Chapter 20 #3
Chidinma shook her head, eyes drifting to his onyx horns. "No. I'll find Kamsi, and we'll leave Borjigin territory entirely. What about you? If you become Igwe, it will cause considerable upheaval. The Nri won't keep quiet about a Djinn on a human throne."
Borji rested his chin on his palm. "I suppose I'll take it one obstacle at a time."
"If it helps—my brothers will be at court. I can't promise their loyalty, but if you find a way to make use of them, it will ease things. Especially once Azul is gone."
The words settled over him, his stomach dropped.
She was right.
Azul would be gone.
He had waited so long, and just like that, she would be gone.
"Will you miss her?" Chidinma asked quietly.
Borji met her eyes. Blue to vivid brown.
"I don't know," he said. "I don't know." His voice wavered. "I don't know if I care for her, or if I loathe her for forgetting me—"
The blade was at his throat before he finished the sentence.
Borji went completely still. His heart slammed against his ribs. He did not move.
Chidinma's eyes were cold—every trace of amusement gone from her face.
"Where do your loyalties lie?" she asked.
"What—!"
She pressed the blade against his skin. Blood welled.
He stared at her. Then, slowly, something cleared in his chest. His shoulders dropped. He exhaled.
"To Azul," he said.
She held his gaze for a long moment. Then she withdrew the blade.
"There is no room for betrayal," she said. "I hope you know that."
Borji forced a smile. "How could I betray her? I owe her everything. I owe her my life."
He ignored the look she gave him.
The scar on his back ached—the phantom sting of it, as though Azul were pressing a jagged rock to it once more.
In his memories, Azul's eyes cold and unfeeling.
Rain battering the trees above them. Her hands worked mercilessly in the dark, pulling the thing from beneath his skin inch by inch while he screamed, while she held him still, while the storm came down around them both.
He had hated her for it.
He could not lie to himself about the rest.
She saved him from the path of a dead man.
Pushed him—through sheer, furious contempt—onto something else.
After she vanished from the forest, he had looked for her for a long time.
And when the palace discovered he'd been sneaking out, the punishment had been severe enough to keep him bedridden for the better part of a year.
Perhaps she had—in her rage, without meaning to—made him understand something.
The life he had been living, abandoned and nameless, was worse than death.
Borji.
She had said it to mock him. A child speaking the common tongue she'd picked up from passing villagers, pointing at him, finding his self-pity irritating. It was not a name anyone had given him. It was a sound she had made to diminish him.
He had kept it anyway.
It was the only name he had.
No one else had ever offered him one.
He wouldn't forget that night. Thunder, rain, the creature coming free of his skin and her standing over him in the storm, soaked through, cold-eyed—and then she said:
You, who do not know your enemies, dare to try and kill me? Look—in your back, you have been poisoned, and you did not even know it.
The last night he saw her.
And when they met again, she called him a stranger.
Ragnar knelt shirtless before his bed, the cold air raising goosebumps on skin already marred by old scars. He held a length of heavy, braided horsehair cord, one used to manoeuvre horses: a whip.
His breath fogged in the cold air; his jaw clenched as pain wracked his body.
"Ukhel, Lord of the Seven Gates, grant me clarity," he prayed. He brought the cord down across his own shoulders. "Let not…" he flinched as he whipped himself once more, "distraction cloud purpose."
Distraction. The word was a meek shadow for what haunted him.
Ragnar Valthorne was a religious man and so followed the basic principles of his faith. Should he sin, he must smite himself before his god should smite him.
And this time, his sin was too great.
"Ukhel, Lord of the Seven Gates, grant me mercy."
The cord fell again. "The flesh is weak; my will is lacking."
The door to his chamber swung open without ceremony.
General Thane stood framed in the doorway, his bō? pushed below his chin, his expression set in disapproval. His eyes took in the scene—the Khan on his knees, the red marks stark against his skin, the cord in his hand. A muscle twitched in Thane’s jaw.
"Did you find the girl?" Ragnar asked.
"No." Thane was quick to reply. "We've looked everywhere; she cannot possibly be in this palace."
"Then why are you here?"
