Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
I shook my head even though he wasn’t looking. It was a rhetorical question anyway. He knew I didn’t know his story. How could I?
“I didn’t grow up in Leo’s court,” he said.
“You know those other human cities he mentioned? I was born in one of them. It doesn’t matter which one.
My mother didn’t have the slightest clue who my father was so I grew up on the streets, fighting for everything I had, starving when I didn’t.
That kind of life makes you see everyone as an enemy.
It keeps you scheming to undo them at all times, even in your sleep. ”
I didn't speak, simply listened to his tale as he had to mine.
“My mom died when I was nine,” he continued.
“Some curable disease we were too poor to afford treatment for. It made me angry and that anger never left me. So I used it. I turned it against anyone who turned against me until I’d developed quite a bloodthirsty reputation.
A local lord tried to recruit me for the military.
I refused so he had me arrested. Apparently, he only allowed violence which directly benefited his rule.
Leo happened to be visiting that day. He saw me arrested, saw me spit on the lord’s boots as they hauled me away to the cells, and he gave me an offer.
Rot in the dungeons or join his guard. It was an easy choice but I resented being forced into proper service.
I picked fights with the other guards, stirred up trouble whenever I could.
Any prince in his right mind would have cut me loose, but not Leo.
He took me on, turned me into his project of sorts.
He was determined to find out what made me so angry and help me get past it.
It didn’t work, not completely. I’ll probably never be rid of my anger but his favor calmed me for a time until, a few years later, he realized my reputation might do him some good after all and appointed me as Captain. ”
I just watched Roman when he was finished, wondering what, exactly, I was supposed to have gotten out of his tale. Or was it just a bonding experience, a way for him to expose more of himself to me? Was this how the Captain offered friendship?
“My point is,” Roman said with a sigh as I sat blinking at him like a fool, “men like you and me, we hurt people. We don’t always mean to but it’s what we are.
Trust doesn’t come easily to us. Fury does.
The difference is that, when I found someone who saw past all that bullshit to who I could truly be inside, I gave myself to them; in defense, in friendship, in loyalty.
You didn't. And I’ll never understand it. ”
With that, he snapped his horse’s reins and rode on ahead of me.
The conversation, which had just begun to seem friendly, ended in abrupt displeasure as was often the case with Roman.
This time, however, his words dug deep. I'd opened up to him, had declared the guilt I'd felt for so long and never told anyone about before and he'd thrown it right back in my face. And what’s worse, he'd verified my worst insecurities.
“Incoming,” Ksenia’s voice rang out suddenly ahead and I looked up to find her landing Phantom just a few feet before Roman.
The beat of the creature’s enormous wings stirred a blessed breeze through the hot desert air that pushed my hair back and sent the canvas strips of the saddlebags flapping.
But it was the look on Ksenia’s face that stopped my heart cold.
I’d seen that look before on soldiers preparing for a scouting mission into the wild sands, on Kleio before facing the Council, on my grandfather before a meeting with the Tribunal.
Grim determination. Something was wrong.
“They’re here,” Ksenia claimed and my heart dropped to my stomach. “A whole camp of them.”
“Geist?” Roman asked.
Ksenia’s eyes flicked my way once before she answered, “No.”
My breath caught. A camp of soldiers from Pavos awaited us ahead. Who were they? Had I known them? Was Valin there? Or Castor? I flinched when I realized it could be my own squad. The Geist were cruel enough to do that, to send my own squad after me.
“What do we do?” I asked, angling my horse closer while trying to keep the panic from my voice.
Roman cast a glare in my direction but I ignored him.
“We can't take on a whole camp,” Ksenia said. “But going around would take too long and the northern pass is too treacherous. The horses will never make it.”
“The south?” I asked.
“Dead Man’s Dunes,” Roman muttered. “No water for a hundred miles. Even the rats don’t survive out there. The horses would be dead before we even made it halfway and we wouldn’t be far behind.”
He finished with a curse, glancing one way and then the other as if he could see the way out of our predicament by simply looking for it. Ksenia only sighed, peering back in the direction of the camp as though she expected them to come charging over the hill at any moment.
“What if we flew?” I asked, giving a pointed glance at Phantom. “Can he carry three? Or even two at a time?”
Roman and Ksenia exchanged a look I didn't understand and, when Ksenia answered, it was slowly.
“He could…” she began. “But he won’t.”
I raised a brow.
“Zver choose their rider, Viper,” Roman explained.
“Only one. And they allow no one else to fly them. Some never choose at all, preferring their freedom over the bond of loyalty. Trying to mount him would be an insult and, if he chose to allow it, the highest honor. But very few Zver ever allow anyone but their Chosen to ride atop them.”
“So we'll die in the desert,” I spat bitterly, “because of an animal’s honor.”
