Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
Raziel pushed Ebiti’s still-twitching body from the chair and let her slump to the ground. The old bitch didn’t even finish half the spoons before she lost the ability to complete his task.
Sitting in her place at the head of the table, he beckoned Nadi to his side. She walked up to him without hesitation, an unreadable expression in those black opal eyes of hers.
However, it seemed she wasn’t too angry with him for what he had just done. Leaning down, she kissed him. Slowly. Savoring it. Perhaps even putting on a little bit of a show for their still-captive audience.
It was perfect.
She was perfect.
Nadi folded her hands on his shoulder and took a position at his side. His wife. His lover. His assassin. His fae. His Nadi.
Raziel turned his attention back to the other fae, frozen around him. He supposed it was probably time to let them speak. “I am going to free you all of my control. You will all sit here politely. If you do not, you will meet a similar fate to your dear Ebiti.”
He let the words hang for a moment before he released his control over them. “You may move now.”
All at once, the other fae at the table shifted or sat back in their chairs. Raziel fought back a laugh at the array of emotions that they all displayed, each one handling what they had witnessed in a different way.
Some horrified. Some furious. Most terrified for their own lives. And just a few with an eager glint in their eyes, as if they lived for this kind of chaos and slaughter.
The fae were fascinating creatures, he had to admit.
But not a single one of them was stupid enough to stand up, attempt to run, or say a damn word.
Good.
So Raziel kept talking. “We are not your enemies. I have no quarrel with the fae. My war is with my siblings. With Lilivra.”
Now came the risk. This was a decision he had made with Kalo. It was one that he had not had time to discuss with Nadi. But he saw no other path forward.
Open war was not the way.
No, they were destined to walk another path. And that was clear to him now. He knew that now. Hopefully, so did she.
“I am not going to sit here and tell you all that we are now in command of your people. Neither am I going to demand that you all go to war in our name. I have learned, in my… brief time here in the Wild, that the fae would not be amenable to this.” Picking up a serving knife from the table, he tilted his head to the side thoughtfully, studying it.
It was old. Very old. Clearly made on the surface, but it wasn’t any style or maker he recognized.
“And I have no interest in continuing to make the mistakes repeated by my siblings.”
“I’ll stick to my side of the deal, vuampi.” Kalo walked up to the table, his arms now uncrossed.
“Which was what, exactly?” Nadi arched an eyebrow at Raziel.
Raziel stared at the knife for a moment in silence, before placing it down in front of him with a click. “Nothing, save our safe passage back to the surface.”
Silence.
“I have come to see now that this…” He gestured aimlessly at the room around them.
“Any sort of taming of the Wild by the vampires would be a ridiculous farce and doomed to fail. Your people cannot be controlled. Cannot be cowed or bargained into submission. We had come here to seek soldiers to fight in a war.” He huffed a laugh.
“You, for all your differences, are not so dissimilar from the humans or my own kind. You squabble and scheme too much. I don’t think I have the patience in me to get any of you to agree on anything. ”
Kalo smirked. “So, what will you do, then?”
“I intend on returning to the surface and doing what I do best. Killing everyone who stands in my way. On my own. Well.” He glanced up at Nadi, who was studying him with a thoughtful expression. “Almost alone, if my wife chooses to join me.”
“What do you mean?” Nadi murmured.
Raziel took a breath, held it, and let it out in a long sigh. “I plan to continue this fight on my own, my little murderer. I will likely not survive. It is a death sentence. And, moreover, these are your people. I cannot make this choice for you.”
“You are the head of the Iltani clan, little fish,” Kalo reminded her quietly. “And I am now the head of the Lohti, with Ebiti dead.”
Raziel wouldn’t begrudge Kalo his attempt to lure Nadi back, one last time. He would do the same thing.
Now, it just remained to be seen whether or not Kalo’s “little fish” bit the lure or not.
* * *
Nadi watched the scene unfold as if she were having a fever dream. All at once, it made perfect sense, and yet she felt detached. Like she was just a few steps away from her own body watching everything take place.
Raziel had taken over. Forced Ebiti to eat silverware until she died… and now that he had exactly what they had come here for? An army of the fae to help them take over the metropolis?
He was saying he…
Didn’t want it?