"You wish to wed a viper," Thane growled, dispensing with any title or preamble. His voice was low and deeply seething. "A scheming, vile creature. Every moment we linger here, we are drawn deeper into a nest of serpents that is not our fight."
Ragnar slowly lowered the cord, placing it carefully on the floor beside him. He did not stand, but his spine straightened, the ruler reasserting itself over the penitent. "My decision to come here was my own, Thane. My will."
"Your will?" Thane took a step into the room, his hands clenched into fists.
"To tie yourself to this contract with a woman who speaks of burning her own house to the ground?
Have you finally gone mad? I did not question you all this time, but surely you must see reason.
We have annoyed the very same people we wished to ally with, all because of her!
A woman this vile cannot possibly be Khatun of the Valthorne tribe! "
"It is necessary," Ragnar said, but the words felt hollow even to him.
Necessary for what? The border? Trade? Those reasons were shallow, a murky pool he was wading through with no goal or purpose, but with a pull he couldn’t explain. Sinking until the current took him, until he was dead.
"Necessary?" Thane’s laugh was short and bitter. He paced a few steps, the weight of years and loyalty making his frustration immense. "You bind yourself to a woman who will leave. You drag us into a war of succession that is not ours. What do we gain?"
Ragnar rose to his feet, turning to face his oldest friend and most loyal general. The movement pulled at the fresh welts, grounding him in his pain. Pain that had done nothing to fix his situation. "You question my judgement?"
"I question what has clouded it!" Thane shot back, finally voicing the fear that had been festering since the alcove.
It did not matter so much at first, but now seeing how much her actions could push the Great Khan, sudden terror had seized him, forcing the general to the edge of hysteria.
"The moment you forget yourself, Ragnar Valthorne, you will be the ruin of everything we’ve worked to build.
Should you fall, the Valthorne tribe will fall. Jedar will win this fight!"
"You have forgotten your own vow," Thane said, his voice dropping, heavy with loathing.
The morning light seemed to grow colder.
Thane pressed on, the words he had held back for years now spilling out. "Do you think I’m stupid? That I don’t remember?"
Ragnar remained silent.
A complete binding, or none at all.
"They said it was your weakness," Thane continued, his eyes boring into Ragnar’s.
"That you denied your tribe a dynasty. But I stood by your decision, and you held to it.
Until now. You tie yourself to this Borjigin viper with a contract that lets her walk away, while you will be left bound by your own word.
A vow to a woman who is not your wife for a marriage that will not exist. This is the ‘alliance’ you chose? "
Thane did not bother suggesting his Khan take on other wives, because he knew the Khan would never go back on his vow. That was the kind of person Ragnar was. Azul was someone who could lie with such a beautiful smile; she was not a woman deserving of him.
Ragnar turned away, looking out the window at the mist-shrouded palace grounds. The marks on his back throbbed; it was meaningless after all. Ukhel had declined his prayers once more.
"My vow is my own," he said finally. "As is my choice. The fight is here now, whether we have gained or not. We are in it. Has Nyraxa returned our request?"
Thane felt his body shake with fury, but since Ragnar had dismissed his words, he had no choice but to continue with his report. "I have informed her of the situation; she will send for Varok."
"Send in the servants; I will go and see the Khatun."
With a stiff, shallow bow, Thane turned and left, closing the door softly behind him.
Ragnar stood still. The world moved around him—servants walked the corridors, the distant clang of the smithy, and the life of a foreign palace humming on—but he was a statue in its current.
The echo of Thane’s words, the memory of gold-flecked eyes, the feel of warm hands against his throat…
they coalesced into a single answer in the labyrinth of his mind.
Slowly, he brought his hands to his face, his palms rough against the scars at his jawline. And a sound escaped him—a deep, incredulous laugh, bleak amusement at his own predicament.
…Too sweet.
Ragnar had always hated sweet things. Honeyed words, syrupy wines, the cloying perfumes of decadent courts—he had always declined them, his nature craving the tang of salt, the bitterness of steel, and the clarity of the wind.
He wasn’t sure when it had changed.
Even if it meant Ukhel would smite him for the distraction, he wished to drink the wine of futility.