63. Chapter 57
Chapter 57
Raven
W ell, I promised Caelan total loyalty and then the very next thing I did was lie to him. He gave me little choice when he exacted his promise.
I couldn’t run to safety. Anu was alive in the pit beneath the Palace of the Suns. I had to kill him before he grew up into the Ravager who would burn the world. This obligation was bigger than the vow of service I made to Caelan—a vow that I truly meant. That I yearned with all my being to spend a lifetime honoring.
But Caelan and I didn’t have a lifetime. We had only a few nights of fevered passion. Kisses stolen in the tall grasses of the farm fields. Pleasure given and received with the scent of fresh soil beneath us. Whispers that sought to tell the stories of whole lives in a matter of days. I told him of Eymen, and of my time with Lusa in The Pass. I told him of Los, and what I knew of Tanead. He devoured stories of Queen Ead, his mother. He knew nothing of her. In Los, her victories were already legend.
It wasn’t enough time. We both felt it. The desperation in every grasping embrace, the longing in every fevered caress.
But it was all the time we had.
Baris made himself blissfully scarce, wandering so far behind us at times, I lost sight of him. I had no doubt that, when he was needed, he would instantly appear. But that didn't mean he was agreeable when Caelan tried to send him away with me.
"No. I'm staying with you," Baris said.
“You're going with her." Caelan’s tone brooked no complaint but for a sworn guard, obedience didn’t seem to be his strong suit—a fact that I enjoyed and appreciated.
"Personal guard, remember, Cael? Your personal guard." He spun to me. "No offense intended, my lady. You're lovely. I'd be honored to be your personal guard. But unfortunately I'm already taken." He spun back to Caelan and glared.
"You swore to guard me and all that belongs to me. That includes her," Caelan reminded him
Baris eyed my daggers. "She knows how to use those. I can attest to it. As long as she stays out of sight as best she can until she leaves Vaharilar, the chance of her coming up against something she can’t handle is a lot less than yours is. You need me more.”
"I know how to use my blades, too," Caelan said.
“Sure, but what use is a scimitar against an emperor? Worse—against a dragon? You’re going to take on an empire and then…who knows? You need someone watching your back.”
"Baris, I am the bastard son of Ead Tajawl. Tanead is my half-brother. I may be going to kill him or…" Caelan swallowed, the power of saying the words out loud overwhelming him. "…or to free him. If I'm totally honest, I haven't decided yet. And I know how hard you've worked to clear your family's name. I won't make you a traitor. So you know what?" Caelan sighed. Since the moment he’d made me promise to leave him, the heavy weight of sadness hadn’t left his eyes. "You won't stay with Raven. You will go off on your own. I release you from service as my personal guard."
"Fuck that," Baris said immediately. He sank to a knee and bowed his head. "Prince Caelan Tajawl or Havard or whatever your name is—I am yours for life. That's what I swore and I'm a man of my word."
"That loyalty may make you a traitor," Caelan said.
Baris did not reply. His uncharacteristic silence filled the moment like a heavy weight.
"Fine," Caelan snapped. "Get up, damn you.”
“Excellent. And in case it wasn’t clear, the price of my loyalty is me coming with you." Baris grinned roguishly.
"You need him more than I do," I supplied.
"You are the Traitor's daughter in an empire on the verge of rebellion," Caelan said.
"And you are going to save the life of a dragon in an empire that once slayed them all."
"Just because you wish me to turn traitor does not mean I will," Caelan reminded me.
He kept saying that and I kept ignoring it, because I knew when the moment came, he’d make the right choice.
"Just standing there, you are a traitor," I said. I watched instinctive rage flush through his system like fire. I smiled sadly. "It’s not an insult. Not coming from me. It's just a fact. Will you betray your father or your brother? That is the choice before you and I hope that you make it, not for either of them, but for your own reasons. I won’t be there to see.”
On the last day, tall stalks obscured the narrow opening that led into the dragonstone corpse of Kutha. I’d only been here once. Walking the land again brought back memories of my last days with Eymen.
I should have known he was sick. His pallor grew pale and his muscles shriveled. But I was young and had seen nothing of the world outside the dungeon. Such changes happened to all men who were sent there. They seemed natural to me.
I felt so betrayed when he sent me away. I was packed into a tight wooden box to be transported like livestock across the empire, and I wondered how much Eymen had been paid and if he’d ever loved me at all. He’d saved my life when he found me lying unconscious in the cavern above the pit. Seen the pulsing green of my eyes and recognized the features of my face. He'd known who I was and told no one. He’d fostered me with Magna, an old halfling woman captured during a Borderlands raid who mixed medicines from the moss that grew on the stone. He’d taught me to read and snuck me a copy of my father’s manifesto. He’d taught me to fight and hugged me after I killed the first man who attacked me.
It was comforting to know, after so many cycles, that all those things were real. Eymen had only tried to free me. Worked painstakingly to make contact with noble rebels who had the means to care for me. He couldn’t have known he was only sending me into another cage.
“A part of me hopes you can’t find it,” Caelan admitted.
“Me too.” But there was no chance of that. The green Threads snaking out from Anu’s pit grew brighter every day. I needed only to track their paths to find my way home to the hell where I’d been made.
When we reached the opening, I gave Caelan the directions one last time. How to get into the Emperor’s Dungeon where Tanead was likely being held. How to get from there to the main floor of the palace where Caelan would find his father. Baris listened intently, too, nodding at every turn, filing them away, before giving me one final wink and slipping inside.
“You shouldn’t see your father,” I urged Caelan one last time. “Just free Tanead and bring him back out. You can go to Asherah together. She’s waiting for him at the river beside Archeon.”
Caelan’s palms pressed against the sides of my face. His eyes mapped my features, thinking he’d never see them again. That, at least, he was right about. “I have to see him. But I’ll be alright. Don’t worry for me.” He deposited a gentle kiss on my forehead, and then a trail of them down my face until he reached my lips. His touch was feather-light and soft. It made me yearn to feel his belt searing my skin once more, his sadism colliding with my desire until we were both subsumed.
“Get far away from here,” Caelan begged. “North, into the Pestern Mountains. Strike out into the Silk Sea. Anywhere where you won’t be caught up in the war to come. Don't even tell me where.”
“I will,” I promised, but it was a lie, a terrible lie. After all this time, how strange it was that it broke me to lie to him. I wanted to kneel at his feet and pledge to never speak falsely to him ever again. To fight at his side always. To win or lose, live or die, together. But, though destiny had linked our fates, we were never meant to confront them together. Caelan was the greatest hope this world had now, and I was its greatest threat.
Caelan’s lips crushed mine. He pulled me to him, arms wrapping me desperately as his tongue demanded entrance to my mouth. I opened for him, melted for him, answering him with eagerness. He tasted so sweet, this Slayer prince who had somehow become mine as surely as I was his.
We did not want the kiss to end but all things end. Reluctantly, we pulled away and hovered in an embrace awhile longer, staring at each other, memorizing and mourning.
“Go,” he whispered. My body shivered at the last command he’d ever give me and I obeyed it, sinking back into the tall grasses where he could not see me. Turning away until he stopped lingering at the tunnel entrance and disappeared inside.
I waited long enough for him not to hear me and followed him in.