“I have never been a leader.” Raziel spun the knife he had been toying with on the table. “I am a killer. It is high time I stopped pretending I ever had any hope of being anything else.”
Nadi shut her eyes.
Every time she thought she had come to the last fork in the road, the last opportunity to change her mind and turn away, she was shown another.
And every time she arrived at one, it was just as painfully obvious as the previous. “You think they would ever accept me?” She squeezed Raziel’s shoulder gently. She felt the tension in it melt away. “No. I have no home here among the fae. I have not had one for a very long time.”
“What of the Iltanis?” one of the other fae at the table dared to ask. One of the Morvani. “You would let them go on as they are now?”
“No.” Nadi turned her attention to Kalo. “I hereby give the Iltani name to you, Kalo. All the rights and all honors that remained with my Uncle Luciento? They are yours. You are one of the last true honorable fae among us.”
The fae gathered leaned in to each other, muttering. One finally spoke up. “That makes him the most powerful among us, and—”
“And?” Nadi cut them off. “What of it? I am the last fae Iltani, and it is my name to give away. Now, I shall say the Iltani name is dead. The clan, the dockyards, and their trade routes now belong to the Lohti. For Kalo Lohti is the only one who has shown me any semblance of kindness.”
And even then, it was a complicated sort.
But he had saved their lives. It was the least she could do for him.
“I made my vow to avenge my family a long time ago. To destroy the Nostrom family. I still intend to do so.” She smirked. “Even if it means siding with one of them to pull their whole house down around them. I will wipe out their family name, once and for all.”
Raziel sat back in his chair, looking quite pleased with himself.
She couldn’t say that she blamed him.
“Then it is settled.” Raziel reached into his pocket and pulled out the gold coin that he had kept with him.
He began to walk it over the backs of his knuckles.
“You lot shall ensure that we arrive to the surface unharmed. And what you do with yourselves after? We do not give a fuck. Are we agreed?”
Kalo didn’t speak for a moment, waiting to see if any of the other fae would object. But no one did. In fact, they were all looking to him. Kalo grinned in triumph, his silver eyes sparkling with victory. “We are agreed.”
“Good.” Raziel flicked the coin up into the air and caught it as it came back down. “Then let’s be on our way.”
“Not staying for the feast?” Kalo asked, his voice thick with sarcasm.
Raziel barked out a laugh. “I have had enough of fae hospitality.”
The journey to the surface of the main level of the metropolis took another full day.
Nadi had forgotten how long it was. How winding the tunnels became, how the familiar purple glow of the vines thinned and faded as they climbed higher through the Wild.
The air grew drier, colder. The sounds of the creatures that called the depths home gave way to silence—the kind that felt wrong after so long surrounded by the chittering symphony of the underground.
Kalo had said little during the trek. He led them through passages she barely remembered, his silver eyes scanning the darkness ahead with the ease of someone who had made this journey a hundred times before. The beads in his hair clinked softly with each step, the only sound between them.
When Kalo finally stopped at the mouth of a tunnel that opened into a rusted maintenance shaft, Nadi knew they had arrived. Dim light filtered down from somewhere far above—artificial light. The light of the metropolis.
“This is as far as I go.” Kalo turned to face them. “The shaft leads up to an abandoned service building in the warehouse district.”
Nadi nodded slowly. She didn’t know what to say. “Thank you” seemed stupid and inadequate for everything that had passed between them.
Kalo reached into his pack and pulled out something wrapped in oiled leather. He held it out to her.
She unwrapped the leather carefully. Inside lay a pair of curved blades—fae-forged, by the look of them. The handles were wrapped in dark leather, worn smooth by use, and the edges gleamed with a sharpness that could only come from proper smithing. They were beautiful. Deadly. Perfect.
“Kalo…” Her throat tightened.
“They were my mother’s.” He shrugged as if it meant nothing, but she could see the tension in his jaw. “She would have wanted you to have them if she knew where you were planning to stick them.”
“I can’t—”
“Consider it a loan. Return them when this is over.”
If it was ever over. If any of them survived what was coming.
She slid the blades into her belt, the familiar weight settling against her hips like an old friend.
Kalo grunted. Then he turned to Raziel, and something harder crept into his silver eyes. “And for you, vuampi.” He withdrew a pistol—human-made, but well-maintained. A box of ammunition followed. “Silver-tipped rounds. Should help with your family reunion.”
