43. Zari
Chapter forty-three
Zari
S omeone was carrying Zari, and by the grunts he made, she guessed it must be Tivre. She doubted she’d be such a burden to any muscular, trained Oathborn. Try as she might, she couldn’t force her eyes open, nor her mouth to speak. Her neck burned where the Queen had touched her.
Touched was too simple a word. The Queen’s fingers had sliced like razors against her skin. Agony followed the tracing patterns of her nails, and the wound still throbbed. Whatever the Queen had done to Zari, it was supernatural in some way, for no scratch should ever hurt this much.
The Queen. Even thinking those words chilled Zari.
She’d not laid eyes on the fearsome ruler nor whoever had stood beside her, but she’d felt the Queen’s power, as if she was a thunderstorm trapped in a fae’s body.
Every word she’d spoken had crackled with malice.
Every silence felt like a blade against Zari’s skin. Every moment had been torture.
“You awake?” Tivre asked. There was a gentleness to his tone that almost sounded like sympathy. Had he not expected things to go this way?
He set her down on something soft that felt like a mattress. The not-exactly-gentle impact made the air escape from her lungs in a ragged exhale. Her arm flopped over the side of the bed.
Tivre sighed. “You still can’t move, can you?”
He lifted and draped her arm back over her chest. Still, paralysis gripped her. If she wasn’t so tired, and in so much pain, panic might have set in. Instead, she figured her mind was doing its best to distance itself from everything she’d undergone in that brief meeting with the Queen.
A soft cloth brushed over her neck, and Tivre hissed in annoyance. “Damned line of Arte,” he muttered. “Had to be the Matron who founded that family line, didn’t it? Couldn’t have been one of the nicer deities, no. Had to be the worst one.”
Was Tivre implying the mark had something to do with the fae goddesses? Zari tried again to speak, and again, was unable to.
What a fool she’d been, thinking this con was possible.
The Queen would surely figure out she was no Oathborn and have her killed.
Then, would Tivre be sent back to fetch Annette?
What would happen to the Accords? To her friends?
And her father, would he know she had died in this foolish attempt to see him?
“I’ll be back soon.” A door creaked open and shut, leaving Zari alone in the darkness.
Fears swirled around Zari like hungry beasts. She worried for herself, for Hazelle and Daeden, for sweet little Ashali left behind, and even for Tivre. He’d seemed afraid of the Queen in a way she’d not seen him be for any of the other challenges they’d faced.
Eventually, her nose started to itch, and she was relieved to find that she was able to lift a hand to rub it. She swung her feet onto the floor. Her head spun, the room pitching and wheeling wildly.
Soon, the door creaked open. In the darkness, green eyes glowed. Zari’s breath caught until a globe of light illuminated Tivre’s face. His white hair seemed more rumpled than ever, and deep shadows hung under his eyes.
“What is going on?” she asked. “The Queen… my neck…”
“I know,” he said tiredly, striding to reach her. With a surprisingly gentle touch, he ran fingers over where the Queen had marked her. Goosebumps pricked her skin as he spoke. “It’s a sort of permanent sigil. She—”
“Permanent?”
“Indeed. All the more reason to get you off the isles. This was a mistake.”
“No! You can’t send me back, not without my father. ”
“I was afraid you’d say that.” He took a deep breath. He raked a hand through his snowy-white hair, sending the thick, soft tufts out in wild directions. The unkemptness of his hair always seemed to match the level of his stress.
“Why?”
“I’ve spent the past decade flirting, drinking, and sleeping with a wide variety of lovely individuals, none of which I have ever been faithful to, nor have I ever promised to be so, to any of them. As such, I—”
“That is far more personal information than I would like.”
Tivre ignored her interruption. “As such, I have a well-known penchant for bringing assorted lovers to equally assorted places inside the palace, seeking both privacy and novelty.”
Zari’s face flamed. “Truly, I don’t—”
“Do you want to see your father?”
“Are you saying if I sleep with you, then—”
“How could you ever get that idea? No. I meant I can get you to your father tonight. To do so, I’m going to have to make it very clear that my new lover and I are giddily seeking privacy and—”
“Wait. Can you see the future?” she cut in. “When the Queen said you have visions…”
Tivre’s expression darkened. “Do you want to see your father or not?”
The non-answer told her everything she needed. Still, she refused to back down. “I asked a question.”
