Chapter 14 #2
At that, Khayrivven laughed a rumbling sound, his face lighting up despite the edge in his grin.
“Oh, he is a natural born prick all right.” The grin vanished from his face.
“Brady Niely used to be my friend—as close a friend as possible in a pit of snakes looking down on me for my heritage. But Brady Niely didn’t judge me for that.
At least, not until a Criu girl chose me over him. ”
That hit Lory like a stone.
She’d known Khayrivven wasn’t without history in that department, but hearing it—
“What happened?” Because she needed to know before her imagination could run wild and the jealousy building inside of her could target a threat from the past.
Khayrivven shook his head. “She double-played us, but he’d fallen in love with her so deeply he couldn’t see what was going on.
So he blamed me.” For a moment, he stared at the window, the fading sunlight painting patterns on the side of his face.
“It was around the same time I was made captain after our last mission in the Amrin Mountains. He hasn’t forgiven me for either—the girl choosing me and the promotion he still thinks he’d have deserved instead of me. ”
That explained the competition Niely had with Khayrivven, the compulsion to take whatever woman Khayrivven showed interest in away from him and take pleasure in it.
It took Lory a long minute to process, her mind going through everything Niely had said about the mountains, about Khayrivven killing his own people. “He admires you, I think. Even when you took what he wanted.”
Dark strands danced across Khayrivven’s forehead as he nodded. “And he hates magic wielders, so when he learned about my transfer to Ashthorn, he had a better reason to hate me than being the petty loser he was. He had finally found justification.”
“Who else knows about Ashthorn?” Another one of those questions she had never thought of because it hadn’t been relevant. But now that she was confronted with common military and Ulder’s court… She needed to know.
“Only the families with magic bloodlines who have pledged allegiance to Ulder and his reign. Leadership in the common military and units fighting in the Amrin Mountains, whereas the latter only know about the magical units fighting alongside them, not where we’re trained.
It’s a complicated system of need-to-know information only, and usually the common military is glad not to be drawn further into the magic business, as they call it.
” He shrugged. “Then there is Ulder himself, Lord Airmal Ycken, General Ycken’s brother, the guy you stole the Almelyte from—”
“As if I’d ever forget,” she bit at him, the day she’d stolen the tall, lanky lord’s pouch vividly present in her mind.
She’d stolen from the wrong man, she’d thought, but in truth, it didn’t matter whom she’d have stolen from.
Khayrivven and General Ycken had been searching for her since the night of Evven’s death.
Khayrivven gave her an apologetic grin before continuing the list. “A few of Ulder’s advisors, of course, because someone needs to plan what to do with all those magical weapons, where to deploy them, and which ones to destroy, but that’s pretty much it.”
The way he said it, like those weapons weren’t people, and their destruction didn’t mean yet another body to burn in the cremator.
“Brady Niely never got over it, but it’s not my magic he’s despising so much; it’s himself.”
Once more, Khayrivven’s blunt assessment of the situation caught Lory off guard.
She’d become so used to the role of the cold captain he played at Ashthorn that she sometimes struggled to consolidate how well he could read people, how on point his understanding of their motivations and struggles was.
“What happened with the girl?” She bit her lip, wondering if he’d consider her petty for wanting to know if he still had feelings for a ghost from his past.
“She left Dunai in the dead of night, leaving behind one young nobleman with a bleeding heart and one very angry Criu soldier.” His mouth curved in a half-smile. “Anything else you’d like to know? Ulder will soon be making his appearance, which means. Elina will be there, and I can’t miss her.”
His voice was steady, but Lory spotted his shaking hands as he folded his arms over his chest.
“Of course.” But the questions in Lory’s head didn’t ebb. “Just one more thing.”
With a nod, Khayrivven confirmed he was ready.
“What will happen with the three Flames in the dungeons?” Lory didn’t even want to imagine what Enya, Garrick, and Olive must have been enduring.
Khayrivven’s jaw worked. “They are alive. However, Lenya has been interrogating them about what happened in the cave, but so far, nothing much has come to light. They stand by their story, that they have been living in peace up there, away from society and unaware that their magic is forbidden.”
