40. Ezra
Ezra
Seeing someone kill their one and only living parent and watching the light flicker from their eyes did something strange in my chest.
Targon’s eyelids fell as Eshe dropped to her knees. I wasn’t sure what was happening down in the lower levels. I couldn’t hear anything but Eshe’s panting.
I fell to one knee in front of her and slowly pulled the knife out of her hand. Her eyes had not left Targon’s limp, dead body. Wrapping a hand around the back of her neck and one around her waist, I pulled her closer to me.
I’d never felt her this cold and trembling before. Not even in the baths, when she was afraid. Not when I carried her from the stones that threatened to bury her alive.
I met her forehead with my own, our breaths sharing a dark, solemn space as her eyes fluttered closed. She licked her lips and whispered. “Do you think my family is happy?”
Fuck. I wasn’t expecting that.
My thumb around the back of her neck brushed over her skin. “I think they are proud of who you are,” I whispered. “This was something you had to do for you. I think they know that, too.”
Her shoulders shook, and a tear slipped down her cheek. And then she nodded.
“I thought you were dead,” she whispered to me. Her forehead rolled along mine as she shook her head.
I lifted my forehead from hers and kissed her temple, remembering how differently our last moments together were when we were wrapped in each other’s bodies.
She swallowed audibly.
“I want you to stay away from here for now. Do you remember where my room is, near the watering hole?”
“Vaguely. The second floor on the right side?”
“Exactly.” I didn’t want to leave her, but I needed to get the Atrove in order before it could be safe for either of us. I pressed my dagger into her palm. “Go quick. I’ll be right behind you, okay?”
“Okay,” she said as she grabbed the dagger.
A flash went by of the last moments we were here together. She had attempted to leave me, to kill me. I knew we weren’t the same people back then, but I couldn’t lose her again either.
I swallowed the pressure that rose in my throat, realizing that I had never had someone like her in my life before. The Atrove, Tehara, nothing held a light to how much Eshe meant to me.
She was everything and more.
After Eshe and I parted on the second floor, I took in my surroundings.
So much damage had been done.
A split of air rang in my ear by the time I jumped to my left and barely dodged an incoming blade.
It scratched my cheek before I lifted my sword and pushed against the blade. The hooded man with a familiar, permanent frown backed away for a moment.
“Tolomai. I expected nothing less,” I spat and spun my sword around once. “You will die as a traitor. May your soul never reach God.”
He shouted and brought his heavy sword down on me. In that moment, I heard another scream so familiar it was almost as if I could feel the pain myself…
Casimir.
My stance wavered for a second, but it was too late, and the sword had hit my blade. My wrist bent in an impossible manner. I screamed, matching my brother’s, my soul splitting in half, feeling the pain in his voice. My blade slipped from my hand.
Tolomai slammed his boot on my blade and swung his other foot into my ribs.
I tumbled down the slope of a dark tunnel, my body spinning over and over again with a grunt.
My core clenched, but all I could think about was getting to my brother.
I brought myself up and prepared myself for the wrath of this man without a weapon.
Think, think.
“You think you can change a law that has kept us the most powerful men in this world? That is not possible,” Tolomai hissed and approached me with two blades in his hands, a dagger and a sword.
“Nothing is impossible with Ezra,” a voice too familiar shouted from above, behind Tolomai.
I raised my head, and the soft glow of the arena showed Eshe perched at the entrance to the tunnel. With two small daggers in her hands, she stood prepared for any move Tolomai made with death in her eyes.
Mmm. Territorial woman.
My chest couldn’t help but swell, but I knew this was not the time nor the place for this moment.
“Princess Eshe,” Tolomai said with a smirk on his face.
“I wouldn’t go near him if I were you,” Eshe said too softly. A small warning.
He clearly did not take Eshe seriously from the scoff he let out.
Eshe hadn’t moved an inch from her threatening stance, and her eyes remained locked on Tolomai. Knowing none of these men had ever seen anything quite like her, she knew they weren’t sure how to be prepared.
Perfect stance, perfect aim, and I could feel my pulse quicken.
Tolomai’s eyes leered against Eshe’s stance and flitted back to me, shaking his head with another scoff. I knew exactly what he was thinking because I thought the same thing months ago. But he was too arrogant to understand that Eshe’s skills surpassed his prejudice.
