Chapter 21
I’ve gotten a job at the palace. It seems strange, working at the place where I used to live, but we’ve reached a point where we are losing too many friends.
I can hear your voice in my head, telling me that hard choices have to be made.
But I wish you were here, and I didn’t have to make them alone.
—Letter from Kiyan to his family, unsent
Kiyan
“Faisal’s dead.”
His blunt pronouncement was the only warning I had before whirling around and seeing the Viceroy striding toward me, anger pinching his features.
Rage gripped me, as it always did when I came face to face with Reza. When I looked into his cold eyes my desire to rip them from his head never eased.
But the words he’d just said stuck, and I waved a hand in the air, halting the Salt Guard training practice.
“What did you just say?”
“Some kitchen girl slit his throat.” He gave a harsh laugh, which sounded half crazed.
I straightened at that, my heart pounding in my chest. “Who?”
“A human.”
I jerked forward with shock, but he didn’t notice my reaction and kept speaking.
“Helped by another, a peri from River. I don’t know why I bother employing anyone from this Court.” He gave me a scathing look.
A ringing sounded in my ears, and I could barely hear the rest of what Reza was saying.
A human slit Faisal’s throat.
But I didn’t have time to think about what that meant. A fae boy carrying an armful of weapons for the soldiers walked by, struggling. Reza raised a boot and planted it hard into his back, sending him sprawling into the dirt.
“Practice is done, boy,” he snarled. The boy hurried to gather the swords but fumbled with them. Reza approached him with a sneer, lifting a hand as if to touch him, as if to use his magic on him. I stiffened, a rush of panic flooding my veins. I stood in front of the boy, trying to distract Reza.
“Rebels?” I asked, folding my arms over my chest. Reza looked up from the boy, his annoyance being replaced by a thin smile.
“Not surprised there are rebels working in the palace, Kiyan? Shouldn’t you be distressed that two rebel females managed to bring down my general?” His voice was a low hiss, but I knew his moods by now.
Reza needed coddling and managing, like a spoiled child who liked tearing the wings off pixies, and could never be directly told off. You just had to hide all the pixies from him. And if his torture needed an outlet, I would rather it be me than a boy happening upon his path at the wrong time.
“There are no rebels in the palace,” I lied.
“And I told Faisal that. He was obsessed. If you ask me, he was more taken with a female in the kitchen than suspecting them of treason. I don’t know what happened, but if I were to guess, I’d say she likely stabbed him to keep his wandering hands off her. ”
It was just speculation, based on all the unsavory things I knew about Faisal, but I needed to give Reza another reason for his death as I tried to play catch-up with what had happened. I didn’t want him to suspect this was the work of rebels or have Reza looking too closely at his staff.
He’d find too many things right under his nose.
And we weren’t prepared for that yet, we needed more time .
Reza frowned, turning my words over in his mind and rubbing his chin. “Yes, he does have a history of muddying himself where females are concerned.”
He spit on the ground at that, not noticing the tight curl of my fist against my side. But when he glanced up at my face, I knew it was a smooth mask.
I’d have never survived if I hadn’t learned to control my reactions long ago.
I cleared my throat, trying to keep my tone measured. “Faisal shouldn’t have even been here. I heard the Court of Salt’s border is still under attack. There are other battles to fight.”
“Well, no more for him, now.” He shrugged his shoulders as if a fly had been stepped on instead of the death of his most effective war general.
“No.” I raised a brow and looked out of the training field. Faisal being dead was very good indeed—he had been a thorn in my side all summer. If he was gone, the rest of the pieces could be put into place, and there was one less enemy to dispense with.
But did that mean the human girl was dead? I tried to understand the sinking disappointment I felt, knowing she would’ve been the subject of Salt wrath.
Reza stood beside me, a petulant look on his face. His shirt was partially undone, and King Rusul’s gold crown that sat embedded in his chest was partially visible.
A memory of Reza arriving in River came back to me, the image of him striding through the swaths of dead soldiers on the battlefield, the ancient King’s crown in his hand. As soon as my father had seen it, he looked at me with terror in his eyes and told me to run.
