Chapter 70
Gloved hands grabbed Ciana’s shoulders before Ydros’s words had even finished echoing through the throne room. Booted feet stopped across the marble, the clanging of plated steel clashing with the soft glow of the Vathan evening.
This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be real. The world around Ciana slowed, her heart thundering in her ears.
Movement jostled the hands holding her. Sebastian’s roar tore through the throne room, though the sound was dull and muted. He struggled desperately against the swarming guards, his eyes wide and frantic as they found Ciana’s through the chaos.
But there were at least twenty guards, and only one of him. He was stripped of his sword and daggers in seconds, pushed down to his knees and held with his arms behind his back. Ciana saw the moment he realized that escape was impossible. His shoulders slumped, grief tearing across his face.
Ciana splintered. She knew how heavily he would bear this. How much it would tear him apart, believing he’d failed once again.
When really, this failure belonged to her.
The ring on her pinky warmed, like the metal and stone was heating against her skin. She toyed with it, allowing herself just a brief, fleeting second to wonder what would happen if she slipped it off—
No. It wasn’t the time. It couldn’t be the time. It would only make things worse. She had to keep control, to keep things from slipping further into this hellish nightmare.
That part of her wasn’t something she wanted. It was only one more thing that would make her different. Make her broken.
She’d promised herself that she’d never be broken again.
Ciana found Niktael’s dark hazel gaze. He watched the madness unfurl, expression wide and helpless.
“Please,” Ciana said, voice breaking but forcing herself to speak anyway. “Please, Nik. Why are you doing this? This isn’t you—”
“You’re right. It isn’t him.” Ydros’s tall form edged forward. “The king is young and easily swayed by beauty. I am not.”
Power thrummed from the god’s mossy stare. It was different from that of Rulene or Callamus or even Mariah. Ydros’s power was the rumble of earthquakes, the crash of falling trees, the twisting chokes of parasitic vines on an ageless oak.
“Mariah has done nothing to Vatha except offer friendship. We are not your enemy.”
Ydros chuckled. “Do not lie to me. I know the true purpose of your mission here. All your queen has done is try to use the kindness of this country to her own benefit.”
Ciana ground her teeth in frustration. “But her success benefits Vatha, too!” she exclaimed. “All she—all we—want to do is defeat Kol. You fought him in the First War. Don’t you want to see him defeated once and for all?”
Ydros was silent for a moment, arms crossing over his chest. “Yes,” he said slowly. “I opposed Kol in the First War. I helped lock him away in Enfara for five thousand years, until your queen set him free.” He stalked forward, stopping at the first dais step.
“It took all of us—all seven of us—to stop him last time. But thanks to your queen, we no longer have Qhohena or Zadione on this plane to help. My Consort, Krilene, lives for the heartbeat of war, but even she grows tired and chooses instead to linger in the Kizar Islands amidst the water. Priam is as useless as he was the day he ascended. That leaves only Rulene and Callamus to take on Kol, and they cannot do it alone.”
“They could with yours and Mariah’s help.” Ciana knew her argument was desperate. Knew Ydros could hear the pleading in her words. She had to try them, anyway.
Ydros frowned. “I am a scholar. A historian. A strategist. I am not one who takes risks, especially when I am not confident in the outcome. I have thought of all alternatives. This is the only path forward in which my people and I survive.”
“You are a god,” Sebastian growled, still kneeling on the marble floor. “And not just to Vatha, but to the entire continent. How can you give up on all those people?”
Ydros’s lip curled back from his teeth. “I am not giving up on them. Kol has promised that in exchange for my allegiance, he will not harm the innocents. Only those who stand against him.”
“And you believe him?” Sebastian scoffed, sitting back on his heels. “For an ageless god, you are a fucking fool.”
“Careful, Armature,” Ydros said, voice deadly calm. “You are alive because you are more useful to me breathing than you are dead. But if you test me, not only will your life be forfeit, but the lady’s as well.”
Sebastian blanched, eyes darting to Ciana in horror before slumping forward in silence.
Rage boiled in Ciana’s belly, earnest and wild.
“Nik,” she tried again, fighting to meet the king’s gaze. He didn’t look at her, though he flinched at his name. “Please. This is your kingdom. We were going to build a future between Vatha and Onita, a better future. It’s not too late to fight for it—”
“How dare you continue to address the king?” Ydros snarled, voice booming through the room. “You, who spent your whole time here manipulating him with your pretty smiles and flirtatious glances. Did you think I did not see through your ruse from the very beginning?”
Blood rushed to Ciana’s ears. “What?”
Ydros scoffed. “Please. You know exactly of what I speak. You are no courtly ambassador sent to broker a peaceful new relationship between two kingdoms. You came here to court the king, to manipulate him into giving him access to what you really wanted: the archives.”
Ciana was rooted to the floor. Words failed her, fear and regret and shame building in her stomach.
Ydros leaned forward. “You dangled something in front of Niktael that you knew he wanted but would never give. How long have you been sleeping with the Armature? He was never just a bodyguard to you.” He sneered in disgust, brushing his deep red braids back from his face.
“And do not try to deny it. I can smell it on you.”
A nightmare made real; that’s what this was. Ciana was sure that if she slapped her face, or stomped her feet three times, she would wake up. She’d be back in that cozy little study room in the archives, surrounded by the rustling of leaves and paper and the scent of pine and leather.
But when she found Sebastian’s distraught, devastated gaze over the madness, she knew this wasn’t a dream.
This was real. This was her horror, and it was real, and she was alone.
Her eyes drifted back to Niktael. Hoping for just a single sign of her friend.
“What happened to keeping the gods out of the affairs of your kingdom?” she addressed him, one last time, trying to contain her bitterness and fear.
Tears burned in her throat, pricked behind her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.
“You’re a good man, Niktael. A good king.
I never meant to hurt you. Please, don’t do this—”
“I intervene when I must,” interrupted Ydros. “Such as when I must protect this kingdom from obedient little whores like you. So willing to spread her legs whenever her queen commands it.” He sniffed, chin lifting. “Pathetic.”
Those words.
Ciana had thought she was healing. That all the vicious horrors of her past were being forgotten. That by some blessing of the gods, she would be allowed to move past it all, to forge a future for herself unmarred by the stain of violence.
Until one of those gods said the very words that had been whispered to her long ago in the darkness of her room, in a place she should’ve always been allowed to feel safe.
Whore. Pathetic.
Ciana dropped her head, chin hitting her chest. She sagged against the guards who held her. Somewhere in the distance, Sebastian’s voice rumbled out again, though Ciana didn’t hear the words.
She did hear Ydros’s, though.
The god stalked down the dais. He was tall, with broad shoulders and an imposing presence that washed over her, drowned her, crushed her.
“Here is what is going to happen next,” he said quietly, the room stilling.
“You and the Armature will be kept alive—for now. I know you found something in the archives and sent word to your queen. I can only assume it was information on the weapon my fellow gods and I created in the First War. I don’t particularly care about that, though; the weapon is no threat to me, but your queen is. ”
Ciana didn’t respond. Her mind was quiet and empty, her soul crushed and cracking.
“I have been tasked with stopping your queen before she has any chance to act. Kol has laid the trap; you both will help me spring it.”
“We will never help you,” Sebastian snarled. “If you want me to betray my queen, then you might as well kill me now.”
Ydros chuckled softly. “An expected response. I would never ask you to willingly betray her, Armature. But just by being here, by being my prisoners, you can achieve so much for me.” He turned on his heel.
“Enjoy the Vathan cells, Onitans. A new dawn is approaching. I am looking forward to seeing it rise.”