5. Before Fate #3
“Squire,” I said softly. “Come here, darling.” Then I leveled a blistering glare at the prince.
Squire chirped happily as he flew over and settled on my shoulder.
“Zora Ravenal.” Aleksander tilted his head. “Thou belong to me.”
“I belong to no man.”
Mom’s fingers tightened around my wrist. I let her pull me back so I stood beside her.
His nostrils flared. “Who said . . . I was simply a man?”
I rolled my eyes so hard my head hurt. “Go kill yourself in an Iron Maiden.”
Aleksander jerked back as if struck.
“Divine Liege, art thou in danger?” a deep accented voice boomed through the Barren Forest. “Did that brat dare to attack thee?”
Shadows gathered around Aleksander as his expression iced over. “I am unharmed,” he said with clipped authority.
Mom gasped, wrapping her arm around me.
A tall man with short, wavy white-blond hair emerged from the woods, corded muscles shifting beneath black cloth.
A thin platinum mask concealed the top of his face.
It started at his eyebrows and ended halfway down his nose.
He’d taken the creed of the Royal Mages to never remove his mask.
A cyan tattoo of a spider stretched across his chiseled jaw.
Rows of platinum hoops and delicate chains dripped from both of his ears.
He was all translucent skin, maroon lips, and spider tattoo. Only in his twenties, his reputation preceded him; the infamous monster of the Royal Mages, he was named after the creature inked on his face.
Tarantula.
The world’s most fearsome magic-wielding assassin had just called me a brat. He was rumored to have murdered hundreds on behalf of the Empire, but no one could prove he was behind the deaths. Murderer.
With each step Tarantula took, ice spread across the ground. The sharp scent of magic filled the air as a haze of silver glimmered around him, a tangible aura of death.
Tarantula zeroed in on me. “Thou art begging for death,” he sneered, and I bristled. The silver haze darkened to onyx around his frame as he studied me. Dark magic. Clouds blocked out the sun, and the already freezing temperature plummeted.
It hurt to breathe, and the snowfall rapidly intensified.
“The skanky spider,” Squire screeched at the top of his lungs (helpful?).
Aleksander turned to Tarantula with a scowl. “I have this handled. Your assistance is not needed. Stand down.”
Tarantula looked between me and Aleksander. “The brat drew your blood . . . She will die.” Icy wind gusted through my hair as snow dumped down in thick flurries, painting the world in white. Tendrils of magic rose from his shoulders like smoke.
Aleksander’s face darkened. “She is not your concern. Obey my order.” A frigid wind gusted through the clearing.
Silence.
“Understood,” Tarantula snarled, his tone indicating the opposite. He slowly bowed at his waist, turning his tattooed face to the side, exposing the side of his neck like a wild animal submitting within a hierarchy.
“Zora, we need to get out of here,” Mom whispered, tugging on my arm. “Now. We need to get away from these . . . men. Quickly.” She spoke like she knew something about them that I didn’t.
“Never disobey me again!” Aleksander gestured, silver exploding from his hand as he battered the prostrated Tarantula. Abruptly he turned to me. “RUN.”
I grabbed Mom’s hand and sprinted off the bridge.
“Enjoy the ugly nose,” I shouted over my shoulder as we retreated into the snowy trees, unable to help myself. In my peripheral vision, the edge of the river frothed with big silver bubbles. How peculiar.
“Zora Ravenal,” Aleksander, the future Emperor, shouted with fury, his accented voice carrying over the howling wind. “Someday thou shall kneel before me begging for my mercy. It will be glorious when thou realize the extent of what has transpired here today . . . I look forward to that moment.”
“False,” I shouted back. “You’ll be throwing yourself at my feet. You’ll bend the knee for me, you sniveling coward of a—”
“How dare thou!” Tarantula cut me off as he stood up. “Never speak to my divine liege with such blasphemy.”
“He’s not divine,” I singsonged back. “He’s just a coward.”
“Do not engage with them.” Mom slapped my arm, horror in her gaze as she made an expression that said, What the hell are you doing?
Both men bellowed with fury.
Aleksander might have believed himself a god and Tarantula his divine assassin, but they were still just mortal flesh and blood. The Barren Forest was my home, and they were trespassers. I would never leave the great North; I’d never see them again. Good riddance.
“Zora,” Mom warned as I pulled her faster through the trees, the Mist swirling in a light blue fog around our feet. “The Empire is evil, but we’re not like them . . . You’re a good person.” Her eyes narrowed as she studied my face. “Please, don’t forget that.”
We passed my favorite spot, the one hidden among the trees. A single ruby rose defied the odds, perpetually blooming like freshly spilled blood across the snow; the petals shimmered with magic.
“I don’t want to be good.” I whispered the uncomfortable truth. “I want to be free.”