Chapter 31
Aryana
As soon as they were out of sight of everyone, Zarathos pulled the shadows close, and they reappeared outside his room. Agony radiated through Aryana’s thigh and life-giving fluid poured from the wound, coating her dress and the arch king’s armor.
Zarathos kicked the door open, stalking inside with Aryana held so tightly in his arms she thought he might never let her go.
Marbas rushed into the room with a bag of supplies in hand, his trial council robes billowing around him. “I saw your signal. Here I am. I am here.”
“Good, Pithian. The cut is deep. She’s losing a lot of blood,” Zarathos said, placing Aryana down onto the bed. “She needs care immediately.”
“I’m on it.” Marbas sat next to her and she stared at him in disbelief as he started working on her.
“You… work for him?”
“We all work for someone, Princess.” He avoided her gaze and turned to Zarathos. “I can stitch this up, but she’s going to need to feed.”
Zarathos waved a hand at him, already stalking toward the door. It slammed shut behind him, causing both Aryana and Marbas to flinch. Everyone knew that she and the demon arch king were Bloodbound.
Gods, everything was ruined.
She gazed at Marbas while he worked. “Zarathos called you Pithian.”
“I am both, when necessary.” He produced a thread and needle. “I understand you mend quickly, especially with fresh blood, but I’m still going to sew it shut to ensure you don’t bleed to death. This might hurt.”
She grit her teeth when the needle and then thread pulled through her flesh. “He had you watching me this whole time?”
Marbas nodded as he continued to work. “He tasked me with keeping an eye on you.”
“Trying to see if I would give away his secrets.” Which was why he had asked her to report on the demon arch king even while pretending he hated him. Why hadn’t she realized this before? It was so obvious.
“And to tend to you when necessary,” Marbas added.
She paused. “He sent you to pull me out after the opening ceremony so you could wrap up my wounds.”
“He did.”
He had come almost immediately, saving her from certain torture, and then, of course, Zarathos hadn’t simply happened upon them. Their plan to get her to his room and away from the pain and agony had been from the start.
Her brows furrowed as she vaguely remembered a conversation between Zarathos and someone while she’d been half awake after her encounter with Uncle. “You were there, after we went for the vampire part of the scepter.”
“I was.”
She no longer noticed the pricks of pain as he sewed her up. “You’ve been healing me from the beginning.”
“Everything I do is on my master’s orders.”
“Why is he treating me this way? Why does he even care?”
His lips pressed together in a grim line. “That is something you will have to ask him.”
“You think he’s being reckless?”
“It is not my place to judge, but I do believe that what happened at the trials would not have occurred if he had treated you as a kalator and not his…”
“His wife?” For the first time, the words falling from her mouth didn’t come out in disgust. Perhaps there was more to Zarathos than he let on.
More than she’d thought. Could he see her as his Bloodbound and not someone to kill in the end?
She had thought she’d have to seduce him to do that, but it seemed something else had happened along the way.
“It is not my place to judge,” Marbas said again.
“And yet you feel he is making a mistake.” She shouldn’t be surprised. Zarathos probably had deals with all sorts of high-level demons. It was odd, though, to see the dynamic change with a being as powerful as Marbas.
“Be assured, I entered my deal with the arch king of my own accord, and I am the one getting the better bargain out of it. This is not false loyalty. If Zarathos dies, my world comes crashing down.”
“What is your bargain?”
“I am part troll from the land walkers and felyrix from the Misophaes. His Majesty made a bargain with the land walkers to protect them against kingdom Aeria, and in return, the land walkers agreed to protect the borders of the Misophaes. So that the arch king gets something out of it, I secretly bound myself to serve him to the end of my days as a way of ensuring that this agreement remains intact. You see, I’m a high representative of Kingdom Misophae on the trial council. ”
“But you paint yourself as Zarathos’s enemy.”
“Yes. It’s easier to find out what people are saying and plotting if no one sees me as his servant.”
Aryana sat back as Marbas finished up and started storing his supplies. Zarathos, with his bargains, held the entire demon empire together. “He keeps everyone from fighting.”
Marbas snapped his medical bag shut. “It didn’t used to be like this. Zarathos’s father believed in survival of the fittest. Death and destruction ruled the realm.”
“How many others does Zarathos have such deals with?”
“I don’t know the exact number, but I'm sure you are aware of the legend.”
She was. Zarathos had built a reputation all his own. Demons were known for making bargains, but only he had never broken a single one. “What is he, Marbas?”
“He is a creature of this world, miss, both shaped and moved by it. He hurts some and helps others as he sees fit.”
“But does he truly care about anything?”
