Kobra

CHAPTER 51

DAVINA

Now

WHAT IS HE DOING HERE?

“My poor girl,” Ludwig Schloss coos, and his voice is more doting grandfather than Supreme Strategos of the Widesightian Forces. My nerves snap taut. He tucks a grimy curl behind my ear with one gloved finger and a single thought ricochets through my skull: Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Do not react.

Everything I thought I knew about this man has gone up in flames in the span of the last two weeks, and it feels impossible to pretend it didn’t.

To pretend to be the obedient centurion he trained me to be, oblivious to how issues of the outside world go so far beyond the unspoken threat he’s always held over my head.

I don’t want to raise his suspicions. The mere thought of going against him has me wanting to hide and never come back.

He’s never hurt me physically, almost becoming what I imagine a severe paternal father would be like, but . . .

He doesn’t know you are a traitor, I remind myself.

I suppress the urge to sag when he finally drops his hand. From some hidden recess in my body, I draw enough strength to straighten, ignoring the ache in my arms, willing a sliver of distance between us.

“Did you find the stash, then?” In classical Supreme fashion, he goes straight for the throat, indifferent to the cuffs biting into my wrists.

The irony is not lost on me. For the second time in as many days, I’m about to be asked about the events of the last month. This time, at least, there’s no life threat hanging over my head.

As long as I don’t mention Kaelthorn’s cell.

A hard, much-needed swallow . . . “I did.” I swear I feel the specks of dust scraping down my parched throat.

“And?”

“And there was no stash.”

I do not risk blinking, training kicking in, to pay close attention to his reaction, for any twitch that will betray what Ludwig thinks of this. Armand shifts beside me, but Ludwig’s face remains marble smooth. The slight twitch of his mouth tells me what I suspected: he already knew.

“Go on,” he demands.

I shift uncomfortably. All the muscles in my arms throb, but it seems he won’t have me freed of the restraints until I deliver the full report he’s owed.

“Dr. Sircelen found a way to create synthetic sap,” I say, voice hoarse. “That’s what he hid, not a stash.” Because everything he produced, he gave to your enemies.

“And?”

“And that’s what I found.” I proceed to explain how I discovered it, careful to omit Leonidas and any explicit mention of any ties to Kaelthorn’s cell.

When I’m about to reveal how I used reality warping to hide it from Zephyr, I stop, head jerking to the side where Armand watches me with a carefully blank expression.

We’ve grown closer over the course of this mission, enough so to consider him a friend. But there’s a vast difference between trusting him with my fear of tight, enclosed spaces, and revealing something that can easily get me killed. Or worse.

“He knows you’re a warper,” Ludwig says. “Speak plainly.”

I don’t take my eyes from Armand’s, searching for rejection or fear, or at the very least surprise.

Nothing.

I don’t consider how much of an enemy Ludwig might be just yet.

If I’ve learned anything from the training he put me through for over a decade, it’s not to reveal weaknesses.

And so, I launch—for the second time in mere hours—into a detailed retelling of everything that happened inside the hidden cave, right up to the moment Zephyr revealed himself and captured me.

“Where are the equipment and information now?” Ludwig demands once I’m done.

My brow furrows. I just told him . . .

He must have read the confusion in my face, because he clarifies, “The equipment wasn’t in that cave when we checked.”

My mouth falls open, shock rippling through me.

“W-What?” How?

“We were lucky we spotted a few of them sneaking about as we closed in on the island. They were leaving the ruins, so we added two plus two and headed in the direction they’d come from.

Only, when we got there, and despite the fact that it did not take much to find the vault, it had been wiped clean. ”

For the umpteenth time today, my brain screams: Impossible.

There was too much, too big, too inaccessible.

But somehow, I know it to be the truth.

Zephyr had no way of knowing how much of what I’d discovered had been relayed to Armand before he was flown out of Kobra, or even to Ludwig himself through coded missives. And he’s too clever not to anticipate that possibility. I’ve learned that the hard way.

