldn’t affect me, I never knew them, except they were my blood.
I wonder if that is what jaded him—my father.
If he never had to do something so horrific, he would’ve been a better father, a better leader. ”
“Your father would be just as cruel.”
“Is that really all you have to say to me?” Farah questioned, her tone breathless from holding every bit of power inside her, pushing it down to the recesses of her mind so she didn’t explode.
For a moment, Chloe locked her gaze on Farah and her features softened.
Then the young wolf rolled her lips between her teeth and scrunched her eyes shut.
When her eyes opened, there was no emotion left.
“Be at the docks at dawn. Hespali is not far, but we want to catch the early morning winds. Try not to fuck this up like everything before.”
“As you wish, Princess,” Farah replied, because Chloe’s words were not indifferent, and dismissive was so much worse.