Chapter 49
ZHAIRE
Though Rook waited for Zhaire outside the tavern with their horses, he didn’t meet him. Rook would have no problem opening his own Veilway and returning their horses. Zhaire could make it up to Fern, his prized mare, later with an apple or two.
He honed his intention, cast an incra to open a Veilway right in the tavern, and returned home.
Moments later, he strode up the crumbling steps of Samrawit Keep, his long legs eating up the stairs in no time, to the longest-standing castle in the Veiled Realm, and thus the most derelict, draftiest, and least likely to be visited by courtesans or his father, King Andreh.
Built on the crest of Mount Jaylah in the Cascadian Mountain range, Samrawit Keep was built to withstand harsh Veil weather, decade-long sieges, and the most serpent-tongued of courtesans, but nothing could have kept it from the ravages of time.
And thus, it had been abandoned sometime during Zhaire’s grandfather’s reign for the more luxurious Etolia Palace, the shiny crystal castle in the capital.
And Samrawit Keep suited Zhaire just fine.
Did he miss the shenanigans at the barracks?
More than anything. Though he wouldn’t admit it to anyone besides Rook or Kiel, there was a time he’d longed to live at Etolia Palace—if he could’ve avoided his father.
The palace had its perks: Comfort incras attended to daily by royal incramancers to keep every room warm.
A full kitchen staff, working around the clock to provide nightly feasts.
And of course, he would’ve found plenty of ways to pass the time with eager courtesans.
But he’d never spent more than a week at the palace at a time, only visiting during key celebrations or mandatory royal events.
After Kiel’s death, he’d come to lay Kiel to rest, but his father hadn’t let him leave right away—the reason only became clear with the arrival of the Heiress.
Once she arrived, the king wanted him to travel straight to the High Cathedral to begin instruction from the High Seers so that he might learn as much as possible about the prophecy, but Zhaire hadn’t lasted more than a day, where every hall housed memories of Kiel—where every priest and priestess looked at Zhaire and wished he were his brother.
His father had forbidden him to return to the barracks or stay at Rook and Dice … so he’d asked Seer Lem for a pile of study materials, and he’d come here.
He’d read until his eyes hurt and planned different ways to make her choose their side.
His last effort … Laying his soul bare before her at the tavern …
It hadn’t worked. Kiel would have succeeded.
With his bright smile, his infectious fucking optimism …
none could turn him down. Not even someone as pigheaded and self-centered as Audra Evers.
More than ever before, she seemed determined to ignore their plight.
Zhaire barged into the kitchen, striding past a startled Ivara and Azmera, who stood by the table, laying places for dinner, and headed straight for the cellar. He needed whiskey. Good whiskey. He’d stocked this cellar himself, years ago, and knew exactly what he wanted.
Bottle in hand, he ignored Ivara’s suggestion of water and Azmera’s outstretched plate of steaming food.
They knew him well enough to know when to stay out of his way, and yet Ivara followed him out of the kitchen anyway. He whirled on his third in command, the most cheerful of his Horde, and growled, “What?”
“A messenger came for you by Veilway. It has the king’s seal.” She held the letter out for him.
He eyed the letter as though it were a venomous snake.
Ivara waved it a little, as though that would make the offending thing more palatable.
“Thanks.” He took the offered parchment and shoved it in the pocket of his travel cape and turned to leave.
“If there is—”
“I require peace, Ivara.”
“If you change your mind, you know where to find us.”
He practically fled from her soft, understanding smile. He wondered, not for the first time, how someone so pleasant could kill so easily.
His chambers weren’t far from the kitchen, thankfully.
He closed the door behind him, took a swig, and set to removing his boots, which were covered in years of residue from the disgusting tavern floor and not Zenaidan blood, as they should be.
Kiel …
Another swig, and he dropped into the chair by the fire that did nothing to warm the drafty room. At least the whiskey warmed him a bit, despite memories of his brother making him ache with frigid grief.
Kiel …
He just had to convince Zhaire to let him take his place, just once—and it should have been fine. Kiel had trained in combat as long as Zhaire, technically, even longer than Zhaire, as he was the eldest brother, though he’d yet to see battle for himself.
So, when Kiel had made the suggestion, Let me go on this one adventure, brother. Lem has confirmed it; the Heir is to be revealed to us any day now. My life will cease to be my own completely, if it ever has been mine at all. Let me have just this one adventure, something for me and no one else.