“When you say alive—”
“I mean, they are alive.” Khayrivven ran a hand through his hair, eyes on the floor. “But I don’t know how much longer they’ll survive if they don’t talk.” The compassion in his tone almost brought tears to Lory’s eyes.
“What does Lenya want to know? Maybe we could help spin a tale they could all stick to, and that would save the three flames.”
When Khayrivven’s eyes snapped up to hers, the ancient sorrow living behind his irises made her feel like a naive girl.
“Lenya already knows about the leonthor. He knows that the creature has been trapped up there, in the mountains. He knows the Flames have been gathering there, whatever they call it; it doesn’t change a thing.
In his eyes, they are guilty because of the fire in their blood, no matter if they have been living in peace or preparing for war.
” A quiet sigh moved his chest. “A lie won’t save them. ”
“Then we’ll need to break them out of the dungeons.” It wasn’t right for them to rot in a cell on Lenya’s whim.
Again, that stare making her feel like a child for coming up with a suggestion like that.
“Don’t you think I’d already have gotten them out if there was a way?” He reached for Lory’s hand, wrapping his cool fingers around her too-hot ones. “If only Lenya would choose to execute them.”
Shock lodging in her chest, Lory pulled back her hand. “You mean death would be a mercy, right?”
Khayrivven shook his head. “I mean that, if they are stabbed the right way, they stand a chance at surviving the trip down to the crematorium. They wouldn’t be the first ones I’ve smuggled out of Ashthorn.”
Lory’s jaw dropped. Literally unhinged as she tried to read Khay’s expression. “You what?”
With a shrug, Khayrivven recaptured her hand, threading his fingers through hers. “If life pushes us to do unspeakable things, we need to become creative enough to work them to our advantage. In this case, to the advantage of a free Criulias.”
So many thoughts flooded Lory’s mind; she didn’t know where to start. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
A bitter chuckle escaped his lips. “It’s not like we’re safe to talk anywhere within Ashthorn’s walls, and I haven’t visited your dreams as much as I’d like to because Lenya makes sure to keep me busy during your bed hours.
It’s not like he knows what’s going on between us, but he suspects there’s something more—”
“What exactly is going on between us?” Lory hadn’t meant to ask, and the expression on Khayrivven’s face made her wish she hadn’t.
“We can’t cover all the topics before our time in here runs out, Lory. Which one would you like to talk about, the rebellion or our relationship status?”
Shame crept into Lory’s cheeks, and inside her belly, a coil of red-hot fire ignited as a crooked grin crept onto Khayrivven’s lips.
“The rebellion,” she ground out. Whatever this was between them—his fingers around hers, his thumb brushing the back of her palm, the way his eyes lit up when he met hers—was enough response. For now.
“You have been smuggling students out of Ashthorn?”
Khayrivven nodded. “I try. Not all of them survive, but as I’ve told you, most of the ashlings who get killed at breakfast aren’t chosen because they run late.
It’s an excuse. Lenya uses his network of student spies to find out who shares the ideology of a free Criulias; then he uses his astral projection to spy on potential targets.
Once he has enough to suspect treason, he finds ways to make them run late for breakfast, and an execution for tardiness is in order.
That’s where I come in.” There was no pride in his tone, no heroism, only bleak sorrow.
“I am tasked with choosing thornlings or higher-ranking students to stab the ashlings in question.”
His eyes shimmered almost golden in the sunset light as he turned his head, glancing out into the desert landscape.
“I can’t choose my allies to do the stabbing every single morning. The Triad would notice a pattern, and I can’t save everyone, but I try to get out as many as I can.”
Lory was still trying to comprehend. “Who, apart from Anees?” And Frost. But she didn’t mention the ice wielder. Too much pain was connected with both his loss and betrayal.
Khayrivven gave her a self-deprecating look that made her want to wrap her arms around him. “Not many, as you can imagine. Lots of students are of the belief that a Criu is worth less than the dirt in the back alleys of Dunai. No offense.”
Lory shook her head. She’d heard it all: that she was scum, nothing more than a rat who had crawled out of the capital’s sewers.
“Let them think whatever they will. They don’t understand that a people scorned is a people to be wary of.
” Just like the street rats. They might have been the lowest in the social hierarchies, but their resilience allowed them to survive.
Aiden had been proof of that—until Lory’s trial in the Amrin Mountains became his death.