Ksenia’s knife was at my throat before I could blink.
“Don’t you ever,” she growled an inch from my face with more vitriol than I'd ever seen from her, “call him an animal. He's far more intelligent than you, Verdunn.”
I recoiled at her sudden anger.
“Aren’t you supposed to be able to fly, Viper?” Roman asked through gritted teeth.
I stared at him, stunned.
“That’s—how did you know—”
“You think you’re the first Victor we’ve faced?” He scoffed. “We’ve been fighting the squadrons since you were going through puberty.”
“I never learned,” I admitted, chastened. “I was trying. Kleio was teaching me before Ksenia came.”
“Of course,” Roman huffed.
“We’ll just have to find another way,” Ksenia said. “Maybe if we—”
She was cut off by a shrill whistle. We all looked up to see a wave of white soaring toward us. As it neared, it split apart into six individual Zver and their riders. Ksenia smiled as they circled us before landing. Roman only watched with the same disgruntled frown he always wore.
“Spy,” the man riding the largest beast spoke.
He was lean-muscled and golden, sun-kissed light brown hair atop his bronze head.
Still, he looked every inch the warrior in his leather riding armor, and was clearly the leader of this group of half a dozen riders as well.
“You’re rather far from home, are you not? ”
“Rainier,” Ksenia said in greeting and I gaped at the ancient hero standing before us. “I could say the same for you.”
Rather than reacting to her challenge, Rainier turned his attention to Roman and I where we stood off to the side. His gaze narrowed as he took us both in from head to toe. Then his eyes snapped back to Ksenia.
“You’re going to Archí,” he said, stunned. “Aren’t you?”
“I was under the impression we were welcome any time,” Ksenia replied, her voice having gone cold. “Or so Prima said.”
She crossed her arms and raised a brow in clear challenge but Rainier only narrowed his gaze further.
“You are welcome anytime,” Rainier said. “All riders are welcome in Archí. The Zver’s judgment is not to be questioned. But them…”
He waved a hand lazily in our direction to signify how very unimpressed he was with our presence. Roman bristled beside me.
“They're my companions,” Ksenia snapped.
“Both of them?” A female rider standing behind Rainier asked with a disbelieving look and mischievous smirk. The other riders chuckled as Ksenia’s fists clenched at her sides.
“Prince Leo sent them with me,” Ksenia spat. “They must be allowed—”
“Prince Leo has no jurisdiction beyond his beloved wall, Ksenia. You know that,” Rainier interrupted, his voice low in warning. “Besides, let’s be honest with each other here, Spy. We are both riders after all.”
Rainier spread his hands wide before him in a gesture that seemed to be a mockery of a peace offering, offset entirely by his wicked grin. Ksenia visibly paled as Roman stiffened beside me, already reaching slowly for his sword.
“I don’t know what you—” Ksenia began.
“Don't insult my intelligence,” Rainier snapped. “This is him, isn’t it? The Victor.”
A hush fell over the surprised riders as my blood ran cold.
They were watching me now, every one of them, mouths agape and eyes wide.
Roman’s fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword, jaw clenching.
Ksenia had gone as white as a ghost but kept peering over her shoulder to where Phantom prowled just behind her, likely judging the distance between them and the possibility of escape.
“You’re bringing him to her because you heard she has the girl,” Rainier continued with an air of finality. This was the truth and he would take no arguments about it.
Ksenia raised her head.
“Yes,” she confessed and a few of the riders began to murmur.
“What do you hope to accomplish?” Rainier asked. “He doesn’t have the corruption. She does and you know it. So what good would it do you to offer him?”
“His former partner may wish to see him again,” Ksenia replied but it sounded weak even to my ears.
“She’ll kill him.”
The words hung in the air for a moment, suspended in time, as everyone turned to me once more, watching as I was informed of my fate.
I’d already known, of course, that was a possibility.
Adrian might kill me and, if truth be told, she would be well within her rights to do so.
But I knew Adrian better than any of these fools.
She could be convinced. And if there was anyone who could do the convincing, it might just be me.
That was the only hope I had, the only one I could hold onto.
“She might,” Ksenia agreed with a shrug of her shoulders.
“And yet he travels with you,” Rainier said slowly, suspicion lacing every word. “Unbound.”
“The Viper is prepared to meet his fate,” Roman grunted, speaking to the riders for the first time. “It's better than what awaits him if he does not.”
Rainier watched Roman for a moment longer before his gaze trailed back to me.
“I see,” he said slowly.
With that, something shifted in his expression. He clapped his hands together and gave a nod.
“Well then, if you're to be Prima’s guests, then we're honor bound to escort you,” he announced and I fought the urge to show my surprise at the sudden change of heart. “Let’s start with that tedious encampment on the other side of this ridge, shall we?”