Chapter 20
The woman is shorter than I am by at least a foot. Her black hair is shorn close to her scalp, and freckles scatter across her high, deep brown cheeks. She scowls at me wordlessly.
By her glowing eyes, she's a witch. They burn red-black, like her natural eye color is a darker, deeper brown than Roiven’s. And she looks familiar. Is she the one I saw coming down the stairs, as Roiven dragged me towards the Bluff’s window? I wonder if the second dragon was hers.
Her silver blade glints in the sun, the point so close to me that my vision blurs if I try to focus on it. Shadows writhe slowly down the blade, moving like smoke. With a sigh, I lift both hands up high, flesh and metal. Her gaze flicks to my armored limb, then back to my face.
“Didn’t know your kind was so lazy, knight. You slept the whole day.”
“I’d be more inclined to thank your hospitality, if not for the sword at my throat,” I answer. Somehow, I let Roiven’s unexpected softness lull me into a foolish sense of safety. No matter how pleasant the room I slept in, I’m unarmed, and on an unknown island with our world’s greatest evil.
I shouldn't have let myself be so vulnerable around him.
The woman’s eyes narrow. The sword doesn’t waver in her grip. Her muscles must be rock-hard.
“Those marks on him. Explain.”
“Isn’t there someone else you can bother with this?” I ask, as I try to decide what to do about the sword an inch from my face.
“You changed something about him. He comes back covered in spells, and puts an imperial fiend in the guest room. What did you do?”
“Me? I’m not the one who Enchanted him.”
“Maybe I should kill you and see if that frees him, to be sure,” she says. “After all, I have a few deaths to repay you for.”
I’m not sure she’s joking. She looks like she knows how to use the sword. I step back and to the side, using the doorway as a barrier. Her sword jabs immediately forward into the air, thrusting toward where my throat had been.
Not a joke, then. My heart slams as every nerve in my body wakes.
Roiven may have taken my sword, but my right arm is made of armor. I grab her blade with my metal hand and shove it sideways, running my palm down towards the hilt to keep control of the blade. The woman jerks the sword, trying to free it, as I step back out of the room.
For two years, I’ve been a servant instead of a warrior. And in truth, I’ve missed this.
She yanks the sword against my fingers. I thought I had a good hold, but the blade bursts free as the shadows rip my metal fingers wide open.
The witch twists and slashes diagonally at me. I barely block her blade with my armored wrist, then snap my leg up. My foot punches out towards her kneecap. She narrowly dances back. We circle, my metal arm raised and ready to block whatever strike she throws.
There's no breeze inside the courtyard, with walls blocking each side. In the distance I hear the faint crash of the ocean.
She advances, the sword thrusting straight forward again. I bend left as my metal arm smacks the sword right, so close I can feel the air the sword displaces. My fist closes over the blade again.
Her shadows wrap around my eyes, blinding me.
“What are you doing?” Roiven snaps at us. The shadows immediately dissolve.
The Witch King appears in the courtyard’s open arch across from my room. The woman who attacked me jumps back, putting more distance between us. Her sword stays raised in front of her face. The shadows are nowhere to be seen.
“She can’t be trusted,” the woman says.
“You attacked me the second I stepped outside,” I snap back. “Nice to know witches don’t have honor.”
Nevermind that I attacked Roiven when the enchantment left him even fewer means to defend himself. The circumstances were different.
Roiven’s orange-gold eyes narrow. His black hair is shiny, clean, and half loose in waves, the other half pulled back and knotted behind his head.
He isn’t wearing the rags I dressed him in anymore, either.
The Witch King is in all black. His shirt gapes open at the front, revealing cut muscle and the lines of enchantment.
The enchantment marks lining the side of his temple and jaw only accentuate the sharpness of his cheekbones.
For a moment his orange eyes meet mine and I’m locked in place, cheeks flushing. His gaze drops down, to the pink dress, and darkens. I probably look ridiculous.
“I thought I told you to keep an eye on her, not to behead her, Avreen,” he says flatly, turning away like he’s relieved to look elsewhere.
“She’s got you Enchanted,” the warrior snaps.
“I’m under my own free will,” Roiven says calmly. As if even 12 hours ago the opposite weren’t true. He strides toward us, putting his body physically in between me and my attacker. “And I’m choosing to trust her.”
“Then why…” Avreen starts. Roiven holds up a hand to cut her off. I’m surprised Avreen isn’t on her knees begging his forgiveness. He’s a king. Don’t his people fear him? Nobody would talk to the War-Father like this. They’d be lucky to live, if they did.
