Chapter 21
“Tell me of the little mouse you’ve been playing with.”
“She is controllable, and I do not trust any of the Undying to obey me if they gained his title. The other champions and their Godforged resist my control.”
“Why do you believe she’s different?”
“She’s human, and she’s tasted my kiss.”
“And you believe you can gain control of his Mages through this human?”
“Without question.”
“This pleases me, Prince.”
~Conversations between Lysara and the Prince of Bones
Fiona
His hands run over my cheeks, and they’re warmer than I’d ever imagined. His eyes burn with heat rather than the cold indifference he’s shown me so many times before. He is everything, and his touch sends me soaring like nothing ever has before.
I have never needed anything as much as his touch. Everything that’s happened before matters so little compared to it.
He presses his lips to mine again. Hard and unyielding, they force me to submit to them. His nails dig into my bare hips as he pulls me closer. I look into his burning orange eyes, and I know I am his. I will do whatever he wants so I never have to go without him.
His lips leave mine for a moment, and I push forward, trying to find them again. But they’re gone, and then I feel his breath against my ear.
“Live, little Priestess. Live, and I may let you taste my kiss again.”
I wake up on the floor of a room I’ve never seen before. My entire body aches, especially the back of my head.
“She’s awake,” Rhion’s voice says from somewhere behind me. I try to sit up, but my head feels like it’s underwater. My eyes only open a little, but the light is too bright. My arms don’t want to work, but then I feel strong hands run under me.
I know those hands. Darian. He lifts me like a child and gently places me into a soft bed. “That’s what happens when you run off all alone,” a male voice says.
“The lass’s lucky she’s not dead,” a similar voice responds. I try to turn toward the sound, but I can’t quite manage it.
“Don’t move,” Darian whispers in my ear. “I don’t know what happened, but you nearly died. Someone… someone from Averna used the touch of death on you. But you’re still breathing.”
“Azric,” I breathe. “He was choking me.” My throat is so dry it feels like I swallowed a bucket of ash.
And he kissed me. Gods, what a kiss. It was like realizing that living was more than drawing breath. I’d been willing to embrace death just to linger in that kiss another moment.
“Why would he use that on you and then let you live, Fi?”
He wanted to show me he was in charge. That’s the whole point of this.
He wants me to win so I can end the war, but he wants me to do it his way.
Gods, how many Priests have I known who expect to control me just because I’m a woman?
Normally, I’d put him in his place like I’d have done with them, but he’s…
he’s the Prince of Bones. He’s stronger than I am in every way.
I do my best to open my eyes wide enough to make out the room, but it keeps moving as if I tried to outdrink a fish. “How’d I get here?”
I still feel his lips on mine. The rest of my body aches, but my lips… my lips long for his.
Darian says, “We don’t know. You were here when we showed up.
” He pulls a note from his pocket and shows it to me.
“This was pinned to your chest, and it said not to move you until you woke up. You were completely gray, Fi. You should have been dead, but you weren’t, so…
we didn’t move you. Even now, you barely have any color on you. ”
I wonder if my lips are gray. I can’t believe his kiss could do anything other than give life.
I take a deep breath and push myself up against the wall to see the room. The spinning is slowing down, and I can make out who’s here.
Darian is at my side, and Rhion is on the other side of the room, sitting on a stool that looks like it will break at any moment. This is a much larger version of the room I stayed in the first night in Castle Lachlan, when Azric sealed the room with stone.
I’d been ready to die to continue kissing Azric. He woke me up. He told me to live so I could kiss him again, and that’s the only reason I came back. Even now, if he walked into this room, I’d throw myself at him.
Ainslee’s gone, and in her place are five people.
Two Stormbringers, a Rider, a Lost One, and an Undying.
The Stormbringers are tall and thin, both of them with blonde hair and hard lines.
Their skin has a slightly blue tint, and it looks like they shave not only their beards, but everything other than the hair on the tops of their heads.
If they’d been humans, I’d have thought they were dancers with how thin yet muscular they are.
Instead, I know them to be hardened warriors who excel at slipping around a battlefield and sending bolts of electricity through their enemies.
