Chapter 6
Zyla
Do not mistake a bride’s downcast eyes as demure. Even the meekest bride will murder you if given half a chance.”
— RHYKUS
The women circulate through the auction room with silver platters, their eyes downcast. Meek. Silent. Invisible. And the men gathered for the bidding take their poison, drinking it down eagerly without knowing that death just settled over the room like a shroud.
There was more in Cook’s kitchen than mere drugs.
The woman told me everything I needed to know.
There were two herbs stored carefully in her pantry, innocuous by themselves, but vicious when mixed with mead. Once ingested, it would take ten minutes to begin its wake of destruction. Therefore, we need a distraction.
Kari is the first on the auction block, her eyes finding me in the crowd as she swallows nervously.
There’s a collar around her throat and the warrior holding her leash wraps it around a ring embedded in the platform at the far end of the room.
She volunteered to put the collar on, locking herself and the others from her room back into their chambers, while the rest of us set to work.
“I’ll do it.” Kari’s nerves painted her cheeks pink. “I am no fighter, but I can use whatever wiles I own to serve as a distraction. Just… promise you won’t let them take me.”
“Never. You are brave,” I whispered in her ear as I hugged her. “And you are never alone. No matter what happens, remember that. This is how we defeat them. Together. Stay calm and I will find you.”
“Here,” calls the auctioneer as he circles behind her, “is a fertile wonder from a world of snow and ice.” His hand curls around her, groping her full breast before sliding lower to emphasise the rounded curve of her abdomen.
“Note her ample hips, perfect for childbearing, and her pristine skin and hair. She has been well-nourished and protected in her world, and bears the mark of the Sage, which indicates her intelligence. All desirable traits for future offspring. The girl is an unplucked bloom, fully untutored in the arts of the flesh. An innocent such as this is a rare, rare gift, my friends—”
“Ten thousand!” yells a thin merchant.
“Fifteen!” crows another, jumping to his feet.
The bidding war commences as I circle the room. It’s vicious and brutal, with two stabbings and a violent display of screaming before the auctioneer brings down his gavel. “Sold!” he bellows, pointing to an enormous warlord clad in leather. “Sold to the Clan Chief of the Mekoi.”
Through it all, Rhykus sits in the far corner, watching matters coldly as though his reptilian blood barely even stirs for flesh, let alone coin.
His shaved head gleams in the lamplight, kohl lining his eyes.
His copper skin is a similar shade to mine and he wears strict black robes cut of a martial style, with crisp, clean lines.
Everything about him speaks of precision, and there’s an absolute certainty about his manner that marks him clearly as the leader of his men.
He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t have to.
With one click of his fingers a man could lose his head, and they all know it.
Beside him sits a flamboyant scribe, marking notes upon a scroll. He swiftly flicks several beads on his abacus.
A serving girl approaches them, offering mead, but Rhykus waves it away, focused solely on the next girl being brought to auction.
The serving girl—Ilyana—hesitates as if uncertain what to do, and Rhykus’ cold gaze returns to her. She drops into a curtsy and backs away, shooting me a helpless look.
Perhaps it’s better this way. I want Rhykus dead but I’d like to be the one to drive that knife home myself. Poison is too clean a death for a fleshmonger.
And judging by the passage of time, we’re about to start seeing its effects.
“Sold!” bellows the auctioneer as Jinny is led away, trembling like a leaf.
They chain her to a ring on the floor next to where Kari waits, where her new owner saunters over to inspect her, groping her body and checking her teeth in a way that makes my fist curl into a ball.
The Mekoi clan chief already has his hand wrapped around Kari’s leash, and she looks like she wants to cry as he circles her.
Patience. It’s the hunter’s prayer.
But it’s hard to be patient when the rage burning inside me feels like a volcano about to erupt. I came here to find Aylin, but right now, the plight of these women stirs some part of me I haven’t felt in a long time.
I am not prey.
I am not a prize.
I am their ruin, with fire in my heart and defiance in my soul.
And I will end them all.
A man coughs in the audience, mead splattering across him as he brings his handkerchief to his lips. Heads turn, frowns forming, but nobody marks the blood spattered on that pristine silk except for its owner, who pauses and surveys the handkerchief again.
“A third bride,” the auctioneer calls, “straight from the icy tundra—”
The man coughs again, hacking into his hand. The merchants and princes around him slide sideways on their benches, seeking to create distance.
