Chapter 12 #2
I slip off my cloak and drape it over my arm.
The gold-feathered dress beneath catches the light, the hem brushing high on my thighs.
Behind me, I feel Malachi's gaze land. Linger.
Surprise flares through the bond. Then appreciation, slow and molten, before he wrenches it away.
Heart in my throat, I glance over my shoulder and look at his face.
"Malachi."
His gaze snaps to mine, and something unreadable flickers there before it's gone. "Please don't mention the bond to my friends."
"You have my word." The answer comes without hesitation. I want to trust it. I'm not sure I have a choice.
Kage and Malachi claim a corner table, spreading Jordi's maps between them and speaking in low, urgent tones. Naima, Margot, and I take the booth beside them, nursing our ales and trading whispers about everything that's happened.
"I'll be back," Naima says after a moment, her eyes fixed across the room.
I follow her gaze to where Sylvie sits with her friends, dark hair tumbling over one shoulder as she laughs at something.
"Try not to insult anyone this time," I quip and bite back a laugh when she casts a murderous look my way.
"She really likes her," Kage says.
"I can't imagine why," Margot mutters beside me. "Sylvie is basically Bas in female form, and all Naima does is insult him."
"Ah, Bastian the betrothed." Kage glances at Malachi across from him. "Did you know the only way out of the Veritas Order is to sign your name on a list and wait to be matched with a legion guard?"
"Why would anyone do that?"
"Because Mother can be suffocating. Some people prefer marriage to a stranger over staying under her control,” Margot comments.
"Mother?"
"The High Sage," Kage supplies before I can answer. "She raised them. All seven."
"How did that happen?" Malachi asks. His tone is casual, but his gaze has sharpened, tracking every detail.
Margot clears her throat and sets her hand over mine. "I'm sure Kage will fill you in. Ada and I need some air."
I stand, and Malachi's eyes follow the movement. They trace the line of my dress, the hand Margot keeps clasped in mine, and finally settle on my face. The weight of his attention prickles against my skin. I turn away before I can read what's in his expression.
"He's the friend staying at Jordi's?" Margot waves a hand through the cloud of cigar smoke as we weave through the gambling den toward the back.
"Unfortunately."
The terrace greets us with clean air and the crash of distant waves. Most of the crowd has gathered on the far side, so we claim the corner by the railing, where the shadows are deepest.
I rest my forearms on the worn wooden railing and exhale, taking in the view: the dark tangle of trees beyond, the lit patio below where no one ever lingers. People prefer to conduct their questionable business in the dark, not under lamplight.
Margot clears her throat. "He's..."
"Handsome?"
She laughs, startled. "I was going to say intense. But yes, he's gorgeous, if you're into the rugged aristocrat type."
I snort. "When was the last time you saw an aristocrat in Veritas?"
"Last Moon Festival." Her green eyes glint with mischief. "When you threw one out of your bed at three in the morning."
"If you thought that man looked anything like Mal, you weren't paying attention."
Her brows shoot up. "Mal?"
Heat creeps up my neck. "You're an idiot."
Her soft laughter coaxes a reluctant smile from me.
Margot knows I hate discussing these things.
Not out of prudishness, but practicality.
Casual encounters with festival visitors are likely the closest I'll ever come to a relationship, unless I want to follow her path.
And that's not something I can see for myself.
“You’re right,” she says after a moment. “There's rugged, and then there's Bain. But there is something almost regal about the way he carries himself.”
“Did you bring me out here to warn me off him, or tell me you're interested, or …”
"What? No. Gods." Her face twists. "There's a reason this arrangement with Bas works for me."
"That's one way to put it," I murmur, turning back to the dark trees.
We both know the truth neither of us says aloud. If not for the law requiring marriage approval from the House of Justice, she and Naima would have been together years ago. But the Sages declared them incompatible, and the Sages are never wrong about these things.
They could be together without the title.
Share a home, share a life. But Margot craves the word wife the way I crave the title of Veritas healer.
I don't fully understand it, since we don't bear children or raise them like the families in the ancient texts, but I've learned that fulfillment takes different shapes for different people.
I respect her choice, even if it breaks something in me to watch her settle.
"What will you do about Jordi?" she asks after a moment.
