Chapter 22
Mariah was silent as her court settled around the dining room table in Amasis’s serekah. Ciana watched her curiously, unruly curls wild around her face and shadows under her amber eyes.
Mariah still fumed over the confrontation with the Blaise family.
Maybe she could have handled it with a bit more tact, but she didn’t care.
She meant what she’d said: people like that had no place in the world she wanted to build, and they certainly wouldn’t enjoy the safety she’d so riskily bargained for.
Besides that, what was even more curious to Mariah was Sebastian. He’d always been protective and supportive, but never violent. In fact, he’d always been the one to push Mariah toward peace and diplomacy instead of something rash.
It had never worked, but he’d still tried.
Something was different now. The way he’d been so earnest about dealing with the situation immediately, had unsheathed his sword on Leon Blaise without a moment of hesitation.
The way he’d beaten the shit out of that piece of scum, Lucas.
Even now, his attention was not on Mariah, but on the golden-haired girl to his right.
Mariah fought the urge to frown. She was happy for them both, truly.
They were two of her closest friends, allies she knew she could always trust. And Mariah hadn’t thought of Sebastian like that in a long time—if ever.
It lit a quiet, timid piece in her chest to know that amidst all the darkness, they might be trying to find some light in each other.
It just also made what she planned to ask of them so much more difficult.
The meeting room door swung open.
“Please, little wolf? What if they get infected? Just one kiss to make them better—”
Mariah turned, already grinning, and froze.
“What,” she said, voice low and scratchy, “the fuck happened to you?”
Delaynie pushed past Quentin, rolling her eyes. He tried to smirk, but it came out as something more like a grimace.
Likely due to the giant bruise spreading across his face.
“Quentin was bored and decided to be an idiot. What’s new?”
Mariah’s jaw hung open as Quentin shrugged. “It was nothing. Just a quick stint in a fighting death pit. I’m obviously fine.”
A what?
“Please tell me you’re joking,” Mariah said. Quentin ran a hand through his red hair, grin turning sheepish.
“I’m…joking?”
Mariah put her head in her hands. “Gods dammit, Quentin. We’re supposed to not be agitating the locals.”
“But what if the locals were already agitated?”
Mariah lifted her head at the seriousness in his voice, scrutinizing him again. “Explain.”
He shared a glance with Delaynie. “I overheard some things.”
Mariah lifted a brow.
Quentin’s lips pressed into a line, exaggerating the split in the top. “A coup. They’re working with other Kreah Elders to go behind Amasis and oust the Onitan’s from Desva.”
There was a dull ringing in Mariah’s ears. She laid her hand flat on the table, trying to keep it from shaking. Deep in her chest, something rumbled.
She knew the threat of a goddess’s wrath wouldn’t be enough. She was a fool for believing Rulene could keep the peace. She’d just led a host of vulnerable people into a lion’s den.
Maybe she needed to make a statement to ensure their safety. Do something bold that would keep the Kreah agitators at bay.
“When?” she finally asked.
Delaynie crossed her arms. “We aren’t sure. They want to wait until we least expect it.”
Mariah nodded. That probably meant they had a week, if not less. But her instincts were proving to be shit, so who really knew?
She sighed, forcing a deep breath through her body. “Are you okay, Quentin?”
The concern coursing through her was genuine. He was an idiot, but she understood why he’d done it. Quentin didn’t do well with stagnation when forced to stay still for too long.
She could relate to that part of him more than most.
Quentin grinned again, some of the seriousness fading.
“Yeah, Queenie. I’ll be all right. I’ve taken worse beatings before.
Besides.” He bumped Delaynie with his shoulder.
She scowled at him, but her cheeks flushed, her icy eyes glimmering with heated amusement.
“This one patched me right up. Hardly feel it anymore.”
Mariah’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline, then grinned.
While Sebastian and Ciana might be a bit of a complication, this was a perfect development.
“Good,” Mariah said, still smiling. She gestured to the table. “Take a seat, please. We’re just waiting on Feran and Drystan to make their way from downstairs—”
“We’re here!” A familiar, deep voice rang through the room. Feran entered with a grin, braids pulled back from his face. His torso was still wrapped in thick white bandages, and an angry scar streaked from his temple to his jaw, but he was walking.
Sort of.
He leaned heavily on a wooden crutch notched under his left arm, and his smile carried a small hint of a grimace. Drystan supported his right, concern etched across his brow.
