CHAPTER 32
C HAPTER 32
S ETH HATED EVERYTHING about this.
He hated seeing Raider staring at that table in the dungeon cell. Even more, he hated that Raider was telling him to leave.
“I thought you said you needed me with you,” Seth argued, pacing through the cell.
“I do, in general, just not at this moment.”
“I don’t see the point of this. Stop staring at that table.” Halting on the other side of it, Seth tacked on, “Please.”
Across the table, Raider’s eyes came up to meet his. They took a little longer to focus. In clean shalvar pants of dark blue silk, with a yellow sash encircling his waist, bare-chested in the way he preferred, Raider looked so much like he had when Seth had first met him. And yet, he looked completely different. True, his wavy dark hair was combed back from his gorgeous face, as before. In the absence of a beard, all the striking places of his face were fully revealed, emphasizing those prominent cheekbones and hollow cheeks, the sensual lips and fine nose. All of that was deeply familiar to Seth. But something had changed. It was in his eyes.
Seth couldn’t pinpoint it, and it scared him.
Raider said, “I already told you the point of this. He”—no need to ask who he was—“got out of the palace unnoticed. Ten years ago, I got into the palace unnoticed. If I can remember how I did that, maybe we can get on his trail.”
“Is this …” Seth swallowed hard. “Is this because of what I said to you? About having your head in the sand.”
Why the hell had those words come out of Seth’s mouth? They’d been so stupid, so fucking unfair.
“No, but you were right.”
“No, I wasn’t! Goddamn it, no, I fucking wasn’t.”
“The last few months have taught me a lot, and one of those things is that running from the past is pointless. It’s always with you. Better to face it and put it in its place. I’m trying to do that.”
Seth dragged a hand down his face. “But why can’t I be in here with you?”
“Because you anchor me, Seth. You keep me in the present. I need to go into the past.”
Seth shook his head. “I’ve seen you when your mind is in the past. It wrecks you. It rips you apart.”
Frustration showed in Raider’s eyes. “This is different. This isn’t a nightmare sneaking up on me. This is a choice. I can handle it, Seth. Now will you please get out?”
Seth crossed his arms, not ready to give in. “But how is being in here going to help you remember? This isn’t where …” Seth couldn’t quite finish that statement.
“No, but it’s similar. Very similar. Kahzir designed these cells. I think he did his early work here. I think Hassan knew about it. Allowed it, at least in the beginning. But then Kahzir built a laboratory somewhere else. It was hidden, secret. So secret that it enabled him to evade capture after Hassan’s death. I’m sure that’s where he is now.” Raider added, sounding frustrated, “I need to do this. Please trust me to do it.”
Seth exhaled heavily. “Fine. Okay. But I’ll be right outside.”
“Out of sight. Out of the dungeon entirely.”
“Gods. Fuck. Fine. ”
Seth turned to go, but Raider stopped him with, “I love you, Seth.”
Seth’s throat constricted. He looked back. “I love you too. I’ll be here when you need me.”
“I know.”
Fuck.
Seth hated this. Never in his life would he forget the terror and horror he’d seen in Raider’s eyes that day when Seth had cut him free of that same goddamn table that he was staring at now.
Sick to his stomach, Seth stormed up the dungeon steps to the door. He went out into the hallway. He closed the door most of the way but not all the way. He needed to be able to hear Raider if he called out. He needed to be able to get to him quickly.
Hands fisted at his sides, Seth paced up and down the hallway. He worked on his breathing. He had to stay focused. Calm. He had to be ready to be what Raider needed.
But he fucking hated this.
Seth wasn’t sure how much time had passed before he noticed Julian. Wearing pale green robes, the young arcanist was leaning against a wall like he’d been there for a while. Seth stopped and stared at him.
Julian hesitated then came to meet him.
“I’m so glad to see you again,” Julian said, his young face eager. “I didn’t think I would.”
“I’m not that easy to kill.”