Raziel took the weapon, checking the chamber with practiced efficiency. “How generous.”
“Don’t mistake this for kindness, Serpent.” Kalo’s lip curled. “I want you to kill every last one of those bastards. If giving you a gun helps that happen faster, I’m happy to provide the means.”
Kalo’s attention returned to Nadi. For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
“Be careful, little fish.” The words were soft.
“The surface has changed since you were last there. Mael and Lana—and their Rosov allies—they’ve tightened their grip on the city.
The humans have been subdued. Any pretense that the humans were in charge is gone now.
” His jaw ticked. “There were riots, early on. They put them down hard. The metropolis is under what amounts to martial law. They’re blaming it on you two. ”
Something cold settled in her stomach.
Then Kalo stepped forward and pulled her into a brief, fierce embrace. “Don’t die,” he muttered against her hair. “If you do, I’ll never forgive you.”
“I’ll do my best.”
He released her just as quickly, stepping back. “Go. Before I change my mind and drag you both back to the Grove in chains.”
“Goodbye, Kalo.”
“Not goodbye.” He was already turning away, his blue hair catching the dim light. “Just… until next time, little fish.”
Then he was gone, swallowed by the darkness of the tunnel.
Raziel moved to stand beside her. “Ready?”
“No.”
“Good. Neither am I.” He took her hand. “Let’s go find out what’s left of our city.”
They climbed.
Nadi smelled it before she saw it.
Smoke.
Not the familiar woodsmoke of cooking fires or the acrid chemical reek of the factory districts. This was the smell of buildings burning. Of destruction.
The abandoned service building was exactly as promised—empty, forgotten, thick with dust and cobwebs. But the windows showed them what lay beyond.
The metropolis stretched out under a sky the color of bruises. Columns of black smoke rose from half a dozen points across the city, twisting into the haze that hung over everything like a funeral shroud. Sirens wailed—a constant, keening chorus that seemed to come from everywhere at once.
“Moons,” Nadi breathed.
This wasn’t the city she remembered.
The streets below were nearly empty despite the late afternoon hour. The few people she could see moved quickly, heads down, shoulders hunched. No one lingered. They walked like prey animals crossing open ground, desperate to reach shelter before something noticed them.
And then she saw the patrols.
Vampires. At least a dozen of them, moving through the streets in formation, their weapons visible. She watched as one patrol stopped a human man hurrying across an intersection. He froze, hands going up immediately in surrender. Even from this distance, she could see him trembling.
“I can taste the fear in the air.” Raziel’s voice was quiet. Thoughtful. “It’s everywhere. Like a fog.”
“What did they do?” The question came out as a whisper.
“What I would have done, I suppose. If I had won.” He tilted his head, studying the scene below. “Established control. Eliminated opposition. Made it very clear who was in charge.” A pause. “Though I like to think I would have been more subtle about it. Or more effective.”
“This isn’t effective?”
“No. It isn’t.” His lip curled in distaste. “This is Mael trying to be ruthless when he doesn’t have the stomach for it. Enough cruelty to breed resentment, not enough to crush resistance.” He shook his head. “It leaves openings.”
“Openings we can use?”
A slow smile spread across his face. “Perhaps.”
“We need to move.” She touched the hilts of her new blades, drawing comfort from their weight. “Find somewhere safe to plan.”
“The house we stayed in when I was injured. Mael doesn’t know about it. We’ll see if it’s still viable.”
Nadi nodded, but didn’t move. She stood there, looking out at the city she had once called home—the city she had returned to destroy—and tried to reconcile what she remembered with what lay before her.
It was already broken.
Mael and Lana and the Rosovs had done what she had spent decades dreaming of. They had brought the metropolis to its knees. They had made it bleed.
And somehow, all she felt was grief.
“Hey.” Raziel’s hand found hers. “We’re going to fix this. You know that, right?”
She looked at him—the monster who had murdered her family. The man who had become her husband. Her vuampi.
“No,” she said quietly. “I don’t think we can fix it. But maybe we can burn it down properly this time.”
His smile widened. “That’s my little murderer.”
She didn’t return the smile. But she squeezed his hand once before letting go.
“Come on,” she said, turning away from the window and the dying city beyond. “Let’s go start fires.”