Mariah shot to her feet, nearly leaping over the table. She threw herself against Feran before he could even voice a greeting, her arms wrapping tightly around his neck.
“You’re walking,” she whispered into his neck.
It was strange, this emotion sweeping through her.
She’d been so lost in the deep trenches of grief and revenge that she’d almost forgotten what something like relief might feel like.
Like a pallet of bricks lifted from her shoulders, like she could finally draw a breath again.
His bond was still silent, but she drew in a lungful of his scent—cardamom and embers. Her chest squeezed painfully.
He was here. He was healing.
She’d failed in every other way, but at least she hadn’t failed him.
Feran chuckled, the sound rumbling through her. “I’ve spent enough time being a lazy sap. It was time to move around a bit.”
“Yes, but let’s not squeeze him to death, please?” Drystan said, voice tinged with a trace of worry.
Mariah released Feran. She felt that gods-damn heat creep into her cheeks even as her eyes burned with unshed tears. “Sorry. I’m just…” She swallowed. “I’m just really glad to see you recovering.”
Feran’s gaze was warm. “My queen commanded me to heal. How could I refuse an order like that?”
Mariah nodded, lips tugging into a half-smile. She turned to Drystan, who had relaxed a touch when she’d released Feran. “Thank you, too,” she said. “For taking care of him.”
Drystan shrugged. “You know I would do it whether you asked or not. And not just for my sake—you need us. All of us.”
There was so much warmth in Mariah’s chest. She wasn’t used to all this, and she worried it might stop her heart.
She tried to swallow down the clog of her emotion. “Now that everyone’s here,” she said, “let’s talk about how we’re going to take our kingdom back.”
“A weapon. Forged by the gods.” Drystan leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. “One that no one has heard of in five thousand years and that the gods spelled themselves to forget.”
Mariah met his golden stare. “Yes. Or at least, we assume it’s a weapon.” A fidget crept in. “It could technically be anything, but a weapon is our best guess.”
“How helpful,” Drystan grumbled. Feran chuckled, smacking him lightly on the shoulder.
“I know it’s not much,” Mariah said. “But it’s all we have. It’s our only chance. If we want to destroy Kol—for good, this time—we have to find it.”
Silence answered her. At the end of the table, the twins shared a glance. Ciana worried at her bottom lip, Sebastian rubbed his chin, and Quentin picked at his nails with a knife.
“Mariah.” Delaynie sat forward. “It’s not just that it's ‘not much.’ It’s that it’s nothing. How can any of us know where to start if no one—not even the gods—knows what we’re looking for?”
“I know.” Mariah dragged in a deep breath. “Trust me. I know. But we have to try. It’s the only hope we have. And the gods have given me enough to make a plan.”
The table straightened. “I thought you said they didn’t remember anything?” Sebastian asked.
“I did. And they don’t. But.” Mariah drummed her fingers on the wood.
“Rulene mentioned that there was one man present at the item’s creation.
Not a god; just a regular man. They can’t remember who he was, what he looked like, or where he was from, but they know he was there.
He recorded something that night, made sure the histories somewhere on the continent remembered what the gods had done. ”
“Okay,” Drystan said. “That is something. Next time, start with that.”
Mariah gave him a dead-panned stare.
“Rulene also thinks,” she continued, “that the magic each of my Armature carry—my magic—will help you find what we seek. It was forged with the power of all the gods. And my magic belonged to those gods once, too.” She ignored the hollowness in her chest, the emptiness left by the absence of that very magic.
“Like calls to like, after all.” Her court traded glances.
Jaws were tight and brows were furrowed, but no one pushed back.
“So,” Trefor said, “we need to find whatever this mystery man might have written. And then we need to use our special Armature magic powers to find the weapon itself.” He shrugged, though something manic glinted in his sea-green eyes. “Seems totally easy.”
“Mariah,” Ciana said slowly. “Either of those things could be anywhere. In any kingdom. How are we supposed to search every corner of the continent, and somehow still keep Onita from falling wholly into Kol’s grasp?”
Ciana was right. This was the part that Mariah had been dwelling on for the past day, ever since the gods had shared their knowledge and she’d realized what she needed to do. Icy fear slid through her veins, but she swallowed it down, clinging tightly to her burning resolve.
Whatever she had to do. It would all be worth it.
It had to be.