“Oh, I didn’t think you’d be killed. I thought you’d disappear. With Raider.”
Had he been that obvious? “I meant to. It didn’t work out.”
“Things never work out like we plan, do they?”
Seth started pacing again. “Unfortunately, no.”
“I wouldn’t say unfortunately. If things had worked out according to your original plan, you would’ve hauled me back to Masir—and you and Raider wouldn’t have each other like you do.”
“Stop acting like a wise old man. You’re what, seventeen?”
“Eighteen actually.”
“Still a kid. And even if you were a wise old man, I wouldn’t have the patience for it right now. Keep it to yourself.”
Julian gave him a petulant look that Seth felt proved his point.
“Can I at least share what I’ve been working on?” Julian withdrew a syringe from his pocket.
Seth halted his pacing. “What the fuck is that? And don’t let Raider see it.”
“It’s actually for Raider. Just in case.”
Seth strode toward Julian with such aggression that the young arcanist plastered himself to the wall. He had that startled rabbit look on his face, but that wasn’t enough to make Seth check himself. Every ounce of his control was going toward not smacking that syringe from Julian’s hand.
Seth gritted out, “Fucking explain that.”
“Um … you know I spent a lot of time with Kahzir’s book?”
“Obviously. What about it? And don’t tell me what you actually read. I’m not putting myself in that position again.”
Frustration flitted through Julian’s eyes. “I can’t tell you about this without telling you about the book.”
“Then no. Don’t tell me.”
“Seth. Let him.”
At the sound of Raider’s voice, Seth spun to see him emerge from the dungeon. His face was pale. His eyes were haunted. But he was himself.
And yet, when Seth rocked toward him, Raider put up a hand, asking him for space. It just about killed Seth to give it to him, but he did.
Raider said to Julian, “Tell him. Tell me.”
Julian’s eyes darted between the two of them, much as they had that night when Seth and Raider had caught up with him in the vineyard. “Are you sure?”
Raider settled back against the wall by the dungeon door. He crossed his arms over his bare abdomen. He nodded.
Julian cleared his throat. He tucked the syringe back into a pocket of his green robes.
The young arcanist said, “I wanted to figure out a way to neutralize Kahzir’s neural intrusion. Once something like that exists in the world, it exists. It doesn’t vanish, so there must be a counterbalance for it. That drug—”’
“Wait,” Seth cut in. “I came across that phrase, neural intrusion, when I looked in the book that night in the theater, but I don’t understand it.”
Seth glanced at Raider, but he shook his head. He didn’t understand it either.
Julian stared at Raider. “You don’t … you don’t remember what Kahzir did? Or, gods, you probably didn’t even realize what he was doing, did you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Raider said.
“Um … gods, this is very uncomfortable to explain,” Julian muttered.
“Just tell me.”
“Kahzir was subjecting you to a mind-altering drug. Kind of like a truth serum, it opened pathways in your brain and rendered you vulnerable to manipulation and suggestion. That, along with the electroshock of what he referred to as the Box—”
“Whoa, hold on,” Seth interrupted. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Julian glanced at Raider. Raider’s expression was bleak, his amber eyes haunted.
Julian asked, “Can I tell him?”
Raider said, “I will. Kahzir had a, um, yeah, a Box. Like a sarcophagus. It was part of the table. It would come up and close me in—”
“Fuck, Raider.” Seth rocked toward him again, but again, that hand held him back.
“I mean, I knew he was drugging me and I knew the Box was confusing me, but I don’t understand any more than that.”
Julian’s face scrunched, “It’s difficult to explain to someone who’s not an alchemist.”
“You don’t need to. Tell me about this drug you made.”
Julian touched his pocket. “It should neutralize Kahzir’s drug. The empress gave me the book back so I could recreate it—I had to, Seth,” Julian insisted when Seth growled. “I needed the original drug to reverse engineer it. So I could test it.”