“Cai is my guest… for now.” The firm way he says those words makes very clear the situation could change.
“I don’t see…” Avreen starts again.
Roiven turns his face entirely toward her. I can’t see his features, but Avreen sighs at whatever expression he’s making.
“Would you please tell Nor we’re ready to eat,” Roiven says politely.
“As if they don’t already know,” Avreen says. But she sheathes her sword and stalks through the open arch to the area beyond. Roiven turns to face me.
“She tried to kill me. All I did was step outside.”
“Yes, well. I’m sure the feeling’s mutual,” he says, folding his arms. “Did you sleep better?”
“I need my sword.”
“You’ll get it back later.”
“Considering I was just attacked…”
“It won’t be repeated,” he interrupts. “You forget I’ve seen you fight. I’m sorry, but I’m not letting you loose here with a weapon. You were good enough to hold your own, against Avreen, without one.”
That wouldn’t be true if she’d blinded me from the start.
“If multiple people attacked—”
“They won’t,” Roiven says smoothly. “I’ll talk to Avreen. She won’t try that again.”
I could kill him now, part of me whispers.
He can’t fight back. I don’t need a sword when I can just snap his neck.
Avreen has gone and Sava’s nowhere to be seen.
One of them would certainly kill me before I could escape, but two years ago I vowed to kill him, and the War-Father’s orders don’t matter anymore if they just wanted Roiven alive as bait.
But last night, Roiven said a new king or queen would just rise in his place. I'd get my vengeance, but it wouldn't achieve much. And then nobody alive would know that Rancor fired on her own people.
“Where am I? Is this the Gray Tower?”
“No. Come. Sit.” He gestures at the table.
“I don't want to.”
“You aren’t leaving the courtyard. You can go back to your room if you prefer it.”
I laugh, once, the sound hollow.
“So now I’m your prisoner.”
“You’re a guest. But one who has yet to prove she can be trusted. Come, you must be hungry. I know I am.” He makes his way to the table, stepping between two clusters of bright-colored flowers, and sprawls onto one of the curved benches.
Nobody’s as nice as he’s pretending to be. Especially not to an enemy who he visibly hated just a day ago. He’s plotting something. Why else would he have comforted me last night?
I chew my lower lip, then slowly approach.
Could I convince him to take me back before the barrier is repaired, so I can reach the council at Barivum in time to tell them Harfor killed our own people before she’s given more Enchanted?
Roiven watches through narrowed eyes as I crouch next to the table and press my living fingers to the petals of a flower.
So smooth, and delicate, and real. I touch the soil next.
It’s damp, and messy. It gives under the weight of my hand.
The rich smell of earth floods my nose. This isn’t an illusion spell.
“You look good in that,” he says abruptly.
“What?” My head snaps up, expecting to find him smirking, because he must be making fun of me. But Roiven’s face looks serious, and he’s staring straight at me. My chest flutters.
“The dress. I mean that it fits you. We weren’t sure. About the size. We’re gathering more clothes for you.”
I shake my head to clear it and turn back to the flowers. Of course it was just about the fit.
“What is this place?” If they have flowers, do they have fruit? Vegetables? Plant matter that isn’t some form of algae from the sea?
“You’ve never seen flowers before?” He doesn’t say it like he’s mocking me. There’s a strained curiosity in his voice. Almost pity. The witch lounges, one foot on the bench, his arm supporting him as he leans to the side.
“Of course I have. In Barivum, and inland. And the War-Father keeps a garden on Amkreig.” I stand slowly and brush my hand clean. “His garden master said your people depleted the land so badly, it took nearly a decade of work before anything at all would grow there.”
“He said my people did that?” Roiven’s voice is barely louder than a whisper. I shrug, give him a defiant look, and take the seat opposite him. It’s a small table. Not as much room separates us as I’d like.
“Witchcraft.”
“Witchcraft gets its power from the bonds between willing, living things,” Roiven practically growls. The look in his eyes makes my heart race. “Your enchantments drain life and leave polluted death in their wake.”
I know, in my bones, that he’s wrong. I also know I shouldn’t anger him if I want his help getting back, but I can’t stop myself.
“What am I supposed to believe, when all your lands are barren rock?”
“They didn’t used to be!” he shouts, gesturing around him at the tiny, lush garden we’re sitting in. “It’s taken us everything, just to save a few small places from your people’s absolute fucking inability to know when enough is enough.”
He can’t lie, a part of my mind whispers. That enchantment’s still on him. Anything he says is the truth—or at least, he believes it is.