He was calculating whether Eshe could kill him from where she stood, if she was indeed as skilled as he was.
It happened so quickly when he flung a dagger toward me in perfect precision.
That was his first and last mistake; he underestimated Eshe’s skills.
Eshe was faster as she flew hers at the dagger, causing it to veer away from heading toward me, and she threw another dagger toward Tolomai’s wrist. She didn’t wait for the dagger to hit his wrist—which it did—she threw another at his upper right thigh, puncturing what sounded like bone.
Crack.
Tolomai howled, and his knee fell to the stone floor.
Without wasting another moment, I took two steps forward and seized his sword that had fallen to the ground. His head whipped toward me, eyes widened, and he gave me a perfect angle.
I slashed his head clean off his shoulders.
Blood splattered against my robe, and I shoved my foot on his hollow chest, causing him to drop, dead, upon the limestone. Another dagger appeared in his mouth. I quickly glanced up at Eshe, who was flipping daggers in her hands, making that beautiful calculating look of hers.
I smirked.
God, she was perfect.
By the time Eshe and I made it back to the center, the fighting was done, and I could tell immediately by those who were loyal to me still breathing that the traitors were dead.
I wanted Eshe to get out of here, and she was about to go back in the direction of my tunnel when I stopped her for a quick moment.
I couldn’t believe the words that were leaving my mouth, but I didn’t care to restrain myself anymore. “Head back to my room. And… don’t leave, Eshe.”
I could feel my eyes pleading with her gray ones, hoping she wouldn’t disappear on me. She nodded.
Another moment went by as we stared at each other before she turned and disappeared into the tunnel. I whirled around, my eyes immediately searching for my brother.
My men clapped a hand or two on my shoulders as I trudged down the stairs to the lowest level. Crimson red painted on the steps, the walls, and the stone floors. The acrid smell of blood filled the air, and I could almost taste the metallic tang.
Casimir was lying on one of the stairs with a wound he was holding on his thigh. But he was alive.
A wave of relief coursed through my body as he looked up and caught my eye. He smirked and gave me a wink, letting me know he was all right.
Lazerak met me by the platform. “That was quick.”
I grunted, thinking it wasn’t quick enough. “How many?”
Casimir appeared to the right of me, my eyes doing a quick scan to ensure he wasn’t injured anywhere else.
He wasn’t. Just the gash on his thigh, but nothing I hadn’t seen before.
I wanted to roll my eyes when I noticed him doing the same to my body.
“About a fourth of the men,” Lazerak admitted with a weight on his shoulders.
So one-fourth of the Atrove had betrayed me and died. My men were all prepared, and that was the reason why it was a quick slaughter. A massacre.
But I couldn’t compel myself to care for those who had betrayed me.
The rest of the day, I went over the plans for changing the laws, and we all placed a vote.
Silas grabbed the tallied papers and went somewhere quiet to count.
We cleared the space of the bodies, cleaned the walls, the stairs, and the floors.
We burned the bodies out in the sands until they were ash in the wind.
There was a heaviness in the Atrove I’d never felt before. A loss of words for the men who betrayed us. The men I had all once considered family. It wasn’t just me, but every one of us.
A sadness snaked its way through.
When the sun was finally setting, the burning and burial of all the men, those who betrayed me and those who fought with me, were complete. I walked through the tunnels with Casimir limping slightly on his wrapped leg.
“I’m going to head back,” he said.
“I think that’s best.” I didn’t want my brother to be here any longer than he needed to be. He needed to heal. “Take whatever you need. Take care of Tehara. Norrah’s gone and… I made a promise to her and need to think of what my next plan will be.”
“Of course. I can stay—”
“No.” I swallowed. “Tehara needs one of us.”
Casimir nodded and clapped a hand over my shoulder. “I love you.”
I pulled him into an embrace, letting a moment of relief wash over me. He was alive. Our foreheads connected as I muttered back, “I love you, brother.”
After we parted ways, my mind was tugged in Eshe’s direction toward my chamber. I walked through the dark tunnel by heart. No one went here. I had my own private tunnel with a private exit and entrance to the Atrove.
As I entered my chamber, I perceived an eerie sense of emptiness.
She left me.
She lied to me, and she left. And if I were a good man, I’d let her go.
But I wasn’t, nor did I want to be.