“So who’d you fucking test it on?”
“Adavasti. He volunteered. I didn’t force him!”
“Go on,” Seth prompted.
“The thing is, I can’t be sure if it will work. For one, Adavasti isn’t human.”
“Neither am I,” Raider said.
“But you’re half. You don’t have Adavasti’s magic or incorporeal nature.”
“Can I have it?” Raider asked. “Just in case.”
“Of course.” Julian pulled the syringe from his pocket and handed it to Raider. “That’s why I made it. For you.” He added, echoing Raider, “Just in case.”
Raider swallowed visibly. “Thank you.”
As Raider tucked the syringe into his sash, where once there had been a gaudy dagger that Seth would much prefer to see there, Seth demanded, “Just in case what, Raider? You’re scaring me.”
Raider pushed away from the wall and walked to Seth. When Raider’s arms closed around him, Seth felt himself start shaking. Raider’s hand splayed over his back.
“What are you scared of, Seth?”
“Losing you. I feel like you’re asking me to let you go somehow. There’s something in your eyes that I don’t understand. You’re distant. You’re not with me—I can tell.”
Raider leaned back from Seth, amber eyes locking on his. “Oh, baby, I’m not asking you to let me go. I don’t want you to do that. I’m asking you to trust me to do this and come back.”
“It’s not at all that I don’t trust you. It’s that I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I’ll heal.”
Seth gripped his arms. “Goddamn it, Raider, that’s not the point. Let someone else do this. All of the Hammer and the Hand are looking for Kahzir. You don’t always have to be the one protecting everyone else.”
“I don’t think they can find him. But I think I can. If I go back to the beginning. If I retrace my steps. And it is the point. I will heal. That’s what you see in my eyes. That I know I have to do this. That I know I can. That I know I’ll come back from it—because I have you.”
Seth grabbed Raider into his arms, nearly crushing him. “You better fucking believe it.”
***
Raider started exactly where Seth thought he would. In that damn hallway with the bas-relief. Right where he’d lost it that night.
Seth stayed back, out of sight around a corner, but he was there. He could reach Raider in seconds if he needed him. So Raider was alone but not really.
Raider stood in front of that bas-relief for a good twenty minutes. He kept touching a particular spot. When the quicksilver threaded down from his shoulder—his right shoulder—Seth almost came out of concealment. He made himself hold back, made himself wait and trust Raider.
The quicksilver formed a blade in Raider’s right hand. He extended it forward, and its tip went into the wall in the spot he’d been touching.
When the quicksilver retracted, Raider turned away from the bas-relief. He walked down the hallway, away from Seth, and turned a corner.
Seth followed him.
Hallway after hallway.
Raider kept backtracking. Retracing a step. Thinking. Remembering.
Seth kept waiting for them to reach an exit, to go out into Kastari. But they stayed in the palace.
They went down to the lowest levels.
At the end of a dark, unused hallway, they came to the exit that Seth had been waiting for. But, clearly, it didn’t lead outside.
Raider was about to walk straight through, and that was when Seth had enough.
He hurried after Raider, catching up to him in the dark doorway. He expected Raider to turn on him, to attack. But when Raider spun at Seth’s approach, he gasped like he was coming up from underwater—and he flung his arms around Seth.
“I knew you wouldn’t leave me,” Raider whispered fiercely.
“Never. You hear me? Never .”
“I found it. The way. I remembered. This is the catacombs. This is why they can’t find Kahzir in the city. Because he isn’t in the city. He never left the palace. This is how he abducted me so easily, and this is how I was able to get back in to kill Hassan. Because, in all that time, I never left the palace.”
“Fuck, baby— gods . You did good, really good, but this is far enough, okay? Let’s go back and make a plan and get help.”
“Yeah,” Raider breathed in obvious relief. “Okay. Let’s go back.”
“Oh,” purred a voice from the shadows of the catacombs. “I do not think so.”