Chapter 14 #2
Borshoz jerks against his cuffs, looking fearfully at Germain’s sword. “Yes, it has been my honor,” he mumbles. “Yes, yes, an honor.”
I step between Germain and Borshoz.
“Please,” I plead with the shekel. “If you can tell me anything?” I don’t ask him to tell me where his father is.
To do so, would be asking him to damn his father before he died, and I couldn’t live with myself if I asked him to do that.
Not when he has already sacrificed his life to keep his father safe.
The shekel keeps mumbling about this being his honor, and I don’t think he’s going to say any more, when his gaze snaps up, locking with mine. “The shadow queen wants what the Xalgrith want. That’s all I can say, and it may already be too much.”
“What?” I struggle to hide my surprise from Ambrose and Germain. “And what does the queen want? Power? Destruction?”
Blood starts leaking from the gashes on the shekel’s chest, like the wounds somehow opened up by themselves while we were talking.
It takes me a moment to realize I’m staring at gills, and the creature has opened them up like he’s trying to breathe.
Only, we’re not in water. According to the journals, shekels can be out of the water for hours at a time, but they can’t breathe this air.
It’s only when the shekel starts to gurgle, that I realize what he’s doing.
He knows Germain wants to kill him, and he wants to go out on his own terms.
“Stop. You don’t need to do that, buddy. Please don’t,” I say. “They won’t hurt you. I promise. I—”
But the shekel ignores my pleas. “We creatures see all, and what has transpired since the first shadow warrior was created, was not the intentions of the oracle. The shadow queen will not get the information she seeks from us.” He gurgles, and it’s a horrible, agonizing sound.
“But I leave gladly knowing you are here, mistress. Knowing that someone else is listening. There may be hope to stop it after all…” There’s a squelching sound and the shekel falls to the floor, his chains rattling as he lands.
“No!” I dash forward, leaning over the creature, but the shekel isn’t moving. My mates rush for me, but I act on instinct. My shadows crack out, winding around Germain’s sword and tossing it to the floor where it clangs against the stone.
Power explodes in the room, and when the shadows clear, Ambrose and Germain are standing side-by-side, seething as they glare at me. My mates stand around me protectively, fury radiating from them as they stop the other originals from touching me.
Galen moves closer to me, and he rubs his hand soothingly down my back. His shadows curl around mine, and my power calms. “I’m sorry, treasure,” he whispers. “I had a feeling they wouldn’t let the shekel live. We should have prepared you. At least, the shekel made his own choice in the end.”
I nod absently. I know I was stupid to act.
Stupid to take Germain’s sword. And stupid to even believe this was just questioning.
It wasn’t an interrogation, either. No, it was an execution, and I’m so freaking sick of it.
Sick of the death. I wonder how the shadow warriors have survived so long battling against the Xalgrith, when I’ve hardly had a taste of death, and yet I’m already losing my mind.
Is it the immortality that keeps them sane?
Does it somehow dull their empathy so they don’t have to think about the lives they take?
I can’t help but think about how the shekel are one of the more peaceful species.
I leave gladly knowing you are here. Knowing that someone else will be listening…
Borshoz’s words haunt me. He spoke as if he was expecting me to do something, but I’m not a hero.
I’m the sidekick. I always have been. Blake is the brave one.
My mates are the powerful ones. And I’m just… drowning.
A flash of my past comes to me. Of my hands covered in blood, and it’s accompanied by a sense of dread that chills me to my bones.
For a moment, I feel like I’m suffocating, just like the shekel was, but then the feeling is gone a second later.
The image of blood vanishes, but deep down, I can still feel the memory bubbling somewhere buried inside me.
Knox’s power ripples through the air as he stares the other originals down, and the hairs stand up on my arms. “Back away before this ends badly for the both of you,” Knox warns.
“Our mate did as she was told. Watching you slaughter the creature was never part of the deal. You shouldn’t have drawn your sword. ”
Germain’s expression calms, but he doesn’t step back.
“What did your human pet think we’d brought the creature here for?
We’re at war, and if the shekel had no useful information, then letting it live was pointless.
” He slides his gaze to Borshoz. “At least the bastard saved me the trouble of ending its miserable life.”
I stare at the motionless shekel. At the being who just sacrificed himself for his father.
He said it was an honor. That his community needed his father, and that his father held the secrets we would never find, but as the light faded from the shekel’s obsidian eyes, I knew that wasn’t the heart of it.
Borshoz sacrificed himself because of love.
Because he wanted to protect his family, and nothing about that is insignificant.
But I know Germain will never understand that. I straighten my spine, my shadows writhing around me, so small in comparison to everyone else’s in this room. Small…but not insignificant, a soft voice sounds in my head.
For a heart-stopping moment, I think I’ve heard my phoenix, but her egg is still pressed against my chest, held snuggly by the sling.
I dismiss the idea that it could have been her, and Borshoz’s other words play in my head: The shadow queen wants what the Xalgrith want.
I have no idea what the shadow queen wants, but I do know what this means.
Queen Krosia thinks I’ll be able to find out some piece of information that she hasn’t been able to source herself.
I think of how insistent Professor Yevar has been about me joining their side.
Both the Xalgrith and Queen Krosia want the same thing…
and they both think I’m the one who can help them get it.