Chapter 9
“So that went well,” Tsan remarked through the portal.
I hadn’t wanted to chance seeing him yesterday. But now war council had wrapped up, Carmine was in the hangar.
There was the risk someone was listening to Tsan talk, so we couldn’t discuss too much.
“Family dinners tend to be dysfunctional. Not like the dinners my magus family shared.”
“What were they like?”
“We mostly discussed torture techniques or the best methods of killing someone. Or breaking them. Normal stuff.”
“Sounds nice. Want some other observations?”
I did… and that may be too dangerous to discuss like this. “Come through.”
I widened the portal, and Tsan climbed through. I shut it after, checked Carmine’s location—and left that awareness open—then summoned my silence ghosts. Or silence kings. More than half wore crowns, and the rest of the undead really didn’t want to be here any longer.
“Go for it.”
“Our other friend gave me this,” he said, passing over a note.
Will deliver tonight.
I glanced up. “She is delivering my message to Tempest in person? That’s not what I asked her to do! Is she just going to stroll into the coven and tell my sister that I need to fake kill her so I can complete another ritual with the demon king?”
In the letter I’d given her before dinner, I’d detailed some of my plan for “killing” Tempest. I’d asked for her help in figuring out a means of communication with my sister.
Athira had taken that to mean she should do it.
I stared at Tsan. “Seeing the ghost of her mate cracked her.”
“That one was already cracked. Maybe he uncracked her.”
Also a scary, unpredictable thought. “She’ll get caught.”
“She seems capable.”
I shook my head. “Too much of a gamble.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong—which I know I’m not—but entering another ritual with the king relies on you killing your sister. If you don’t complete another ritual, you can’t kill him. Your entire plan hinges on the ritual happening.”
“Yes.” I released a breath. “But Athira is too important to lose.”
“She sees it differently. So do I. This game isn’t won without risk. This is a pretty important step toward winning.”
Perhaps. And so I would prefer to have handled it with Tempest directly. My mind worked differently to Athira’s. Far differently.
“I can see where he gets some of it,” Tsan said, flopping onto the bed. “The anger issues mainly. But it was almost like he was saying something else with his words. A few times.”
I sat on the bed. “What do you mean?”
“Like when he said, ‘Release him’ to your mother. He could have been referring to her dagger at my neck, but as he said the words, his eyes flicked to you.”
I tilted my head. “I didn’t see that. Was he watching to see if I was relieved?”
“Perhaps, but the words had a weird emphasis. Like he was telling you to let me go. Release him. In the realm. You didn’t get that?”
No. But Tsan was smarter than I, and he didn’t know what I knew. A confession hovered on the tip of my tongue.
Alas, I was a demon, and a demon in danger of soon having a single ally—if Athira was caught in the act of messenger.
I needed Tsan’s help.
“Then there was his strange reaction to his father’s comment at the end. Also, I will never get used to dead people appearing at dinner. Not the worst part of the meal, and also not the best.”
I sobered. “How are the workers downstairs after what happened?”
Tsan inhaled. “They’ve been reminded of their… value. No one will openly voice resentment, but I felt it down there this morning. We have our ways of conveying sadness and anger. We are also realistic, like most of our kind. It could’ve been any of us, and it wasn’t. But it could be tomorrow.”
I wished no one had died at dinner, and I was relieved that Tsan wasn’t the one to go. “I didn’t know how things would go for a while there.”
“Smart to use your worth in battle against him. You have a lot of power. Unique power, and he knows it. He’s worried about you.”
I nodded. “I’d guessed that too. I don’t know how far I can push that before he controls me.”
Tsan sat. “A fine line, I’d say. What else has been happening?”
“Not nearly enough. I’m limited so much by this stupid location thread.
Neti knows where the blue gems are. She won’t show you or Athira where.
Only me. And I can’t get there until Carmine leaves the fortress.
Without them, I’m hesitant to fake kill my sister because it will look odd if I don’t enter the ritual after that.
Or delay it. But then Tyran invited me to sleep in his bed last night.
If things go further, I need the blue gems.” I groaned.
“Then there are other considerations. Like the white magic in the arena and in Carmine’s crown.
Should I deal with those sources now, in the hopes that Carmine can’t use them to recover his strength when I make my move? ”
“Would he notice? Not the arena, so much, but the crown?”
I was almost certain that Tyran couldn’t sense satellite caches of the Ronj power.
He couldn’t tell that I was back to myself.
I felt pretty sure that he wouldn’t notice the absence of white magic in the Crave Arena unless he went there to check.
“He would notice if he picked up the crown and troubled to look.”
“Then there’s your answer. My question to you is how will you use your power to your advantage?”
I screwed up my face.
“Are you injured?” he asked.
“That’s my thinking face.”
Tsan grimaced. “I see. Looks painful. You said that you don’t know how far you can push the king before he tries to control you. Is there anything else that would make him hesitate to do that? Once you’ve fake killed your sister, you may need another edge.”
I considered that. “Only my power, I suppose. That I can raise an army of the dead. Killing my sister is one thing, but the other supernatural leaders and all three armies will still exist. I’m still crucial in the war effort.”
