6. Stubborn Warlord
CHAPTER SIX
Stubborn Warlord
The entire time I had spoken with Hester, Cassiel had been notably still. With every revelation, he seemed to draw straighter as if a tether tugged his spine. I did my best to avoid turning his direction despite feeling his stare fixated on me.
“So the council created this society to benefit them,” Hester muttered. “And they poisoned His Highness through us, his food source?” Horror creased her features.
With her saying the words, a smidgen of pity stirred. I peeked over at Cassiel. He had just learned how fully he had been used.
Our gazes snagged.
“You were a fool,” I murmured, the words almost a whisper.
All he offered me was a slow blink.
They painted the facade just for him. Vaner made him believe the only two people he cared for were taken from him, both by redbloods.
As much of a fool as he was, I could not deny it was difficult to place the entire blame on him.
After all, the rest of the population had lived within the system for centuries.
The only difference was Cassiel had the ability to stop this if only he had not been so prejudiced toward redbloods.
“How can we be free of this?” I detested how hopeless Hester sounded.
“We have to work together,” I said more for Cassiel’s sake. “Al will be allowing me to work for him—”
“I want you nowhere near any of them.” Cassiel’s abrupt interruption was laden with warning.
“If I must, I will.” I raised my chin. “Because I would rather bleed in resistance than rot in obedience.”
“You will let me handle it—”
Hester’s head whipped back and forth, trying to follow the snipes.
“As you did last time?” I raised an eyebrow.
A muscle feathered in his jaw. I did not expect him to respond.
“I made a mistake,” he finally said.
My thoughts halted, and words refused to come. I had never believed he would admit to his faults. He held me in place with a look. Tightening assaulted my chest. The pressure helped me rip my focus off him.
Hester’s mouth was still dropped. I cleared my throat, and it jolted her out of whatever daze she’d been in. She slumped against the bars between us.
Cassiel had also closed his eyes, features strained.
There was nothing left to say then.
I curled my legs under my bottom to give my side a break. My hip no longer allowed me to remain in the same position for long periods of time. Cold seeped through the smooth concrete inside the cell, and I sprawled on my back, staring up at the ceiling.
My throat ached from how much I’d been speaking with Hester.
Surely it had been longer than a dawnlight rotation since they’d brought her in here.
If only there were a window to aid me in determining how much time had passed.
The only indication that dawnlight came and went was when Eliza came to serve us bread.
But even then, her appearances seemed disjointed.
Which left me with nothing but my thoughts. As much as I attempted not to, Cassiel’s response continued to fester in my thoughts.
I made a mistake.
Yes, he had. Quite a severe one.
Our time together had been horror-filled at first, but it had become something different, slowly morphing into something resembling care. Then he yanked it out from under me.
With a sigh, I followed the crevice of the stones above my head. Dark gray divots formed where they were cemented together.
“You need to rest,” Hester advised.
“My thoughts will not cease.” And how I wanted them to.
“Give me your hand.”
I furrowed my brows, but slid my hand into hers. As soon as we touched, haziness clouded my vision and my eyelids became increasingly heavy. A yawn clawed free, and I fell into nothing.
My arm being shaken woke me from my deep sleep. Hester peered at me, her face close.
I pushed onto my hands, my mind battling to catch up. Cassiel regarded me from the corner of his cell. The last few moments before falling asleep surfaced.
“You-you put me to sleep.” My pulse pounded in my ears.
“It is my gift.” Her eyes were wide and a bit scared. She kept looking back at Cassiel, who lay unmoving against the bars. Hester gripped her forearm where a bruise was already spreading. “It does not hurt you. You obviously needed to rest.” Her voice shook.
Another yawn escaped, and I rolled my head on my shoulders. I did feel great. A loaf of bread wrapped in a different cloth from before lay wrapped right outside my cell.
“Eliza was here.”
“Yes, a long while ago.”
“You have been slumbering for two dawnlight rotations. If you were not snoring, I would have murdered the girl for touching you,” Cassiel commented.
Muffled talking resonated.
“What is that?” I whispered.
“That is why I woke you. The chattering has been increasing. His Highness ordered me to wake you.”
I dragged my palms down my face. If he had her wake me . . .
“What did you hear?”