Rhion pushes off the stool and stands up. “These two are Erik and Rurik Halden, some of the best Stormbringers in Marek’s army. They’re Brandor Halden’s sons, princes once upon a time. Now, they’re the ones who make Sidon nervous when we do anything near the Kingdom of Thalovar.”
“Aye,” Rurik says. His voice is booming, as if he were speaking to an audience rather than just me.
“But more than that, we’re not the typical arseholes you’ll find down in the Great Hall.
We were raised to be better than that. Our job may involve killing, but that doesn’t mean we have to delight in it.
Unless we’re fighting the Prince of Bones.
It’s so satisfying to see his corpses go back to being dead. ” He grins at the last part.
Erik nods to his brother, seeming to be the quiet and thoughtful one of the two, but it’s the Undying that talks next. “Well, I certainly enjoy killing Stormbringers most. Watching normal people go gray is nice, but seeing you lightning bugs have your lights dimmed is so much better.”
Her words come out deadpan, and unlike Rurik, she doesn’t feel the need to roar at me.
“This,” Rhion says, “is Isola Veyne. She’s not as high ranking within Azric’s chain of command as Erik and Rurik, but she’s skilled.
I haven’t known her for as long as the princes, but she’s solid.
” Rhion looks a little uneasy when he glances at the Undying, and that bothers me more than I like to admit.
Azric is the only person I’ve met who was forged by Lysara, and the woman in front of me is surprisingly different from the man who nearly killed me.
She’s shorter than the rest with a heavy dose of attitude.
Her shoulder-length brown hair has a bit of curl to it and hangs loosely against her black leather armor.
It’s been embellished with blood-red dye in the shape of a dagger.
Her lack of a smile sets her apart from this group of Godforged.
Instead of being annoyed by Isola’s comment, Rurik grins at her.
She stands up and bows. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Fiona. I wouldn’t have expected to be on a team with a human in these trials, but the fact you’ve survived two of them gives you credit. My champion being so interested in you gives you even more.”
My voice still lacks the strength to speak as loudly as anyone else, but I say, “Nice to meet you.” It comes out in squeaks and whistles as I try to put more force behind it.
Rhion turns to the woman I’d seen topless when the second trial ended.
One of Rivena’s Wind Riders. Her full-body plate armor has been polished to a gleam as clear as any mirror in Stormhaven.
Now that she’s had some time to heal and gather herself after the trial, I see why Darian is obviously drawn to her.
“Darian said you’d already met Elara Vantrel, but she’s a Rider who has saved innocents rather than let them be crushed in battle.”
Her smile is nice. In these crowds of people who have become professional soldiers, everyone smiles, but so few of them look kind.
I don’t know Darian nearly well enough to profess to understand his love life, but he’s kind as well.
I doubt he wants to spend any more time than he has to around the people who are constantly looking for ways to hurt each other. People like Serica Dramont.
Elara’s pretty, too. She could walk into any court in Sylvantia in a silk dress, and she’d catch more than a few nobles’ eyes. Her brown hair is long and in an intricate braid, unlike most of the Wind Riders who’ve cut theirs off, probably because it’s a pain in the ass to fly with long hair.
“Hello again, Fiona. Where’d your cloak go?” Her voice is soft, and she seems to be at ease in the room without being standoffish like Isola is. She fits with Darian.
Where’d my cloak go? A shiver runs through me thinking of how Azric had taken it and told me to find it. He’d been so close…
I don’t answer. Instead, I shake my head and let them think what they want.
“I’m Jorren Ashvale,” a man says as he stands up slowly.
Wearing a light blue robe and apparently no armor at all, he seems…
strange. I feel drawn to him more than anyone other than Azric that I’ve met here, and it has nothing to do with seduction.
He glances at Rhion and smiles before turning back to me.
“I’m one of the Lost Ones, led by Jareth Rennic. ”
I remember he was the one Darian picked up for our team because of how clever he was rather than how good he was in battle. I nod to him after my terrible attempt at speaking a moment ago.
He’s handsome, but unlike the others, he looks young and…
awkward. His hair is kept short, but it’s unkempt.
His robe is a little too long, and he seems to lean forward as if to get a better look at something.
I don’t know what his powers are since the Kingdom of Carradan had no interest in Sylvantia, preferring to keep to their own lands.