“Given that this is my plan and my power, and my damned magic we’re discussing,” Tivre snapped, “I cannot simply explain the ways of the divine to a pesky mortal who can’t even comprehend a hundred years’ time, let alone a thousand.
You have no concept of magic, no understanding of the weaving of sigil light and sea air.
Why should I bother to describe to you how cloaked you are in visions, how many futures I have perceived that you are a part of? ”
It was the most honest Tivre had ever been with her, and the most terrifying. How easy it always was to forget how powerful he was. “Fine. What must I do to see my father? ”
With considerable eyerolling and sighing, he explained the way they’d sneak from corridor to corridor, pausing to hide her face in his embrace anytime someone drew near.
Sensing her nervousness, Tivre promised her he wouldn’t kiss her lips, not unless she told him to.
“I assumed this would be your first kiss,” he added.
“I have no desire to steal that from someone more deserving of your affection.”
Yansin had been her first kiss. Had he been deserving of it?
She’d been so sure, while she’d traveled with him.
Now, doubt crept into her mind. He was a thief, as well as perhaps a liar.
A nagging sense that what he hadn’t told her far outweighed the bits of honesty he’d given her lingered in her heart.
“What about Daeden?” she asked. “Will he mind?”
“We’re not what one would call exclusive.”
At his nod, they walked outside of the little room. Almost immediately, his arm slid around her waist, as if they were ice skating together. “I’ll try not to tickle you,” he said with a wink.
The damned fae would never be serious for long.
On the landing, soft voices echoed up. As they grew louder, Tivre pulled her close. True to his word, he avoided her lips and lavished attention on her collarbone, her shoulder, anywhere he could find.
Closing her eyes, Zari imagined that the kisses were Yansin’s, if it were his skilled hands and his warm body pressing closer to her. A small tremor raced through Zari. Her breath caught, and she turned away from Tivre.
“Too much?” he whispered.
She shook her head, just as a fae duo glided past. One made a comment under their breath, and the other held their nose high in the air at Tivre’s antics.
Still holding her tight, Tivre kissed the top of her head. As soon as they were out of sight, he stepped back. “I know this isn’t ideal.”
“It’s worth it.” Her words sounded more unaffected than she was. If only the kisses were something to endure, like soreness from a hike, rather than thrilling jolts of pleasure. Even the small trace of guilt burned away.
“To think, kisses from me a burden to be suffered… what has this world come to?” He shook his head. Tivre, she realized, spent a great deal of effort on appearing to be one thing, all while believing quite another thing altogether.
The hallway ahead was cloaked in near-darkness, lit only by glass orbs mounted high on iron sconces.
Within each orb, glowing sigils writhed and shimmered, their light twisting as though some restless creature had been caught within.
Their glow painted the stone in shifting patterns, a far wilder illumination than any provided by the modern conveniences Zari was accustomed to.
Now, Tivre’s fascination with the lamps in the train made sense.
How strange technology must seem to one whose world was fueled by magic.
Tivre skipped down the next set of stairs, before waiting for her. He moved effortlessly through the winding halls, not phased by the dark, nor at all lost. Clearly, he was very familiar with the palace. How lonely his childhood must have been, in such a vast building with so few people.
Unless, had these empty corridors been filled with fae, before the war?
Some Rhydonian towns lost a full quarter of their men to the war. Had the fae suffered far greater losses?
“Tivre, do you—”
“Do I have affection for you? No, of course not. This is merely a ruse.”
He had the worst habit of cutting her off with answers that had nothing to do with her questions. She frowned. “That’s not what I was going to—”
“Are you sure?” His sidelong glance at Zari made her breath catch.
When the other nurses had spoken of late-night kisses, they’d talked of butterflies in their stomachs and fluttering eyelashes, not infernos and aching hungers. Would such yearnings ever be sated? Or was it impossible to cease burning? Had these passionate encounters changed her forever?
For she still craved Yansin, even as she found herself more drawn to Tivre than ever before.
It was Yansin’s face which sprang to mind as Tivre took her hand to lead her ahead.
He too had grown up on these isles. He’d hinted his passions ran deep, his hungers wild, had told her he was no Rhydonian gentleman at all .
Was this what he meant? Would Yansin have the same skill, the same sensual touches as Tivre had?
Footsteps sounded. Soft, gentle tapping steps, followed by the swish of fabric. More fae were approaching.