Cassiel regarded me, expression sharp. “They are coming to take you.”
Fortunately, his weakness had not compromised his heightened hearing.
Footsteps became louder. I leaned closer to Hester.
“Lie on your side, curled up. Do not move.” I was unsure who would show themselves, and it was best she avoid becoming a target if she wanted to survive.
She dropped onto her side and closed her eyes.
A swarm of officers passed my cell in a blur of black velvet and gold. Three of them held a bucket hanging from both hands. Egan stood before the cell, his head tilted up, meeting Cassiel’s eyes.
I held my breath as they stared each other down. The officers, five of them in total, fell into line behind Egan, all except the last, who was in the midst of placing a bucket down.
With my next blink, Cassiel had crossed his cell and ripped out the officer’s throat.
Flesh and ligaments extended from the seizing body.
Cassiel yanked, ripping them all free. The dying officer continued blinking, but his face held evident shock.
Then he toppled over and landed with a thud that left deafening silence behind.
Blood painted Egan’s cheek, but he had not moved. I let out a shaky, horror-filled breath. Egan finally looked at me.
“They were warned not to step too close to the cell.”
His hand flexed at his side, drawing my attention toward it. He held the object with the curse.
“Do not speak to her,” Cassiel threatened, his tone low and silky. As he backed away, the chain connected to one ankle rattled. He pressed his shoulder against the bars opposite to the ones that divided us, leaning against it. Egan’s face became a sharp blade.
“Even in a cell, you manage to create destruction.”
Cassiel smiled, showing his fangs. “And you remain nothing but a coward.”
Egan’s expression cooled. Hester peeked at me from the floor, and from my angle, I saw the debate on her face. I shook my head, and she kept still.
“You—” Egan cut himself off, then he looked down . . . where he held the effigy. With relish clear on his face, he snapped something. My eyes whipped to Cassiel, where he had gone limp against the bars, his neck bent at an uneven angle.
I choked on my breath.
“Cassiel?” I whispered.
He slid down to the ground, body braced by the bars, then he did not move. Nothing but slackened features.
I screamed, the shrill sound ripping from my throat. My knees buckled, and I fell.
“Now,” Egan ordered.
In a swift motion, that burly officer from the carriage was inside the cell, bringing a small blade down.
“No!” I struggled choking out the word. Hester visibly tensed where she lay against the bars.
My mind did not understand what was before me. The officer pulled the sharp blade through the leather belt holding Cassiel’s trousers, then downward through the fabric until he was nude. The officer pulled the clothes away speedily and retreated.
I searched Egan’s face for the man who had squeezed my hand in the carriage. He was there in the tight line of his mouth, the stiffness of his shoulders. But so was someone else. Someone who held the effigy like he’d been waiting for it.
A dry wheeze kept spilling from my lips, and I could not make it stop.
They would not kill him. No, of course not. Not when Al needed to study this ‘Elysian Pair’.
I rocked, turning from Cassiel to Piper hiding under the sawdust across my cell.
Egan held his free hand out, and water from the buckets followed his command, spraying toward the still body. The chains clinked and clanged when water hit them.
A hand on my shoulder whipped me around. I shouted again, this time from fright. The blond officer had my arm and pried me away from the bars forcibly. I thrashed, fighting to get hold of the bars again and shoving at his chest.
“Cassiel,” I sobbed, my fist pounding against the blond’s chest. Cassiel groaned, his fingers twitching until they finally curled into the stone he lay upon.
‘Shh, bondmate.’
Piper’s voice had always been warm; a presence nestling into the space behind my ribs. This was nothing like that. Cold, steady, and so deep it vibrated in my breastbone.
The officer had me near the cell’s exit, arm wrapped around my waist to pull me out. I scanned Cassiel, desperate for answers, but he still lay with his eyes closed.
‘I will get you away from here, Amara.’
I could only stare as the officer dragged me from my cell.
Cassiel said it. It was clearly in his voice . . . but his mouth had not moved. I heard him as I used to hear Piper. In my thoughts, a part of me.
I pressed my hand to the iciness in my chest, staggering to keep pace with the officer pulling me.
That was why the warmth at Piper’s spot had been replaced by cold. It was not only her absence. Cassiel had somehow taken the space that had been hers.