I sigh. "Go to the Sages. What else can I do?"
She hesitates. "Do you think they already know?"
I straighten, crossing my arms as I turn to face her fully. "Why would you say that?"
"I don't know." She shakes her head, looks away, then meets my eyes again. "I don't know how else to say this, so I'm just going to say it."
My shoulders tense. I recognize that look. She wore it the night we were girls sharing a room at the estate, and she stumbled upon Freida and Anala kissing in an alcove. We'd been so young, so confused. The Sages never ate, never drank, barely blinked. We'd assumed they had no human wants at all.
"What is it?" I ask, though part of me doesn't want to know.
"Bas told me something." She swallows. "He said the elixirs have been weaker. For the past couple of years."
My heart stutters. I bite my tongue and force myself to breathe before I speak. "How would Bas know that?"
"A Council member took him somewhere." Her voice drops to barely a whisper. "A pleasure garden. At the Keep."
I go very still. "Pleasure garden."
"For emotions. Not..." She shakes her head.
"The Council member, Nicolas, told him the elixirs are too weak now.
So they take the newer residents to the garden, give them the cloud potion, and remove their amulets.
" Her voice cracks. "Then they watch. They call it 'letting them enjoy the little life they have left. '"
The breath I try to take gets stuck somewhere in my chest. I think of the laborers Jordi and I encountered in the tunnels. The way they screamed when their amulets were removed. The raw, animal grief that poured out of them.
That's what the Council watches for entertainment. I wrap my arms around myself to stop the shaking.
"Why would he take him there?" I whisper.
"He …" She pauses to clear her throat. "Nicolas and Bas were together for a time."
The words land wrong. Everything about this lands wrong.
"For a time," I repeat, my mind reeling.
Bas was intolerable at the Veritas Estate, with his haughty attitude and anger issues.
The Sages thread a small flame symbol on the women in Veritas —a sigil that reminds us to calm down each time anger rises.
But the men are simply sent to the Dueling Estate to unleash their anger on sparring partners.
When our gifts manifested, Bas' anger got worse, which is part of the reason he was sent there for good.
Arlo and Casimir soon followed, but they always returned to Veritas.
Even after they became legion guards, they claimed their loyalty to the Veritas Order.
Bas only returned when his presence was required and acted like it was a chore and we were all beneath him.
Margot claims he's changed. I've never seen the evidence.
But I've heard enough from Arlo to know what happens to handsome young duelers who catch the Council's attention. The thought of anyone being used that way makes my sigil burn.
"Did Bas have a choice?" I ask carefully. "In the arrangement?"
"Yes." She says it quickly, defensively, then lowers her voice. "I think he loves him. Bas does."
Gods. I don't know if that makes it better or infinitely worse.
"When did he tell you this?"
"A few days ago. You were at the healing chamber, so I couldn't …" She presses a hand to her chest. "I can't stop thinking about it. The way he described it. It sounded like a nightmare dressed up as mercy."
I swallow hard, fighting the urge to reach for her.
One of the first things the Sages taught us: empaths cannot comfort other empaths.
The word they used was cataclysmic. And I remember the ache in my chest during those early lessons, when we tried anyway.
When holding each other only made the pain echo louder.
"When did he go there?" I can't bring myself to call it a pleasure garden. "What exactly did he see?"
"After the last Moon Festival." Her voice wavers. "He said they remove the amulets and just... watch. Watch them cry, laugh, grieve. Feel everything they traded away when they came here." She bites her trembling lip. "And the Council calls it mercy."
The words land like a blow to the center of my chest, right where the dull ache has taken root. I look away, swallowing against the grief climbing my throat. When I speak, the words feel like they're being dragged out of me over broken glass.
"And they just watch. Like they're … " I can't finish. I press a hand to my throat as if I could hold the horror in.
"Like they're entertainment," she whispers. "Like duelers bleeding for a crowd." She turns to me, and I feel the weight of the question before she asks it. "Have the ingredients for the elixir changed?"
I can't look at her. I shake my head.
It's not a lie. The ingredients haven't changed since the treaty was signed.
The only thing that's changed is me. Two years ago, I stopped making them.
And now people are suffering because of it.