“We need more,” he said. “A weapon or information that really makes him feel like if you wanted to, he could be out of a throne.”
My mind went blank. “Nothing. What about you?”
“I’ll think about it and let you know what I come up with.”
I’d take all the help I could get. “I thought last night might have scared you off.”
“I’m not easily scared now. Though the dagger to the neck was life affirming. Would she have done it?”
“Probably.”
He stared.
“Great ally, right? Let’s hope he doesn’t announce any more family dinners.”
Tsan lowered his voice. “Hope is for the desperate.”
I snorted. “Apparently so.”
The yellow stood. “Better go get ready for the play.”
“Great. Can’t wait.”
“You don’t like them?” he asked.
“You do?”
“Art is a luxury. If I forget the looming threat of death and my plans to avenge my mate, then I find the evenings enjoyable.”
I had no problem with that aside from calling the plays art. They were porn. No more. No less. “Have a good time. I’m going to drag out getting ready for as long as possible to miss some.”
After I opened a portal, Tsan walked through.
Just went to show that cunning people could still be dumb sometimes. That was good for my pride. I liked having smart demons around, but my intelligence had been humbled by Tsan’s presence.
I selected a short white mesh dress and ran a comb through my two-inch long hair to slick it back. I hadn’t regretted my choice to shave it yet, but my hair was about to go through a really ugly patch.
White heels.
I blew out a breath. Nothing else to do. Dammit. Time to attend a play.
I clicked down the halls to the theater near the dirt garden. When I pushed through the doors, I saw the play had already begun. Good.
Carmine scanned me from head to toe as I took the throne beside his.
He didn’t reprimand my tardiness. Perhaps Tsan was right about me leaning into the power play instead of leaning away. The demon king and I were hovering on the edge of a sword. If I showed hesitation, that could work against me more than if I went in guns blazing.
I rested my elbow on the armrest, then rested my cheek on my fist. The two females had to go for help, but instead of portaling, they’d decided to ride there. On male demons.
Had to hand it to them. They got pretty creative.
Would anyone notice if I closed my eyes?
The doors opened as the first act ended in screaming heights.
Gu entered and stooped to whisper in Carmine’s ear.
I listened in.
“My king, your mother was captured while delivering your message.”
Carmine tapped a finger on his armrest. “Who?”
“The coven leader, my king.”
I turned to look at Carmine, who returned my look with a calculating one of his own.
He stood and left the theater with Gu in tow.
The second act erupted into being on stage, and I spotted Tsan clapping at the front. I tracked Carmine’s location to the hangar.
He was leaving.
I should have had more faith in Athira’s ability to cover her ass. She’d been taking a message for Carmine too.
And now he was going to negotiate her release? Charge down the gates? This was my chance to see Neti.
I waited until the thread connecting us told me he’d moved through a gate. The thread floated in thin air after, not connecting to him. Not telling me where he was on Earth. Which meant he wouldn’t know where I was in this realm.
I left the theater, and strode down the halls.
How long did I have?
I hurried into the first empty room and opened a portal to the desert. To the new shack. “Neti,” I hissed. “Are you here?”
The thump of her hooves answered, and soon the nismus stood before the portal.
“Will you show me where the blue gems are?” I asked.
She dipped her head.
Okay, shit. Shit. Carmine still wasn’t in this realm. My heart hammered.
I had to do it.
“We need to be quick,” I blurted, stepping through.
Neti ran down the dune to where the backup shack was set against slabs of bedrock. This was where Owu and Adeuto had lived with Athira for a while.
Had Adeuto brought the gems with him? That would have meant he’d grabbed them when Athira turned up to kill my grandfather. Or had the qer brought them to him in this shack?
Neti burst through the doorway, making it nismus size. I followed in her wake, peering around her when she stopped in front of Adeuto’s bed.
She bumped the bed with her snout.
I squeezed past and crouched to lift the mattress. When that didn’t reveal one hundred sparkling gems, I felt around the mattress edges, looking for any tears—though I’d be impressed if a three-year-old had such an elegant hiding spot.
Crouching lower, I looked under the bed and peered into the back shadows. Reaching my arm in, I felt along the inside edges and my eyes widened at the coarse feeling of canvas.
A clink and rattle.
Popping my head under the bed, I shook the tie of the bag loose, and some of the contents spilled out. Two of them. Though there were many.
I grabbed the two blue gems.
They didn’t check under the fucking bed. And Tsan considered himself smart. Seriously.
Relief poured through me. I’d found the gems. And I’d keep these two on me for emergencies.
I wriggled out from under the bed and stood. My stomach lurched as I checked in on Carmine’s location.
Fuck!
He would have felt me here. Neti was nowhere to be seen, luckily. I had to get back.
My reason for being out here?
I’d remembered my son. Or… Athira had made a comment about a shack in the desert. If she was still captured, then that would work.
I strode out of the shack and stopped dead at the sight of a portal.
And Carmine standing in the middle of it, looking at me.
His gaze fell on the two blue gems in my hands, and a slow smile spread across his face.
“Enamai,” he said, in a voice of ice, as he extended a hand through the portal.