It clicks then, that Ludwig was already coming here, hours or days ago. Figured out the location of Sircelen’s stuff and decided to go there to grab it before coming to my rescue.

Not so important, after all.

“You knew there was no stash,” I say, and it’s deliberately not a question.

His disdainful huff has my teeth grinding.

“Of course we knew. The King and the High General, too.” The King and the High General, too.

By the Evergreen Mahogany, just how much of what I believed are lies?

“That’s why the doctor had to be put down.

Mere damage control. We couldn’t risk him handing out more sap to the rats, they are awfully good at spreading it out. ”

I go still, fighting to keep my reaction contained. Because he just said spreading it out, not destroying it.

All bets are off.

In a single breath, the Supreme has snuffed out any last, hidden ember of hope I might have been clinging to.

That he didn’t know the truth about the Sapless.

That he hadn’t lied to me for more than half my life about what they do, and why.

That maybe the rebels operated differently in Kobra.

That maybe—just maybe—the guilt that’s been threatening to consume me was misplaced.

All gone in a single stroke.

“But the useless vipers didn’t get the location of the doctor’s advances before they disposed of him,” Ludwig continues, unaware—or uncaring—of the agony clawing its way up my throat. “And only thought to ask for help after the damage was done.”

What have I done?

What have I done?

What have I do—

“It was critical to keep that equipment from the wrong hands.” The Sapless, he doesn’t need to say.

“They’d already amassed so much, thanks to that filthy scum Sircelen,” he snarls.

“We should’ve gotten rid of him years ago.

I told the chancellor as much. It was never a good idea to let him roam Kobra unchecked so soon after the end of the war. ”

The war?

Which war?

My eyes burn with unshed tears. Confusion, disappointment, shame, and anger all threaten to drown me, but I still fight. With what little strength I have left, I fight.

I cannot let Ludwig see.

He cannot know my loyalty lies in pieces. Because if he does, I’m as good as dead, and any chance at redemption will die with me. And so, with the might of a thousand Kobrant suns, I shove all the grief, shame and despair down, down, down.

“It was too late to do anything about it, so when they could not find the doctor’s laboratory, we agreed to join forces.”

Further. Deeper.

I bury every scorching emotion beneath layer after layer of cool indifference, then press them under a mantle of ice, where they won’t be found. Not until I have the time and space to let them out and tear me to pieces.

“But they’re so freaking useless, they didn’t realize they’d assigned the mission to the very same person they were trying to keep the equipment from.”

Like the ice within me, I freeze, breath catching in my throat.

It can’t be, and yet . . .

“Who?” Even that single word trembles in my mouth.

Some silent, knowing part of me already has the answer. Already knows. She was putting the puzzle together, not an hour ago.

“Zephyr Kaelthorn,” Ludwig snarls, and the ice holding back my turmoil cracks. A web of fractures, thin as lightning, spreads across its surface.

Kaelthorn like . . . No.

“The leader of the Kobrant Sapless was right under his nose all along, and they didn’t fucking know. They made him captain of their goddamn army for fuck’s sake,” he hisses.

Every hair on my body rises as that final piece snaps into place, completing the shambolic picture formed by the fragments of everything I believed.

The leader of the Kobrant Sapless. The leader of Kaelthorn’s cell.

The magnitude of my mistakes, of my ignorance, is staggering. Nausea churns in my stomach even though I don’t remember the last time I ate.

How can I have been so naive?

“The sole golden lining, and it’s not much,” Ludwig continues, “is that he was forced to blow his cover to steal the equipment. Only then did they realize.” He rubs a ruddy hand over his cheek, then lets it drop back over his speckless suit.

Zephyr blew his cover?

But . . . of course he did.

Sapless or not, he is the type of man who would give up every advantage if it meant securing Sircelen’s treasure for his cell.

His people. His cause. A steep price, but the prize is more than worth it.

The ability to replicate sap without the limitations of the Evergreen Mahogany tree .