And Zhaire had fucking relented—despite knowing their father would be furious, the High Seer would be raging, the Archpriestess would damn near excommunicate him from the church, and even the goddess of Death would disapprove, despite her general appreciation for chaos.
But Zhaire’s acquiescence would make Kiel happy, to have something just for him, a personal victory, to have made a choice for himself and himself only, and gods, Kiel deserved happiness knowing that the entire realm—the very existence of their people—rested upon his shoulders, and that his call to the prophecy was imminent.
So, they had devised the plan—Kiel would take Zhaire’s place on the next mission.
It wasn’t even supposed to be dangerous; nothing as reckless as open combat, or anything, it was one Zhaire and the Horde had done before, and they’d been preparing for this one for weeks. They knew the layout of the castle; they knew everything, down to the smallest detail.
Ivara would open the Veilway; Zhaire, who usually led the way, would be replaced by Rook, who was skilled and more than prepared to take his place without a problem. Ji-Ho and Tadesse would be there as backup, in case anything went sideways.
All Kiel had to do was stay quiet, stay to the shadows, and slit the Zenaidan warlord’s throat while he slept.
The most challenging part should’ve been Kiel finding the warlord’s neck beneath furs and thick gold chains.
This particular warlord had acquired his vast wealth from the grain and wine he’d stolen from his starving subjects.
He had no heirs to take his place, and the squabbling underlords would fight among themselves to fill the vacuum—another weakness in Zenaida.
Easy victory. A taste of conquest before Kiel gave up his life completely to the temple and the will of the goddess of Death.
Their intel had been good; the fucker had been sleeping, so convinced by his status as a lord that he was untouchable, he hadn’t even posted guards outside his door.
But no one had accounted for the warlord’s second-in-command having the godsdamned Sight.
She’d been alerted somehow to the Veilway and come in through the window.
Kiel had fought valiantly, taking her and the warlord down.
He’d returned home successful, grinning even.
It had been so good to see him that happy.
That proud.
Zhaire had been waiting with a barrel of spirits and multiple willing bedfellows for Kiel to pick from, men and women both. All Zhaire could do was laugh when Kiel didn’t choose one—already preparing himself for the Heir, now that her arrival was imminent.
So, they’d cheered and drank and laughed, and Zhaire had taken two of the women to bed, so as not to disappoint them all, and then …
Well, then he’d woken up to the worst fucking morning of his entire life.
Worse than the day he was born, and his mom died, bleeding out on the birthing bed, for him to live. Worse than the day his father had called him a disappointment, a disgrace for the first time.
Worse than any pain he’d ever known.
Because they hadn’t realized that the second-in-command’s fucking blade had been laced with a slow-acting poison.
Kiel had died alone that night, in his room in the Etolia Palace, a room that was barely his, as he spent most of his life in the High Temple.
At least the poison had been painless. After a night of celebration, he’d fallen asleep, found by the chambermaid, young Vella.
And now, Morayo Kingdom was in mourning for their beloved prince, Zhaire’s own father wanted to kill him, and nobody had faith that he could do what his brother had been raised to do, not even himself.
So, Kiel had taken his place on a mission, and now Zhaire had taken his.
He’d found the Heir, but as everyone had predicted … he’d failed to convince her to lead his kingdom, and now he’d run out of time.
She’d begun to manifest her dark power, already following her connection to the dead. Any moment now, she would slip up, the Chorus of fucking Echoes would discover her, and they would waste no time in completing the ritual.
Zhaire picked up the letter he’d received upon his return to the Veiled Realm, absently flicking at the wax of his father’s royal seal.
How was he to kill her when he’d seen her smile? When he’d tasted her amusement? When even now, the scent of her lingered in his senses …
He withdrew the letter from his inner pocket and slid a knife beneath King Andreh’s royal seal, slicing the letter open.
It took him but a moment to read the message, yet the pain was life-shattering.
Zhaire clenched the letter in his hand, crushing the parchment in his grip, before throwing it into the fire that Ivara, bless her kind and caring heart, must have lit for him.
He watched, a muscle in his jaw jumping with despair as he clenched his teeth, watching as the fire ate up the one sentence his father had deigned to write him.
End her life in the morning.