I’d listened to him, tearing off into the woods, joining other children in hiding before realizing my father hadn’t been behind me.
And then I had watched Faisal and Reza kill him, draining his magic, twisting his tongue and feet, before stabbing him through the heart.
After Reza had taken all my father’s power for his own, he’d melted King Rusul’s crown into his chest, the arches of gold like the mast of a shipwreck rising above the water in his skin.
From that day on, the King’s ancient fae power was permanently part of the Viceroy’s body, and not a soul in River could harm him.
Our magic was then one-tenth of what it had been.
I still felt my old power brewing underneath my skin, ready to unleash, but it never had the opportunity. Reza had smothered our power with the King’s crown, and I couldn’t figure out a way to bring it back.
Not for the first time I wished I was anyone other than me—even the halmasti from the River. Then I would’ve torn the crown from his chest with my snapping jaws and found a way to destroy it.
But while it sat in his skin, I couldn’t raise a hand against him.
Not a hand of the living, but perhaps one of death.
I’d keep honing my unexpected death magic, keep sharpening it, and hopefully when the time was right, I could pierce his heart.
As if he knew what I was thinking, he spoke. “What is this I’m hearing about a rebel attack? A rotted thing that killed one of the soldiers?”
I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck. I’d planned this conversation but handling Reza was always delicate; you could never predict his moods.
“It should’ve been Faisal telling you this. He’s the one who tried to fight it. I was doing a training exercise with the Salt Guard when it happened. I didn’t see it, but I don’t think it was due to the rebels. We’ve certainly never seen them with this sort of magic before.”
“Well, Faisal’s now dead. He’s not available to be questioned.”
He turned his bright eyes on me, in them the glimmer of mania that always set my teeth on edge.
“I lost one of my soldiers, Kiyan. If it does turn out to be the rebels, I’ll be taking that loss from you in blood. Either yours, or . . .” he looked over to the boy, still gathering up the weapons from the field.
I exhaled, knowing his threats weren’t idle.
But, neither were mine. My mind flitted back to a human girl with strange clothes, wild hair, and an unfamiliar bright magic that could find what was lost.
“What happened to the human?” I said, abruptly, suddenly desperate for the answer. I needed to know if the girl was dead.
If Yaseema was dead.
There was a feeling of sinking dread in my stomach, even though I was glad Faisal had been killed.
Because there was no way I could save the girl from Reza’s punishment.
I could only hope she’d been executed, despite the magic she harbored.
Otherwise, the torture she would receive at the hands of the Viceroy would render her mindless.
Brown eyes from behind golden frames flashed, and something in me mourned that her spark of life might be gone.
The bright flower in the desert wasteland, never able to thrive.
“She’s in my dungeon.”
My body lurched involuntarily, my mouth dropping open before I could school my reaction.
“But I won’t be executing her.” Reza picked at his teeth. “Not when I’ve seen what she can do.”
I raised my head and looked at him directly.
No. He couldn’t possibly know.
Panic raced through my blood, my heart pounding so loudly I felt as though I were in the middle of battle.
The thought of what Reza could do with a power like that—one that allowed him to find hidden things, discover new relics, increase his power tenfold?
He would raze River and laugh while doing it.
The Court of Salt would have the power to take over all Peristan.
“What can she do?” My voice cracked at the end, but Reza didn’t even glance my way. That light in his eyes was now an unholy gleam, and I recognized it for what it was.
Power lust.
“The most magnificent thing.” He licked his lips, as if imagining her conjuring the same golden threads I’d seen her call in the east wing library.
Bile rose to my throat.
“I saw her pull magic from the air and use it to locate a hidden map. And a book about Queen Azari’s hidden vault.”
As if my nightmare had come alive, Reza held up a folded square of paper with the ancient language of the River Court scrawled all over it.
“She found a map to Queen Azari’s crown. And it’s going to give me the power to kill the royal family and take the other fae Courts completely.”