. . it’s knowledge with the power to reshape the world.

It’s worth anything.

Something doesn’t add up, though. Why didn’t he leave the moment they had everything out of that cave?

Deep down, I know.

Zephyr Kentar—Kaelthorn, I correct, finally understanding why he despised that borrowed surname.

For the past two days, the ever-watchful, brooding, unrelenting leader of the Kobrant rebels has been buying me a chance.

He risked not only his life, but that of his companions, to assess where my loyalty lied. To see if I could be spared.

And I failed. Catastrophically so.

“So you see, Centurion Lachlan. It is of utmost importance that we get our hands on that equipment immediately.” His gaze sharpens. “It’s time for you to do what you do best.”

The sinister glint in his eyes has me bracing for impact, to no avail.

“Hunt filthy, worthless rats.”

Sapless.

Ice shatters. Hundreds of shards explode in every direction. His words unleash the storm of emotion I’d tried to keep buried, and it shreds me.

Because he’s right.

Because that is what I’ve done for nearly a decade. Hunt down and exterminate bands of people who were never the monsters the Supreme Strategos Ludwig Schloss made them out to be.

No.

I am the monster. For not listening. For not seeing what was right in front of my eyes.

I punished them all for the crimes of a few. Under the pretense of vengeance for my mother, I hunted a movement that only wants justice for this wretched world.

What have I done?

I fight to keep my face blank, to hold on to the last scraps of composure. But I don’t need a mirror to know I’m failing. The soft caress of tears over my cheeks is more than enough proof, but I’m once again powerless to take control. To stop them.

I’m so damn tired.

Every thought strikes like a hammer. Every Sapless I ever brought to the authorities is a needle driven into my lungs. And there are enough of them to suffocate me. Enough crimes to bury me for eternity.

Ludwig shifts, and my focus jerks back to him. With a heavy sigh, he leans back in his seat.

“Sweet, sweet Davina.” The condescension is poison burning my skin, my lungs. “What have they done to you?” A shake of his head. “I really was hoping not to have to do this again so soon, but I knew the odds weren’t in our favor. It was always going to hit too close to home.”

Home?

Dread slicks my palms with sweat as a truth finally sinks in. Not uncuffing me wasn’t an oversight, or urgency driving him to get my report. The Supreme Strategos wanted me contained, wanted my abilities muted, and that realization is more terrifying than anything I’ve endured in the past week.

He leans forward, pressing one thick finger against my face. I recoil, but there’s nowhere to run. A broad hand closes over mine, squeezing mine. It fails at reassuring me, though, because—

“Shhhh. It’ll be over in a second.”

No, no, no—

The moment his rough fingertip touches my temple, I understand.

It’s just a fraction of a second. A stolen moment that’s both déjà vu and nightmare. In that single breath, it’s like a suffocating fog lifts, and the blinding light of comprehension floods in.

For years, I’d wondered how it was possible for the great Ludwig Schloss to have no skills. For years, I’d let myself believe the simplest of explanations. He just couldn’t take them, like so many others, and had made his way into the Supreme Strategos position of his own merits.

I was a weird case. No one knew why the sap had taken to me a third time when most couldn’t hold even a second application. It was rare to get two skills, and uncommon to get one. But for the Supreme Strategos of the Widesightian Forces . . . for Ludwig to have none?

It had always been strange.

Now, I know the truth, even if it is too late.

The worst part is, as Ludwig steals memory after memory from the last few days, as he alters them, turning them to be whatever he wants them to be—whatever will shape me into the weapon he desires—I realize this may not be the first time.

There’s no way to know how many times before I’ve uncovered the truth about this world. How many times I’ve dug out the rot and the corruption, or even found them in plain sight.

How many times I’ve learnt that Ludwig Schloss is a memory-warper.

How every time I might have seen him for what he is, erasure was just a touch away.

And in that fraction of a heartbeat, a terror like I have never known detonates inside me, scorching through every cell of my body.

Then, there is only pain.