Chapter 17 #2
Nadi watched in stunned disbelief as every fae in the chamber froze. Cups halted halfway to lips. Hands stilled mid-gesture. Even the servants, caught in the act of pouring wine or carrying dishes, became statues.
Every fae.
Except one.
Kalo stood at the edge of the room, very much alive and mobile, his silver eyes wide with fascination.
“What—” Nadi’s eyes went wide.
The chains that had bound Raziel fell away—clicked open, as if the locks had never been secured properly in the first place. He stepped out of them with casual grace, stretching his arms as if he’d merely been resting.
And Nadi realized, with dawning horror, that he didn’t look broken anymore.
The wounds were still there—the cuts, the burns, the damage from the silver stake. But his jaw… his jaw was fine. Had always been fine. The way he held himself, the fluid confidence in his movements… he wasn’t injured at all.
“You—” The word came out of Nadi’s mouth before she could stop it. “You cocksucking bastard. You were faking! This whole time—”
“Not the whole time.” Raziel rolled his shoulders, working out stiffness that might have been real or might have been another act.
“The silver was genuine. Quite excruciating, actually. But the rest?” He reached up to touch his jaw, the one that had seemed so horribly broken.
“Theatrical license. I’ve had centuries to practice convincing people I’m more injured than I am.
It’s a useful skill when your enemies want you weak. ”
“The blood,” Nadi breathed. “The wine. You put your blood in the wine.” Fae were immune to his control, but they’d learned there was a catch to that immunity.
“I had help.” Raziel’s smile widened. “From a certain young fae who was smart enough to see which way the wind was blowing. Who understood that Ebiti’s ‘alliance’ with the Rosovs was going to get your people exterminated, one way or another.”
Kalo folded his hands across his chest, staring down at his feet.
“Ah-ah.” Raziel’s voice took on that particular quality—that edge of command that Nadi had come to recognize. “Such manners… now. How shall I make you suffer, Ebiti?”
Kalo’s jaw clenched. “You said you would spare them, Serpent.”
“I said I would spare those who hadn’t wronged me.
” Raziel walked toward Nadi, his footsteps echoing in the silent chamber.
“And I intend to keep that promise. For most of them.” He crouched down beside her, those crimson eyes meeting hers with an expression she couldn’t quite read.
“Hello, little murderer. Did you miss me?”
“I’m going to kill you,” she said flatly. “When this is over, I’m going to find a way to actually kill you.”
He laughed—truly laughed, the sound bright and genuine in the frozen silence of the chamber. “There she is. There’s my Nadi.” He produced a key from somewhere and unlocked her cuffs with a practiced motion. “Stand up. You’ll want to see this.”
Her wrists ached as the metal fell away, blood rushing back into her hands with painful intensity. She wanted to refuse. Wanted to stay on her knees just to spite him. But her legs were screaming, and her curiosity was stronger than her pride.
She stood.
The view was surreal. Thirty-odd fae elders, frozen mid-motion around the table like figures in a wax museum.
Some had expressions of shock caught forever on their faces—they must have started to react before Raziel’s command took hold.
Others looked almost peaceful, caught between one breath and the next.
Ebiti was the worst. The old woman’s face was twisted in a snarl of fury, her gnarled hands raised as if to claw at something—or someone. She’d seen what was coming. Just a fraction of a second too late to stop it.
“When?” Nadi glanced at Kalo. “When did you plan this? From the beginning. The capture, the torture, all of it?”
“No, I couldn’t let this stand. Selling out all of us to…” He paused. “His blood as poison was his idea.”
Nadi’s mind raced, piecing together what she’d missed. The sounds she’d heard from outside the room—the wet crack of breaking bone, the groans of pain. They’d been real. But also… a cover. A distraction while Raziel and Kalo made their deal.
“You could have told me.” The anger in her voice surprised her. “You could have given me some sign. I thought—” She stopped, not wanting to finish the sentence.
“You thought we were going to die.” Raziel’s expression softened, just slightly. “I know. And I’m sorry for that. There wasn’t an opportunity.”
She wanted to hit him. Wanted to scream at him for putting her through those hours of terror and despair. But she also understood—understood in that cold, tactical part of her brain that had kept her alive for so many years—why he’d done it.
It had worked.
“Now then.” Raziel turned his attention to Ebiti’s frozen form, approaching her with the casual menace of a cat stalking a cornered mouse. “We have some unfinished business, don’t we?”
But Nadi could see the awareness in her eyes. The fury. The fear.
“You were going to torture us and kill us,” Raziel said conversationally, circling behind her chair. “Make a spectacle of our deaths to impress your new masters.” He leaned down, his lips close to her ear. “I don’t take kindly to such treachery.”
“Raziel.” Kalo’s voice was tight. “The deal was—”
“The deal was that I would spare those who hadn’t wronged me.” Raziel straightened, his crimson eyes cold. “Ebiti wronged me. Quite thoroughly, in fact.” He picked up a fork from the table—ordinary, tarnished silver, nothing special. “So she doesn’t get to benefit from my mercy.”
He placed the fork in Ebiti’s frozen hand, positioning her fingers around the handle with careful precision.
“Ebiti,” he said, his voice taking on that commanding tone, “you may move your arm and your mouth. Nothing else. And you will swallow every piece of dinnerware on this table, one piece at a time. Starting with that fork. You will eat the knives last.”
The old woman’s arm jerked into motion—a puppet on strings, her movements stiff and unnatural. Her mouth opened, and a sound emerged that might have been a scream if it hadn’t been strangled by her own throat working to obey the command.
The fork pressed against her lips.
“Raziel.” Nadi grabbed his arm. “This is—”
“Justice.” His eyes didn’t leave Ebiti’s struggling form. “This is justice, Nadi. She was going to have us tortured and killed for the entertainment of her guests. She’s been betraying the fae to the Rosovs for decades. How many of your people died because of her alliance?”
She didn’t have an answer for that.
The fork disappeared past Ebiti’s lips. Her throat worked convulsively, and the sounds that came from her were horrible—wet, choking, desperate. Tears streamed from her frozen eyes as her body fought against itself.
Raziel watched it all with cold satisfaction.
Then he turned away, leaving Ebiti to her slow, agonizing task, and addressed the frozen assembly.
“The rest of you,” he said, projecting his voice to fill the chamber, “will listen very carefully to what I have to say next. Because your lives depend on it.”
He paused, letting the moment stretch, letting them understand just how completely they were at his mercy.
“I could kill you all.” His voice was matter-of-fact. “Every single one of you. It would be easy. I could command you to stop your own hearts. To tear each other apart. To eat your own eyes in lieu of the feast. I have that power now, and you are utterly helpless to stop me.”
Behind him, Ebiti’s arm was reaching for a spoon. The sounds she made were getting worse.
“But I’m not going to do that.” Raziel spread his hands in a gesture that might have been magnanimous, if not for the cruelty in his eyes.
“Because you haven’t wronged us. Not yet.
You came here tonight expecting to witness an execution, yes.
You came here to celebrate our deaths. But you didn’t plan them.
You didn’t orchestrate them. You were simply… guests at the party.”
He began to walk among them, running his fingers along the edge of the table, pausing to examine a frozen face here, a motionless hand there.
“Now that I have made myself very plainly clear.” He smiled, as if he were welcoming everyone to an afternoon tea. “Shall I begin?”
Nadi could not help but stare at the man who she had married.
Raziel Nostrom.
The Serpent.
And watched him simply take control of his new empire.
As she did, she wondered if she had simply stopped pretending that the monster was anyone other than herself.
Because she didn’t know if she had ever loved him more in her life.