“He pretends not to, but I suspect otherwise. Zarathos may consider himself above it all, but deep down, he is like anyone else, loving and hating. A selfish bastard at times, and at others, he is nothing but selflessness personified. He is both savior and executioner at once. Is that not how we all are in our turn?”
Aryana’s teeth sank into her lip as he fetched a basin and cloth to wash off the blood. “I’ll do it.” She took it from him, setting the water on the bed and swirling the rag through the liquid. “Is it true that he killed the female who raised him?”
Marbas sat back, looking shocked. “Where did you hear that?”
“Some demons were talking,” she lied. She didn’t want him to be aware that Zarathos had confessed, as Marbas might think Zarathos was hiding the rest of the information from her.
He let out a long breath. “Zarathos’s father chained his son to the wall.
And then he tortured her in front of him, until she was begging for death,” he said quietly.
“The former arch king gave Zarathos an ultimatum. Kill the female who’d raised him, granting her release, or watch as she was tormented through a slow, agonizing demise. ”
Aryana’s stomach churned from horrified nausea at the choice Zarathos had to make. “He killed her out of mercy.”
Marbas nodded. “I don’t think he was ever the same after that.
Never let himself get close to anyone or anything.
” He took the rag and water from her when she finished.
“His Majesty will need to call someone to change the sheets. Please excuse me, but if I fail to return to politics soon, my absence will be noticed. No doubt the council has much to say over what has happened today.” He frowned and turned away.
“Marbas. Is this really bad?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “You are the princess of our sworn enemy. And it turns out, you are not the slave kalator of the demon arch king, but perhaps his Bloodbound. And, if he wins, a joint ruler on the throne. No arch king has ever had a demon queen, let alone a vampire queen.”
She clutched the fabric of her dress, finally understanding everything that was at stake. “But Zarathos won’t allow that to happen.”
“They don’t know that. Not with how he has been treating you. Protecting you.”
“We have to show that I am nothing but a toy to be cast aside at his whim.”
“That may be your only path forward at this point.”
“When is the next banquet?” she asked.
Marbas hesitated but then said, “There is another one tonight, put on by Kingdom Aeria.”
She looked across the room, her eyes landing on the poker by the fire. “Then I want you to do something for me before you go.”
Aryana sat as still as she could, her body a mass of pain and sourness. The scent of burned flesh lingered in the air. The now dulled fire poker lay beside her. She tried not to look at the burn marks and bruises covering her skin.
Temporary. This was temporary, but necessary if they were to live through the remaining trials. Daylight crept in between the cracks of the curtained windows, but she sat far enough away that at least the rays didn’t reach her.
The door burst open, and a modicum of dread swept over her. Zarathos stepped into the room, his gaze landing on her.
His eyes roved over her wounded skin and he crept forward, his expression turning deadly. “Who did this?”
Her hands twisted in her ripped and bloodied gown. “It doesn’t matter—”
“The hell it doesn’t. Was it Pithian? If so, I’ll shred him like useless old parchment.”
“Zarathos, stop. It wasn’t him.”
“Then who?”
She met his raging gaze. “I did.”
“Bullshit.”
“I did have assistance, but it was my idea.” She looked at him earnestly, at his surprised silence.
“We have one chance. One chance to salvage what happened out in that arena today. We must convince them that I am your slave, not your wife who will inherit the throne, or we are finished. Tonight is the banquet with the other victors. It will be a perfect display.”
His hands curled into fists. “You’re not going. You require blood. I set up—”
“Do you doubt my ability to handle this? My uncle—”
“I’m not your uncle!” he snarled, his eyes flashing dangerously.
“I’m aware of that, but we also need to quit pretending this is some lavish holiday in the country! Or that I matter beyond the trials!”
“Stop acting as though you don’t want to live.”
She gripped the bed and dragged herself to her feet, every inch of her crying out, but she fought not to show it. “I do. I want to live, but none of that is going to matter if I don’t help you make it through right now.”
He swiped at the bedpost, his clawed nails scratching through the wood, leaving long, horrible gouges. “I hate this. I hate what you’ve done. You think this is heroic? It’s not. And this damn deal will not save either of us or your precious humans.”
Her aching limbs stilled, unable to move in the face of his words. “You wish that you had chosen someone else as your kalator.”
“I wish it was anyone but you,” he snarled.
Aryana swallowed the sting of his retort and lifted her chin. “We can’t go back. But we can go forward. And this is what we can do currently to try to survive.”
He ran a hand over his face. “If I do this, will you agree to drink some blood tonight?”
“After the banquet. I promise.” She limped over to the black potion that made her subject to suggestion that he kept on his bedside table.
Last time they hadn’t used it and everything had almost ended in disaster.
This time, she needed to ensure she was seen as nothing but Zarathos’s helpless plaything.
“I want you to use this tonight to tell me what to feel.”