Along the wall, one of Rhykus’s warriors suddenly clutches his throat, a bloodied froth forming on his lips. The room falls silent as heads turn. He lurches to his knees, his face turning purple before he slams face first to the floor.
“Widow’s Kiss,” Cook had murmured. “Fast. Effective. And irreversible.”
“What’s going on over there?” the auctioneer calls.
More bloodied coughs ring out. Men start clutching at their throats, faces darkening as they try to flee.
Others scramble away from them, crying out as if they fear this is something contagious.
One staggers into me and I knife him right in the kidneys, holding him from behind like a gentle lover as he slumps to the ground.
When I look up, Rhykus’ cold, glittering gaze is locked upon me as if he knows exactly who the instigator of this event is.
You, those vicious eyes say.
Only the women stand still, clad in sheer white silk as they look around nervously.
A woman named Lannia rises from her naked crouch, tearing the glittering mesh muzzle from her face and casting it aside, careless of her nudity as she grabs a knife from someone’s sheath and uses it to cut his throat.
“Kill them!” she yells.
Together we will rise.
I wipe my blade clean on my skirts as I dart through the crowd. A glee that is both vicious and powerful beats in my chest as mayhem ensues. Lannia’s not the only female who takes her revenge.
But not all the men have fallen.
Rhykus turns toward me, yanking the sword from one of his warrior’s sheaths. He gestures sharply, gathering those few of his men who didn’t consume the mead, barking out swift orders before he starts toward me.
“This way!” I yell, gathering the women toward me. “We need to leave. Now!”
They scurry past me, safer in numbers, heading for the meeting place by the gates of the manor.
I search for Kari in the melee, but her clan chief is dragging her in the opposite direction.
“No, you don’t,” I growl, going after them.
Flipping my newly acquired knife, I catch the tip of it, then fling it toward him.
It strikes true, driving straight through the back of his neck, severing the spine. It has to be the knife, for even my best steel wouldn’t have done that. The Mekoi clan chief goes down like a puppet with its strings cut. Kari sprawls to the carpets in a wave of white silk.
“Get up!” I yell at her, pausing by the Mekoi chief’s body to fetch my knife. “We need to get out of here.”
“You’re not going anywhere.” Rhykus appears out of nowhere, grabbing Kari by the hair and hauling her to her feet, where he sets his sword to her throat. A sinister smile forms on his thin lips. “You are becoming quite the inconvenience.”
“My apologies for disrupting your filthy operation,” I snarl.
“Don’t move,” he tells me, then gestures to the men at his heels. “Bring her to me. Alive. We’re going to have another auction once this mess is cleaned up, this time for her death.”
I meet Kari’s horrified eyes, knowing Rhykus won’t give me a second chance. There will be no cell. No more chances to escape.
Our eyes meet, and I see the same recognition in her face, followed swiftly by a decision.
“Run,” she cries, driving her elbow back into Rhykus midriff. “Zyla, run!”
I promised to save her. But I can’t survive against five heavily armed guards.
Rhykus won’t kill her. I recognised that look in his eyes earlier. We’re merely flesh and coin to him. But some livestock is more valuable than others, and after tonight’s loss he will need every bride he can get his hands on.
He won’t touch her.
He won’t harm her.
The men in the auction went wild for her pristine, unmarked skin and virginity.
“I’ll come for you,” I promise her, searching wildly for some sort of exit as the guards approach me.
Instead, my gaze locks on something else.
And I smile.
“Grab her,” Rhykus says coldly.
Turning, I grab the nearest candle from its candelabra, snarling at Rhykus. “Fuck you.”
“No!” He reaches toward me as if he thinks he can stop me by sheer force of will.
I throw the candle down, right at the base of the nearest gauzy curtains.
His indulgences will cost him everything.
Flame roars up, hot and instantaneous, licking at the rugs between us.
One of the guards is wearing a cloak and fire eats at the fabric like a hungry dragon, consuming him in mere seconds.
He screams, falling to the floor and kicking as the guards rear back.
My eyes meet Kari’s.
“I’ll come for you,” I mouth.
Then I turn and bolt along the hallway.
The clock strikes midnight as I sprint, bending to pick up a fallen sword. A heavy chandelier swings in the entry as I take the stairs on swift feet, heading for the main doors. A guard appears at the bottom, but I have the higher ground.
That bone deep grinding begins beneath us, and I skid to a halt as the walls begin to shift.